[Ads-l] big apple

[Andy Bach]

>> I have watched about 45 of them
>> now and have yet to see a black actor, not one.

> To quote my favorite line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, "What country do
you think this is?!"

Pretty sure he was saying on P.M. there is a dearth of black actors.
However, over the 247 episode run of PM, there is:
https://reelrundown.com/tv/Perry-Mason-The-Case-of-the-Silent-Black-Judge-and-More

[ Vince Monroe Townsend Jr. in a non-credited, non-speaking role, though as
a robed Judge]

and, oddly Ivan Dixon (of Hogans Heroes (among others fame):

But in "The Case of the Nebulous Nephew," which was broadcast on September
26, 1963, Dixon, though obviously black, played a character who, until the
very end of the story, was thought to be white.

The plot involved an attempt to scam the two elderly and wealthy aunts of
Caleb Stone IV. Caleb had been placed in an orphanage at a young age, and
his family had completely lost sight of him. A man named John Brooks, who
had also been in the orphanage and was a close friend of Caleb, managed to
meet the aunts and was successful in using the knowledge of the family he
had learned from Caleb to convince them that he was their long lost nephew.
The plot twist revealed at the end [SPOILER ALERT!] is that the "John
Brooks" who impersonated Caleb actually is the real Caleb, while the real
John Brooks is an African American played by Ivan Dixon.

On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 10:15 PM Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> > I have watched about 45 of them
> > now and have yet to see a black actor, not one.
>
> To quote my favorite line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off,
> "What country do you think this is?!"
>
> There was Eddie "Rochester" Anderson on The Jack Benny Show, Willie Best,
> the poor man's Stepin Fetchit, on Father Knows Best, and the black players
> of MLB and of the NFL (one of whom, ironically, was Rochester's son) and
> the CFL. (It may startle some of the younger folk to read this, but
> Canadian football was once a staple of American TV. Any sports-fan of the
> day could tell you who Sam Etcheverry [star, record-setting Basque-American
> QB of the Montreal Alouettes who ended his career with the former St. Louis
> Football Cardinals] was.) Louis Armstrong guest-starred on the Texaco Star
> Theater, Your Show of Shows, Ed Sullivan, etc.  Oh, and there was Mantan
> Moreland, of "Feets, don't fail me, now!" fame, who played "Alabama,"
> Charlie Chan's chauffeur, as seen in TV re-runs of the Chan series.
>
> On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 7:59 PM David Daniel <dad at coarsecourses.com> wrote:
>
> > I've been watching old Perry Mason shows. Very cool, as well as
> > nostalgia-ridden. Anyway, the episode I'm watching now (air date Nov 15,
> > 1958) is about horse racing and Perry is defending a jockey accused of
> > murder (of course he didn't do it). So Perry and Paul Drake are talking
> to
> > the trainer who was the jockey's boss, and the trainer is talking about
> how
> > you move up in the racing world. You start off small, etc. etc., and then
> > one day you make it to the Big Apple. "The Big Apple?" Perry asks.
> "Yeah,"
> > says the trainer, "Saratoga, Belmont..." meaning the big ones. Perry had
> > never heard the term and there is no direct reference to New York, except
> > of
> > course that both those tracks are in New York. It's strictly treated as
> > racing jargon. (A side note on these shows: I have watched about 45 of
> them
> > now and have yet to see a black actor, not one. Feels very bizarre. Also
> > everyone except Della Street is constantly - constantly - smoking.)
> > DAD
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 

a

Andy Bach,
afbach at gmail.com
608 658-1890 cell
608 261-5738 wk

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org