Classic TV’s Most Unconvincing Indians

November means Thanksgiving, a time to remember that celebrated moment when Pilgrims and Indians shared a festive dinner table. Many of us first learned about the history and culture of Native Americans while studying Thanksgiving in elementary school. Hopefully those lessons were more accurate that what we learned from television during the Comfort TV era. 

I’m not going to condemn or defend the broad portrayals of Native-Americans in situation comedies. But I will say that when they were funny, I laughed. I don’t think that makes me a horrible person, but then we are rarely the best judges of our own characters.

There were a few (comparatively) earnest portrayals in this era as well, beginning with Jay Silverheels as Tonto on the classic Lone Ranger series. 

It helped that Silverheels was indeed Native-American – a Mohawk from Six Nations of the Grand River in Ohsweken, Canada. While he spoke in the broken English common to most Indians in film and TV westerns (“Him dead, kemo sabe”), there was also dignity in the character, and frequent acknowledgment that this “faithful Indian companion” was not a sidekick but a full partner in the Lone Ranger’s crime fighting exploits.

And then there was this guy:

Nearly 50 years later it is still a remarkably effective public service announcement, even if the crying Indian, billed as Iron Eyes Cody, was actually an Italian actor named Espera DeCorti. His work here belies the now common assertion that performers should always be the same ethnicity as the characters they play. Could anyone else have made that final image more heartrending?

I think I’d also have to put Ed Ames in the positive category, for his long-running portrayal of Mingo on Daniel Boone (and perhaps also for the most famous tomahawk throw in the history of television).

But enough praise – let’s get to those offensive but amusing stereotypes. Here are the nominees for classic TV’s most unconvincing Indians.

Bernie Kopell as Black Salmon

Petticoat Junction (1964)

In “The Umquaw Strip,” series villain Homer Bedloe discovers that the Cannonball passes through a stretch of land that was never legally acquired from the Indians. His scheme to shut down the railroad fails, but it does offer a chance to see Bernie Kopell, one of TV’s most prolific sitcom character actors, play a member of the Umquaw tribe (one who attended Harvard Business School).

Don Rickles as Bald Eagle

F Troop (1965)

If any series specialized in the type of Native American ethnic humor that typified this gleefully unenlightened era, it’s F Troop.

As if Frank DeKova’s recurring role as Chief Wild Eagle was not enough, the show featured a succession of guest stars who joined the tribe for some equally inappropriate banter, none more memorable than Don Rickles in “The Return of Bald Eagle.”  Rickles is totally unhinged as Wild Eagle’s soldier-hating son. 

Don Adams as Running Creek

Get Smart (1965)

A rogue band of Indians called the Red Feathers demand the return of their stolen land, or they’ll unleash a powerful new weapon. Max infiltrates the tribe and winds up engaged to the chief’s daughter. Of course Agent 86 in buckskins is funny, but “Washington 4, Redskins 3” also unveils one of the funniest sight gags in the history of television. The first time I saw it, I thought I’d never stop laughing. 

Edward Everett Horton as Chief Screaming Chicken

Batman (1966)

The plot of “An Egg Grows in Gotham” is strikingly similar to the Petticoat Junction episode with Bernie Kopell: Arch-criminal Egghead (Vincent Price) finds a technicality that would revert ownership of Gotham City to the Mohicans, now led by Chief Screaming Chicken. Edward Everett Horton steals every scene he’s in with the sort of lines you couldn’t say now without getting in trouble: “Indian poor businessman, my cousin, he sell Manhattan for 24 dollars, could have got 35!”

Burt Reynolds at John Hawk

Hawk (1966)

We’re told that John Hawk, detective with the New York District Attorney’s office, is a full-blooded Iroquois, but that just seems like something this short-lived series came up with to make a standard character more exotic. It’s also a role entirely unsuited to the charismatic Burt Reynolds. The stoic Hawk rarely cracks a smile and speaks in a slightly clipped monotone – like an urban Tonto. It’s a well-shot series that still has its supporters, judging from the high IMDB episode ratings, but Reynolds wasn’t one of them. It was a frequent target of his self-deprecating Tonight Show appearances. If you’re curious, check out the first episode, which features Gene Hackman as a Bible-quoting psychotic killer. 

Raymond Bailey as “Chief” Drysdale

Beverly Hillbillies (1967)

As in Petticoat Junction, another Paul Henning series, we have a white man impersonating an Indian to make a few bucks. Co-written by Henning, “The Indians are Coming” opens with the Clampetts learning about a minor border issue between their oil-rich land and the adjoining Crowfeet Indian reservation. At the bank, Mr. Drysdale is roused by the news: 

“They hit a gusher there! Send a message to my red brothers – Milburn Drysdale speak with straight tongue…send all black wampum my bank, we put in solid steel teepee.”

Miss Jane: “No…there’s been a boundary dispute and the Indians are claiming part of the Clampett oil land.”

Drysdale: “Why those dirty, thieving savages!”

