"Breach of Promise: The Madam Queen Affair"

An "Amos 'n' Andy" Serial

Written for radio by Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll

December 27, 1930 to March 12, 1931


It was the high point of a national craze -- and one of the defining moments of early radio. Night after night, nearly forty million Americans paused to follow the plight of a bumbling yet endearing braggart, whose extravagant promises to a woman had landed him in court.

The braggart was Andrew Brown, president of the Fresh Air Taxicab Company and a partner in the Big 3 Lunch Room. The woman was Madam Queen, one of Harlem's most accomplished beauticians. And the series was "Amos 'n' Andy."

The "Breach of Promise" storyline is one of the most-talked-about, most-written-about sequences in radio history, and yet much of what's been written about it -- by nostalgic "old time radio" enthusiasts or by serious students of broadcasting history -- has been distorted, misquoted, or downright wrong.  No recordings are known to survive of any episode from the original "Breach of Promise" storyline, and many summaries of the sequence have depended on a recreation performed on the half-hour situation comedy version of "Amos 'n' Andy" in 1952, a brief segment which bears no real resemblance to the actual two-and-a-half-month storyline, and which completely alters the climax.(1)

The original scripts for "Breach of Promise" are published here for the first time since their original broadcast nearly seventy years ago. The texts have been carefully transcribed from microfilm copies of the originals in the collection of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. All dialect is as indicated in the originals, and no textual alterations have been made in preparing the material for publication, save for corrections of obvious typographical errors and integration of handwritten changes made by Correll and Gosden themselves prior to the broadcasting of the programs.
 

Overview


The legend of "Amos 'n' Andy" as the first  radio show to truly grip the national imagination is an indelible part of broadcasting history -- and of American popular culture. Its appeal cut across social, cultural and even racial lines -- and it single-handedly created an entire genre, the broadcast serial. Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll pioneered the concept of broadcast syndication with their 1928-29 "chainless chain," an idea which has gone on to become a billion-dollar industry, and they were the first radio performers to fully exploit the opportunities afforded by licensed merchandising and multimedia marketing. The images of Gosden and Correll and their characters were omnipresent in the America of 1930-31:  on the air and on the screen, on the stage and on phonograph records, on toys and games and bric-a-brac of all kinds --- even on a nationally-popular candy bar. Lifesize figures of Amos and Andy stood in thousands of drug-store windows from coast to coast during 1930, promoting Pepsodent toothpaste -- and larger-than-lifesize billboards proclaimed the arrival that fall of their first motion picture, "Check and Double Check." "Amos 'n' Andy" was discussed on street corners and around water coolers, in factories and in schoolyards, in fan magazines and scholarly journals -- by millions of people from every walk of life.

What, precisely, was all the excitement about?  A fifteen minute skit, aired six nights a week over the NBC Blue network, telling the story of Amos Jones and Andy Brown, two working-class black men from Georgia who had moved to Chicago in 1928 to seek their fortunes, and who had moved to New York eighteen months later. Noting the dialect, and seeing the blackface publicity images (2), most critics today tend to identify the program first and foremost as "blackface comedy" or "minstrel comedy." As a result, most modern day analyses of the program, whether scholarly or popular in focus, have tended to dwell overwhelmingly on the racial issues surrounding the series while giving comparatively little attention to the substance of the broadcasts. Adding to this problem is the fact that the original nightly serial version of "Amos'n' Andy" has been eclipsed in the public memory by the post-1943 situation comedy version, and its even broader derivative, the 1951-53 television series, productions which are vastly different from the original program.

Although the original scripts for the early years of the series have been available to researchers at the Library Of Congress and at the University of Southern California since the 1970s,  many media historians have failed to take full advantage of them -- choosing instead to depend for the most part on their exposure to the post-1943 versions of the program, supplemented by the published works of others, for their understanding of "Amos 'n' Andy."  While such scholars as Dale Howard Ross, Melvin Patrick Ely and Arthur Frank Wertheim have gone back to the original scripts to produce serious and perceptive writings on "Amos 'n' Andy," many other authors treating the series over the past thirty-five years have been nowhere near as thorough in their research, and it is unfortunate that much of the body of scholarship surrounding this landmark program is both shallow and speculative -- misrepresenting the substance of the series, indulging in unsupported presumptions as to the motives of its creators, and in the end offering little real insight into why "Amos 'n' Andy" attained the unprecedented popularity that it did.(3)

