MovieChat Forums > I Spy (1965) Discussion > Never Aired In The South?

Never Aired In The South?


But Star Trek eventually did? Whether or not Star Trek's original run aired in Dixie is beside the point actually. Star Trek went off the air in '69. I recall the show as early as '70 or '71. I had seen the show by the time the cartoon began airing.

Yet I Spy was virtually unseen, even when Fat Albert became popular, and Cosby's earlier short-lived family sitcoms (I do recall Chet Kincaid).

Granted, some shows an actor did earlier seem to vanish when their 'careers' take off.

Matthew Laborteaux became popular on Little House, but the Saturday morning show, The Red Hand Gang, he did, vanished in America, but read the reviews here on IMDB. It was well-viewed in Europe.

Now I don't know if the same was done with I Spy, but again, I never even heard of this show.

When Culp turned up on Greatest American Hero, he was a virtual unknown. Took me a while to line up William Katt as the date in Carrie as well.

I caught Thank Your Lucky Stars on tv as a late movie about '76 or so. Decades later, I'd get it on dvd and was surprised to see the Ice Cold Katie number uncut.

I've heard of these scenes being removed 'due to racism' but to keep from offending who exactly?

The white audience who didn't want to see entertaining black people or was it now black people who were offended by the depiction?

I rather suspect in the case of Thank Your Lucky Stars, I simply viewed an old edited copy of the movie, that didn't have the scene replaced.

Are these scenes replaced back in movies when they are edited out for racial reasons?

I caught Variety Girl on an independent cable station and queried over the Pearl Bailey number (she's a maid singing about being tired) and thought, well, this scene must have been cut at one time, but it's included here.

In the case of I Spy, I can only guess it is very dated now. I saw The Fugitive for the first time about ten years ago (remember hearing about it all the time when Who Shot JR was popular) and I thought it was very dry.

So was I Spy dated or was it held back due to any chance of racial conflict?

I do recall a program called Beulah Land didn't air in the Ssip when a white officer shot a black woman with a gun, for fear it would increase racial tensions. We got old Cary Grant movies instead.

My brother told me later Beulah Land aired on the weekend afternoons and still had the commercials from the primetime showing.

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Well geez is it necessary to write a whole piece on it?

My understanding it was only a couple of affiliates wouldn't air it at first.

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mactach: "Well geez is it necessary to write a whole piece on it?

My understanding it was only a couple of affiliates wouldn't air it at first."
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Well geez yes.

Eartha Kitt on Batman was another I've heard about; that she was cast simply to rile up suh-thuhn viewers who objected so easily to black casting.

Shame this was some sort of motivation in color-blind casting back then. It still shows today with all the racial exclusion that goes on, sympathy nominations and awards and people 'of color' being cast as tho they are fully-fledged voices and faces for being African-American when they are lighter than tan in color with very white features and straight blonde hair.

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Just shut up!

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mactach: "Just shut up!"
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Now, good friend, I know the last thing in the world an open-minded, intelligent individual such as yourself would want to see happen is for someone to be deprived of their right to expression and perspectives, now would you?

Of course not, as you are truly an enlightened brilliant person of definite higher standards, as your excellent viewpoints clearly display.

Thank you, my friend. Thank you very much.

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@Richard.fuller

Oh,please---Kitt was cast because she was the better known of two actresses they played Catwoman, and frankly, she was the more intriguing one,and the one who actually looked like a cat,for one thing. This was in a time where black women a were just starting to get non-stereotypical roles on TV as well as film.


Shame this was some sort of motivation in color-blind casting back then


No,it wasn't----if that were the case, there would have been a hell of a lot more black folks on TV,period. "Color-blind casting" as a concept didn't even exist in TV back then.

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activista: "@Richard.fuller

Oh,please---Kitt was cast because she was the better known of two actresses they played Catwoman, and frankly, she was the more intriguing one,and the one who actually looked like a cat,for one thing. This was in a time where black women a were just starting to get non-stereotypical roles on TV as well as film.


Shame this was some sort of motivation in color-blind casting back then

No,it wasn't----if that were the case, there would have been a hell of a lot more black folks on TV,period. "Color-blind casting" as a concept didn't even exist in TV back then."
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Ah, yes, friend. Entirely up to you if you choose to believe it, but William Dozier said casting Kitt was done solely to antagonize viewers who might protest in the south because she was not white. It had nothing to do with her being 'cat-like'.

