The Black & White Minstrel Show Christmas Special (25/12/73)

[@Aeonterbor]

This content is hosted here as close to it's original form as possible to act as educational research content so the program can be judged in full with it's content in context. If you would like to learn more about the racial stereotypes this show was based on consider visiting the web page for "The Jim Crow Museum"' for a in depth exploration of the culture of the time and how it affected people's lives. jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/index.htm

[@alexcampbell3032]

I feel so much better educated! 😂

[@waynejones3870]

Wonderful evening entertainment. I remember this show at 7.30pm on Sunday nights TV in Australia after dinner at my Grandparents' home. Fantastic. Thank you so much for the efforts you put into bringing these wonderful memories flooding back. Thank You.

[@Brissieskater1]

My late Grandfather used to watch the Black & White Minstrel show when I was a Nipper and then into my Primary School Years in Brisbane, Australia - it's good to revisit the episodes and the fond memories - G'Day from Brisbane, Australia.

[@weatherstationlytovchenko4794]

I remember watching this on tv black in the day

[@barr474]

From the times when things were normal

[@StevenKnight-nk8yq]

Agree bless the wokeys now 😂

[@StephenLyons-tl8ie]

Bring it back to prime time t.v!!

[@chipbuttytime3396]

I thought at first this was an advert for Boots the chemist

[@OldFossil-z5p]

Ha Ha Ha

[@StevenKnight-nk8yq]

Good old days

[@Wavygravydressedinnavy]

To quote DJ Dave Nice, “Good, clean, family fun”!

[@MrJericho07]

It's not that clean all the men have got dirty faces😊

[@robertgibson1036]

Boots chemist indeed Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[@michaelyazemboski2798]

This was a better Christmas Special than the earlier one this year a couple months ago.

[@ianellis-ih3dd]

That soft toy clown brought back memories. I had one of those when I was a child. People didn’t seem to regard clowns as 😧 scary back then. I could have sworn clowns were popular, I still think they look too colourful and jolly to be regarded as sinister.

[@LordNimonYT]

Honestly, thanks for sharing this. I understand it was inspired by some form of music hall tradition and ran for long enough to prove it wasn’t some inappropriate outlier. This is what British entertainment looked like for some time. It’s important not to bury this stuff completely if we’re to understand how society has developed on the topic of race and racism. What’s puzzling to modern eyes, besides the obvious, is how unnecessary the “blacking up” is to the quality of the entertainment. If this kind of music is your thing, does blackface improve it in any way? It’s so ignorant of how black people might feel in a time when the face of Britain was already well on its way to becoming more diverse.

[@1tonyboat]

I remember it well ...good family entertainment,,,far better than the CRAP on today ...

[@robertgibson1036]

I remember watching this when I was nine and lying on my tummy with my hands seporting my head along side my mixed race cousin's at my aunties house alone with her English black husband in northern Ireland they never found it offensive my cousins wouldn't miss it and we had clown dolls ones that tumbled with a battery pack that plugged into one leg and propelled them selves along in simple plastic clown cars my youngest cousin had the black version of tippet tumbles with the same mechanism as the clowns as they were made by the same firm

[@lillianflorence6056]

At least they could sing, ❤

[@ianellis-ih3dd]

Times change, and change isn’t always to our liking. The doll/ toy of a clown reminded me how popular clowns were. Dolls of clowns were sold in toy shops and they weren’t like the sinister clowns 🤡 of today. Likewise, the Black and White Minstrels were regarded as quality entertainment. Nobody seemed to think they were poking fun at dark skinned people. Clown routines, like the Black and White Minstrels, were jolly and colourful.

[@annoldham3018]

They even blacked up the kids!😂

[@ianellis-ih3dd]

The clown 🤡 doll in the Toy Land 💃 dance routine reminded me of how one of those clown dolls could be seen on the old test card. A photograph was shown of a girl writing something on a blackboard, I think, and with her could be seen a soft toy of a 🤡 clown. I wouldn’t have imagined at the time anybody could think that looked sinister!

[@michaelmcgee8543]

It was British!

[@michaelmcgee8543]

These shows were never broadcast in 73 when I was a teenager

[@ianellis-ih3dd]

How can you sound so sure? Most of us would have difficulty remembering with clarity what happened, or didn’t, five decades ago. Just because you missed something doesn’t meant it wasn’t broadcast.

[@ianellis-ih3dd]

It is interesting to see the Black and White Minstrels dressed as Victorian gentlemen. This reminds me of these modern day dramas where the population of Victorian England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 is multi coloured. Surely Britain wasn’t multi racial until the wind rush generation.

[@Aeonterbor]

Though historical records are incomplete that far back there is actually proof of black people being in England all the way back to the Tudor Era, John Blanke is the first such figure where an image of him survives from 1511 where he had a highly paid job as Royal Trumpeter for the king.

[@markcwilliamson1]

But they were in the dozens or hundreds. They were so rare that my Manchester grandmother used to make a wish if they saw one.

[@neilsthompson589]

Time Travel. I was 12. I remember finding it peculiar. And Benny Hill . And The Good Old Days Which Featured people dressed in Day-Glo Victorian Costumes. All a Bit odd. But i loved Up Pompei and Rising Damp. Thoroughly enjoyed Some Mothers Do Have em. And found Larry Grayson intriguing. I was more Wombles Clangers Monty Python Faulty Towers and If Allowed To stay up late Bouquet Of Barbed Wire. Happy Days. Actually Happy Days was good too.

[@Tardistravels-d5b]

the monarchs were a good act

[@pb4595]

they even have a black Santa!

[@ianellis-ih3dd]

These days a black Santa sounds politically correct, yet the politically correct brigade condemn shows like this. Black and White Minstrels fans should say this show was ahead of its time!😅😂

[@michaelmcgee8543]

They might have black face women too.

[@paulfromdevon4707]

Whoops

[@michaelmcgee8543]

American broad cast was not doing this!

[@iandaniels8386]

when this was first shown it was my first xmas as i was born july 73 shame they dont do jolson songs as great Jolson fan .

[@lillianflorence6056]

Crap today

[@michaelmcgee8543]

Was this broad cast in the u.s or England?

[@trudiemundell74]

UK BBC

[@stronkserbia444]

@@trudiemundell74 BBC have 2 meanings now 😄

[@trudiemundell74]

The black make up looks so crude. I always wondered what the singers looked like without it.

[@lillianflorence6056]

@@trudiemundell74 looked good with it, handsome

[@lizdoyle7158]

They looked good they were the same people 🎩👒🎩👒🎩👒🎩👒🎩👒

[@156dave]

Not on TV anymore

[@michaelmcgee8543]

where are the black women performers?

[@lillianflorence6056]

@@michaelmcgee8543 black men white women black and white minstrels, and it was brilliant

[@Jackie-ji2sj]

What a terribly black show.

[@tcac1687]

Still horrific

[@mrnobody1067]

When the world laughed at itself and it was pure theatre nothing more 👍❤🇬🇧

[@Lord.two.a.penny.]

I disagree. It is way past the time that this stuff is buried. It is unnecessarily offensive. It was back then & it is now.

[@jobreakstheinternet5100]

I wish I could say that I'm surprised that this aired as late as 1973, but I'm just not.