The racial implications of "Amos 'n' Andy" have been debated for decades, and have been discussed exhaustively by critics and commentators from all perspectives. It is not the goal of this project to add to this discussion. Rather, it is argued that a full understanding of "Amos 'n' Andy" and its place in broadcasting history cannot be achieved until one moves beyond the discussion of race -- and considers the program not only from a social perspective, but from a dramatic one as well.  It becomes evident by an examination of the program's original scripts that the primary appeal of the series during the 1930s derived neither from racial imagery nor minstrel comedy -- but  from its presentation of compelling stories, skillfully told. Further, it can be demonstrated from the scripts that the focus of the series during the years of its greatest success was on melodrama and deep characterization -- and not on the increasingly exaggerated situation comedy which characterized the program in the 1940s and 1950s. In "Amos 'n' Andy" as it existed during the 1930s, comic interludes served to leaven the narrative -- but seldom dominated it. Only an examination of an original, complete storyline from the series will suffice to prove these statements-- and "Breach of Promise" is here offered as an example of "Amos 'n' Andy" at its melodramatic best.

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll are largely recalled as comedians -- but as an examination these scripts will show, they were far from being crude funnymen, depending on dialect for laughs.  Above all else, Correll and Gosden were remarkably astute observers of the human condition -- interested not just in black people or white people, but in the motivations that drive the actions of all people. In the characters of Amos Jones and Andy Brown, Correll and Gosden managed to personify the conflicting elements in everyone's personality. We all want to be like Amos -- responsible, unselfish, motivated to succeed.  But deep down, we also realize that we have our own inner Andy  -- vain, self-centered, always willing to cut corners if we think we can get away with it.  The conflict between Amos and Andy is the conflict we all face, every day of our lives. If Amos is our collective superego, then Andy must inevitably be our id.

But Gosden and Correll weren't trying to create psychological abstractions. Amos and Andy may represent universal human qualities -- but they are also individual human beings with distinctive personalities. Amos combines intelligent-though-unschooled working-class virtue with genuine compassion -- but he also has a sense of humor which sometimes borders on the snide, as well as a tendency to repress his anger until it suddenly flares up into unexpected fury.  Andy is a pretentious malingerer, but he is also in many ways a vulnerable, wounded soul -- whose bombast masks a desperate need for approval and affection.  The complexity of the central characters gives "Amos 'n' Andy" a real-life quality rivaled by few other radio programs of the 1930s.

In addition to their gift for textured characterization, Correll and Gosden had an instinctive understanding of dramatic plotting and serial structure. Subplots come and go, branching off from the central theme, but always contributing to the major focus of the story. Humor is never used in "Amos 'n' Andy" for the sake of cheap laughs. In "Breach of Promise," every comic indignity suffered by Andy is tempered by the realization that with each setback he is being pushed deeper and deeper into serious trouble. The humorous aspects of the storyline -- Andy's experiences with the hopelessly inept  Brother Snoop, or his unfortunate encounter with Mrs. Crawford's umbrella -- only add to the sense of events careening out of control,  and actually serve to heighten the suspense as the plot develops. "Breach of Promise" unfolds in real time, with each passing day adding to the crisis facing Andy, and new crises piling inexorably onto the old.

Further contributing to the sense of realism is Correll and Gosden's attention to detail, particularly in their depiction of Madam Queen's unfolding legal action -- which begins with a letter from a lawyer, is followed by a registered letter from that lawyer, and finally by a summons. Gosden and Correll were advised thruout the writing of "Breach of Promise" by NBC's General Counsel, attorney A. L. Ashby, who provided them with a detailed summary of how breach-of-promise litigation was handled under New York State law, along with specific instructions on trial procedure. (4) As a result, the courtroom scenes in "Breach of Promise" are compellingly realistic, amplifying the tightly-developed drama which dominates the climactic two weeks of the storyline.

