Beulah

Like Amos And Andy, Beulah started out on radio and started with a white man doing an imitation of a black woman who was a maid. Beulah was a character on a number of radio shows and so popular she eventually got a show of her own.

Early television was mostly radio shows moved over to TV with established public favorites and like Amos And Andy, Beulah now had to be played by a black actress.

One thing about Beulah as you look on the credits you see an ever changing cast of regulars of the white family that employed her Beulah and her friends. Beulah was played by Hattie McDaniel, Ethel Waters, and Louise Beavers and she had as a boyfriend handyman Bill and as her Ethel Mertz the occasionally scatterbrained Oriole.

One thing that remained constant was that Beulah was the wisest one in the house. Always tactful her wisdom got the family out of many a crisis.

Health reasons were why McDaniel quit and other commitments limited Ethel Waters. Louise Beavers finished the series up.

When you come down to it, Beulah was in many ways a black version of Hazel. Or maybe it's the other way around.

I am charmed and impressed by the arguments of F. Gwynplaine McIntyre, above. (Also charmed by the clever pseudonym--a fan of both Victor Hugo *and* The Munsters, eh?) But honestly...isn't "racist" a little rough and anachronistic when describing an early 50s sitcom? "Racisme" was a obscurantist cant word invented by Stalinists in Paris circa 1946, and it didn't hit the English-speaking world till about 1970.

And even if we translate the word the way Gwynplaine presumably intends--as a stand-in for "prejudiced" or "biased"--the argument is preposterous. Beulah and her ilk were not cringing, shuffling darkies at all. They were proud and capable Negro folk, and in fact much of the routine humor of the series came out of the juxtaposition between their honestly and adeptness, and that of the white folks who lived in parallel. Every time the man of the house got sick, the doctor came over and prescribed a diet of milktoast. You never saw the colored people having to eat milktoast. When the boy in the series wanted help or advice he didn't go to Mr. Milktoast, no, he went to that Negro boxing coach over the fence, the one who dispensed wisdom out the side of his sassy satchel-mouth; or he went to one of Beulah's friends.

Really, it was precisely the same setup as the TV show 'Hazel' a few years later; though of course Hazel was a white American maid and the cast of characters wasn't nearly as colorful (pun not intended--though it brings up a good point: where were all the black people circa 1958-1965?)

Beulah had an incarnation as a radio program before television picked it up. The people who complained about its portrayal of African Americans in a negative manner perhaps did not listen or watch. The white family for whom Beulah worked invariably got into dilemmas they were too dumb to resolve on their own. A basic recurring theme is that they were rescued by Beulah's ingenuity and common sense. McDaniel was a delightful comedienne as she pulled her "family" away from troubles and mischief. Beulah clearly maintained an affection for the benighted family and they appreciated her. McDaniel's reputation was enhanced by this role.

With response to WMAV08's questions about its airing, "Beulah" aired on ABC, for starters. There were syndicated shows that were in more broadcast markets than ABC in 1950-52, and many times ABC would share a channel with another network. In TV's early days, channels might be dually aligned with more than one network (you still had DuMont which in the early 50s might have been more established than ABC.) Just because you were a network station didn't mean you by default would carry all their shows. (That's why on old programs you will hear a phrase like "over MOST of these same CBS stations".) That may account for the difficulty finding it in network listings. I would also hazard a guess that it cleared in few southern markets as well, in spite of the resumes of those who filled Beulah's role in the TV show. There were sly hints at how times were slowly changing for African- Americans. For instance, the opening credits had Beulah winking at the camera and saying, "Don't let nobody tell you I'm in the market for a husband. I could be, but they don't SELL husbands in the market..." Consider that line in the historical context of slavery, and it's pretty subversive. The show may play a bit to stereotypes of the time, but Beulah seems to be more of a forerunner for later "maids" like Shirley Booth's "Hazel" and especially Ann B. Davis's portrayal of Alice on "The Brady Bunch." Of course the primary successor to Beulah would be Robert Guillaume's 70's character "Benson" from "Soap". Because of the changing mores of the time, Benson's wits got him promoted from a butler to a government official in his own right in his own show.

I'm not sure you can review this show or Amos and Andy by 2018 "racial sensibilities." Beulah was a maid, an anomaly in the households of 99 percent of the country, who pretty much raised the Hendersons' son Donnie with the help of her friends. The humor was gentle and the show ran on ABC in the 7:30 slot. The "Seven to Eight" hour was one pretty much ignored by adults but was prized by kids. On the DuMont Television Network ran one of the best shows ever for kids: Captain Video and his Video Rangers. Beulah followed on ABC and retained a lot of the kids. That kids' audience is now in their 70's and I doubt many recall Beulah clearly. I can't recall Captain Video all that clearly either.

Thanks to the Internet and the plethora of cable networks, some of these old shows rise to the surface once again. For me many bring back some good attached memories; some make me wince seeing the cheap sets and terrible acting. I am left to wonder what synapsis in my brain were connected/created to shape the person I am today. Did the vestigial images of Beulah from decades past shape my view of Blacks today? I don't know but I still get a smile when I see Beulah or Amos and Andy. If that's the take-a-way, then I don't see any problems. I know I don't appreciate it when someone suggests I enjoy those shows because I harbor racist views. Beulah was nice, she was loyal to her friends, always tried to follow her heart and do the right thing. What was wrong with that picture?