# Racial Surprises on old TV shows **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [December 28, 2022, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222 "2022-12-28T15:55:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2022, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/21 "2022-12-28T23:23:31Z")
actually ive been told that the dragnet episode of MLKs funeral helped keep things calm also ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2022, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/22 "2022-12-28T23:59:58Z")
How? African Americans watched an episode of Dragnet and it calmed their anger? Let alone that the episode must have aired months later. I don’t believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/23 "2022-12-29T00:04:53Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > actually ive been told that the dragnet episode of MLKs funeral helped keep things calm also That episode (Oct. 1968) aired six months after King’s assassination. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/24 "2022-12-29T00:05:57Z")
I just looked it up. MLK was assassinated in April. The episode about was aired the following October. The synopsis from imdb says that the episode took place in the aftermath of the assassination. The cops are expecting riots and mayhem but in actuality people were calm and remembered Dr. King’s message. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/25 "2022-12-29T01:55:41Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > I don’t believe it. Just the facts ma’am. Just the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/26 "2022-12-29T02:21:34Z")
IIRC James Brown claims in the 70s there was some race riots in Detroit he got to calm down by getting on the radio and pleading for peace. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/27 "2022-12-29T02:43:17Z")
I don’t doubt that at all. How are the two comparable? ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/28 "2022-12-29T03:47:12Z")
There was one on one of the old Star Treks. Aliens take over the Enterprise for their own purposes. That was nothing new, children and space hippies took over the Enterprise. Anyways, the journey to their own planet was a very long ways away, and they modded the Enterprise so only a skeleton crew was needed. The rest of the crew was reduced to diamond shaped objects that appeared to be made of styrofoam. Two of the extras shown to be reduced are a black man in a red shirt, and a young white woman in a blue minidress. The alien states that once the styrofoam object is crushed, the person is dead. He demonstrates - with the young white woman! And restores that of the black man! ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/29 "2022-12-29T03:51:26Z")
Since it was a series, relationships were, in fact, considerably more peaceful—they had to be. There was more drama off-camera than on. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/30 "2022-12-29T03:57:32Z")
Aha! I was toying with starting a thread about something; I’ll ask in here. When I was 10 or so, I watched a lot of Little Rascals/Our Gang. Looking back, those series strike me as very progressive for the 1930s and '40s. Buckwheat and Stymie (I don’t recall any black girls; were there any?) were seen in the classroom with the white kids, and eating with them, playing with them, and in at least one instance that I recall, being served in the same stores as the white kids. Offhand, I can only recall one instance of it even being acknowledged that not all the kids have the same skin tone. Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat and some other boys are at the swimming hole. Well, they’re all swimming except Buckwheat, who is lounging on the bank. “I’m’a get me a sun tan!” Ha ha: how much darker can he get? And it mmmmmight have been a veiled “Black people can’t swim” gag. Still, pretty mild. And heck, he was _welcome_ to be in the water with the white kids, and that counts for a bit more, IMO. So two questions: 1. Were there other references to Buckwheat/Stymie/other being black? And if so, were they positive or cringeworthy? I really don’t remember any black character having a Stepin Fetchit kind of role, but I could have blocked something out. 2. Were LR/OG shown in theaters in the Deep South? _If_ they were, they might have gone under adults’ radar, while subtly influencing kids. Which is what I’m getting at, really. These episodes were several decades old by the time I saw them, but part of the reason I could relate is because they did have a mixed-race cast, and I don’t recall seeing or hearing anything that would make a Gen-X kid say “Hey, that’s not right.” ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/31 "2022-12-29T04:40:07Z")
It’s been many years since I saw any Little Rascals. My memory might be off. I remember finding it interesting that Stymie was pretty much the leader of the gang and the brains of the operation. Buckwheat was later and used differently ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/32 "2022-12-29T04:52:21Z")
Even older, the silent films of the kids, I saw one film in which the mothers of the kids, both black and white, get together to prank the kids when they were bad ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/33 "2022-12-29T05:36:24Z")
I thought you were casting doubt on a single unrelated thing causing a potential race riot to calm down. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/34 "2022-12-29T06:16:14Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > IIRC James Brown claims in the 70s there was some race riots in Detroit he got to calm down by getting on the radio and pleading for peace. “PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!” Ican’tdonomore. . . ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/35 "2022-12-29T13:33:39Z")
_Our Gang_ always included one or two black actors. One of the first - Farina, from the silent days - was probably the the most popular Black actor of his time, and that included white audiences. I recall one silent film featured Farina and Sunshine Sammy Morrison as the main story. The child characters were treated as one of the gang and rarely were the butt of mean racial jokes However, society accepted black children in movies quite readily. Charles Bogle’s social history discusses Black stereotypes in movies, several of which still are used. > **[Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks...](https://www.amazon.com/Toms-Coons-Mulattoes-Mammies-Bucks/dp/082641267X)** > > Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films \[Bogle, Donald\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American... ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/36 "2022-12-29T13:34:25Z")
Not a TV show but it’s funny, Mrs. solost and I were doing a Christmas day watch of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and I was just wondering during the dinner scene how people think the depiction of the maid Annie holds up these days, in a movie that I think otherwise has aged pretty well, while still being very much a product of its time. On the one hand, she’s a maid, a subservient character to the relatively well-off white Bailey family. Pretty standard role for a Black person to be playing in a movie of the time. But on the other hand, she’s clearly treated well and affectionately by the family, and speaks her mind to them pretty frankly without fear of reprisal. But on the other _ **other** _ hand, “sassy Black maid” is a stereotype from olden days that I think is not well thought of these days, even if it might seem on the surface of it to be somewhat progressive for the time. Also, although she openly eavesdrops and speaks her mind to the family regarding their issues, she’s a Black character whose only apparent reason for being is to help out well-off white people in any way she can, similar to the “magical negro” characters that were so common in 80s and 90s movies. Here’s the dinner scene. The only other scene she’s in is at the end, when everybody is giving the Baileys money and she says “here, I was saving this money for a divorce…_if I ever got married_”. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Casf9U2gaOI/maxresdefault.jpg "It's A Wonderful Life - Dinner Scene") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Casf9U2gaOI) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/37 "2022-12-29T16:21:39Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > So, I was watching Dragnet (the TV series) on Amazon Prime. > [@cochrane](#): > > _Dragnet_ also streams for free on Freevee. > [@kayaker](#): > > Yeah, on Amazon Prime it is actually through FreeVee so you see some commercials. I watched one episode last night, but it cut off before the dénouement to go to the next episode. I’ve posted in FQ to see if anyone knows how to turn off Autoplay. (I turned it off, but it still starts the next episode anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/38 "2022-12-29T16:24:09Z")
I think FreeVee is to blame, possibly. The same thing happened to me, but at some point the formatting changes (halfway through season two) and you can watch all the way to the final credits. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/39 "2022-12-29T16:40:43Z")
I don’t think it’s FreeVee. It happens whenever we watch a series, and usually with movies. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222/40 "2022-12-29T16:52:32Z")
But FreeVee adds commercials, making the episode a minute longer. It seems like the autoplay next episode is happening about a minute too soon. I watch on my iPad and will try fixing it tonight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-surprises-on-old-tv-shows/977222.md?page=3)