The tribal representatives, Chief Running Wolf and his son, are cultured 20^th century men who arrive at the bank to find Drysdale in full buckskins, spouting every Indian cliché from every western movie. The Chief and his son play along, letting him embarrass himself further. 

Willliam Shatner as Kir-ok

Star Trek (1968)

“The Paradise Syndrome” is not quite as bad as “Spock’s Brain” and “The Way to Eden,” but it dwells in the same rundown neighborhood of questionable third-season episodes. The Enterprise visits a planet populated by a tribe that resembles the Native-Americans from earth’s history. Kirk joins the tribe after his memory is wiped, and is soon being worshipped as the great healer, the only brave worthy of marrying the lovely Indian priestess Miramanee. It’s all a bit silly but William Shatner gives it everything he’s got and then some, as he always did to help sell a substandard script. 

The Duke and The Clampetts: Politically Incorrect Moments in Classic TV History

“The Indians are Coming”

The Beverly Hillbillies

In the course of researching a magazine article I am writing on John Wayne, I was reminded of a 1967 episode of The Beverly Hillbillies in which Mr. Wayne makes a cameo appearance.

As I watched, my internal commentary kept repeating the same sentence: you couldn’t get away with that anymore. This nearly 50 year-old episode of a network situation comedy would now be deemed terribly offensive. 

You know what apparently isn’t offensive? Game of Thrones, the series that just won the Emmy for Best Drama. That’s the show that has featured, among other things, multiple rapes and graphic beheadings, a woman paraded naked through the streets and pelted with garbage, a child strapped to a stake and set on fire, and a brother and sister spending a special kind of quality time with each other that siblings don’t usually share.

Isn’t it wonderful living in such enlightened times?

But I digress.

Co-written by series creator Paul Henning, “The Indians are Coming” opens with the Clampetts learning about a minor border issue between their oil land and the adjoining Crowfeet Indian reservation. To the Indians, it’s a simple matter easily settled, but to Granny this can only mean one thing – the Crowfeet are on the warpath: “Except for John Wayne, nobody knows injuns like me!”

Down at the bank, Mr. Drysdale is also roused by the news: 

“They hit a gusher there! Send a message to my red brothers – Milburn Drysdale speak with straight tongue…send all black wampum my bank, we put in solid steel teepee.”

Miss Jane: “No…there’s been a boundary dispute and the Indians are claiming part of the Clampett oil land.”

Drysdale: “Why those dirty, thieving savages!”

The tribal representatives, Chief Running Wolf and his son, are cultured 20^th century men (Chief Running Wolf graduated from Oxford), who realize the minor boundary issue could have been handled by correspondence, but they wanted to see California.

When they arrive at the bank they find Drysdale in full buckskins and feathered headdress, spouting every Indian cliché from every western movie. The Chief and his son play along, letting him embarrass himself further.  

By now, Granny has heard that the Crowfeet are coming to Beverly Hills, and tries to alert the community: “The injuns are coming! Put your cars in a circle!”

While Jed has a cordial meeting with Chief Running Wolf, Mr. Drysdale finds Granny preparing for a full-scale attack, and ready to return home to fight there if she can’t fight the enemy in Beverly Hills. To avoid the Clampetts leaving and taking their deposits with them, he calls a movie studio and orders up a staged Indian attack (after removing all the real ammunition from Granny’s gun).

Once the mock siege is turned away Granny, none the wiser, sits quietly in her rocker, and that’s when John Wayne appears: "I understand you were looking for me." Granny slowly stands and asks, "Where was ya when I need ya, John?" 

Is “The Indians are Coming” offensive? To those with a Pavlovian response to racial slurs regardless of context, absolutely. Expressions like “red savages,” “redskins” and “red devils” are liberally sprinkled throughout the episode.

But here’s the thing: those expressions are used only by characters that are unsophisticated and self-serving. As a result, they do not degrade the Native-Americans, portrayed as sophisticated, kind and tolerant, but instead reveal the callowness of those who use them.

When Jethro enters a hotel room where the two Native-American representatives are dressed in business suits and says, “Wrong room, Uncle Jed, we’re lookin’ for a couple of ignorant Indians,” it’s funny because Jethro, as stupid a character as TV has every introduced, is calling someone else ignorant while personifying that description.

And when Mr. Drysdale, moved by consuming greed, tries to placate Chief Running Wolf with colorful beads and trinkets, the scene works because of the over-the-top silliness of his insensitivity, as well as the bemused response it receives from its recipients. 

Of course, none of this will matter to those hell-bent on eradicating any words, symbols or subjects perceived to be hostile to any sub-section of the human race. 

Will you laugh? I know I did. It’s one of the funniest sitcom episodes I’ve watched in recent months. Irene Ryan is a force of nature playing Granny’s gung ho fighting spirit. But humor is subjective, and I’m sure there are those who find this type of comedy a relic of a previous age that is best forgotten. 

The entire unedited episode is on YouTube - let me know what you think.