History seems to die hard, and in a city known for beer, one of the major players in the Milwaukee beer industry was The Valentin Blatz Brewing Company, operating from 1851-1959. It’s now produced by the Miller Brewing Company under the aegis of the Pabst Brewing Company, which re-acquired the labeling rights. The Blatz beer legacy includes being our town’s first brewery to have a bottling department in 1875 and to shipping nationally—a mere decade after the War Between the States.
Blatz survived prohibition by creating items such as malt soap and non-alcoholic beverages. During that same period, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll went on the air over Chicago’s WGN radio with “Sam ’n’ Henry” on Jan. 12, 1926. Two years later, the name was changed to “Amos ’n’ Andy,” and it became one of the most popular broadcast programs on air, lasting until 1955—and another five years under a music hall format.
“Amos ’n’ Andy” was a comedy based around the taxicab business of Amos Jones, his friend, Andrew Hogg Brown, and George “Kingfish” Stevens, president of the Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge. While it forwarded black stereotypes, it was well-liked for the comedy situations and its characters. The nickname “Kingfish” was even appropriated by then-Louisiana governor, Huey Long.
What brought Blatz and the radio comedy together in 1951 was a nationwide market base and a new venture: Gosden and Correll decided to film episodes for the fledgling medium of television. Auditions for the roles eventually filtered into the selection of a surprising cast. “Whether they did it intentionally or it just happened by dumb luck, the cast was filled by people that were the best in their fields of black entertainment,” says Norman Phillips, an Alabama-based historian and retired educator.
“Remember, ‘Jim Crow’ and the racial separation between black and white is shamefully in full vigor, which means separate theaters, restaurants, what have you? Out of that separation, black entertainers for their own audiences flourished, and many were geniuses at producing art with little resources,” he continues. “Spencer Williams, who played Andy, was a pioneer in black cinema. Tim ‘Kingfish’ Moore wrote and produced his own stage plays, even traveling to Australia and New Zealand with those theater companies.”
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Blatz purchased a two-page print spread advertising the program in the June 25, 1951, issue of LIFE magazine. Their sales slogans were also inserted into the programs: “I’m From Milwaukee, and I ought to know…,” “Blatz—Milwaukee’s Beer” and “What Changed Milwaukee’s Mind?” A total of 78 episodes were filmed in 16- and 35-mm formats and were sent to television stations across the country for broadcast.
However, the visual presentation changed something. Gosden and Correll were white and imitating blacks, even appearing in “blackface” for a movie. The television version brought a controversy and an eventual firestorm of protest.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights organizations cited the program’s demeaning characterizations as a perpetuation of the “Stepin Fetchit” image of black people. Blatz had terminated its funding by then, and despite a succession of product sponsors, the now-host network CBS abruptly cancelled the television series in 1953. In the early 1960s, the Chicago CBS affiliate, ran the episodes until they were pulled completely by a quietly negotiated 1968 agreement.
“It was signed between CBS, members of the NAACP, and a prominent civil rights leader, the episodes would never be distributed or shown again,” said the late Stanley F. Moger, a former CBS executive, during a 2018 interview. “I was one of the people that signed the agreement on behalf of CBS. The actual film masters are still in the CBS vaults. “
“Filming is why you see all of these early programs and they’re so crisp and clean. In the early days of television, everything was broadcast live, or else was filmed so they could be sent to television stations,” he said. “Videotape didn’t come in until around the mid-1950s. I have a copy of ‘Amos ’n’ Andy,’ they’ve been bootlegged for years.”
Oddly, VHS home videotape is what has kept the television program alive. In the 1980s, Chicago-based Vestron Video used the film prints to make a 66-episode set. Later companies copied and bootlegged, each time resulting in degraded image and sound. “I knew it as a kid but couldn’t find it anywhere,” said Phillips. “In 1994, I found a website that’s still around, amosandy.com, and started chatting. One day, I get a call from Nick Stewart, who played ‘Lightning.’”
“He ran the Ebony Showcase Theater in L.A. until his death… He actually got the ball rolling to organize a decent set of the tv shows,” he said. “So, everyone on the site starts sending things in… beta, videotape, film stock, 1” reels—it was exciting. We had it transferred to DVD format, the best representations of each episode, but there are still four missing.”
“Members of the website and I want to get the ban lifted and save this great work by these actors. At the 2002 Chicago Blues Festival, we were invited by Greg Parker of the Chicago Blues Museum to make a presentation to do just that,” Phillips said. “We handed out 20 of these sets to dignitaries. They loved it, but it went nowhere. It was so strange. Television depictions are more demeaning now. I question that as diversity.”
The original masters may never be seen again, yet the station prints remain out there in one form or another, “brought to you by Blatz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, and Blatz dealers everywhere.”
