Amos 'n' Andy
Amos 'n' Andy was an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago then later in the Harlem section of New York City. While the show had a brief life on 1950s television with black actors, the 1928 to 1960 radio show was created, written and voiced by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, who played Amos Jones (Gosden) and Andrew Hogg Brown (Correll), as well as incidental characters. On television, 1951–1953, black actors took over the majority of the roles; white characters were infrequent.
Not to be confused with Amos & Andrew.Other names
The Amos 'n' Andy Show
1943–1955
Amos 'n' Andy's Music Hall
1955–1960
United States
English
The Amos 'n' Andy Show
1951–1953
Bill Hay[1]
Del Sharbutt[2]
Harlow Wilcox
Carleton KaDell
Art Gilmore
John Lake
Ken Carpenter
Ken Niles[3]
- Charles Correll
- Freeman Gosden
- Charles Correll
- Freeman Gosden
- Joe Connelly
- Bob Mosher
March 19, 1928 –
November 25, 1960
"The Perfect Song"
Amos 'n' Andy began as one of the first radio comedy series and originated from station WMAQ in Chicago. After the first broadcast in 1928, the show became a hugely popular series, first on NBC Radio and later on CBS Radio and Television. Later episodes were broadcast from the El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs, California.[4]: 168–71 The show ran as a nightly radio serial (1928–43), as a weekly situation comedy (1943–55) and as a nightly disc-jockey program (1954–60). A television adaptation ran on CBS (1951–53) and continued in syndicated reruns (1954–66). It was not shown to a nationwide audience again until 2012.[5]
Films[edit]
In 1930, RKO Radio Pictures brought Gosden and Correll to Hollywood to appear in an Amos 'n' Andy feature film, Check and Double Check (a catchphrase from the radio show). The cast included a mix of white and black performers (the latter including Duke Ellington and his orchestra) with Gosden and Correll playing Amos 'n' Andy in blackface.[42] The film pleased neither critics nor Gosden and Correll, but briefly became RKO's biggest box-office hit before King Kong (1933).
Audiences were curious to see what their radio favorites looked like and were expecting to see African Americans instead of white men in blackface. RKO ruled out any plans for a sequel.[43] Gosden and Correll did lend their voices to a pair of Amos 'n' Andy cartoon shorts produced by the Van Beuren Studios in 1934, The Rasslin' Match and The Lion Tamer. These were also not successful.[44] Years later, Gosden was quoted as calling Check and Double Check "just about the worst movie ever." Gosden and Correll also posed for publicity pictures in blackface. They were also stars of The Big Broadcast of 1936 as Amos and Andy.[45]
Later commentary on television series[edit]
In the summer of 1968, the premiere episode of the CBS News documentary series Of Black America, narrated by Bill Cosby, showed brief film clips of Amos 'n' Andy in a segment on racial stereotypes in vintage motion pictures and television programing.
In 1983, a one-hour documentary film titled Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy aired in television syndication (and in later years, on PBS and on the Internet). It told a brief history of the franchise from its radio days to the CBS series, and featured interviews with surviving cast members as well as popular black television stars such as Redd Foxx and Marla Gibbs, who reflected on the show's impact on their careers. Foxx and Gibbs emphasized the importance of the show featuring black actors in lead roles and expressed disagreement with the NAACP's objections that had contributed to the program's downfall. The film also contained highlights of a select episode of the classic TV series ("Kingfish Buys a Lot") that had not been seen since it was pulled from the air in 1966.[69]
In Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s 2012 American Heritage article Growing Up Colored, he wrote: "And everybody loved Amos 'n Andy – I don't care what people say today....Nobody was likely to confuse them with the colored people we knew..."[70]
Twenty-first century airing of series[edit]
In 2004, the now-defunct Trio network returned Amos 'n' Andy to television for one night in an effort to reintroduce the series to 21st century audiences. Its festival featured the Anatomy of a Controversy documentary followed by the 1930 Check and Double Check film.[71]
In 2012, Rejoice TV, an independent television and Internet network in Houston, started airing the show weeknights on a regular, nationwide basis for the first time since CBS pulled the series from distribution in 1966.[72] Six years later, Rejoice TV folded, and the series was again pulled from widespread distribution. There are no current official plans to rerelease the series to nationwide television.
Legal status[edit]
Although the characters of Amos and Andy themselves are in the public domain, as well as the show's trademarks, title, format, basic premise and all materials created prior to 1948 (Silverman vs CBS, 870 F.2d 40),[74] the television series itself is protected by copyright. CBS bought out Gosden & Correll's ownership of the program and characters in 1948 and the courts decided in the Silverman ruling that all post-1948 Amos 'n' Andy material was protected. All Amos 'n' Andy material created prior to 1948, such as episodes of the old radio show, are in the public domain.[75] The television series has never been officially released in home-video format, but many unlicensed bootleg compilations have been sold. In 1998, CBS initiated copyright infringement suits against three companies selling the videos and issued a cease-and-desist order to a national mail-order outfit that had offered episodes on videocassettes and advertised them in late-night television ads during the late 1990s.[76][77] However, the unlicensed sets continue to be sold. No official, licensed DVD or Blu-ray compilations have been released.[78]
Legacy[edit]
In 1988, the Amos 'n' Andy program was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.[80] A pair of parallel, one-block streets in west Dallas, Texas are named Amos Street and Andy Street in honor of the characters.
The short-lived 1996 HBO sitcom The High Life was intended in part as an homage to Amos 'n' Andy, but with white characters.[81]
Blues guitarist Christone "Kingfish" Ingram was given the nickname "Kingfish" after the sitcom by one of his guitar teachers, Bill "Howl -N- Mad" Perry.[82]
The show was referenced by The Simpsons in "Duffless", the sixteenth episode of the fourth season, which premiered on February 18, 1993. While Homer is on a tour at the Duff brewery, an old ad for the brand is played, showing that Duff was a "proud sponsor" of Amos 'n' Andy back in the 50s.
In the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) visit a '50s-themed diner that offers on its menu an "Amos 'n' Andy" milkshake.[83]
Later work by television cast members[edit]
Comedian Tim Moore made numerous public appearances and was a guest on television on shows such as Jack Paar's Tonight Show and the Paul Coates Show.[84][85] In 1958, he headlined a standup comedy act at the Mocambo Night Club in Hollywood.[86]
Ernestine Wade (Sapphire) and Lillian Randolph (Madame Queen) appeared together on an episode of That's My Mama called "Clifton's Sugar Mama" on October 2, 1974.[87] They were friends of "Mama," played by Theresa Merritt, who wanted to see Clifton, played by Clifton Davis (later of the TV show Amen), at the beginning of the episode. Wade played Augusta and Randolph played Mrs. Birdie.
Jester Hairston (who played Henry Van Porter and Leroy Smith) was a regular on both That's My Mama as "Wildcat" and on Amen as "Rolly Forbes."[88] He was also quite prominent in a brief role as a butler in the racially charged film In the Heat of the Night (1967).
Amanda Randolph (Sapphire's mother, Ramona Smith) had a recurring role as Louise the housekeeper on CBS's The Danny Thomas Show and appeared in the show's 1967 reunion program, which aired shortly after her death.
Nick Stewart (Lightnin') had a memorable cameo in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as a hapless driver run off the highway. Stewart and Johnny Lee (Calhoun) both provided voices in the Walt Disney film Song of the South in 1946. Johnny did the voice of Br'er Rabbit and Nick was heard as Br'er Bear.[89] The film also starred black actor James Baskett, who had voiced the Gabby Gibson character in the radio series.