The Madam Queen breach of promise trial wasn't Andy Brown's first experience with Woman Scorned.  In January 1929, during the series' pre-network "chainless chain" era, in a sequence which was clearly the inspiration for the 1930-31 storyline, Andy was sued for breach of promise by Mrs.Lulu Parker, an ambitious divorcee. The Widow Parker sequence ran for forty-eight episodes -- up to that time the longest storyline in the series -- compared to sixty-four episodes for the climactic thread of the Madam Queen plotline. The trial sequence in the Widow Parker affair ran for merely three episodes -- compared to the twelve episodes devoted to the courtroom action in the Madam Queen case, and the two years' experience in story and character development gained by Correll and Gosden between the two storylines is clearly evident when comparing the two sequences.(5)

In their scripts, Gosden and Correll make little use of what modern students of radio drama consider essential techniques of the medium -- proving by their minimalist approach that slick production values are far less important than substance. Sound effects are few -- a telephone bell here, a door knock there. There is no first-person narration -- announcer Bill Hay, who sets the scene at the start of each episode, has no interaction with the characters, nor do Amos and Andy ever step out of the storyline or acknowledge the listener in any way.  The effect is not one of listening to a drama -- but of overhearing a conversation.  The entire scene is set by means of dialogue -- a few words from Andy describing children playing in the street cue us to visualize an entire busy Harlem neighborhood. The bare walls of the taxicab office, the homey surroundings of the lunch room,  the frightening dignity of the courthouse --- the listener must create them all, with only a few bare verbal clues from the characters to set the parameters. And yet, it works. With a little imagination on the part of the listener -- or the reader -- Amos and Andy's world comes vividly to life.
 

Production Notes


Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll were at the height of their creative powers when "Breach of Promise" was aired in early 1931. They were responsible for every word of the scripts, played all of the roles on-air, and even provided their own sound effects where required.

The writing of the episodes was done in the Correll-Gosden office, located in Suite 2411 of the Palmolive Building on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Gosden was the chief creative force behind "Amos 'n' Andy," and was primarily responsible for the writing -- dictating the dialogue aloud to Correll while pacing the office floor. Correll took Gosden's words down in shorthand, and produced from these notes a typed four page script.  After the partners reviewed the material, any necessary cuts or alterations would be interpolated in pencil in the margins. There is some evidence from the original scripts that at times the shorthand step was bypassed, and that on these occasions Correll typed the scripts directly, as Gosden dictated.

It is tempting to point out the similarity between aspects of "Breach of Promise" and the Bardell vs. Pickwick breach-of-promise sequence in chapter 34 of Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers," but this is likely a coincidence. Breach of promise had been a popular subject for humorous fiction thruout the 19th and early 20th centuries -- Gilbert and Sullivan's 1875 operetta "Trial By Jury" is another well-known treatment of the premise.  Sidney Smith's seminal continuity comic strip "The Gumps" appears to have been a strong influence on the storytelling style of "Amos 'n' Andy," and it is probably not coincidental that "The Gumps" had featured a dramatic breach-of-promise storyline in 1922, pitting the wealthy-but-naive Uncle Bim against the scheming Widow Zander. Then too,  Correll and Gosden followed the newspapers closely -- and domestic scandals were, then as now, popular fodder for both the black press and the white press.

Although it appears likely from the frequent tendency of the scripts to foreshadow later story developments that Gosden was usually thinking some distance ahead in the overall plotting of the series -- and probably had specific storyline ideas worked out in mental-outline form well in advance of the actual writing --  the partners, by their own account, seldom worked more than a day in advance on the scripts. This allowed them maximum flexibility in making adjustments in the flow of the storyline to suit public response -- to stretch out the progress of the plot in order to build suspense, or to hasten certain threads of the plot to a conclusion if they didn't seem to be working out. Correll and Gosden were also the only NBC performers not required to submit their scripts to network censors before broadcast -- and this freedom allowed them to work extremely close to their air deadline if necessary.

The broadcasts were not rehearsed, and this lack of rehearsal helped to give the broadcasts an air of genuine spontaneity.  While the performers did not, as a rule, ad lib, neither Gosden nor Correll ever knew precisely how the other would read a given line, and this uncertainty -- and the interaction it produced -- gave their dialogues a sense of being actual conversations and not simply recitations from a prepared text.  But this sense of spontaneity did not translate into a casual approach while on-air --both Correll and Gosden concentrated intently while broadcasting, usually not even looking at each other-- and Gosden even silently mouthed Correll's lines while his partner was speaking.(6)

Both Gosden and Correll were skilled radio actors, using their voices to maximum advantage. Gosden's Amos had a certain nervous impatience, an urgency in his voice that well suited his energetic, driven personality -- but it was a voice which could also express real warmth and kindness. Correll's Andy was a many-layered creation -- with a voice that could go in an instant from boastful cockiness to mumbling frustration, and always with a very genuine sense of the emotional vulnerability at the heart of the character.

