One of my favorite shows of all time.
>>as an ignorant bigot while liberal Mike was a college student
oops, really meant that Archie was shown as either a
high school dropout or just a high school graduate while
Mike was smart enough to make it to college, etc. Of course Mike did his share of anti-war protests...remember when he
got arrested by a "gigantic cop with a face like Ed
Sullivan!"? I think Archie wound up in jail along with the protestors, as he was trying to pull Mike out of it.
The show premiered 1/12/71, IIRC, thus the 35th anniversary
Rob Reiner, played a meathead on TV and is one in real life.
I've seen the first episode a few times and noticed Edith was portrayed as er, less of a dingbat, and not afraid to say things. They come back from church and Edith sarcastically refers to "Mr. Religion, here..." And there was incidental music in between scenes (played on a piano, I believe)
Trivia: Mickey Rooney almost wound up with the role of Archie,
and he almost wound up with the surname of Justice. How did
"Meathead" come about? Norman Lear's father used to call him that, along with "you must be the laziest white man I ever saw". Both wound up in the show.
The show was based on a British comedy called "Till Death
Us Do Part". Ray Davies of the Kinks did the theme song for that series.
... and what's with the endless reruns of the bond films on amc?
"Stifle it Edith!" Lol.
You never see Archie so made as when the draft dodger has Christmas dinner with them. Archie was livid to put it mildly.
Some FReepers are going to flame you because they see the character of Archie Bunker as an attack on conservatives. However, a close watching shows that liberal "Meathead" is shown to be just as narrow-minded and thoughtless in his own way.