Geoff Bennett on 'The Golden Age' of Black TV

0:00KCRW sponsors include Netflix presenting Sean Combs, The Reckoning, from director Alexandria Stapleton. Featuring never-before-seen materials and exclusive interviews, critics call the documentary series engrossing, riveting, undeniably gripping, and incredibly compelling viewing. Emmy eligible. From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment. I knew my parents loved me Stand behind me, come what may I know now that I'm ready, yeah Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. You've probably seen my guest Jeff Bennett on the PBS NewsHour. Heard him here, of course, on NPR. And every once in a while on the NewsHour, if you see a little bit of a gleam in his eye, He's probably thinking about the subject matter of his terrific book, Black Out Loud, The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to 90s sitcoms.

0:58First of all, Jeff, thanks so much for being here. Elvis, thanks so much for the interest in the book. It's a real pleasure to speak with you. But I want to ask you about the title because I think it's such a great title for this. Thank you. Yeah, Black Out Loud. It's a play on laugh out loud, obviously. But what it also speaks to is that what you see over the progressive decades is Black comedians and Black creators taking control, having authorship, having ownership over the work. And what you see is that Black performance is in full color and out loud. Of course, Black comedy has always operated on multiple levels at once.

1:38On the surface, it entertains. It has to be funny. It has to make people laugh. But beneath the punchline, black comedy has often served as social commentary, cultural critique, a survival mechanism. It really serves the historical record. And so for so long, comedy generally, especially the shows in the 90s that were formative for me, hadn't really received a serious look. So for me, this was the book I've always wanted to read. And, you know, I've covered national politics for 20 years. in shopping this book around, the initial response was always, why don't you write a book about politics? There's a durability to our culture that does not exist in our politics.

2:17And I wanted to explore that too. Well, it's funny because that mirror has always existed in black comedy. And in fact, so many of the comedians that you deal with have in fact a kind of a de facto politic that's come from their life circumstances, doesn't it? Yeah. I mean, you see that with Moms Mabley, for instance, who was doing social commentary on stage long before anyone had the language for it. And even with Richard Pryor, whose upbringing was just torturous. Richard Pryor started as a clean comic, and that was largely because of the influence of Bill Cosby. You think some part of this goes back in Black comedy to almost the kind of storytelling that took place around campfires and in churches, Black society creating its own culture that exists apart from the mainstream culture?

3:04Yeah, I mean, even back in the day with the griot, right? That was a form of storytelling that carried over into the enslaved population. For broader audiences, Black comedy has frequently acted as a translator. So through humor, comedians and sitcom creators, certainly in the 70s and 80s and 90s, introduced viewers to worlds they may not ever have encountered. you know, making unfamiliar experiences accessible without sacrificing the specificity. And that is certainly true of the times in which, you know, Black folks were enslaved in this country and would use stories and jokes, not necessarily as a form of resistance in some ways, but certainly as a form of survival all the way through present day.

3:51So many of these stories are kind of a triumph over the most arduous circumstances. The Mom's Mabley section is just really an Olympian feat of building a life on top of some of the worst traumas I could possibly imagine. Yeah. And one of the most influential standup comics ever and changed her name really to protect her her family, because what she was doing at the time was so was so groundbreaking. She was among the first comedians to talk openly about black life and injustice on stage and used humor to confront racism and politics and sexuality. But because she was doing it in this character that she had created, wearing this, you know, muumuu and a big floppy hat and her purse, and she would sort of slowly sort of daughter on stage.

4:39this image of an older woman, is really the thing that allowed her to crack the kinds of jokes that she did, because it was funny on two levels. Yes, the material worked, but it was also funny to hear these jokes coming out of the mouth of that character that she curated. And there was such a delta between who she was as a person and the Moms Mabley stage character, too. I should say it's the treatment. My guest is one of the anchors of the PBS NewsHour, Jeff Bennett, his book is Black Out Loud, The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to 90s sitcoms. There's always been money to be made from black comedy, and yet it was siloed effectively until the 90s.

5:20Yeah, I mean, that was certainly true of the Chitlin circuit. To your point about it being siloed up until the 90s, that was really the genesis of this book, because I wondered, what was it about the 1990s where you had so many different sitcoms that explored Black life on the air simultaneously. And the simultaneous nature is really the important part because it meant that no one show had to bear the burden of representing the entirety of the Black experience, which is impossible to do, but it so often falls on Black creators to attempt to do that. Working in television for as long as I have, I knew that there is no such thing as a coincidence.