The subsidiary characters offered an interesting mix of voice characterizations. Gosden gave the Kingfish a rumbling, somewhat theatrical bass -- but his delivery during the 1930s was far more intimate than the playing-to-the-audience characterization familiar to listeners of the 1940s sitcom version of "Amos 'n' Andy." The Kingfish of the 1930s tended to think before speaking -- working out his ideas carefully before bringing them to light -- and Gosden's characterization was not that of a flamboyant con man, but one of very subtle deviousness. The Kingfish was always looking for an angle, always looking to turn a given situation to his advantage -- but he could also drop the "brotherly love" mask when provoked. His confrontation with Andy over the disruption of the New Year's eve party in episode #866 reveals that the Kingfish was also George Stevens -- a man, an individual, who could be pushed into real anger by the irresponsible behavior of a friend.

By contrast, Gosden's enactment of Brother Crawford presents a distillation of every "henpecked husband" character ever to emerge from comic strips --  and Gosden endowed him with a high, unctuous voice and a constantly-apprehensive manner that suggests a perpetual fear of flying objects. Crawford comes across at times as both petulant and quarrelsome -- and one can almost understand why his wife finds him such an irritant. But like all of Correll and Gosden's creations, Brother Crawford also has his vulnerable side -- and in reading his phone conversation with his wife in episode #892, one can almost hear the plaintive desperation in Gosden's delivery of the lines.

At this time, "Amos 'n' Andy" originated at WMAQ, Chicago, broadcasting from a curtained-off fourteen-by-fourteen-foot studio, tucked beneath the Visitors' Gallery on the twenty-fifth floor of the Chicago Daily News building. There were two performances nightly -- one at 6 PM central time for NBC Blue network stations in the eastern time zone, and a repeat at 10 PM central time for NBC Blue stations in the central, mountain, and Pacific time zones. Correll and Gosden insisted on absolute privacy while broadcasting, and three technicians stationed in the studio control room  under the supervision of WMAQ chief technician Charles Pease were the only individuals ever permitted to actually witness the broadcasts.  One technician switched between the adjacent announcer's studio and the performers, one controlled the modulation, and the third, who remained standing thruout the program, provided visual cues to Correll and Gosden. Of the these three technicians, only the third man actually watched the performers -- the other two were required to keep their eyes on their control panels at all times. (7)

Correll and Gosden broadcast from a seated position, at one corner of a small, rectangular black-marble-topped table, with Correll seated at Gosden's right. An RCA 4-A-A condenser microphone was placed on the table, between the performers and  closer to Correll, and its live face positioned so as to pick up the voices from the side rather than straight on. The performers varied their distance from the microphone to heighten the illusion of multiple characters. The roles during the "Breach of Promise" storyline were divided thusly:

Gosden---Amos, the Kingfish, Brother Crawford, Lightning, Lawyer Smith, Johnny Cook, the Judge, and Madam Queen. (Gosden's brief enactment of Madam Queen during the trial sequence marks the first on-mike portrayal of a woman in the series, and the only such portrayal until actress Harriette Widmer was added to the series in May of 1935.)

Correll--- Andy,  Brother Snoop, Lawyer Collins, the Bailiff, and miscellaneous office boys, mailmen, etc.

Dialect was read exactly as indicated in the scripts. As can be seen from the scripts, the style of dialect varied considerably depending on the character, and there were even subtle differences between the dialect spoken by Amos and that spoken by Andy. It is also important for the reader to note that the absence of dialect does not necessarily denote a "white" character -- important because this is an issue which has often led critics of "Amos 'n' Andy" to severely misinterpret the intentions of the program's creators.(8) In "Breach of Promise,"  Lawyers Collins and Smith both speak in Standard English, with very slight shadings of dialect creeping into their speech  on occasion -- a rare "de" or a "goin'" blending subtly with the otherwise precise diction of these characters. It can be positively determined from various contextual clues in the scripts that Correll and Gosden intended these attorneys to be viewed as black -- see, for example the reference to Smith as the "greatest lawyer in Harlem" in episode #875, and the interest expressed by Sadie Blake's mother in Collins' marital status and Andy's matter-of-fact response to this comment in episode #893.

