“If we had it to do OVER AGAIN”
A Great Radio Pair Look Back Over
Their Career on Their Fourteenth Anniversary
WHEN the nation turned the hands
of its timepieces to adjust them to the new war time, we started wondering what
we would do if some magic power could enable us to turn back over the years of
Amos ‘n’ Andy’s existence. We wondered if, perhaps, we would be guided
differently. We talked about what might have been done with the characters
Madam Queen, Brother Crawford, the Kingfish and all the others. Would we have
made them mean what they do today? Would we have changed any of the patterns we
have followed steadily all these years?
Of course, in the first place we
don’t want to turn back the clock. Even though we realize there were things we
could have improved, we’re content to carry on from here. But it’s always interesting
to go back over the past and perhaps remodel it in imagination. It’s
interesting to us to do so, because we have so completely and enjoyably lived
the lives of Amos ‘n’ Andy.
There’s a lot to look back over—a matter
of millions of words of dialog wrung from our experience and from thin air and
knocked out on the old typewriter; a matter of a decade and a half of
broadcasting five days a week; a matter of a couple of hundred fictitious
characters that we have had to make live in our minds and in our voices.
Yes, a lot of water has run under
the bridge since we, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, sat down at a
microphone to become “Amos ‘n’ Andy”—March 19, 1928—after holding forth as “Sam‘n’ Henry” for a couple of years. Radio has changed a lot, and the world itself
has changed somewhat.
One of the policies we have
followed most steadfastly throughout the years, and one which might, perhaps,
be most debatable, is the “no audience” practice. If we were starting all over,
would we follow that policy again? We’re sure of our answer to that: We would. There
are two reasons—and neither of them is temperamental aloofness. In the first
place, we try so intently to put ourselves completely into the many roles we
portray that we feel spectators make us fall short in building a perfectly natural
atmosphere. In the second place, we have always felt that radio in general and
our homey little act in particular is chiefly for the listeners in the home,
and is usually more effective with no possible intrusive sound from an
audience. We still have both reasons for carrying on that policy.
And because we believed our skits
should be aimed directly at the family sitting in the living-room, including
the kids, we’ve always had for our number-one script rule “Keep it clean.” Next
to that, these rules: “Keep it plain,” “Keep it true to character,” and of
course “Make it funny.” We’d have the same rules if we had it all to do over.
Naturally, we haven’t always been funny to everybody. But we don’t think we’ve
fallen short in the first rule—and we certainly don’t think that following this
principle has been a mistake. Radio and the world may have undergone some
changes—but people and human values haven’t.
One thing we’ve sometimes wavered
about is whether we should have more performers in our sketch instead of
portraying practically all the characters ourselves. We have had a few voices
other than our own in the story. We have considered others. And we still wonder
if we would have a bigger cast if we were starting again. It isn’t a snap—being
so many different people. But we’ve got a mighty big kick out of it.
Then there’s the fact that we’ve had a number
of characters, mostly women, who have been talked about plenty on the show but
who have never been heard speaking themselves. We might have had Madam Queen
and some the others more vocally active, but listeners seemed to know them and
take to them just about as well without hearing them.
THERE are many other questions
that could be argued over. For instance, would we have the same old reliabletheme song? Undoubtedly. We still think the “Perfect Song,” which was written
for “The Birth of a Nation,” a perfect song for the theme melody of “Amos ‘n’Andy.” Would we have Amos get married and be a family man and Andy continue to
be a blundering Don Juan? Yes, for that seems to us to be the ideal situation
for working in both ludicrous humor and human interest of a little more serious
nature. Would we like the same time of day for broadcasting? Yes, again. Most people
are at home and most people want to relax and grin a bit at that time of day. We
like to help them.
Well, it looks as if there isn’t
much we’d care to change. That’s true. Not because we think our work has been
perfect but because we’ve got such a tremendous kick out of doing it our way.
And as long as listeners tune in and smile with us—and, of course, buy our
sponsor’s product!—we should worry about new formulas.
Maybe there would be a few things
we’d do differently if we had it to do over again. But for the most part it
would be the same “Amos ‘n’ Andy” that we, Gosden and Correll, have lived with
these rapid radio years.
“Check and double check.”
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