The First Black Sitcom

            On Friday morning I looked for the chords to “Barcelone” by Boris Vian but no one posted any, so I’ll have to be the first. 

            I got caught up on my journal. 

            In the early afternoon I finished all this week’s required reading for my Canadian Literature course. The text I read today were excerpts from Jacques Cartier’s journals. It was interesting how they got saved from scurvy by the Indigenous people. 

            I did my exercises while listening to part two of the BBC documentary, “The Real Amos and Andy". The kind of serialized radio show that Amos and Andy pretty much invented and which was so popular during the depression, was suspect in the war years. Broadcasting executives decided that radio soap operas would have a negative effect on women during a time when everyone was supposed to be hopeful. In 1941 Amos and Andy became one of the first sitcoms. That meant that Freeman Gosden and Charles Correl would not be the sole writers anymore. Writers were hired and so Gosden and Correl had less control over the product. The laughter of studio audiences was measured and the stories were directed towards whatever drew the most laughs. It was still in the top ten for a few years and then the top twenty but it was no longer the traffic stopping phenomenon that it had been in the serial years. When a movie was made starring Gosden and Correl as Amos and Andy in blackface it did fairly well but audiences were shocked to learn that the actors weren’t black. When the TV series was made in the 50s with real African American actors it was the first of its kind and did well. But the problem was that the premier aired on the night of the NAACP convention. The civil rights leaders gathered for the convention watched the show and then blasted it. One of the main reasons was the class element. African Americans were trying rise up in society and critics felt this show was a negative portrayal that worked against that goal. The TV show also gave the beloved figures less depth until they weren’t much more than cartoon characters. After 78 episodes the TV show was cancelled. It took almost fifteen years for networks to want to take the risk of putting black characters in starring roles on television again when Bill Cosby became the co-star of “I Spy". 

            I started doing an analysis of the use of repetition in “Stone Hammer Poem” by Robert Kroetsch. 

            I had a potato, two chicken drumsticks and gravy while watching The Count of Monte Cristo. First of all the opening credits have suddenly changed for this 29th episode of the series. While before is said, “Starring George Dolenz, with Nick Cravat” now it says, “Starring George Dolenz and Nick Cravat”. Also after 27 episodes Rico is no longer the count’s second companion as he has been inexplicably replaced by Carlo. At least there was an introduction when Rico first appeared. This story treats Carlo as if he’d always been on the team. 

            The story begins with Victor Hugo walking the streets one night in 1835 when he is attacked by three masked assassins. He is fighting them off when the count and his friends arrive to chase the killers away. It turns out that the count and Hugo are friends. The assassin leader runs to a place where a horse and a change of clothing are waiting. He leaves his criminal garb in the bushes and a man named Cambrai who happens to be nearby is arrested. Back at Hugo’s home the count is told of a letter that the author recently received reporting about a traffic in galley slaves. It is signed by Girrard, the chief of the Bourget police. The police arrive with Cambrai to show Hugo that an arrest has been made. Cambrai declares that he is innocent and begs for his life. He says that since he had previously been arrested for stealing a loaf of bread and spent five years in the galleys as punishment, it is automatic that he will receive the guillotine for this conviction. Hugo is convinced Cambrai is guilty but the count argues that he knows from personal experience that innocent men condemned before. Hugo has faith in the French justice system and does not believe the innocent have anything to fear from it. The count learns that Cambrai was sentenced to the galleys by Magistrate Polineaux in Bourget. The count leaves to try to prove the man innocent while Hugo goes to find who hired him to kill him. Hugo visits Chablon, the director of prisons and show him the letter he’d received. Chablon calls in De Crissac, the chief inspector of prisons who turns out to be the real leader of the assassins that attempted to kill Hugo. Meanwhile the count learns from Cambrai that when he was a galley prisoner the young and strong among them were sold as slaves to Barbary pirates and that Bourget was the shipping out point. Chablon and De Crissac persuade Hugo to go and see the Bourget chief of police that night but to go in disguise. At the same time the count and his friends set out with the same destination. Hugo arrives at Captain Girrard’s office to find him dead, stabbed with the same dagger that was used earlier to try to kill him. While Hugo is holding it the police come in and arrest him for murder. When the count arrives he learns of the chief’s death and that the murderer is at that moment being tried by Judge Polineaux. The count and his friends enter the courtroom. The magistrate sentences Hugo to life in the galleys. The count stands up to address the court. The magistrate asks the count if he can confirm that the prisoner is Victor Hugo but the count teases Hugo and only says there is a resemblance. He says that since Victor Hugo has said that an innocent man could not possibly find himself in the situation the prisoner is now in, this can’t logically be Victor Hugo. Then the count rubs his ring signalling Jacopo and Carlo to attack and tosses a pistol to Hugo. They overwhelm the guards and then smash their way out the window. Outside of Bourget they stop and hide the horses. When the gendarmes begin searching for them the count happens to capture the sergeant in command. He leads the count to the magistrate’s files and incriminates Chablon, De Crissac and Polineaux for running a slave trade. Cambrai is released and the count makes him the caretaker of one of his little farms. Victor Hugo decides there is something he must also do for Cambrai and so he decides to make him immortal. He begins writing a story about a man enslaved for stealing a loaf of bread and calls it, “Les Miserables".