A wooden telephone ringer box with a prop telephone mounted on it would be placed on the table when required for sound effects, and would be handled by Gosden or Correll as required by the script. Door knocks were created by Gosden or Correll by simply rapping on the tabletop. A stopwatch on the table gave the performers a running account of the timing of the broadcast, allowing them to pick up their pace or slow it down as required, without having to watch the control room for timing cues. There was no separate director for the broadcasts --- the performers directed themselves.

The broadcasts were sponsored by the Pepsodent Company of Chicago under the supervision of Henry Selinger of the Lord and Thomas advertising agency. Announcer William G. "Bill" Hay opened each episode by announcing the date: "Saturday night, December 27th. Amos 'n' Andy, in person." Following Hay's announcement, Joseph Gallicchio and his Orchestra played the opening theme, an arrangement of Joseph C. Briel's "The Perfect Song" with Gallicchio himself on lead violin. The theme ran approximately seventy seconds, and was followed by a one-minute Pepsodent commercial, written by the Lord and Thomas continuity department and read by Hay. The commercial invariably concluded with the Pepsodent slogan "Use Pepsodent Twice A Day --- See Your Dentist At Least Twice A Year." Following this commercial, Hay would pause for two seconds and then begin the actual episode by reading the brief introductory paragraph that preceded the dialogue. After the dialogue, Hay returned to read a 30-second Pepsodent commercial, and the orchestra reprised the theme, with the music  used as a variable-length pad to ensure that the program properly fit the alloted time. Over the music, Hay would deliver his closing lines: "Amos 'n' Andy, in person, will return tomorrow night at this hour. Pepsodent bids you all -- good-night. This is Bill Hay speaking."  Hay and the orchestra broadcast from a studio adjacent to that used by Correll and Gosden, with the window between the two studios masked by a curtain, and monitored the broadcast by means of a loudspeaker. Hay announced while seated at a small table, and once he had turned the broadcast over to Correll and Gosden, he would often spend the next ten minutes working on WMAQ paperwork (he was the station's General Sales Manager) until he was again needed to conclude the broadcast.
 

What Has Come Before


"Breach of Promise" was the climax to a storyline that had been building on "Amos 'n' Andy" for well over a year -- bringing to the forefront a subplot which had been developing in the series since the title characters moved to New York City from Chicago in August of 1929. Correll and Gosden did not work in clearly-defined story units -- there was no sharp delineation between the ending of one storyline and the beginning of another. Plots flowed gradually from one into the next, with minor subplots gradually building in importance until they took over the narrative, before receding to give way to the next major sequence, and seeds for future storyline developments were often planted many months in advance. It was their mastery of this complex method of story construction -- drawn from that of serialized comic strips -- that kept the program fresh, and enabled Correll and Gosden to keep their audience in a constant state of suspense.  This technique has since become the standard method of storytelling in serial drama -- particularly in soap opera -- but Correll and Gosden were the first to bring it to the broadcast medium, and a strong case can be made that it was, above all other factors, the real key to their success. It is impossible to fully appreciate the impact of "Breach of Promise" without some understanding of this technique.(9)

Shortly after arriving in New York, Amos Jones and Andy Brown rented a small street-level storefront on 135th street between Lenox and 7th Avenues as the headquarters for their Fresh Air Taxicab Company of America. Across the street, Andy noticed a beauty shop, run by an intriguing woman known as Madam Queen -- an attractive middle-aged woman with a reputation as one of Harlem's finest hairdressers. Mustering his courage, Andy made his way across the street and asked for a manicure -- thus beginning an off-again on-again romance that would lead, by the summer of 1930, to talk of marriage. The date of the wedding was originally set for October 31st.

Andy, as was his usual custom, had represented himself to Madam Queen as a man of means, constantly exaggerating the scope of his business activities --- when in fact the taxicab company and a lunchroom opened by Amos, Andy, and Madam Queen's brother-in-law John Crawford were only moderately profitable. As the wedding day approached, Andy began to panic -- realizing that his bride was expecting to be supported in a manner which his limited finances would be unable to sustain. In desperation, Andy engaged the services of a local crystal-gazer, Prince Ali Bendo, to convince Madam Queen that an October marraige would be unlucky, and succeeded in convincing her to put off the ceremony until December 1st, although this success came at a price: Andy found himself being blackmailed by the Prince.

