The Amos and Andy DVD collections are available at www.thevintagetheatre.com among titles such as The Three Stooges DVD collection, The Sherlock Holmes DVD collection, The PopEye Cartoon DVD collection, The Adventures of Robin Hood and the Adventures of Superman DVD collections. Both the digitally re-mastered platinum and limited collections are available for the Amos and Andy DVD. The Amos and Andy show began as a radio show on WMAQ in Chicago on the 19th of March 1928. It was the creation of two talented white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll who played the characters of Amos Jones and Andy Brown, respectively.
Many years before the Amos and Andy DVD was made, the Amos and Andy show was popular as a radio show from the 1920s through to the 1950s. The Amos and Andy show was first broadcast on CBS television in June, 1951 and lasted two years before it was cancelled. Popularity rates decreased because of the reference to lower class characterizations of the African-American life and culture. While the sitcom version of the show is considered racially offensive by today's standards, the characterizations depicted were more rounded and sympathetic compared to other 1930s shows.
During the period from 1951 - 1953 when the show was adapted to television, seventy eight episodes were made and have been placed on the Amos and Andy DVD. The television series used African American actors who were instructed to keep their voices and speech patterns as close to Gosden's and Correll's as possible. The main characters seen in the Amos and Andy DVD are:
" Amos Jones - Alvin Childress
" Andrew Hogg Brown (Andy) - Spencer Williams
" George "Kingfish" Stevens - Tim Moore
" Sapphire Stevens - Ernestine Wade
" Madame Queen - Lillian Randolph
" Algonquin J. Calhoun - Johnny Lee
" Lightnin' - Horace Stewart (aka, Nick O'Demus)
In 1988, the Amos and Andy program was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and a pair of parallel one-block streets in south Dallas, Texas have been named after the creators in honor of their performance. When the show was cancelled due to the pressure on CBS from NAACP, syndicated reruns were aired until 1966. Some of the cast from the television series like Ernestine Wade and Lillian Randolph went on to star as characters in other TV shows while Johnny Lee and Horace Stewart provided voices in the Walt Disney film, Song of the South (1946) as Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Bear, respectively. For many years the Amos and Andy show was only available on bootleg videotape versions but recently the Amos and Andy DVD has been released.
In 2005, 72 of the 78 known television episodes were released in DVD sets and are available at TheVintageTheatre.com. The trademarks and copyrights of the show still belong to CBS, making the Amos and Andy DVD collections' release a Paramount Home Entertainment/ CBS DVD. If the Amos and Andy DVD collection has intrigued you, scripts of their show are currently aired 6 times a week on WBCQ on 7415 kHz, at midnight Eeastern time. Ed Bolton performs the roles of all the characters.
