Here are two of the scariest things I ever saw on national TV, in the days when I watched it.
The Black And White Minstrel Show:
a once-popular entertainment featuring some white people who couldn’t dance very well and who wanted to look like black people (temporarily)
Michael Jackson’s Thriller:
Image excerpt provided by Clipland
a once-popular entertainment featuring a black person who could dance very well and who wanted to look like a white person (permanently)
a once-popular entertainment featuring a black person who could dance very well and who wanted to look like a white person (permanently)
I am not sure about retrospective horror, Geek. You couldn’t do the minstrel show now, but of course Jolson did it and it was in some ways a compliment to the original minstrel tradition. I watched it with my parents as a child and don’t feel terrible corrupted by it, nor did I think any different of Africans, Caribbeans or indeed anyone. There was also Harry Belafonte and Cy Grant and throughout the sixties the movement was against racism. I’d be very surprised if there were many references to the B&W minstrels in BNP propaganda.
The singing was good in the way the singing of standards can be and the dancing was just dancing. The villains in films had nasty foreign accents but were not black.
I know, I know. Little Black Sambo, the golliwog on the jar. I must have lived through all that.
But I don’t think that’s where it was at.
I watched the B&W Minstrels and just thought it was rubbish. But then again, I also watched Cannon & Ball, The Little and Large Show and that impressionist bloke that could only do impressions of Harold Wilson. Why do people bat on about how good telly was ‘back then’ ?
… that impressionist bloke that could only do impressions of Harold Wilson.
Mike Yarwood. He’s still alive, you know.
You’ve more of a backbone than me, Damian: I used to be frightened by the Wombles, and they only wanted to keep tidy.
Telly WAS quite good back then. Good in parts, anyway.
For every Cannon and Ball there was a Tommy Cooper, Steptoe and Son or Porridge.
You used to be able to collect little ‘golly’ tokens with those jamjars for goodies. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s still a Golden Virginia tin full of them in my mums attic (we would never be organised enough to send off for the teasmade).
And there used to be the competitor to Mackeson Sweet Stout called ‘Black Boy’ – it had a real ‘picaninny’ figure on the label.
Once upon a time when it was hard for a black man to get theatrical work he could paint his face black and put on white lipstick and make money as a black and white minstrel.
At once the saddest and funniest thing I have ever seen was this – about 8 years ago I went to see a pantomime performance by a children’s theatre compan, because my father designed the scenery. The pantomime is a big deal in the town, 10,000 tickets sell out fast, it’s shown on Scottish TV on New Years Day, and it was, as thewse things go, quite entertaining.
However for some reason at the start of the second act they decided to open with a Black and White Minstrel medely – now there are 120 kids on stage so they don’t have time to cover them all in black face makeup and remove it before the next scene. So, cunningly, they had given each child a leg from pair of thick black tights, with white eye and mouth circles sewn on to pull over their heads.
When the curtain went up I didn’t know whether to scream in fear at the utter stupidit of blacking up 120 white scottish kids to sing Swanee and Danny Boy, or howl at the sight of 120 squint black faces, white eyes on the side of the head, mouth somewhere below the left ear. It looked like the worlds most surreal bank raid.
And afterwards I failed to make my parent’s believe anyone might have been offended. I have managed to miss the panto every year since.
My grandmother’s brother,pete kuralowich , stage name – Luigi Roselli played the minstrel Boy with al Jolson and we are trying to locate anyone who might have known him. He lived for a while at 6075 Franklin Street Los Angels but also owned a home at one time that douglas fairbanks and hs wife at that time,mary pickford lived in. When we received notice that he died we went to his home on franklin but all of his art had been stripped from the walls ( he was a very good artist) and all his personal belongings were gone. Neighbors said it was his housekeeper who took them. we would like just one thing that belonged to him.