Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy

I enjoyed the manner in which Mr. George Kirby set the whole thing up with some historical information. I further enjoyed the old footage from various shows. It further told a little bit about each actor i.e. Alvin Childress(Amos), Spencer Williams Jr. (Andy), Tim Moore (Kingfish), Ernestine Wade (Sapphire), Amanda Randolph (Mama), Johnny Lee (Calhoun), Nick O'Demus (Lghtnin), Lillian Randolph (Madame Queen).

The important thing that I learned was that these actors were extremly popular & they were the "pioneers" that made it possible for Black actors/actresses to gain future roles of great significance. It's clear in my mind that had it not been for this show & the opportunities it gave to African-American Actors for steady employment really makes me feel good.

Two White Men had a vision & they took it & ran with it. It worked & Gosden and Correll became millionaires. There's no reason why some Black people can't accomplish the same feat for themselves.

"Amos 'n' Andy" was a phenomenally popular American radio programme, transmitting five days a week from 1929 to 1960! Although this was a comedy series, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll (the actors who wrote the scripts and played all the male voices) had the brilliant idea of using serialised plot lines which continued from one episode to the next. Often, the Friday episode would end with a cliffhanger ... keeping the show's huge listening audience on tenterhooks over the weekend. Nearly all the characters in "Amos 'n' Andy" were Negroes (this being the accepted term at the time). Gosden and Correll, who were white, performed the black characters' voices in a broad minstrel-show dialect with heavy reliance on malapropisms and catchphrases such as "Amos, I'se regusted". Amos 'n' Andy made a few half-hearted movie appearances (featuring Gosden and Correll in blackface), but these were never remotely as popular as the radio series.

For the transition to television, producers Gosden and Correll wisely hired a talented cast of black actors to play their characters. Filmed at the Hal Roach studio in California, the TV show "Amos 'n' Andy" originally aired on CBS from June 1951 to June '53 and was a huge hit, but was yanked off the air under tremendous pressure from the NAACP. "Amos 'n' Andy" was also the very first American sitcom to air in Britain, where the BBC televised it fortnightly from April 1954 to September 1957. I was in Australia at the time, but later my stepfather told me about the tremendous interest which this programme aroused in the mid-1950s among British televiewers, both white and black. Eventually, social pressure led to the 78 television kinescopes of "Amos 'n' Andy" being suppressed for more than 20 years.

Was "Amos 'n' Andy" racist? The dialogue and situations in the TV series were slightly more realistic than the (much cruder) radio version. To its credit, this TV series gave steady employment to some talented African-American actors. Several of my black friends (in America and England) have told me nostalgic tales of how their families eagerly watched this show because (in the 1950s) it was the only TV programme that showed black people who weren't servants. The Negro characters in "Amos 'n' Andy" were businessmen, homeowners and housewives, not shoeshine boys or mammies. (In one episode, Kingfish quotes the Wall Street Journal.) The characters in "Amos 'n' Andy" had unfavourable traits, but they were no worse than white sitcom characters such as Gilligan, Eddie Haskell or Ralph Kramden. In fact, the Raccoon Lodge (in 'The Honeymooners') is clearly inspired by the Mystic Knights of the Sea, the fraternal lodge that inspired so many "Amos 'n' Andy" episodes.

Andy's friend Amos Jones was definitely a positive role model: a hard-working cab driver, a loving husband and father. But these positive traits made him a poor figure for comedy plot lines. In the radio series, Amos (voiced by Gosden) was a major character ... yet when this sitcom moved to television, Amos (now played by black actor Alvin Childress) was demoted to a mere narrator, speaking into the camera at the start of each episode to describe the antics of the more rascally Andy and his lodge brother the Kingfish.

"Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy" was a TV documentary produced in 1986, timed to mark the release of the TV show's 78 episodes to video. This documentary's television format is painfully obvious: there are crude gaps for commercial breaks every few minutes. The on screen narrator is George Kirby, a very talented African-American actor who had no connexion to the original series, but whose comedy style is firmly in that vaudeville tradition. (Full disclosure: I worked with Kirby in the '70s.) During the first half of this hour-long programme, Kirby gives us a rundown of the TV series, its actors, and the social controversy. Annoyingly, we see NO clips from any of the episodes, nor any interview footage of anyone connected with the TV series. We DO get some irrelevant soundbites from a few black celebrities who offer their opinions of the TV show ... but these are only opinions, from people who have no direct link to the series.

