Leslie Uggams Show, The

1 9 6 9 (USA)
10 x 60 minute episodes

This CBS variety show hosted by Leslie Uggams featured music, songs, dances and comedy, including a regular featured sketch entitled ‘Sugar Hill’ which told of the struggles of a poor black family and featured Lillian Hayman as ‘Mama’, the mother of son Lamont (Johnny Brown) and daughters Sheila (Uggams) and Aletha (Allison Mills), with Lincoln Kilpatrick as Sheila’s husband, B.J.

Guests on the show included Sammy Davis Jr, Johnny Mathis, Stevie Wonder, Don Knotts, Bob Denver, Jim Nabors, Dick Van Dyke, Ruth Buzzi, Mike “Mannix” Connors, Ken Berry, Sly and the Family Stone, Raymond Burr and the cast of Hogan’s Heroes, including Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer, John Banner, Larry Hovis and Robert Clary.

The show aired at 9 pm on Sunday nights between September and December 1969, inheriting the Smothers Brothers timeslot (and their producers) when that controversial show was cancelled.

The Leslie Uggams Show was cancelled abruptly in December – officially because it had received low ratings competing in the same time slot as NBC’s Bonanza and the ABC Sunday Night Movie. CBS paid off the cast for the five remaining episodes which had been contracted for.