Trivia: Who Was He?

[The Old LefHook]

This one quite surprised me, but I was unable to verify it on BoxRec, either, to disclose what I know and don't know. I have not yet looked into the matter hard. Dunno if I want to. Some of you cats may know all about this and make it easy on me.

He was a star in an early American television sitcom, his name was not Graziano or Baeiour, and some sources claim he shared the ring with both Langford and Jack Johnson. Apparently he fought under two different names: Kid Klond*i*k*e and Young Klond*i*k*e.

Whaddya got?

[J-champ]

Victor McLaglen?

[The Old LefHook]

Victor McLaglen?

No. According to Wikipejia, comedian and comic actor Tim Moore who was born Harry Roscoe and played the character George Kingfish Stevens on the Amos 'n Andy show fought both Langford and Johnson. Another article claims that he won 84 of 104 fights, so the man was presumably not merely a camp follower like Red Foxx who was often in the camps of Archie Moore as camp clown, but a bonafide boxer. Its is stated that in the early 1920's he made a haul of $141,000 from boxing and returned to show business.

IMO Amos 'n Andy is one of the funniest shows of the early television era, ranking with The Phik Silvers show and The Honeymooners and exceeding the rest. Quite too bad that it lasted only two years. Editorials from black newspapers were consistently unhappy with the show.

The show would receive protests today, too, mostly because malapropisms made the characters look silly and ******. Everyone from Jackie Gleason to Archie Bunker have *******ly used malapropisms for laughs, but the blacks were sensitive about it.

It is all right today to depict contemporary thug cultures of ignorance full of street garbage talk all over the television and the big screen. But you had better protest the gentle, moral characters of the Amos 'n Andy show. Kingfish was no less a moral scoundrel than heros Ralph Kramden and Ernest Bilko. Like them, his rottenness never succeeded. I would let my grandkids watch Amos 'n Andy, excpet they couldn't care less about the show.