3. TIL that the show Touched by an Angel aired an episode in 1999 featuring a cameo...

TIL that the show Touched by an Angel aired an episode in 1999 featuring a cameo by none other than Rosa Parks. The episode also featured its star, Roma Downey, in blackface for a good portion of its story.

I actually remember channel surfing to this when it was new and giving it the ol' "ai yi yi" and questioning whether or not my eyes were actually seeing what was happening on screen.

It's easy to understand the message they were trying to convey with this episode, but the method they used to do it in was WHACK AF, even for back then.

Most people who saw the episode immediately took it for what it was: a laughably wrongheaded contradiction done in complete earnest by a cast and crew seemingly too stupid to ask themselves "What the FUCK are we doing here?"

You got the "Oh God, please make me white again!" scene with yer Scottish WASP lady breaking down in hysterics (while being pursued by some non-reality based version of TV rednecks) in her disturbingly-applied black face makeup, complete with nappy wig. Pics here: https://www.themakeupgallery.info/racial/afro/touched.htm

...then you shoehorn in a Rosa Parks cameo, just in case we're all too stupid to realize that racism is 'orrible, 'orrible stuff.

This shit stood out as dumb, cloying, misguided, and offensive back when it was made. It's not like everybody in the pre-woke era was supportive of such idiotics, i's just there was less of an outlet for public discussion about such displays whenever they'd happen. Entertainment was much more fleeting.

That said, every kid I knew who saw this episode (no matter what their color) all had the same reaction the next day at school -- which was the to make fun it incessantly for the tone deaf stupidity it was... at least in that sense, it brought everybody together!

"Touched by An Angel" was not an intelligent show. It existed to pander to a certain demographic who could only handle their message and morality-based entertainment with all the subtly of a blow to the head with a hammer.

"Quantum Leap" at least handled most of this type of material with a certain sensitivity and style (although it could be plenty groan inducing itself), whereas "Touched by an Angel" was the McDonalds version of that steakhouse. "Early Edition" was somewhere in the middle.

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