In 1948, CBS hired Flournoy Miller as a casting advisor for the planned "Amos 'n' Andy" TV series. They had failed to locate Tim Moore for the role of George "Kingfish" Stevens, a role which was created and voiced on radio by white actor Freeman Gosden. It was Miller's job to trace the actor's whereabouts. Meanwhile, in January 1950, Moore went to New York to perform at the Apollo and appear as guest star on CBS-TV's "Toast of the Town". After fulfilling these engagements, Moore returned to Rock Island. A few months later, Flournoy Miller called the manager of the Apollo and finally received Moore's address. Moore did voice tests at CBS radio studios in Peoria and Chicago, and then was brought to CBS-TV in Hollywood for a screen test. He returned to Rock Island. Shortly after this, he was signed by Columbia Broadcasting System to star in a new television adaptation of "Amos 'n' Andy". As the radio series had developed in prior years, the scheming but henpecked Kingfish had become the central focus of most of the plots. In the television version, Moore played the character more broadly, with louder and more forceful delivery and a distinctive Georgia drawl, exaggerated for comic effect. Moore's Kingfish dominated the calmer and soft-spoken "Amos 'n' Andy" characters. Early in his career, Moore had developed a "con-man" routine he used for many years while in vaudeville; re-working some aspects of his old act produced the television character Kingfish.