# Why couldnt classic tv shows have had more black characters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 9, 2014, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846 "2014-10-09T09:59:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/61 "2014-10-10T13:23:03Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Hope this isn’t a hijack but I am curious what were the earliest shows on US tv with an entirely or primarily black cast? [Julia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(TV_series)) ran from 1968-1971. It starred Diane Carroll as a widowed nurse raising a young son. Quite ground breaking at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/62 "2014-10-10T13:58:21Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > [Julia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(TV_series)) ran from 1968-1971. It starred Diane Carroll as a widowed nurse raising a young son. Quite ground breaking at the time. I don’t think I ever watched that. Maybe the networks didn’t carry it in upstate NY, the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Tri-City area. ---
**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:** [October 10, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/63 "2014-10-10T14:06:56Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > I don’t think I ever watched that. Maybe the networks didn’t carry it in upstate NY, the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Tri-City area. I was going to college up here back then, and AFAIK, it was being carried. It was aired on NBC, which would have been channel 6 back then. But it was also opposite **Red Skelton** and **It Takes a Thief** ; it’s possible that you were just watching the more established shows back then. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/64 "2014-10-10T17:43:31Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > I don’t think I ever watched that. Maybe the networks didn’t carry it in upstate NY, the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Tri-City area. _ **MAD Magazine** _ did a hilarious satire of it (“Jewelia”) that Diahann Carroll loved. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/65 "2014-10-10T21:22:16Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > for as “liberal” and “progressive” Hollywood acts like these days, back then it was quite exclusionary. If it wasn’t, people like Moses Horwitz, Louis Feinberg, and Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz might have been able to perform under their real names… I dunno, even today plenty of performers still use stage names. Ethnicity isn’t the only reason to change your name. I mean Moses’s bros Jerome and Samuel would still have not gone by those names, I’m sure. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/66 "2014-10-10T21:56:27Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > I dunno, even today plenty of performers still use stage names. Ethnicity isn’t the only reason to change your name. > > I mean Moses’s bros Jerome and Samuel would still have not gone by those names, I’m sure. It has been done and is still done so much that the default assumption is that an actor is not using their original name. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/67 "2014-10-10T22:49:14Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I was going to college up here back then, and AFAIK, it was being carried. It was aired on NBC, which would have been channel 6 back then. But it was also opposite **Red Skelton** and **It Takes a Thief** ; it’s possible that you were just watching the more established shows back then. Yeah, probably what happened, thanks. My Dad taught at RPI. Back then I was matriculating from Latham Ridge Elementary. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/68 "2014-10-11T00:05:57Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > I dunno, even today plenty of performers still use stage names. Ethnicity isn’t the only reason to change your name. > > I mean Moses’s bros Jerome and Samuel would still have not gone by those names, I’m sure. I did say “might” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/69 "2014-10-11T00:22:20Z")
Mannix had a secretary that was black. She often had several important lines every show. Quite feisty and helped Mannix with cases. Played by [Gail Fisher.](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0279500/?ref_=tt_cl_t2) She won an Emmy in the role. Mannix and Star Trek were my two favorite childhood shows that featured black characters in non stereotypical roles. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/70 "2014-10-11T04:05:22Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Intersting thing about Ivan Dixon’s character in “Hogan’s Heroes” was that he seemed to be cast just to have a Black Body. His character was pretty straight-laced, as opposed to comedid. Also, as I read from one person, about all he ever did was tell Col. Hogan, “Message from London, Colonel,” or “So what do we do, now?” I did see one of them where Kinch did an impersonation of Col. Klink. It was one of the funniest scenes I have ever seen. His replacement, Sgt. Washington (?) was about the biggest limp washrag on TV. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2014, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/71 "2014-10-11T04:06:48Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Mannix had a secretary that was black. She often had several important lines every show. Quite feisty and helped Mannix with cases. Played by [Gail Fisher.](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0279500/?ref_=tt_cl_t2) She won an Emmy in the role. She was smoking hot, IIRC. Didn’t she and Mannix have a kissing scene, once? