Amos 'n' Andy was a situation comedy popular in the
United States from the 1920s through the 1950s. The show began as
one of the first radio comedy serials, written and voiced by Freeman
Gosden and Charles Correll and originating from station WMAQ in
Chicago, Illinois. After the series was first broadcast in 1928,
it grew in popularity and became a huge influence on the radio serials
that followed.
Amos 'n' Andy creators Gosden and Correll were white actors familiar
with minstrel traditions. They met in Durham, North Carolina in
1920, and by the fall of 1925, they were performing nightly song-and-patter
routines on the Chicago Tribune's station WGN. Since the Tribune
syndicated Sidney Smith's popular comic strip The Gumps, which had
successfully introduced the concept of daily continuity, WGN executive
Ben McCanna thought the notion of a serialized drama could also
work on radio. He suggested to Gosden and Correll that they adapt
The Gumps to radio. They instead proposed a series about "a couple
of colored characters" and borrowed certain elements of The Gumps.
Their new series, Sam 'n' Henry, began January 12, 1926, fascinating
radio listeners throughout the Midwest. That series became popular
enough that in late 1927 Gosden and Correll requested that it be
distributed to other stations on phonograph records in a "chainless
chain" concept that would have been the first use of radio syndication
as we know it today. When WGN rejected the idea, Gosden and Correll
quit the show and the station that December. Contractually, their
characters belonged to WGN, so when Gosden and Correll left WGN,
they performed in personal appearances but could not use the character
names from the radio show.
When WMAQ, the Chicago Daily News station, hired the team and their
WGN announcer, Bill Hay, to create a series similar to Sam 'n' Henry,
they offered higher salaries than WGN and the rights to pursue the
"chainless chain" syndication concept. Amos 'n' Andy began March
19, 1928, on WMAQ.
Initially, Gosden and Correll portrayed all the male roles. Between
the two, they voiced over 170 distinct characterizations in the
show's first decade. With the episodic drama and suspense heightened
by cliffhanger endings, Amos 'n' Andy reached an ever-expanding
radio audience. It was one of the earliest success stories of radio
syndication, and at least 70 stations besides WMAQ carried the program
using prerecorded records.
This collection of Amos N' Andy Greats includes 366
different shows and appearances for a total of 149 hours of listening
enjoyment.
This product is a DVD collection of Old Time Radio mp3s. It is
designed to be played on your computer DVD drive with standard mp3
software - like Windows media player or its equivalent on Macintosh
computers. The mp3 files on the DVDs can be copied onto CDs for
play in your car stereo, home entertainment center, etc so you can
take your favorite shows with you anywhere you go.
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