re: Which of these 70s "ethnic" shows holds up best over time?

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Good Times had the best cast.

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Meh. I'm a John Amos fan. The sassy one was good, too. The rest? Meh.

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Sanford and Son was the funniest.

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Was the best show of the three, period.

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The Jefferson's had the best main character.

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I love George, but better than "Fred G. Sanford"? The "G" stands for "Got to be better than George".

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What's Happening? is the overall best.

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A great show, probably a little ahead of its time, but I don't think it was better than S&S.

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Barney Miller gets an honorable mention.

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I agree - Jewish lead, Polish and Jewish comic relief, African American(actually way, way ahead of his time, as he predicted the metrosexual movement), Latino (at least at first), Japanese - all set against the back drop of NYC in the 70s. The cadre of guest actors and Luger (who clearly represented "The Man") kept the principals on their toes and the show stayed relatively sharp.

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Chico and the Man does not belong in this discussion.

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I have noodled on this and, maybe it does. I think it tried to reshape attitudes about Latinos, but, really, it was a better example of an early attempt to move a comic from the stand-up stage to leading a show, based on the strength of that stand up.

The greats all tried, but it was usually variety/talk shows - (I'm thinking Newhart was probably the only comparable) - but Prinze was cast as Chico to be a scripted variant of his stand-up persona, in ways predicting Cosby, Seinfeld, Tim Allen (and many others since) in their respective situation comedies.

However, the show pioneered discussion of ethnic issues directly related to Latinos, although some of that was covered in shows like Sanford and Son.