As December 1st loomed large on the calendar,  Andy managed to obtain another postponement -- this time until New Year's Day. After the euphoria of Christmas began to fade, Andy Brown found himself dreading the approach of 1931, knowing what must inevitably occur. It's at this point that we pick up the story.....

Episode 862 -- Saturday, December 27, 1930
 


NOTES

(1) "Amos 'n' Andy" Show,  Vol  X No.8, taped 10/31/52 for broadcast 11/16/52. In the segment purporting to recreate the Breach of Promise affair, Andy is represented by Algonquin J. Calhoun, a character who was not introduced into the series until 1949 -- and whose incompetence is played for comic effect,  quite unlike the serious and highly effective Lawyer Collins, who represented Andy in the actual storyline. The climactic revelation, in the recreation, of Madam Queen's "lost at sea" husband seated in the rear of the courtroom is entirely spurious -- a change likely made for reasons described in the Afterword.

(2) The use of blackface photographs in publicity for "Amos 'n' Andy" is a study in itself.  The earliest series of blackface photographs of the performers in character were taken by Chicago theatrical photographer Maurice Seymour in 1928, and these photos were published early the following year in "All About Amos 'n' Andy and their creators Correll and Gosden" Rand McNally & Co. 1929), a semi-biographical volume prepared by the Chicago Daily News publicity department. Along with the blackface photos, the book also included a selection of shots featuring Correll and Gosden as themselves. Both sets of pictures were distributed to stations carrying the syndicated "Amos 'n' Andy" recordings, and were used in local publicity. However, when the program joined NBC under the sponsorship of Pepsodent in 1929, the network publicity department ordered a halt to the distribution of the whiteface photographs, mandating that any requests for pictures of Correll and Gosden out of costume were to be denied. In reports dated 12/27/29 and 1/24/30 (Folders 837 and 836, NBC Papers, Library of Congress) it is emphasized that this policy was based on the wishes of the sponsor to preserve the image of Amos and Andy as "colored characters" in the minds of listeners. That such a policy contradicted the wishes of Correll and Gosden themselves can be seen by their free use of out-of-costume photographs during the pre-network period.

During 1930, the Seymour series of blackface pictures was supplemented by a new series of pictures taken to promote the Radio Pictures film "Check and Double Check." While Correll and Gosden wore the same costumes in this film that they had worn in the Seymour pictures, the makeup was altered to a more realistic style, eliminating the minstrel-style white area around the mouths. These new "realistic" photographs were used as the official publicity images for "Amos 'n' Andy" thru 1938, although there are known cases of local newspapers retouching the pictures to add in the "minstrel" lips. By 1935, the NBC policy against the use of whiteface pictures of Correll and Gosden appears to have been rescinded, and from this point forward pictures of the performers out of character were used far more frequently than blackface shots. When the team moved to CBS in 1939, a new series of photographs was taken, split evenly between blackface and whiteface, and several of these pictures were trick shots incorporating Amos, Andy, Gosden and Correll all into a single scene. The final known appearance by Correll and Gosden in any kind of blackface is a series of photos taken for a Movie-Radio Guide photo spread in early 1942 -- and in these photos, the makeup is so light that in some of the pictures it is barely visible.

Images from the 1930, 1939, and 1942 shoots were mixed together quite frequently during the 1940s, but the 1928 Seymour "minstrel" pictures had been completely withdrawn from circulation by 1935. Contrary to mythology, at no time in their career did Correll and Gosden ever broadcast in blackface, and they had stopped using blackface in their personal appearances by 1931. Their brief appearance in the film "The Big Broadcast of 1936" (Paramount 1935) marks their final known performance in blackface. A 1939 experimental television appearance by the team at the New York World's Fair was done in street clothes and without makeup. (off-screen photo, New York Times 2/21/39, p. 21)

