My Two Favorite TV Shows Of All Time: Amos and Andy and Science Fiction Theater

Tim Moore (9 December 1887 – 13 December 1958) was a celebrated American vaudevillian and comic actor of the first half of the 20th century. He gained his greatest recognition in the starring role of George "Kingfish" Stevens in the CBS television series Amos 'n' Andy. He proudly stated, "I've made it a point never to tell a joke on stage that I couldn't tell in front of my mother.

Like many of its early television counterparts, the Amos 'n' Andy television show began on the radio originating on WMAQ in Chicago on 19th March 1928, and eventually became the longest-running radio program in broadcast history. Amos 'n' Andy was created by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, two white actors who portrayed the characters Amos Jones and Andy Brown by mimicking so-called Negro dialect. The boys later said they named the characters Amos and Andy after hearing two elderly African-Americans greet each other by those names in a Chicago elevator.

The television series used African-American actors in the main roles, although the actors were instructed to keep their voices and speech patterns as close to Gosden and Correll's as possible. Set in Harlem , Amos 'n' Andy centered on the activities of George Stevens, a conniving character who was always looking for a way to make a fast buck. As head of the Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge, where he held the position of "Kingfish," he got most of the lodge brothers involved in his schemes. That put him at odds not only with them, but also with his wife Sapphire, and her mother. Mama, in particular, didn't trust him at all. Andy Brown was the most gullible of the lodge members, a husky, well meaning, but rather simple soul. The Kingfish was constantly trying to swindle him in one way or another, but the "big dummy" (as Kingfish called him) kept coming back for more. More often than not, Kingfish would get them both into trouble, but win Andy's cooperation with an appeal to fraternal spirit-"Holy mackerel, Andy! We's all got to stick together in dis heah thing...remember, we is brothers in that great fraternity, the Mystic Knights of the Sea."

One of the main characters on radio, Amos (Alvin Childress) was actually a rather minor character in the television show. He was the level-headed, philosophical cabdriver who narrated most of the episodes. Madame Queen was Andy's girlfriend and Lightnin' was the slow-moving janitor at the lodge.

There has been much discussion over the years as to whether Amos 'N Andy was in fact racist. Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll didn't think so, and neither did Alvin Childress. "I didn't feel it harmed the Negro at all.... Actually the series had many episodes that showed the Negro with professions and businesses like attorneys, store owners, and so on, which they never had in TV or movies before..."

The very stereotypes that the NAACP had protested against in demanding that Amos 'N Andy been banned from television would be seen again a few years later in Sanford and Son, Good Times and numerous other shows of the mid 70s and 80s.

Should these wonderful old TV shows be banned forever just because a few nuts are offended? Nope! But they probably will be, especially if the current power in Washington has his way!