Another show I used to watch in B&W.
Reminds me of the episode where Rob and Lori come home from the hospital with Little Ritchie and think perhaps their baby was mistakenly switched with another’s, so they invite the other couple over to discuss and when they walk into thier house it’s revealed they are a black, middle class couple. Classic.
Charles Sculz introduced Franklin as Peppermint Patty’s schoolmate in 1968. He got angry letters (mostly from the south) about white and colored children being in the same classroom!
You’d rather be lynched 
I’ve noticed that the 1967-70 Dragnet and 1968-75 Adam-12 TV series both seemed to be relatively inclusive in their casting of the people that the main characters meet in the course of a day.
Occasionally the race of the characters was important to the story – for example, there’s a very good episode dealing with the aftermath of the MLK assassination – but more often the role was just another citizen, whether played by a person of color or not.
Because the producers were primarily interested in white audiences (who had more buying power and thus were more attractive to advertisers) and, while a couple more black characters wouldn’t have “ruined” the show, why rock the boat? The risk of losing white viewers by having too many black characters was greater than the potential to gain black viewers – who were probably going to watch anyway because there was all of three channels to pick from.
Rob and Laura.
Nope: being lynched is worse than being shunned. For that matter being beaten is worse than being shunned and scorned. I devote my life to avoiding being beaten.
And, geez, they had some doozies of lynchings in the first half of the 20th century — not all of them in the South.
Both the Hollywood Studios of yesteryear, and TV production of today are notorious for not employing jewish people as writers, actors or producers.
I love the Jack Benny shows. Rochester was the one who really ran things, although Jack thought he was in charge.
Quite apart from the general racism of the times…
I’ve noted before that, on most dramatic television series of the past 30+ years, there has been a lot of minority representation.
Have there been plenty of black cops on most of the leading crime shows (Law and Order, Hil Street Blues, NYPD Blue, CSI, Third Watch, et al)? Sure
Plenty of black doctors on Grey’s Anatomy, House, Chicago Hope, ER, St. Elsewhere, et al? Yep.
Black lawyers on ***The Practice ***and ***L.A. Law ***? Sure.
But over that same period, most sitcoms have been nearly all white or all black. Is that because comedy producers are more racist than drama producers? No, it’s a little more complicated than that.
Most dramatic shows are set in the workplace. My workplace has a LOT of ethnic, racial and religious diversity, and so do many police stations, hospitals and businesses. I EXPECT to see multiracial personnel at most workplaces. But at home? SOrry, we DON’T have a lot of racial diversity at home. Most people don’t!
Comedies tend to be set in the home, or among a small group of friends. And those settings tend to be much more, er, monochromatic. There are more multiracial families than ever, but even now, most households are going to be just one color. And while NEw York City has a lot of ethnic diversity, the ensemble cast of Seinfeld *** consisted almost exclusively of (white) Jews, because the reality is, guys like JErry Seinfeld and Larry David tend to hang out with other people very much like themselves. Most people do.
How would you have squeezed black actors into a typical Brady Bunch episode? Or white actors into a typical Good Times ***episode?
A recent commercial, for breakfast cereal I think, showed an ‘inter-racial couple’ and their ‘mixed race’ child, and caused controversy. We are still a long way from the mountain top.
To add to this, 30-40 years ago, workplaces also tended to be much more monochromatic. America was a 90% white country with an implicit understanding that white norms and customs defined our society, and these shows were produced by and for that society. The role of blacks was much more limited in the lives of most whites. Even roles where whites “expect” to see blacks today–clerk in a retail store, bus driver, sanitation worker, etc.–were almost entirely white back then. Those shows were simply depicting life as most people experienced it. To insert blacks all over the place into the middle of white society would have seemed unnatural, and there was no reason the idea of doing that would even cross the mind of anyone making these shows.
at least I Love Lucy featured a Cuban-American actor in a prominent role
How cute.
Of course Hollywood was a fine place for smart Jewish immigrants & sons of immigrants to build businesses. Because anti-Semitism Back East kept them out of the elite Boys’ Club.
However, writers & entertainers often anglicized their names to avoid offending the great unwashed. And those same genteel elites…
It really has only been recently that blacks have been considered for roles that could’ve just easily been gone to a white person. And even still we have a while to go before this practice becomes the rule rather than the exception. And even longer to go with women.
This is one of the reasons why Wire was as groundbreaking as it was. With a lot of television dramas, you can almost hear the casting director saying “Make this character a black guy…yeah, that’s the ticket. A black guy fits here.” or “There’s not enough white in this scene; let’s get some white fellas.” Only a few times did I get that sense with the Wire and that was mostly during the first season when the show was still trying to figure itself out.
“Color blind” couples have almost become a trope, although you’re right in that it’s usually a black man (or MOC) and a white or perhaps Hispanic woman. In most of the recent cases, there’s never an obligatory nod to race/racism; no one including the couple ever takes notice of the race issues.
I’d like to think we’re gettin’ there.
There was studio angst about producing that one too. He was considered ‘white enough’ to get it on the air. If Lucy hadn’t been the actual lead it might not have made it.
It wasn’t the studios, networks, and advertisers that intended to portray the world in white-and-white television so much as it was the fear of a public reaction. Television is the business of selling commercials, and there was no desire to limit the audience for that purpose. But public outcry was a real fear, and worse than that the fear of government regulation. Petula Clark simply touching Harry Belafonte on screen was enough to cause a stir, society was on the verge of a great cultural war. As seen from the references above the TV business was willing to champion the cause of change in the 60s. The struggle continues to this day, although many battles have been won, the war is not over.
A more subtle point in racial casting on the Dick van Dyke show: when Rob and Laura are out at parties or the theater or that auction when they bought the Artanis painting, look at the extras in the scene. Some of them are black–not maids or waiters, but apparently middle-class couples who go around to the sorts of places the Petries do. You simply don’t see that in other shows of the era.
^^
TV producers will always give the people what they want for ratings. Back then you could get away with all white casts. Nowadays you need to account for different demographics.
Personally I don’t care about race as long as whoever they cast fits the storyline.
Just a couple days ago, Mathew Klickstein - who has written a new book about Nick at Night - gave a big interview moaning about how diversity is a huge problem for modern tv. He thinks Clarrisa is not a big deal, although he allows that Dora is “pretty successful”. He thinks men are being shut out of stand-up comedy by all the women talking about womens’ problems. He thinks Sanjay and Craig - a show about an Indian boy and his talking snake - is dumb for having an Indian boy as the lead instead of a white boy. Why couldn’t it be about a white boy, he wants to know.
Really, if you want to know why shows fifty years ago didn’t feature more black people, just read this interview published a couple days ago -
Keep in mind, the author of that interview, Pilot Viruet, is herself a black woman. And she tries to help Klickstein! Really. All through the piece she’s throwing him ropes and setting up ladders for him, but no, he is bigod going to dig that hole until there is no more hole left. It’s an amazing example of a complete lack of self-awareness.