5:56It had to have been a business decision. And so my first interview for the book was with Barry Diller, who launched the Fox Broadcasting Network. And he said that when he knew that he wanted to launch Fox, he knew that it had to have a foothold in major cities. Of course, you know, Black audiences are overrepresented in major urban areas, LA, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, the list goes on. But he said when he looked across the landscape of sitcom TV, the shows were indistinguishable. And he knew that Fox had to be different. It had to be bold and brash. And so word had gone out in Hollywood that that's what he wanted to do.

6:29and of course enterprising TV producers weren't going to make it difficult for an executive to green light their show so one of the pilots he got had the name Not the Cosby Show that's how on the nose the working title of this show was that show goes on to become Married with Children and when Fox finds success with Married with Children that then becomes the formula so you get The Simpsons and Cops and that is what provides the green light for Keenan Ivory Wayans who had just come off of the film I'm going to get you sucka the green light to basically have the funding and the agency and the access to create in living color and to put all of the funny members of his family on TV and to create a pipeline for that show.

7:12Because if you were going to do sketch comedy at that time, you were only really going to do SNL. That was all that was available to you if you were a comic who could do improv and sketch comedy. So we had to go out and find David Alan Greer and find Tommy Davidson. David Spade said that when he saw Jim Carrey's audition, he wondered why he'd even auditioned in the first place, because no one could do what Jim Carrey could do. And Jim Carrey had just come off of a couple of failed sitcoms. So these are all now household names, comic legends. But it really was the genius of Keenan Ivory Wayans, really empowered by Barry Diller to do that work and to do it on TV in the way that he did.

7:48The great thing about the 90s, what you get at the book is that for a long time, and chapter by chapter you deal with this, there's only room for one success, be it Pigmeat Markham or Red Fox or Moms Mabley or Richard Pryor. And the 90s was the first time in popular culture where there was a plethora of Black comic voices, wasn't it? That's right. And I often will remind people, and I did this on the book tour, that of course there were black folks on TV before the 90s. But what's different in particular about the 90s is the level of authorship. You had black showrunners, you had black creators really speaking with specificity and authenticity.

8:29and the fact that, you know, white audiences watch these shows is what made them, white audiences and black audiences together, people, you know, regardless of background and geography or gender, tens of millions of people watching these shows and having conversations about them. That's why we're still talking about these shows 30, 40 years later. And yeah, I mean, you could have a show like A Different World, which was focused on the HBCU experience, a show that had heart. You had the sort of frenetic comic genius of Martin Lawrence. You had Living Single, a show about, you know, four ambitious women as you see them sort of navigate life and love.

9:06That show that went on to basically become the template for Friends. You had a wealthy black family in Bel Air, Fresh Prince of Bel Air. So just across the board, it was so many different aspects and visions and variations of black life that were specific and authentic. Yes, but that had an entry point for all sorts of people to watch and enjoy those shows. And to that point, one of the creators, co-creators of Not the Cosby Show was the African American. That's absolutely right. And you see that, too. There's a lot of cross-pollination. So Yvette Lee Bowser, who created Living Single, she got her start in the writer's room of A Different World, working alongside Debbie Allen.

9:47And, of course, Debbie Allen came in on that show in season two. If you watch, if you go back and watch A Different World, the first season is unlike the rest of that show, largely because— Yes, Marissa Tomei's on it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And Debbie Allen came in season two. The story goes that Felicia Rashad was visiting the set and realized season one wasn't working and told Bill Cosby that, you know, he's going to have to make some changes. And the person to make those changes is her sister, Debbie Allen, who comes in and overhauls the writer's room and looks at the level of detail down to the how the set was dressed.

10:19and she said, you know, that pit, the pit where they have sort of the general gathering, it's like the cafeteria area. She walked through the set, I'm told, and looked at the tables and said, if this is an HBCU, why is there no hot sauce on these tables? So just like the granular detail like that. And that show went on to be a hit. It was number two behind the Cosby show. Cosby show was number one, it felt like for millennia. Two was a different world in the Nielsen ratings. And then Cheers was number three. And that's how it was. It felt like forever and ever. You know, you just had all of those different versions, again, versions of Black life on TV simultaneously.

10:53It was so impactful. We're going to take a break and talk more about this impactful period with my guest, Jeff Bennett. He's taking a little time away from the news hour at PBS to write the book Black Out Loud, the revolutionary history of Black comedy from vaudeville to 90s sitcoms. It's The Treatment. There's more to come. Stay with us.

