Visitors to Google.com Wednesday will get a glimpse of groundbreaking Indigenous comedian Charlie Hill, a member of the Oneida Nation who grew up in Wisconsin, attended UW-Madison and went on to break barriers in film, television and standup comedy.
Wednesday would have been Hill’s 71st birthday. He died of lymphoma back at home in Oneida in 2013.
Today’s #GoogleDoodle celebrates the Native American stand-up comedy legend, Charlie Hill, who broke into the industry and challenged harmful stereotypes.
Learn how he worked hard to become the first Native comedian to appear on national TV → https://t.co/7BO3M6DaD0 pic.twitter.com/5iL79NOZuk
— Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles) July 6, 2022
Hill’s first network appearance was on The Richard Pryor Show in 1977. He also appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and made multiple appearances on Late Night with David Letterman. He was a writer on the sitcom Roseanne.
Hill was chosen to host for the First Americans in the Arts awards show in Hollywood three times. One time, he co-hosted with the Oneida singer Joanne Shenandoah. As a stand-up comedian, he appeared in venues internationally and was a regular at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. Hill appeared on many television shows, and hosted an evening of Native American comedians on a Showtime special. He was the subject of the PBS documentary On and Off The Res’ with Charlie Hill (1999), directed by Sandra Osawa.
Wednesday’s Google Doodle was created by Alanah Astehtsi Otsistohkwa (Morningstar) Jewell, a French-First Nations artist of the Oneida Nation of the Thames who lives in Ontario.
“We originate from the same people, both have matrilineal cultures and societies, and have very similar ways of life,” she said on the Google Doodle blog. “As an artist, I create artwork specifically for Indigenous people that can relate to the teachings and meaning in my work. To be able to illustrate Charlie, depict his closest connections and things that were meaningful to him, and create an honourable representation of his spirit for his family, is incredibly fulfilling to me.”
