“Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” is that gift that keeps on giving. First aired in 1983, the special was a mainstay in my childhood for years later thanks to the newfangled wonder that was VHS recording. This is the same television special that I’ve already posted clips from three times – when Michael Jackson first unveiled the Moonwalk, the Four Tops and Temptations had a classic battle, and Stevie Wonder rocked the house in a way so memorable that I still remember every note. Why hasn’t anyone re-released this thing instead of making us watch the BET and MTV…

How come nobody told me today was Shakespeare’s birthday? Just because he’d be an impossible 455 years old, I guess. I’ve studied some Shakespeare (mostly by force) but never fully embraced the common perception that his works are hard to understand. Almost every sitcom has an episode where a frazzled high school or college student struggles to interpret Shakespeare; it’s almost as common a plot device as a card/pool shark trying swindle a main character out of some money. I guess that’s what made Dr. Foster (Roscoe Lee Browne) so important to the 90’s Cosby franchise: he appears in…

Dorian Harewood epitomizes the problematic nature of the category “obscure black c-listers.” Yes, I know I’m the one responsible for its creation, but please allow me to re-explain what the term means because I’ve fielded numerous questions about it lately.

In spite of an actor’s talent or long-standing performance career, there are some many actors whose names are far from the household level. Hundreds of very recognizable black actors could rob a bank and still be treated as anonymous Hollywood bit players in the news (except by, perhaps, Jet Magazine, but that’s another post). Sure, Halle…

If I were a space alien who just landed on earth I’d expect a network with the name “Black Entertainment Television” to take responsibility for rejuvenating our fractured culture and blessing our people with as much black artistic expression as resources allowed. But then there’s reality, and as much I didn’t have high expectations for the next black sitcom to hit the airwaves, BET’s Somebodies is somewhere between a step in the wrong direction and thirty tedious minutes on the sitcom treadmill.

The premise and style of Somebodies…

Charles Dickens’A Christmas Carol is one of the most re-made stories in the history of literature, and if you have never seen the black version, John Grin’s Christmas starring Robert Guillaume as the Scrooge character, you are far from alone. If you missed it the one time it aired in 1988, then let me tell you all about it.

Robert Guillaume produced and directed John Grin’s Christmas and enrolled a semi c-list and fabulous black cast. First, as the Tiny Tim character, a fatherless West Indian boy named Rocky, we had Alfonso Ribero at that cute age back when…

I’ve realized that the underlying purpose of this blog is going to have to be cataloguing the minutia of black pop culture, which is long overdue. Therefore, I’m starting this new feature, “The Black Version.” If you haven’t seen “the black version” of certain things you need to catch up. Period.

Polly is the black version of Pollyanna, and is inherently and legitimately SO much more entertaining than anything Haley Mills could ever manage. First of all, Keisha Knight-Pulliam as Polly, Phylicia Rashad as her aunt, and half of the black actors that you have ever heard of in…