Boxcars711 Old Time Radio

Amos 'n' Andy creators Gosden and Correll were white actors familiar with minstrel traditions. They met in Durham, North Carolina in 1920, and by the fall of 1925, they were performing nightly song-and-patter routines on the Chicago Tribune's station WGN. Since the Tribune syndicated Sidney Smith's popular comic strip The Gumps, which had successfully introduced the concept of daily continuity, WGN executive Ben McCanna thought the notion of a serialized drama could also work on radio. He suggested to Gosden and Correll that they adapt The Gumps to radio. They instead proposed a series about "a couple of colored characters" and borrowed certain elements of The Gumps. Their new series, Sam 'n' Henry, began January 12, 1926, fascinating radio listeners throughout the Midwest.