Among the changes made for this television version was to make the characters more middle class. The Fresh Air Taxi Company was changed from the old rundown model T to a later model car with Amos's uniform and office being neat and tidy and always presented as professional.
Despite decent ratings, CBS pulled the show when the NAACP complained of how they believed blacks were being depicted on this show. The syndicated reruns were pulled from circulation in 1966 after similar protests.
In the documentary _Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy (1986) (TV)_ , Alvin Childress (Amos) said that he never felt that the show was that negative of a portrayal of blacks since it was the only television show at the time that showed black people as businessmen, policemen, judges and doctors rather than maids or janitors.
The original radio series had been one of the biggest hits for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). This television version was run on the rival Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).
In the documentary _Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy (1986) (TV)_ , Charles J. Correll's son Richard Correll stated that one of the reasons Spencer Williams was cast in the role of Andrew H. Brown was because he looked a lot like Charles Correll in blackface.
Sapphire's mother (Kingfish's mother-in-law) and Madame Queen were played by real-life sisters and veteran actresses Amanda Randolph and Lillian Randolph.
In order to assemble their dream cast, the producers enticed veteran performers Tim Moore (George "Kingfish" Stevens) and Spencer Williams (Andrew Brown) with very lucrative (for the time) offers, as both had already retired after long careers in show business.
For more than two decades, the voices of Amos, Andy and the others (performed on radio by white actors Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll) had become familiar to a large segment of the American public. In choosing actors for this television version, they wanted to find competent actors whose voices sounded close to the already famous character voices from radio. Alvin Childress's natural voice sounded very close to Freeman Gosden's Amos, Spencer Williams sounded, and even looked, like Charles J. Correll's Andy. Tim Moore was able to duplicate the vocal performance of Kingfish (also done on radio by Freeman Gosden).