I haven't really decided on my nominations yet, but one of them will definitely be I Spy, a 1966 buddy-cop spy adventure show and the (depending on the specific critera you're using) one of the first American tv shows, if not the very first, to feature a black actor as a lead. (More info here and here.)
You can watch the entire series on Hulu, or get all three seasons on Amazon.com for about $36 last time I checked.
two notes:
1) due to the amount of ad-libbing and re-writing that went on, especially of Scotty and Kelly's scenes, I almost kind of want to argue that I Spy could be counted as a show with a co-creator of color, Bill Cosby; but really more in spirit and in tone, not so much in the actual letter.
2) They did a lot of international shooting, filming blocks of episodes in China, Japan, Spain, Italy, Greece, Mexico, etc., and honestly although they were more subtle and more ground-breaking on the issue of *Scotty's* race than most people seem to think, even today, they often were *really bad* at portraying the ~~exotic~~ people & cultures they were visiting, so be aware that (especially in the first-season block of episodes with Asian settings) there are varying moments and levels of fail there, interspersed with the occasional moment when they get it *really right*.
no subject
I haven't really decided on my nominations yet, but one of them will definitely be I Spy, a 1966 buddy-cop spy adventure show and the (depending on the specific critera you're using) one of the first American tv shows, if not the very first, to feature a black actor as a lead. (More info here and here.)
You can watch the entire series on Hulu, or get all three seasons on Amazon.com for about $36 last time I checked.
two notes:
1) due to the amount of ad-libbing and re-writing that went on, especially of Scotty and Kelly's scenes, I almost kind of want to argue that I Spy could be counted as a show with a co-creator of color, Bill Cosby; but really more in spirit and in tone, not so much in the actual letter.
2) They did a lot of international shooting, filming blocks of episodes in China, Japan, Spain, Italy, Greece, Mexico, etc., and honestly although they were more subtle and more ground-breaking on the issue of *Scotty's* race than most people seem to think, even today, they often were *really bad* at portraying the ~~exotic~~ people & cultures they were visiting, so be aware that (especially in the first-season block of episodes with Asian settings) there are varying moments and levels of fail there, interspersed with the occasional moment when they get it *really right*.