Black Bart

[james_davis_nicoll]

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).

Comments

[jamoche]

The Jeffersons had an interracial couple for neighbors and first came on in 1975, same year as this pilot. imdb doesn't say if they were first or not.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I remember being told that the first interracial kiss on TV was Kirk and Uhura in that episode where their bodies are being telekinetically puppet-mastered by ancient Greeks. That would have been some time in the late 60s.

[jamoche]

Yes, but I don't think "aliens made them do it" quite counts as a couple in the "annoying the local bigots" sense; there's too much room for denial - which is probably why they did it that way, because Kirk was never reluctant about kissing girls with any other skin colour.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Not only is there room for denial, they're clearly both extremely unwilling on screen. I always found that a really offensive bit of shock plotting.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Well, they were being forced into it. There had been no sexual tension between the characters prior to that, so it would have been at best annoying. Note that even Chapel wasn't happy about it, and she did, in story, have the hots for Spock.

In real life, story is they intentionally kept screwing it up to force more retakes. Hey, I was "forced" to kiss Nichelle Nichols in 1968, I'd be using excuses to keep doing it as many times as I could too.

[connactic.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the couple in that case was a white male/black female. It has been demonstrated that a fair amount of racists in the U.S. did not particularly object to that sort of pairing. I don't think Lear would have been able to portray a black man/white woman pairing.