Let's go by Cogotten Hollywood.

Welcome to Forgotten Hollywood.

I'm your host, James law Junior, your guest host, producer and regular host.

Like Hanslan Assignment, I'm taking you back to the earliest seventies.

I was a kid, and I remember the show being huge.

I remember Gerald Deane.

The first person I saw in Drag is a black person that was done for laughs.

This person was.

A groundbreaking televish personality from the seventies.

Flip Wilson.

You're old enough, you've heard the name.

You're even older enough you remember him.

Flip Wilson made Time Magazine, Life, Magazine, People.

He was a star.

Klero.

Flip Wilson Junior, like me, a junior was born in December eighth, so this month, Mark says, would have been his eighty second birthday.

No.

Ninety second, eighty second, seventy second.

I came in nineteen thirty three.

I kept you math.

He died in twenty eight November, so that's around the same time he was.

He's considered the first black TV superstar and the highest pay performer of his era.

You know, one of the things is he was one of eighteen children from Jersey City.

His mother left the family, so he said, with his father, and at some point he was in foster care.

He was in the military, which many did that back then.

He went to the US Air Force and maybody laugh, he became Flip.

That was the nickname there.

Then then he started the Osden jobs.

That became a comedian.

He was somebody.

Why I mentioned him today because I you know, these are he's not talked about enough.

He was very underrated.

It's a great documentary out about him too.

He was just a comedian.

He was a cultural phenomenon.

White audiences loved him.

Everyone loved him.

He redefined representation and he proved that a black entertainer could dominate prime time television on his own turns.

It his pre Richard Pryor before Red Fox was still in the clubs, but he was on TV yet before Annie Murphy, before you know any of the comedians that came before Bill Cosby.

Bill Cosby was doing drama.

He was doing I Spy in the sixties and doing comedy records.

But Phlip Wilson was like a Carol Burnett's He was like he did interviews and he did sketches and he did ketch comedy and he did stand up.

I ain't talked to the Ardi audience.

He was somebody that I just looked up to, you just as a kid seeing him.

He is.

The Flip Wilson Show was this giant, giant hit from nineteen seventy nineteen seventy four.

At the peak of the show, he was earning over one hundred thousand dollars an episode.

Think about that for the early seventies.

That's a lot.

He was the first black performer to host a major network variety series with huge ratings.

He also became the first black entertainer to win an Emmy for variety series and appear on major you know and all the major stuff.

He is the first black TV starter reached top tier earning status in American television.

Bill Cosby and Diane Carroll are close.

Bill Cosby later we could talk about this point.

It just there was I spy and he was the leader then.

But later with Collie Show, which did even better, and then we talked about her before Diane carrolls, Julia was big.

The show was a just a cultural revolution.

It just was, you know, it's he had first been the stand up comedian, you know, being on Johnny Carson, which was always do anything at Sullivan's show, laughing.

His style was non threatening, but he was sharp, lots of character driven comedy, very smart.

You know, someone will say he's pre He's a precursor to maybe like a Chris Rock later.

He appealed to all audiences.

Was just that just was back then.

It was just really rare for a black comedian.

He had a bunch of catchphrases that I'm America really too again.

His show, which was on NBC, No One needs how clearly expected don't do anything.

He is the first black person.

I can saying that he's first, but just the truth.

He's the first black person to host and produce a major network variety show.

In its debut season nineteen seventy seventy one, it was number two in the Nielsen ratings.

It won two Emmys.

He had people like Jackson five, I'm Not Leave, Lucille Ball, Ray, Charles raitha Frankman on the show.

It's what it Is.

It showed that black entertainers and talent could carry a primetime TV show.

Just thinking about it now, it's like, just thinking about it, it's like, of course they can, right no, but back then they weren't sure.

There wasn't no one.

There was no before.

Well, I mean, I King Cole in the fifties had a brief brush with success on TV, and this show was a huge hit.

But it was taken down fast because people in the South windon now.

But I was like in the fifties, we're talking twenty years later.

He was able the right timing.

He ordered breakdown racial barriers.

He was the master of character comedy, and two of his characters were huge.

Geraldine, as I just mentioned, Jeraldine Jones was his bold, sassy woman.

These several catchphrases were what you see as what you get, as the devil made me do it.

Geraldine was so loved by the public many forgot that she was played by Flip Wilson.

And the thing that made Geraldine not sort of a caricature.

It was cartedish on some level.

But Geraldine was strong majoro teen is like empowering woman.

So it wasn't just like you know it was, it was Jeraldine was somebody.

He also did Reverend Leroy and he was a leader of the Church of What's Happening Now, very satirical routine flamboyant preachers.

But it was fun.

It wasn't you watch them.

They're not mean spirited.

It's just like some fun television.

By nineteen seventy two, he was the first black entertainer to become the number one order on television period, one of the richest performers in Hollywood, obviously laying the groundwork for our citior Hall, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, all them.

So he proved back then in the seventies a black community could be commercially and the critics loved him too, so critically successful at the same time in the top level.

But you know, after all that, he decided to, you know, come things come to us.

Four years not a long time.

He decided to leave the spotlight and raise his children.

He did a few specials and things, but he just kind of prayed into the background.

There was his turn on his terms.

The thing about him is.

Why I chose him to talk about on this and why I choose anybody.

This person was universally loved, commercially successful, fully in control producing his art.

He was just a groundbreaking artist.

But he was just so well liked, and I was he loved it just like people really we mentioned his name.

They smile A laid the groundwork for so many black comedians later, but he also produced some really good television.

So Fip Wilson is our forgotten how because people just don't talk about enough.

So he's now well, we'll never forget him on this show, right, So there you go.

I'm James I Jr.

For gott in Hollywood.

It's on Facebook.

We have for yeah, you know this is coming out during the Christmas holiday.

We do have a Forgotten Hollywood Christmas book.

Well, it's our favorite Christmas Films on Amazon dot Com.

Dougast and James Augnier to check that out, of course.

Shout to Dougasts, Shout to all of you, thanks for making to show a huge hit for us as you always do.

As we head towards four hundred episodes and I was crazy in six years of doing this.

Again, I'm James.

Talk to you next time.