Amos & Andy Show

The Amos & Andy Show was an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago and later in the Harlem section of New York City. While the show had a brief life on 1950s television with black actors, the 1928 to 1960 radio show was created, written, and voiced by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, who played Amos Jones and Andrew Hogg Brown, as well as incidental characters.

Amos & Andy began as one of the first radio comedy series and originated from station WMAQ in Chicago. After the first broadcast in 1928, the show became a hugely popular series, first on NBC Radio and later on CBS Radio and Television. The show ran as a nightly radio serial (1928–43), as a weekly situation comedy (1943–55), and as a nightly “disc-jockey” program (1954–60). A television adaptation ran on CBS from 1951 to 1953 and continued in syndicated reruns until 1966.

The Stars

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll were the creators and stars of The Amos & Andy Show. Gosden voiced the character of Amos Jones, while Correll voiced the character of Andrew Hogg Brown, as well as the supporting character of the Kingfish. The two men were white actors familiar with minstrel traditions, and they met in Durham, North Carolina in 1920.

In the early years of the radio show, Gosden and Correll provided over 170 male voice characterizations, creating an intimate, understated acting style that differed from the broad manner of stage actors. They pioneered techniques for varying the distance and angle of their approach to the microphone to create the illusion of a group of characters.

Key Dates

The Amos & Andy Show debuted on March 19, 1928, on WMAQ in Chicago.  The show was initially distributed by syndication, with at least 70 other stations carrying recorded episodes by the end of the syndicated run in August 1929.

In 1930, the show’s central characters relocated from Chicago to Harlem, and the program became so popular that NBC’s orders were to only interrupt the broadcast for matters of national importance and SOS calls.

The show officially transferred from NBC’s Blue Network to the Red Network in 1935, and Gosden and Correll moved production to Hollywood several months later. In 1939, the series switched to CBS, where it remained until its transformation from a daily serial to a weekly sitcom in 1943.

The final episode of The Amos & Andy Show was broadcast on November 25, 1960.

Other Information

The Amos & Andy Show was sponsored by various companies over the years, including Pepsodent Toothpaste, Campbell’s Soup, Rinso, and Rexall Drugs.

In 1930, Gosden and Correll appeared in an Amos & Andy feature film, Check and Double Check, which featured a mix of white and black performers, with the creators playing the title roles in blackface.

The show’s popularity and portrayal of African-American characters led to sustained protests from the African-American community, particularly the NAACP, which criticized the show for its stereotypical and demeaning depictions. This pressure was considered a primary factor in the cancellation of the 1951-1953 television adaptation.

Despite the controversy, The Amos & Andy Show was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988 and has continued to be referenced and discussed in popular culture, including appearances on The Simpsons and the creation of a short-lived HBO sitcom, The High Life, intended as a homage to the original series.