Before Broadway actor Ralph Carter assumed the role of "Michael Evans," another young Broadway actor Haywood Nelson had been hired for the role. According to Nelson in an interview, the producers felt Carter had more experience in front of a live audience, and thus hired him away from the play he was appearing in at the time, "A Raisin in the Sun." Previous to all of this, a young Laurence Fishburne was considered for the role as well.
The painting shown during seasons four and five opening and closing was called "The Sugar Shack", painted by Ernie Barnes. It was also used as the cover of Marvin Gaye's 1976 album, "I Want You".
Black Panther activists confronted Norman Lear in his Tandem Productions office about the show. They asked him why the characters had to live in a slum, be so poor, experience so much crime, and perpetuate so many stereotypes about the black experience. This eventually led to the creation of The Jeffersons (1975), which attempted to show a black family in a more positive, upwardly mobile light.
The setting is implied to be the Cabrini Green Housing Projects on Chicago's North Side. It's never mentioned by name, but exterior shots of the buildings were featured in the opening and closing credits. On March 30, 2011, the last of the Cabrini Green High Rises were knocked down.
Jimmie 'JJ' Walker was only seven-and-a-half years younger than John Amos, who played his father. Although James and Florida were supposed to be close in age, Amos was 19 years younger than Esther Rolle, though it was implied that James was older than Florida.