(3) As, for example, the discussion of "Amos 'n' Andy" by Erik Barnouw in A Tower In Babel, New York: Oxford University Press, 1966 the first volume of his three-book History of Broadcasting in the United States. Barnouw's primary source for his analysis of the series (found on pages 224-231) is  All About Amos 'n' Andy and their Creators, Correll and Gosden, New York: Rand McNally and Co, 1929, a volume which contains the script for episode #250, 1/11/29. It can be argued that a piece of promotional literature put out during the series' first year and the script of a single episode are scanty sources for putting the series into perspective, and that Barnouw's rather condescending interpretation of the program does not bear up when held against the full body of Correll and Gosden's work. While it must be acknowledged that the original scripts were not readily accessible to researchers when Barnouw was preparing his book, this cannot be said of subsequent broadcast historians who have been influenced by his treatment of the series.

Also influential -- and even more superficial -- is the analysis of the series by Dr. J. Fred MacDonald in Don't Touch That Dial: Radio Programming in American Life, Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1979. MacDonald discusses the series on pages 27-30 and 340-344, and dwells almost exclusively on the racial characterizations, classifying the program thruout the book as "minstrel comedy," and making no attempt to dissect its dramatic elements. Footnotes suggest that MacDonald has made no attempt to research the actual content of the serial -- the only script material quoted is a brief citation from one 1947 episode of the situation comedy series -- and that his discussion of the program is derived largely from that of Barnouw.

(4)Letter from A. L. Ashby to Correll and Godsen, 1/14/31, Scrapbooks, Correll/Gosden Collection, USC.

(5) The Parker trial was brought to a rapid conclusion by Amos's testimony on the witness stand, in which he pointed out under questioning by prosecuting attorney Richard Rada that Andy had never actually said that he wouldn't marry Mrs. Parker -- so he could not legally be held for breaching his promise. "Amos 'n' Andy," #251, 1/12/29.

(6) I am indebted to Freeman F. Gosden Jr. for this description of his father's on-air habits. The younger Gosden often witnessed his father at work during the later years of "Amos 'n' Andy's" serial run.

(7) Quest, Mark, "Amos 'n' Andy Backstage at WMAQ". Radio Digest, Vol. XXIV, No. 5, March 1930. Quest was allowed by Gosden to witness the broadcast of the 1/21/30 and 1/22/30 episodes of "Amos 'n' Andy," and his description of the studio arrangement is drawn from firsthand observation. Quest appears to have been the only journalist to have actually witnessed an "Amos 'n' Andy" broadcast during the 1930-31 period, and this article is the only known documentation of the team's working habits during the first portion of their NBC career. Correll and Gosden broadcast from the Daily News Building studio until WMAQ was purchased by NBC in late 1931 at which time the broadcasts were moved to the recently completed NBC studios at Merchandise Mart.

(8) The race of the attorneys in "Breach Of Promise" was called into question by Pittsburgh Courier publisher Robert Vann, as part of his campaign against "Amos 'n' Andy" during the summer of 1931. In the Courier issue of 5/16/31, Vann contended that Andy's attorney in the Breach of Promise case --Lawyer Collins -- was portrayed as a white man, in contrast to the dialect-speaking shyster Johnny Cook, with the result being a mockery of black lawyers. Vann's failure to note the carefully placed racial cues (as in episode #893) led him to an incorrect interpretation of what Correll and Gosden were trying to do with these characters. Adding to the confusion in Collins' case is the character's habit of referring to Amos and Andy as "boys," a usage which would obviously have very specific and negative connotations if Collins were in fact intended to be white. It is more likely, thought, that "boys" as used by Collins was in fact intended by Correll and Gosden as a cue that the attorney was black -- Amos and Andy frequently refer to each other, and to their friends, as "boys."

(9) Andy met Madam Queen for the first time in episode #449 for 8/31/29, and received his first manicure from her in episode #458 for 9/11/29. He admitted to falling in love with her in episode #476 for 10/1/29,  and admitted to thinking of marrying her in episode #584 for 2/4/30. Andy confides to Amos that he and Madam Queen have definitely decided to get married in episode #680 for 5/26/30. Thruout this span, the Madam Queen subplot evolved slowly in the background of other primary storylines.


Introduction, Afterword, and formatting of scripts for publication Copyright © 2000 by Elizabeth McLeod

Scripts originally copyrighted as unpublished manuscripts 1931 by Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll. Copyrights expired without
renewal 1959.

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