Comments on: TV Legends Revealed #25

By: Hood Hair Dryer

Hood Hair Dryer — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:06:41 +0000

Hello, everytime I try to visit posts I only end up viewing half of the post. I don’t understand if it is my browser(Opera) or not, anybody else annoyed by this issue?

By: TV Legends History

TV Legends History — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:16:15 +0000

[...] #25 - Bill Cosby tried to purchase the rights to the Amos and Andy TV series to keep it off the air. [...]

By: Comic Book Legends Revealed #246 | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:38:12 +0000

[...] which you can check out here, at legendsrevealed.com. I’d especially recommend you check out this installment of TV Legends Revealed to find out what involvement Bill Cosby had with the Amos and Andy TV series coming off the [...]

By: Andy E Nystrom

Andy E Nystrom — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:37:38 +0000

There’s been enough sexual refeences in other cartoons (one episode of Super Friends had Batman & Robin use the Bat-Lube; one episode of He-Man had He-Man and other character constrantly arguing over the quality of their swords; Men in Black’s cartoon mentioned the cat scan) that I tend to make “intentional” my default assumption.

By: Blog Log: Entertainment Legends Revealed! at Meeks Mixed Media Website Design | Video Editing | Animation | Motion Graphics | CSS | PHP | MySQL | Zencart | Wordpress | New Media Specialists in Pittsburgh, PA

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:17:05 +0000

[...] of fun and engaging articles on Movies, TV, Popular Music, and other forms of entertainment. Did Bill Cosby try to censor Amos & Andy? Was the Little Mermaid modeled on Alyssa Milano? Was the song Breakfast at Tiffany’s [...]

By: FerCryinOutLoudPeople

FerCryinOutLoudPeople — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:26:40 +0000

The Vibrator button on Penelope Pitstop’s console refers a vibrating belt machine found at the time in salons and gymnasiums, and believed to promote a slimmer, trimmer figure. If Penelope’s Compact Pussycat was, as described, a traveling beauty salon, it would logically come equipped with one of these commonplace devices. The action described in the above article about a belt emerging about her waist when the button is pressed confirms it.

Here’s a link to a website describing such a machine:
http://fitho.in/tag/vibrating-belt-machine/

So, sorry, folks. No one snuck one by the ol’ unwary, unhip blue-nose censor this time. There was no under-the-table under-the-covers bit of the ol’ nudge-nudge-wink-wink taking place here…

Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t we post that cover from the old Rifleman comic with the log and all share a laff about how they really got one over on the censors with that gag, huh?? Yeesh…

By: Jim Kosmicki

Jim Kosmicki — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:19:18 +0000

what gets forgotten is that Amos and Andy was actually funny - both radio and TV. If you read Cosby’s argument, his problem was that the comedic shuffling stereotype was the ONLY portrayal and thus the dominant portrayal. However, the negative charge stuck and now you can’t go back and see the originals anymore. The Amos and Andy show employed a LOT of black actors - and when it went off the air, they simply had no more jobs, not jobs with better portrayals. it was 10 years before Cosby and then Diahann Carroll in Julia played a black main character who was “normal.” That’s a long time of little to no work for black actors.

and their sponsor was BLATZ beer, not Bratz beer. it was a major beer brand up through the end of the 1950’s, when a series of purchases and mergers led to it being lost.

By: Fraser

Fraser — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:15:44 +0000

Looking back on All in the Family, I think part of what made it work was that when bigots showed up on TV they were seriously evil (neo-Nazis plotting to blow things up or the like); having a working joe who loved his wife and daughter (no matter how much he yelled at them) and was generally average and was still a flaming bigot (as they said in one episode, he wouldn’t burn a cross on someone’s lawn, but if he found it burning, he might toast a marshmallow on it) was a lot closer to real life and a lot more unsettling.

By: jmyoung

jmyoung — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:26:24 +0000

One more argument for (or possibly against) “vibrator” being an in-joke is that it appears all her special devices were based upon actual things a woman might use - Hairspray, Hair Dryer, Makeup. Unless, vibrator was a beauty salon term of which I am unaware, I would say that’s a string argument for in-joke.

By: Lt. Clutch

Lt. Clutch — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:23:57 +0000

I’m almost certain that the whole vibrator thing was an in-joke on the H/B animators’ part. Chuck Jones and the Termite Terrace gang would come up with all sorts of shenanigans while working on their cartoons. There’s a story about Chuck and his “privates” that I’ve read about from time to time which is quite ribald.

Speaking of which, that “I, Spy” pic also seems to be hinting at something there. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t help but smile a bit. I’ve always loved that show.

Regarding Cosby, I think Norman Lear did a nice job with Archie Bunker, even though Carroll O’Connor had a lot to do with the character’s success. “Softening up” Archie helped lose a lot of the tension found in the earlier seasons and made the character mature along with the audience. Cosby’s 80’s series might not proved as popular if TV mores hadn’t changed as a result of Lear and O’Connor’s own breakthroughs.

Finally, that bit about Masi Oka is pretty cool. I had no idea that he was on the cover of TIME. It all seems very Karmic right now.