I have never seen an episode of Amos N Andy...but people I know and trust who have seen it tell me that it is so offensive that it should never be seen again.....by anybody!
I have seen Amos & Andy, porbably every episode. It used to run in syndication when I was a little kid. Now let's set aside that the show was created by two white men for radio. All the actors on radio were white and made African- Americans look foolish.
The TV show had a complete black cast. I never saw a white person. The cast consisted of some very talented actors & actresses. It was very well produced. The writing was excellent and it was FUNNY! Did it make African -Americans look foolish? Not anymore than the Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island made white people look foolish.
About 15 years ago a documentary ran on PBS about the controversy of the Amos & Andy TV show. It was hosted by George Kirby, a black comedian/actor. It ran clips from the show and did interviews with the surviving actors from the show. All of the actors were very well respected in the industry. Each of them indicated that the ban on the show should be lifted so their work could be seen. One of the actors, who played Lightn' in the series (I forget his name) ran a school in Hollywood for young black actors.
Another of the series regulars was an actress named Amanda Randolph. She appeared in plenty of quality Hollywood movies over the years and many of you may remember her later on playing Louise, on the Danny Thomas Show.
She played "Mama", Kingfishes's mother-in-law, a true mother-in-law from Hell.
She was wonderful in the part and I can tell you she never did anything demeaning in her life. Sadly, she had passed away before the documentary was filmed. Do you think her excellent work should go unseen? After I watched the documentary (with several black co-workers) I just took it for granted that the ban would be lifted by enlightened people in the future. I guess we are not enlightened yet. By the way, I have never met an African-American that was offened by the show. It's seems to be the white man's burden. If the show had not been created by white men (the radio show certainly could be considered deaming)to start with, I think there would be no controversy. I urge you to watch the show before you criticize it. It is available on video and DVD.
