Sam 'n' Henry
Encyclopedia
Freeman Gosden
Freeman Fisher "Gozzie" Gosden was an American radio comedian, and pioneer in the development of the situation comedy form. He is best known for his work in the Amos 'n' Andy series.-Biography:...
and Charles Correll
Charles Correll
Charles James Correll was an American radio comedian, best known for his work on the Amos 'n' Andy show with Freeman S. Gosden. Correll voiced the central character of Andy Brown, along with various supporting characters. Before teaming up with Gosden, Correll worked as a stenographer and a...
which aired on Chicago radio station WGN in 1926-1928. The ten minute program is often considered to be the first situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
. Gosden and Correll reworked the premise on a more ambitious scale to create their long-run radio show Amos 'n' Andy
Amos 'n' Andy
Amos 'n' Andy is a situation comedy set in the African-American community. It was very popular in the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s on both radio and television....
.
Characters and history
In late 1925, radio performers Gosden and Correll had been approached about doing a show based on Sidney Smith's popular comic stripComic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
The Gumps
The Gumps
The Gumps, a popular comic strip about a middle-class family, was created by Sidney Smith in 1917, launching a 42-year run in newspapers from February 12, 1917 until October 17, 1959....
. Gosden and Corell instead proposed their own radio serial using characters they created themselves. Like The Gumps, each show would be amusing in itself but would also feature recurring characters in an ongoing storyline.
Since they had received a favorable response to African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
characters they had previously done on radio, Gosden and Correll proposed that the principal characters be African Americans, Sam Smith and Henry Johnson, newly arrived in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
from rural Alabama.
After overcoming initial problems of not starving, finding a living space and making enough money to pay the rent for it, Sam and Henry set up their own moving company, with overbearing Henry as company president and meek, gullible Sam as the one who does all the work. Having been initiated into a colored fraternity called the Jewels of the Crown, they strike up a friendship with the Most Precious Diamond, the high officer of the lodge
Lodge
- Organizations :* Masonic Lodge, the basic organization of Freemasonry* Orange Lodge, the basic organisation of the Orange Institution* Odd Fellows Lodge, the basic organisation of the Order of Odd Fellows* A local union in some trade unions...
, who frequently tries to get his hands on the boys' money.
Sam 'n' Henry premiered on Chicago radio station WGN
WGN (AM)
WGN is a radio station in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is the only radio station owned by the Tribune Company, which also owns the flagship television station WGN-TV, the Chicago Tribune newspaper and Chicago magazine locally. WGN's transmitter is located in Elk Grove Village, Illinois...
on January 12, 1926, and immediately found an audience of Midwestern listeners. Correll and Gosden wrote and produced 586 episodes. They provided the voices for all characters.
They left WGN after the station rejected their novel concept of recording Sam 'n' Henry on phonograph records and distributing those to other radio stations. The duo's last musical program for WGN was broadcast on January 29th, 1928. In March, they brought their characters, now called Amos and Andy, to competing Chicago station WMAQ. WGN retained the rights to the characters and continued Sam 'n' Henry without Correll and Gosden until February 12th. On March 31st, some two weeks after Amos 'n' Andy premiered on WMAQ, Sam 'n' Henry returned as a 15 to 30-minute program, in which the title characters mostly functioned as announcers for musical performances. The final episode of Sam 'n' Henry aired on July 14, 1928.