For the second half of this documentary, Kirby announces that we will now see an episode of "Amos 'n' Andy" in its entirety: shown on TV for the first time in more than 20 years! We see the episode in which the Kingfish sells Andy a house ... but the 'house' is actually a flat backdrop left over from a recent movie shoot. It looks good from the front and the back, but it's only half an inch thick. When Andy walks through the front door, he finds himself standing in the back garden!

"Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy" served a useful purpose in 1986, when most people had heard of this notorious TV series but nobody had seen it for many years. Now that all 78 episodes are available on video, we can make up our minds without this documentary. I'll rate "Anatomy of a Controversy" 1 point out of 10. Here's a trivia note which you WON'T learn from this documentary: Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the headwriters of the "Amos 'n' Andy" TV show, later created 'Leave It to Beaver' ... a series which was a lot less funny than "Amos 'n' Andy".

The fact that Amos 'n' Andy lasted a few years is a testament within itself because most white series only last one season. Also, the fact that George Kirby came out of Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary, with no one knowing why he went to prison, and took on such a controversial subject matter like "Amos n Andy," when he came out of the penitentiary, is a testament to his courage. None of George Kirby's friends went to visit him at Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary because Redd Foxx said he had a good wife and couldn't understand how George Kirby could go to the penitentiary and not even make any money. It was the same penitentiary that Mickey Cohen went to but Mickey Cohen had made money off of heroin. Carol Speed ran into George Kirby on Hollywood and Vine, in Hollywood, right after he came home and she had dinner with him and his wife and he talked about how he wanted to make people truly understand how important the Amos 'n' Andy Series was to comedy and how he expected Redd Foxx to contribute with his views. Then George Kirby got busy with making Amos 'n' Andy: An Anatomy of A Controversy come into fruition. George Kirby's wife had saved his jewelry and suits so he pulled on his diamonds and became the George Kirby from Chicago that we all loved. The question now is why isn't Amos 'n' Andy: An Anatomy of A Controversy not on DVD. It looks like the same racist reasons why a lot of black films and documentaries are not on DVD.

For 1983, this documentary reminds its modern audience about the dawn of television and how the "black" community was showcased to the world. Now, over 30 years later, the opinion on Amos n Andy is still divided. "Amos 'n' Andy" originally aired on CBS from June 1951 to June 1953 and was a huge hit, but was yanked off the air under tremendous pressure from the NAACP who felt it was racist. At the time, and to its credit, Amos n Andy was the first and only depiction of a "black community" on national television. The series cast a all black cast to depict its characters. While the Three Stooges and I Love Lucy only depicted "black" actors as servants, Amos n Andy showed black actors portraying black judges, lawyers, police officers, business owners, home owners, and yet, also moronic individuals who had trouble pronouncing and using proper English. Compared to Archie Bunkers depiction of the English language, many would defend Amos n Andy to the ignorance of Ralph from the Honeymooners or the majority of the cast members of Gilligan's Island.

Amos is among the cast but is also the Narrator to many of the episodes. Having Amos be the storyteller, it is almost a depiction of a Black man's story about his black friends. However, many would still argue that the depiction of 1950's African / Afro / Negro / Black American is still racist.

The controversy still continues. Then again, looking back at the quality of comedy from the early 50's, Amos n Andy still stands strong among today's audience. From the story line, quality of acting and production value, Amos n Andy still gathers laughs from its audience. Still, is the audience laughing for the right reasons.

This documentary posts a worthy question to its audience. The answer is left for you to give.

I'm surprised there has not been any other documentary about a television show that I see today as being years ahead of its time. This program tells you only the basics of the history of the legendary television show, but it is enough to make you think.

The show was produced in 1986, involving some of the then-surviving cast. Seeing this show today as I did in a recent rerun on the TRIO network, those voices still speak to us. There are enough clips from the original show to remind you of a time when life was so innocent, when all we can do is just watch a show and laugh without looking at the negative issues that surround this show even to this very day.

This program contains a condensed version of a selected series episode where Kingfish buys what turns out to be a movie lot. Even in its condensed form, this episode is just a little reminder of classic television at its best...this, of course, was before "I Love Lucy" went on the air and became a success of its own.

The narrator, George Kirby, is right...we should see "Amos N' Andy" for what it is...a show that paved the way for the African-American television shows that have followed since the show's original cancellation. Controversy may still keep reruns of the "Amos N' Andy" show off the air, but if everyone in the world followed Mr. Kirby's example, perhaps CBS will change their minds and release it officially on video.

So, to sum it all up, 'guys, what's the problem? Why make a mountain out of a little molehill?' That mountain has grown for almost four decades...let's appreciate "Amos N' Andy" in a positive light.

I highly recommend you see this show the next time it's telecast and judge for yourself.