11:21This is Kim Masters, host of The Business on KCRW. Every week we take a deep dive into the deals and the drama that shape Hollywood. From the power plays in the boardroom to the creative battles on set, we bring you the inside stories behind the entertainment headlines. Check out The Business, part of the NPR Podcast Network.

11:43Welcome back. It's The Treatment. We're Blackout Loud. That's the name of the book, Black Out Loud, by my guest, Jeff Bennett. And one of the things that fascinates me about this as a social cultural study, Jeff, is that subtextually it's so much about the fear of black masculinity. And one of the things I thought coincide with that rise of black comedy and that sort of multiplicity of voices was the rise of hip hop, which was a break from what black culture had been up until that point. saying it could be down and dirty in the mainstream because people such as Red Fox and for a long time Richard Pryor and Moms Mabley and Pygmy Markham, all of whom you talk about in the book, existed in kind of a de facto underground.

12:24Those records were sold under the counters and put in Ben Brown playing rappers. And what hip-hop and that comedy did that you're talking about is just explosion of Black consciousness and cultural expression and commentary that couldn't be ignored. Hip-hop's rise in the 80s and the 90s is a clear example of what you're talking about, this idea of the threat of, this perceived threat of Black masculinity. Because you had artists like NWA, Public Enemy, Tupac, Biggie. I mean, they were often depicted by critics as threats to the social order. And this culture was consumed enthusiastically, even as it was condemned by some people.

13:08And that same dynamic has existed in black comedy. When Richard Pryor was speaking openly about race and police violence and sexuality and social hypocrisy, where some people saw fearless truth-telling, others saw danger. And that has been the case with Chris Rock and even Dave Chappelle. I mean, they occupy this complicated space. They are celebrated for their insight, but they are scrutinized more intensely when their commentary challenges mainstream assumptions. We certainly saw that with Dave Chappelle and some of the jokes he was doing about, you know, the trans community, jokes that were taken out of context, by and large.

13:47And he was criticized, I think, in a way that was not fully squared with the jokes that he was telling and certainly not his intent. So, yeah, that certainly operates on two levels. And we've seen that with music and with comedy, certainly. No, that's why I was just so taken with the book, Jeff, because for me, it did kind of knit itself into this larger tapestry of basically Black culture coming to the point where it can no longer be ignored. It was still terrifying to a lot of people and still is. But I think that's why you could have Arsenio and Eddie Murphy having the successes he had and Live in Color, which was preceded by Townsend Television.

14:26And then on the other hand, you had family matters and also a different world. There were so many different sort of cultural forms of expression in that period that I'm sure somebody who was growing up in that, and you were a kid, as you mentioned in the book, it must have been thrilling to you to suddenly see this explosion of talent and voice and expression everywhere. It really was remarkable. I often say that for for black folks watching these shows growing up, they were mirrors. You could see yourself reflected on screen in a way that had not existed before. And, you know, there's an entire lane of academic research that looks at the Maxine Shaw effect.

15:04Maxine Shaw, attorney at law, this high powered attorney played by Erica Alexander on Living Single. and the research looks at the number of women, Black women in particular, who were inspired or encouraged to go into high-powered professions because they were able to see Erika Alexander's character do it first. And I interviewed her for the book and she told me that even Kamala Harris mentioned to her that while she was in law school, it was helpful to see that character on screen. And Ayanna Pressley and Stacey Abrams and other happened to be politicians who said that they were inspired by that character.

15:39Because think of it, There had never been a dark skinned woman with braids on television as a high powered attorney doing anything. So that was remarkable. So they were mirrors for lots of people, but they were also windows, windows for everybody else who might not have known any black folks. But for a half hour every week could have access to the inner thoughts, the inner lives, the humor, the experience, the laughter of these characters. It's a treat. My guest, who I hope did not see himself in Steve Urkel, is Jack Bennett. He's the author of the book Black Out Loud, the revolutionary history of Black comedy from vaudeville to 90s sitcoms.

16:17Because the thing I thought about Eddie Murphy, it's interesting to have this sort of mirror effect of Eddie Murphy and again Steve Urkel, is that Eddie Murphy redefines what Black masculinity is on screen, that you could be a hero with a sense of humor. You weren't just this sort of stick figure, as the action heroes of the 70s were. And Steve Urkel also said, too, that there could be a character like that who could be beloved by the mainstream and not just the butt of a joke, which is what he was originally created to be. Yeah, and it's funny. I initially did not intend to do a chapter on family matters just because it didn't.

