When was the first interracial kiss on TV in the US?

[puzzlegal]

I’ve added a staff notice to post 7, since the moderation was several posts below the post that started the hijack.

But again:

@puzzlegal

Moderating:

This is Cafe society. This is not the place for political debates. This thread is a suitable place to mention any kiss that the poster considers interracial. If there might be any confusion as to the races involved (and you should always assume that there are readers who aren’t familiar with your topic, so in general, you should assume there might be such confusion) it’s helpful to mention the races of the people kissing.

[mixdenny]

You really have to view this from the time it occurred. A white man and a black woman were the polar opposites in mid century America. Other variations, like Lucy and Desi, were much, much more benign. Lucy and Desi were a zany, frenzied married couple. It was quite expected they would kiss. Heck, how else were you going to get Lucy to shut up?

Shatner and Nichols were a good looking, “hot” couple. This was SEX, not smooching. The only kiss that could have compared would have been a black man and a white woman. And no one was crazy enough to even suggest such a thing.

Please, folks, these are my recollections of America at the time. Not my personal feelings.

[Love_Rhombus]

People actually thought William Shatner was hot?

Different strokes, I guess.

[susan]

Young Shatner was a wildly popular actor. I remember far more Kirk posters than Spock in teen bedrooms.

[Chronos]

@Monty

I saw that on first reading as “his damnedest to shag it”.

“Snog” also works.

[VOW]

I saw those pointed ears on the very first episode, “The Man Trap,” and I fell madly in love.

William who?

~VOW

[anny_m]

@VOW

Because Star Trek was a Popular TV series in the 60s, Gene Roddenberry used it as his personal vehicle to voice his “political” values. Gene felt that 200 years in the future, human beings (if they didn’t all kill each other first) would be more accepting of others, and they would actually celebrate their differences.

One way Gene accomplished this was by making the bridge crew interracial, even to the point of having an alien as First Officer.

Actually, Spock was only half Vulcan.

Even when I first saw the episode (when it originally aired) I was amused that a TV show had a character whose parents were of different species, and everyone was all “Ho hum.” But have a male and a female of the same species but different skin colors simply kiss, and all sorts of people lost their shit.

[GIGObuster]

@Love_Rhombus

People actually thought William Shatner was hot?

Different strokes, I guess.

It depended on the start or the end of the season…

In the book “Cult TV” (1985) I remember reading that alert viewers can figure when an episode was filmed by noticing how fat Shatner got, he could get in shape in the off season and then while the episodes where made he had less time to exercise or go to the gim. So he got a little pouchy by the end of the season.