Correll And Gosden

Gosden and Correll, American comedic duo, best known for creating the Amos ’n’ Andy radio program. Freeman F. Gosden (b. May 5, 1899, Richmond, Va., U.S.—d. Dec. 10, 1982, Los Angeles, Calif.) and Charles J. Correll (b. Feb. 2, 1890, Peoria, Ill., U.S.—d. Sept. 26, 1972, Chicago, Ill.) performed comedy routines in traveling variety shows that drew on minstrel show conventions before they created two black characters, Sam and Henry, for a Chicago radio program (1926–28). In 1929 Gosden and Correll, both white, broadened their appeal by devising a larger cast of characters for a new nightly radio program, Amos ’n’ Andy, thus creating one of the first situation comedies. As Amos the cab driver and his sidekick, Andy, they became the mainstays of radio’s most popular program in the 1930s. Their popularity ensured the success of radio broadcasting as a form of mass entertainment. Gosden and Correll also appeared in the movie Check and Double Check (1930), a spin-off of their radio show. In that movie they performed in blackface, as they also did when they appeared in public as the two characters. Amos ’n’ Andy also gave rise to a television series (1951–53) starring the black actors Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams. Gosden and Correll’s radio show, which was broadcast weekly, ended in 1954, partly in response to criticism that its humor was offensive to African Americans.