16:54When I think of seminal 90s sitcoms, family matters didn't stand out. But it was my editor, Adonike Olan-Rawaju, who decided that we should really take a second look at it. And it was because that show was the anchor for TGIF, which was ABC's Friday night sitcom lineup. Of course, NBC at the time had Must See TV on Thursdays. But that show was a spinoff of Perfect Strangers and was never really intended to be a vehicle for Jaleel White or Steve Urkel. But after that character arrived on screen, it really stuck. And the show became written around him. And he talks about how that became a real issue behind the scenes where, you know, the veteran actors on that show didn't intend and initially didn't appreciate having to share time and having to share star power with Steve Urkel.

17:45And Jaleel also talks about how when he was getting his degree from UCLA, he took a television criticism course. And the professor didn't realize he was in the class and was trying to make a larger point about how Steve Urkel was, in this professor's vision, like a modern day Sambo. Which, again, is a misreading of what that show was and what that show sought to do and even what their Urkel character was. But again, it speaks to, again, the different versions and variations of black life and blackness that were on TV at the time. So that, you know, imagine if Family Matters was the only show on TV and Urkel was the prevailing image of blackness.

18:26It would have been a controversy. But at the time, you didn't. You also had, you know, shows like New York Undercover, which was an incredible drama. So this book focuses on sitcoms and comedy, but just across the board. I mean, Black cultural creation in the 1990s was unmatched. Basically, everybody you single out in the book, these are all people who worked for a while before they achieved big success. With the exception of Eddie Murphy, almost none of them exploded, even in their 20s. And as a result, had a chance to sort of figure out what it was they wanted to say, just to find themselves.

19:00even the group from In Living Color these are all people who were in their 30s I mean Damon Wayans had just been fired from Saturday Night Live and David Alan Greer had been nominated for a Tony early in the 80s and these are all people who were waiting for a chance, they've been sort of saving it up, the chance to really express themselves and now things move so much faster and people don't get a lifetime or a couple of decades to find themselves they can explode on social media and suddenly they have to figure out what the next move is going to be. What gave way to the 90s was this convergence.

19:37It was this rare convergence of talent, timing and cultural urgency. And so to your point, you had all of these incredible actors and comedians waiting in the wings for their shot. Today, you know, it's so often said there are no more gatekeepers. And if people have a great idea, they can use social media to get it out in front of people and find success. I think there's value to having gatekeepers. I mean, there's a certain level of quality control that comes when you have gatekeepers. And certainly in a writer's room, if you're a new or sort of mid-level comic writer, there are 10 to 15 other people in the room who have far more experience and a different perspective who can help you workshop your jokes.

20:19That doesn't necessarily happen if you're a creator and you're just sitting in front of your computer or your phone all day working on your edits and then, you know, uploading it to Instagram or TikTok and just waiting for the for the views to to accrue. It's a different experience. And I think it's one of the reasons why, even as there's more content, it's not as good. It's not as good as some of the stuff that you were seeing even 10 years ago. Because there are fewer people who have the experience and frankly, who are sort of in a position to say yes or no. And there's something to be learned through that process, through the auditioning process, through the writer's room process, through the old school process of becoming better at the craft.

21:01Wow, that's a terrific note to end on, which makes me think I can't wait to read what your next book is going to be. My guest is anchor and author Jeff Bennett. His book is Black Out Loud, the revolutionary history of black comedy from vaudeville to 90s sitcoms. Thanks so much for doing this, Jeff. Elvis, it is such a privilege to speak with you. As I said, I've been a fan of you and your work for a long time. So it's great to be in conversation with you. Thank you.

21:33We got to know Jeff Bennett as a journalist, and these days, he's co-anchor on the PBS NewsHour. He's also got a unique take on culture, which he shows in his new book, Black Out Loud, the revolutionary history of black comedy from vaudeville to sitcoms. It's now at bookstores. Conversations on the history of black comedy, such as the interview with Tiffany Haddish, We got them at the archive, kcrw.com slash thetreatment. We also drop new installments of our series of creators on their inspirations, The Treat, every week at kcrw.com slash thetreat. This week, Simon Helberg, who we know from the sitcom The Big Bang Theory and now from the AMC show The Audacity, on a play that challenged the way we examined small moments and went on to win the Pulitzer.

22:26This show changes every week. Luckily, it's still produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilquist. To better days, everyone, I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treatment.

22:56Thank you.