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/72 "2014-10-26T13:45:55Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I’m a big fan of classic tv shows. Andy Griffith, I Love Lucy, Gilligan’s Island, Beverly Hillbillies, Leave it to Beaver, etc… But when I watch the old reruns I’m often embarrassed about how few black actors were on them. For example LITB had only one black actor in its 7 year run, and she was the Rutherford’s maid. There was also only one episode featuring a hispanic, a boy Beaver brings home from school but speaks no English. Andy Griffith, a tv show set in the south, had the occasional black actor in the background but only one with a speaking part who appeared in an episode of Mayberry RFD as Opies football coach (now the spinoff - Gomer Pyle USMC had an interracial military unit). Beverly Hillbillies - well their is a show that often featured the confederate flag but actually did somewhat better with one episode featuring Ellie bringing home a black friend from school and later, the girls 2 black brothers (LA Rams football players) coming by and mistaking the Clampetts backyard old cabin as a kind of racist ploy. Grannies “vittles” of course wins the young men over. On I Love Lucy, one black person appears as a railroad porter but I cannot fathom why a top Black performer like Ella Fitzgerald could not have performed with Rickies band. Hogan’s Heroes featured a black character who had equal billing but it’s like they were confused what to do with him since sneaking him out of the camp around Germany would have been tricky. > > I never watched it but Jack Benny did have a black house servant named Rochester. > > Thing is all those shows featured numerous guest stars, why couldnt a couple of them been black? Ok I can see not wanting there to be an inter-racial couple but why not a coworker or classmate? Were advertisers that hateful they would have pulled sponsorship? > > OTOH classic “Little Rascals” even back in the 1930’s featured black and white kids, and even the occasional Asian, going to school together and being friends. IIRC, the demographics were different back then, and there wasn’t a need to make a change. And, IIRC, the “Little Rascals” didn’t exactly put the minorities in the primo roles. For a southern show, the Andy Griffith thing wouldn’t really be the best showcase for integration: the blacks in the South weren’t on as good terms as you would have them be, and anything to indicate that the characters were BFF, or, for that matter, anything other than a service connection, would be more ridiculous than even some of Gomer’s antics. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/73 "2014-10-26T14:14:08Z")
Talking about “hateful” network executives, it’s worth remembering that at least Grant Tinker, Mort Werner, Jerry Stanley, et al. at NBC in the mid-sixties were circulating memos encouraging producers to cast more minorities in their series. A copy of one such memo delivered to Gene Roddenberry was reproduced in _ **Inside Star Trek: The Real Story** _ by Herb Solow and Bob Justman. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/74 "2014-10-26T17:47:36Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > for as “liberal” and “progressive” Hollywood acts like these days, back then it was quite exclusionary. If it wasn’t, people like Moses Horwitz, Louis Feinberg, and Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz might have been able to perform under their real names… That’s hardly changed. Ask Best Actress Oscar winner Neta-Lee Hershlag. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/75 "2014-10-26T20:51:30Z")
The plain answer is because the past is the past and not the present. That’s how it was back then. If the networks had put in too many black characters they would have lost much of their audience in the South. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/76 "2014-10-26T21:32:21Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > If the networks had put in too many black characters they would have lost much of their audience in the South. And, I dare say, in the North and West as well. Sad but true. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/77 "2014-10-28T01:19:59Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That’s hardly changed. Ask Best Actress Oscar winner Neta-Lee Hershlag. I doubt she changed her name for purposes of hiding her ethnicity and more for holy crap that’s just an unappealing sounding last name. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/78 "2014-10-28T01:27:20Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > First of all, you have to remember that TV shows on networks were primarily vehicles to sell advertising. …\*\* As opposed to now? 😕 ---
**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:** [October 28, 2014, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/79 "2014-10-28T03:13:56Z")
There was an episode of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father that is relevant to this discussion. Eddie’s father (Bill Bixby) was a widower raising a son on his own. Eddie had a classmate whose mother (Cicely Tyson) was widowed so he sets them up on a blind date. The twist: the mother is black! After the initial awkwardness, they have a great time mostly by bonding over the difficulty of being a single parent. Despite how well they got along, there was no question whatsoever that that would be their one and only “date”. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2014, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846/80 "2014-10-28T14:46:23Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > There was an episode of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father that is relevant to this discussion. Eddie’s father (Bill Bixby) was a widower raising a son on his own. Eddie had a classmate whose mother (Cicely Tyson) was widowed so he sets them up on a blind date. The twist: the mother is black! After the initial awkwardness, they have a great time mostly by bonding over the difficulty of being a single parent. Despite how well they got along, there was no question whatsoever that that would be their one and only “date”. Something similar happened on _ **Lou Grant** _. Rossi hooked up with a pretty black woman, but it was pretty clear they would never be anything more than “just good friends.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-couldnt-classic-tv-shows-have-had-more-black-characters/700846.md?page=5)