[78-L] Charles Correll WAS RE: Stephen Foster

[Elizabeth McLeod]

This interview likely comes from the era when Correll and Gosden were 
trying to keep their careers alive with "Calvin and the Colonel," a sort 
of post-racial Amos 'n' Andy in animated cartoon form, in which the 
characters were presented as a Southern fox and bear. Their speech was 
similar, but not identical to that of Amos 'n' Andy. During this period, 
when race was becoming an extremely hot-button issue in television, 
making such a statement would have been seen as necessarily diplomatic, 
even though it was quite inaccurate.

During the actual run of "Amos 'n' Andy," there was never any question 
that the characters were supposed to be black -- they occasionally 
referred to themselves as "colored," and there were even scenes in the 
early years of the radio series that obliquely acknowledged the existence 
of segregation -- even the de-facto sort which prevailed in the North. 

All of this examined in detail in my book.

Elizabeth


On 1/24/09 12:53 AM Mark Hendrix 78L said:

>Hello, David:
>
>You're not kidding, but surely Charles Correll was.  Or was it the
>well-known and widespread practice of "Southerners" (of all ethnic
>backgrounds) to wear blackface that led Correll and Gosden to do the same in
>"Check and Double Check"?  I guess Mr. Correll  was kidding himself.
>
>--Mark Hendrix
>
> > -----Original Message-----
>> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
>> [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com]On Behalf Of David Lennick
>> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 9:18 PM
>> To: 78-L Mail List
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
>>
>>
>> That was always my impression. By the way, somewhere in the
>> thousands of hours
>> of quarter-track slow-speed half-mil tape recorded by the Lennick
>> family in the
>> 60s is the audio from a Canadian TV panel show in which Charles
>> Correll said
>> that the voices on Amos 'n' Andy were "not necessarily Negroes,
>> but merely
>> Southerners". I kid you not. I'd love to find that tape, but the
>> wording comes
>> from a script I wrote in 1966 and I quoted him verbatim at the time.
>>
>> So nyaa.
>>
>> (Duck, Lenny!)
>>
>> Ron L'Herault wrote:
>> > In which case, the song becomes one about a guy having a good
>> time at the
>> > races.
>> >
>> > Ron L
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
>> > [mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of David Lennick
>> > Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 3:29 PM
>> > To: 78-L Mail List
>> > Subject: Re: [78-L] Stephen Foster
>> >
>> > I always thought it meant coin, loot, gelt, lettuce (no that's paper).
>> >
>> > dl
>> >
>> > Ron L'Herault wrote:
>> >> Gee, it's written in dialect, a common practice.  The guy
>> didn't have much
>> >> and bet the horses.  I'm not sure if going home with a pocket
>> full of tin
>> >> meant that he won a little or a lot.  I'd have to see what tin meant at
>> > the
>> >> time.
>> >>
>> >> Ron L
>> >>
>> > _______________________________________________
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