Playing the race card...

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I didn't hate the movie because they were black. I hated the movie because I didn't laugh a single time. In fact, I didn't smile a single time. In fact, I never once in 90 minutes even had the slightest urge to smile. The movie was a pointless waste of time, just as Cedric the Entertainer is a pointless waste of space.

I do not think anyone acting today could remake THE HONEYMOONERS to the standard of the original. Race has abosolutely NOTHING to do with it. NOTHING AT ALL. The original work was a concept piece and tailored to the original casts style and pathos. It was also very depend on the time period and the mores and cultural aspects of the day.

I think it has less to do with race than it has to do with the characters. Ralph was a character created by Jackie Gleeson, and to many, he IS Ralph Kramden, myself included. I grew up watching reruns, and loving this show. You could throw ANY actor into the role, and I would most likely hate it. But you throw in someone like Cedric the Entertainer, and add in the fact that rumors were that they were trying to update and urbanize the humor, and that set many fans of the original off. I never watched the film because it looked like a sad attempt to make a quick buck on the name of a show I grew up loving and couldn't compare, not because of the race of the actors.

That being said, I also don't think you could throw just any white guy into the role of Cliff Huxtable, because he's a character that was created by Bill Cosby, and was, in essence, Bill. Not too many actors could pull that off.

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Beddiewong-

"Even though we all know, the actors had nothing to do with the
movie's marketing, distribution, directing, producing, or writing!"

Cedric the Entertainer is listed as being the Executive Producer...

I think if you take anyone's beloved program, something they remember fondly, and change it all up it's going to piss them off. No, it's not a racist thing so much as it's that people want a remake to evoke nostalgia, to be at least a little reminiscent of the original. These characters already have a face and while no one today will exactly match that, they should try to come a little closer. I think it's completely hypocritical for the makers of the movie to cast the fat / skinny combo the original series used but then to get all pissy when people point out the other glaring physical difference. If how they look matters, then it matters. If it doesn't, then why go for body style at all? Claiming that somehow the physical counts but then again, not if it comes to race is playing the race card. The movie was a bomb for a reason. It was a remake, therefor its target audience should have been the people who remembered the original and wanted to revisit it a little, with a modern twist. But when they change it so drastically in one aspect, they lose that. It's not racist, anymore than it would be homophobic to object to making Ralph and Alice be a gay couple, or geo-centric to want to keep the show in NYC rather than, say, Malibu.

How racist is it for people to get upset with me if I decide to remake Sanford & Son with Ted Danson and Ashton Kutcher? It just wouldn't be the same and in a remake, 'same' is what you want.

"It's sad to bash actors because of their skin color--something natural that cannot be changed."

Actually to a degree blackness CAN be changed. Skin can be bleached. Hair can be straightened. And in countries where lighter skin means social privilege, darker people do indeed try to lighten themselves up to fit in and get ahead.

As well-intentioned as your post is, you make the mistake of implying that people cannot be criticized for their skin color because it can't be changed - i.e. it's not their fault, they were born that way. Which begs the question: what if they weren't born that way? What if it were a choice? Would that make it any less acceptable to be black? Or what if, in the future, technology allows us to change skin color completely? Would it be ethical to do so?

It shouldn't matter how people were born. There's nothing wrong with being black, no need to apologize for it. And you also leave open the possibility that it IS acceptable to judge people based on things they weren't born with, things they chose. For example, their religion, or their political affiliation, or the race or gender or age of their romantic partner.

Yes people are born with things like skin color and sexual orientation, and it's unfair to persecute those who don't match the dominant social group - but what makes judging people different from you wrong isn't that the person didn't choose to be what they are - what's wrong with it is that you are unfairly judging someone based on something superficial, at the expense of knowing them as a person. Being merely born with something should not be what qualifies as something deserving of respect. We should respect people based on what they choose to do with their lives.