Family Theater: Gentlemen, Be Seated Audiobook By Radio Spirits cover art

Family Theater: Gentlemen, Be Seated

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Family Theater: Gentlemen, Be Seated

By: Radio Spirits
Narrated by: Tony La Frano
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About this listen

Family Theater is a dramatic anthology radio series that aired from 1947 to 1957. This episode is the story of "Sugarfoot Calhoun", an American minstrel legend who decides to go into television. A heart attack just before the first show forces his reluctant son to follow an old tradition. Starring Rosalind Russell (hostess), Eddie Cantor, Merrill Ross (announcer), Ann Tobin, George Neise, Leo Cleary, and GeGe Pearson.

©2014 RSPT, LLC (P)2014 RSPT, LLC Literature & Fiction
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I wasn’t bothered by the racial aspect of this story at all. The main point of the story is the idea of standing by your family, no matter what. It is basically a shortened retelling of “The Jazz Singer”. A young man sees his father’s values as outdated, old-fashioned, and definitely not for him. In the end, the son embraces the values he started out shunning.

I enjoyed the program. The racial factor is beside the point, as far as I am concerned.

The Racial Aspect Is Not What The Story Is About

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What in my entire library suggested that I wanted to hear a freaking racist MINSTREL SHOW?! It didn’t even make any pretense at being anything other than the racist celebration it is, referring to burnt cork blackface in the introduction.

I was willing to sit through Rosalind Russell telling me that “the family that prays together stays together,” but bookending this racist crap with smarmy “prayerfulness” only deepens the offensiveness of this material.

These radio plays should be preserved by the Library of Congress for the sake of history. But they have NO place in being offered as modern entertainment.

This is nauseating.

Why in the %^€BLEEP$!/ was this recommended?!?!

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