Oh, she was a good choice, an excellent choice. Would not have been the same had Della Reese or Ketty Lester been cast.

And there aren't a hell of a lot more black folks on TV today, except on the news from Ferguson Missouri or when we must listen to what Kanye West has to say.

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My understanding is that the show I Spy was literally banned from southern US airwaves b/c of the presence of a black man in a leading role in this manner. This came on just as the Civil Rights movement was bursting on the scene. The Watts Riots, which was the most significant "consciousness-raising" event that made broad swathes of middle Americans realize that, yes, the plight of blacks in the US at that time was really that bad.

I am not at all surprised that states in the South banned it; they were probably afraid that it would give the severely oppressed blacks down there "ideas" and make them "uppity."

There is a show coming on PBS in the next few weeks about Thurgood Marshall, the first black appointed to the US Supreme Court.It gives a fascinating history of the evolution of the civil rights movement with original film footage from 1920's onward. I saw in previews as a colleague of mine is in the film.

If you have any interest in seeing a more in-depth look than has been done in many years -- watch for the show.

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justitia: "If you have any interest in seeing a more in-depth look than has been done in many years -- watch for the show."
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in-depth on what? Thurgood Marshall?

I watched the doodoo out of Eyes On The Prize back when it aired and we recorded it to VHS. Oddly enough, shows banned in the south wasn't discussed.

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Well the focus is on the career of Thurgood Marshall and how he under the tutelage of Charles Hamilton Houston began to tackle racism by using rascist legal decisions to actually force integration. Very clever.

The most important case that they used in their strategy to get a movement started over several decades was Plessy v. Ferguson -- in which the US Supreme Court then (1894) ruled that "separate but equal" treatment was constitutional and effectively declared segregation as not in violation of the US constitutional.

But the larger focus of the episode is on the context of oppression of blacks in so many facets of life with original film footage. Very interesting.

My guess is it is very hard for young people today to have any idea how really bad it was since so much of the overt stuff has been wiped out. (Not to say that racism is dead, by any means.) I have to admit -- even though I knew -- having been raised in a family very active in the civil rights movement -- I still find it shocking to see on film._

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I saw an online interview with Bill and he said only a couple of southern affiliates wouldn't air it.

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Bill Cosby was exactly right.......

The premiere episode which aired on September 15, 1965 was banned in several Southern states......Several NBC affiliates in the South blocked it from its prime-time schedule.....which included....

Savannah Georgia

Jackson Mississippi

Charleston, South Carolina

Lexington, Kentucky

Mobile, Alabama

Pensacola, Florida

Memphis, Tennessee

Little Rock, Arkansas

Houston, Texas

Wilmington, North Carolina

Richmond, Virginia

Norfolk, Virginia

Montgomery, Alabama

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

Washington, North Carolina

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I can't speak for the others on the list but as someone who saw Houston TV at the time, no they didn't "ban" it.

I remember lying in bed and listening to my parents watch I Spy on TV. I Would sometimes sneak out of my room and sit in the hall to listen. I remember to this day one scene from the first season, so...

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What did those Southern affiliates air in place of I Spy (and Star Trek, which was also banned because of a beautiful Black woman and an Asian man in the cast)? Did they air the Amos & Andy Show or the Beulah show from the early 50's? Old episodes of The Little Rascals? Tarzan films? They sure wouldn't have aired reruns of the King Cole Show, which showed Nat King Cole socializing with his White guests (which included White women).

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It was not banned. I grew up in the South in the 60s and watched it, including reruns. Some individual stations may not have run it, but that hardly constitutes a ban. After the street violence and other troubles in the late 60s, the networks did go on a crusade to "ban" violence so popular shows like Wild, Wild West were cancelled. I Spy left the air because its ratings dropped and the spy craze had pretty much run its course by then. Cop and detective shows were on the rise.

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@ mbell-14

The post now above yours, though posted a few months after you - lists alarge number of southern cities that did indeed ban I Spy.

Just because you were in an area where you could watch it as a child doesn't mean it wasn't banned in others.

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Whatever you read maybe wrong.

I saw an interview with Bill and he claimed only 2 southern affiliates did.

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