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I'm no TV historian, but after a bit of research, I find:
I Love Lucy (1951), white woman/Cuban man. This hardly even registers as interracial to me, but the executives then were worried.
The Jeffersons (1975), white man/black woman.
Dynasty (1983), mixed-race woman, daughter of another character and his black mistress; would have mixed romance of her own.
Robotech (1985), white man/black woman.
***
If you're thinking "you suddenly realized Robotech was odd in that for 1985, and wondered if it was in fact the first mixed couple on US TV", you're right, that's exactly what I did. Someone on rpg.net had pointed out that a certain cosmopolitanism is part of the Macross formula, at least for the original series and Macross Plus. (Mixed race couple, diverse cultural origins, apparently diverse clothing styles in Plus.) And the answer seems to be "no, wasn't first, but was pretty early, and possibly first for children's cartoons. Though who can tell, it's not like the lists I found mentioned Robotech."
This is one thing I'm not sure Macross Frontier propagated, though I guess to Japanese sensibilities Alto/Sheryl might also be mixed-race (Japanese boy, white girl.) (There are also human/Zentraedi pairings and offspring, but "alien who looks just like us" isn't as radical as "actual different-race human".) Robotech did: the second series has the black Bowie Grant running off with the pale skinned Musica. (Macross Frontier does have a diverse cast, including an openly gay male; I just don't recall if it had a white/black couple anywhere.) And of course all Robotech series were based on existing anime, so Japan was a few years ahead of us -- granted, without US racial hangups, but with a lot of racism of their own. Though I suppose they might not care whether whites and blacks hook up, that's just non-Japanese people doing their thing. Japanese/non-Japanese couples in anime might be more interesting to track, there.
I Love Lucy (1951), white woman/Cuban man. This hardly even registers as interracial to me, but the executives then were worried.
The Jeffersons (1975), white man/black woman.
Dynasty (1983), mixed-race woman, daughter of another character and his black mistress; would have mixed romance of her own.
Robotech (1985), white man/black woman.
***
If you're thinking "you suddenly realized Robotech was odd in that for 1985, and wondered if it was in fact the first mixed couple on US TV", you're right, that's exactly what I did. Someone on rpg.net had pointed out that a certain cosmopolitanism is part of the Macross formula, at least for the original series and Macross Plus. (Mixed race couple, diverse cultural origins, apparently diverse clothing styles in Plus.) And the answer seems to be "no, wasn't first, but was pretty early, and possibly first for children's cartoons. Though who can tell, it's not like the lists I found mentioned Robotech."
This is one thing I'm not sure Macross Frontier propagated, though I guess to Japanese sensibilities Alto/Sheryl might also be mixed-race (Japanese boy, white girl.) (There are also human/Zentraedi pairings and offspring, but "alien who looks just like us" isn't as radical as "actual different-race human".) Robotech did: the second series has the black Bowie Grant running off with the pale skinned Musica. (Macross Frontier does have a diverse cast, including an openly gay male; I just don't recall if it had a white/black couple anywhere.) And of course all Robotech series were based on existing anime, so Japan was a few years ahead of us -- granted, without US racial hangups, but with a lot of racism of their own. Though I suppose they might not care whether whites and blacks hook up, that's just non-Japanese people doing their thing. Japanese/non-Japanese couples in anime might be more interesting to track, there.
