I rented the old Amos and Andy show from TV via Netflix and watched Episodes 1 and 2 .
In Episode 1, Kingfish (aka George Stevens) is trying to marry off his mother in law so he arranges a makeover for her at Madame Olga’s Salon.
Madame Olga: Mr. Stevens, you seem to think this will be a very tough job, why?
Kingfish:(very slowly) Uhh, tell me dere, Madame Olga, has you ever seen a grapefruit dats been washed up on de beach and been layin’ dere for a week, all covered wif sand and seaweed and getting drier and more wrinked by de minute.
Madame Olga: Yes I have.
Kingfish: Well, if you can makes her look dat good, I’d be most appreciative.
In the other episode , he ‘sells’ Andy to a company for a $200.00 employment agency fee to dig ditches in Saudi Arabia and walks him onto the ship……. trying to convince him that its a cruise line:
Andy : Tell me Kingfish , why they have all these shovels on board?
Kingfish: Andy, you never been on a cruise ship befo , has you? They fo’ the deck game of “shovelboard.”
Please note the way I wrote it with the over-kill “Negro dialect” which is the exact way it was performed…which is what made it absolutely despicable .
Which begs the question, how come I was screaming laughing the whole time.
Wait, I know, I’m white,
Yep, just checked again…I’m still white.
Ahh, white people.
It turns out that The “Amos and Andy” TV show was written by Bob Mosher and Joe Connolly , the same writing team that produced and wrote the ultimate white man’s show:
Leave it to Beaver ,
as well as
The Munsters,
Ichabod and Me, and other sicoms as well .
They’re white.
So were the originators on radio, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.
And, in their writing , I noticed this….interestingly, the only perenially stereotyped characters were Kingfish, Andy, Lightning ( the “Steppin Fetchit’ type janitor) and the ‘pseudo’ lawyer, Algionquin J. Calhoun. Every other African American character including Amos was intelligent , well spoken , and usually professional. Go figure.
The NAACP wanted the TV show off the air. Who can blame them with all the eyeball-rolling etc ? But when it left the air, it did take with it pretty much all the acting jobs for blacks on TV until Diahann Carroll and Bill Cosby came along at least ten years later.
So , why am I still laughing at it.
Lets take away the dialect and see if it’s still funny.
I may change a few things, btw…..:
Ralph is trying to marry off his mother in law so he arranges a makeover for her at Madame Olga’s Salon.
Madame Olga: Mr. Kramden , you seem to think this will be a very tough job, why?
Norton: If I may, Ralphie boy. Tell me , Madame Olga, have you ever seen a grapefruit that’s been washed up on the beach and been laying there for a week, all covered with sand and seaweed and getting drier and more wrinked by the minute.
Madame Olga: Yes I have
Norton: Well, if you can make his mother-in-law look that good, that’d be terrific
The other line: , Ralph sells Norton to a company for a $200.00 employment fee to dig ditches in Saudi Arabia and walks him onto the ship……. trying to convince him that its a cruise line:
Norton : Tell me Ralphie Boy , why do they have all these shovels on board?
Ralph: Norton, haven’t you ever heard of ‘shovelboard.”
Substitute The Racoons
for The Mystic Knights of the Sea……and it’ll play forever.
The greatest parody of the whole genre is Spike Lee’s movie BAMBOOZLED which no one I know has seen, but me. It’s great,…and please watch the full end credit roll and prepare for your jaw to drop.
And in one of the oddest turns of events ever. the feature film of The Honeymooners featured an All Black cast as the headliners.
What goes around……hmm dere, Andy…..comes around , indeed !!!
Perhaps the Joe Goebbels production of The Producers with “Springtime for Churchill” as the foil, would be funny to you.
Well, then, you’ve got some nerve, you racist,bigoted, anti-semitic son of a bitch!.
Oh, next week, I’ll be watching Disc 2 of A & A.
Webeneezer Scrooge 