james_davis_nicoll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2008-06-01 03:42 pm
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2008-06-01 03:42 pm
Black Bart
Because Harvey Korman just died, I rented Blazing Saddles. One of the extras was the pilot episode of Black Bart, which I had never seen before.
It wasn't good in a not-good way peculiar to the mid-1970s. It was interesting how they tried to stick as close to the characters from the film while at the same time removing anything even vaguely edgy or amusing from the characters. It was as devoid of actual humour content as you might wish, although it was still funnier than Black Fly, and the laugh track just highlighted how inept the writing was.
I note that the alcoholic Kid is now the alcoholic "Reb" Jordan, although they didn't make much of him having fought for the south, which since Black Bart is established as a former slave you'd think would come up in conversation now and then. Reb is played by Steve Landesberg, whose early pre-Dietrich choices of roles were not always the best (He was also in When Things Were Rotten).
It wasn't good in a not-good way peculiar to the mid-1970s. It was interesting how they tried to stick as close to the characters from the film while at the same time removing anything even vaguely edgy or amusing from the characters. It was as devoid of actual humour content as you might wish, although it was still funnier than Black Fly, and the laugh track just highlighted how inept the writing was.
I note that the alcoholic Kid is now the alcoholic "Reb" Jordan, although they didn't make much of him having fought for the south, which since Black Bart is established as a former slave you'd think would come up in conversation now and then. Reb is played by Steve Landesberg, whose early pre-Dietrich choices of roles were not always the best (He was also in When Things Were Rotten).
Re: Hot L Baltimore
As far as I know, The Jeffersons -- premiering a few weeks before Hot L Baltimore -- had the first black-white interracial couple on television. You remember, Sherman Helmsley cackling about zebras and the Willises.
(Oh, Norman Lear. He'll go condo with John Hughes when that expansion circle of Hell opens.)
Of course, even earlier there was Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Doesn't raise an eyebrow at all these days, but it was on the knife edge of tolerable in 1951. All those anxieties about beds and Lucy's pregnancy.
There's actually a significant gap in media depictions of interracial dating and marriage by the late 1970s through the 1990s. Part of it is due to a deliberate network strategy of niche marketing, second guessing audience appeal. But it's also the time television became extremely sensitized to pressure groups, network programming in that period being very much a zero sum game for market share. It would be difficult to be a stone cold racist in television in 1980, but it was very easy to be unimaginative.
At this point in the conversation I usually point out that Tony Danza played a Japanese guy on The Love Boat in 1983.
Re: Hot L Baltimore