#AMOS AND ANDY ANATOMY OF A CONTROVERSY TV#

The history of African American art stretches back to the 18th and 19th centuries and continues today. Located in downtown Lawrence, this mural was painted by theĬommunity as a tribute to African-American artists with Kansas roots. Or perhaps CBS was spooked by the negative reaction of Good Times.The Polinators mural in Lawrence, KA | David Loewenstein (From Wikimedia Commons) OTOH.Good Times was overall a very successful show in syndication in 1979, well into the 80's and made lots of money for Norman Lear ( not CBS ) so maybe CBS felt that sooner or later the time would be for Amos & Andy ( so why not renew them? ) even though that 'time' would never hapen. Even the stars of Good Times at the time slammed their own show such as Ralph Carter 'Michael' making a statement that 'Good Times' wasn't exactly positive for blacks, though later on he would warm up to the show. In 1979 when Baltimore's WMAR-TV started to air the reruns of Good Times, crosstown at WJZ-TV they asked many blacks in and around Baltimore about their faults on Good Times and not one of them gave the show a positive review. Characters like 'Sweet Daddy', being unemployed most of the time, living int he 'projects', single exactly a 'good thing' for many Blacks they felt. Totally forgotten now but Good Times was actually considred by many Blacks in the 70's as to be 'unfair' to their race. '.The city of Indianapolis, Indiana recently had bought the rights of one episode of The Simpsons from FOX because the episode in question, though had Homer Simpson & Comic Book Guy visit Indianapolis.the city objected the scene where the two men visited a local leather bar only to end up being tied in chains and forced to smoke cigars by the hands of gay bears.'ĭespite people ( and even those trivia books ) saying this stuff is true and fact.Ah.no.all sound like urban legends to me.ġ979 was the year the former CBS sitcom Good Times went syndication and looking back now I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason why CBS renewed the copyrights for Amos & Andy. '.Ted Turner owns the rights to the Dukes of Hazzard because Turner felt the show made those from the south look like a bunch of stupid rednecks.' 'Bill Cosby owns the rights to the old Little Rascals and Blondie & Dagwood movies to keep people from watching them because Cosby feels both are racist.' Sounds like an urban legend to me that is along the lines of. 'CBS renewed its copyright to actually stop people from being able to see the show.'

Re: Amos N' Andy: The Anatomy of a Controversy

#AMOS AND ANDY ANATOMY OF A CONTROVERSY TV#

When all of the Amos 'N Andy TV shows fall into the public domain in 2048, I wouldn't be surprised if that same 'Forbidden Fruit' factor led to someone making a lot of money by remastering it, while CBS gets nothing. However, the Amos 'N Andy contorversy plays into the 'forbidden fruit' instinct and so the trading and acquisition is rampant. Had the show quietly faded from circulation like, 'Love That Bob,' there would have been 15 or 20 episodes of Amos and Andy floating around on public domain releases. (75 of 78 is the latest count.)ĬBS and the opponents of Amos 'N Andy didn't have a good understanding of human nature. Of course, perhaps the most interesting part of this story is that nearly every episode of Amos 'N Andy is available today on illegal DVDs I've seen for sale on several sites in my Internet travels. The show came up for copyright renewal in the late 1970s and early 1980s and CBS renewed its copyright to actually stop people from being able to see the show. They stopped re-airing Amos 'N Andy in the 1960s. I'm not quite sure how I feel about Amos 'N Andy, however I think the way CBS handled the controversy was wrong. A documentary about the whole controversy was made more than 25 years ago and is up at Hulu. One show that can't be posted here is Amos 'N Andy because the copyrights were all renewed.

Amos N' Andy: The Anatomy of a Controversy

Amos and andy anatomy of a controversy