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Those were the days: As ‘All in the Family’ turns 50, a look at why it succeeded
NY Daily News ^ | 1/11/21 | Jim Cullen

Posted on 01/11/2021 10:14:04 AM PST by Borges

There was a time when racism could be funny.

On Jan. 12, 1971, a skittish CBS television network premiered an unusual television show as a mid-season replacement in its primetime lineup. The sitcom, modeled on a successful British version, starred veteran actor Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, a bigoted dockworker living in Astoria with his dimwitted wife, feminist daughter and liberal son-in-law.

“The program you are about to see called ‘All in the Family,’ ” read a text advisory before the show (it would now be termed a trigger warning). “It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show — in mature fashion — just how absurd they are.” The network hired extra operators to handle a tsunami of complaints.

The reaction was not what CBS expected. It was, in fact, more of a non-reaction. The pilot episode got 15% of the viewing audience, finishing in 55th place for the week. In its first month, “All in the Family” drew about 10 million viewers a week — monster numbers now, but decidedly anemic in a broadcast era of television where a successful show drew about twice that.

Perhaps ironically, the people most interested in the show in its early months were the intelligentsia.

“Is it funny, for example, to have the pot-bellied, church-going, cigar-smoking son of Middle America, Archie Bunker, the hero of ‘All in the Family,’ fill the screen with such epithets as ‘spic’ and ‘spade’ and ‘hebe’ and ‘yid’ and ‘polack’?” asked New York Times writer Fred Ferretti in a review that appeared the day the show made its debut. “Is it funny for him to refer to his son-in-law as ‘the laziest white man I ever seen’?”

Ferretti’s view was clear: “The answer, I say, is no.” Yet the dean of television critics, Cleveland Armory of TV Guide, proclaimed it as “the best thing on commercial television.” “Archie Bunker is real,” wrote Pamela Haynes for the (African American) Los Angeles Sentinel. “Far from protesting, members of minorities slandered by Archie should rejoice at this non-cosmetized portrait of the ‘master race.’ ”

The creator of “All in the Family,” Norman Lear, knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote and directed the pilot for the show. He went out of his way to cast a pleasant-looking actor for the part and to situate him in a loving, if boisterous, family.

“The point of his character,” he said of Archie, “was to show that if bigotry and intolerance didn’t exist in the hearts and minds of good people, the average people, it would not be the endemic problem it is in our society.”

There were some who objected to this premise, but Lear held fast. He also held fast to a formula that marked the show for its nine-year run: Every time Archie said something ridiculous or offensive, there was always someone — often his son-in-law Mike (Rob Reiner), daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers) or his ingenuous wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), but just as likely a Puerto Rican nurse, African-American businessman, gay former football player, or any number of other in a diverse array of characters — who would highlight his absurdity. And yet Archie was also the quintessential working man who supported his family and who, every once in a while, would show flashes of decency.

But “All in the Family” was always more than a cleverly constructed political soapbox. What became the number one show on television for five years running was a miracle of artistry. Some of this was a matter of incomparable one-liners, like Archie’s famous malapropisms (“Patience is a virgin”; “Don’t draw me no diaphragms”; “It’s a proven fact that capital punishment is a detergent to crime.”). Some was a matter of acting, as in the remarkable plasticity of O’Connor’s face or Stapleton’s wondrous ability to find dignity, even wisdom, in the character of Edith. And some was the complexity with which the show handled topics that included rape, menopause and anti-Semitism even as it found humor in all of them. The affection the show engendered is visible in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where Archie and Edith’s living room chairs have been on display for decades.

Was there — is there — a risk that viewers could take Archie Bunker or his successors the wrong way, that they could secretly or openly embrace foolish or dangerous ideas? Yes. This is the price of artistic freedom — and vitality. But the potential gains in enlightenment and useful debate are worth it if we believe ordinary people can be entrusted with ambiguous truths. Laughter, among other things, can be revealing.


TOPICS: TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: allinthefamily; copyrightviolation; normanlear; propaganda; seebs
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To: laweeks

But the thing is, most people were sympathetic to Archie, which was certainly not Lear’s intent.

And they did make Meathead an unlikable character as well, portraying him as a parasite living off of Archie.


21 posted on 01/11/2021 10:30:43 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Olog-hai

Warren Mitchell was in the 1980 BBC filming of “The Merchant of Venice” and was the best Shylock I’ve ever seen.


22 posted on 01/11/2021 10:31:30 AM PST by Borges
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To: Yo-Yo
When All in the Family was on the air between 1971 and 1978, I was 12 to 19 years old, and even back then it was obvious to me that Archie was always spouting the unreasonable, bigoted, racist, right wing extreme point, and Meathead was always countering with the 'reasonable' liberal counterpoint.

What's reasonable about putting on a sock then a shoe?

23 posted on 01/11/2021 10:32:07 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Borges

This old red neck hillbilly white trash enjoyed the show. So there!


24 posted on 01/11/2021 10:32:09 AM PST by airdalechief
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To: Mouton

Uncensored?


25 posted on 01/11/2021 10:34:27 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia (Democrats: The perfect party for the helpless and stupid, and those who would rule over them.)
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To: Yo-Yo
Archie was the ultimate strawman for liberals to punch.

I could say the same about Meathead for Conservatives.

26 posted on 01/11/2021 10:35:01 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Borges

Piece of crap show.

Didn’t age well.


27 posted on 01/11/2021 10:35:20 AM PST by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Borges

Norman Lear hated America and every last one of his shows betrayed his contempt for our country.


28 posted on 01/11/2021 10:35:59 AM PST by MercyFlush (Donald Trump is my President and Free Republic is my social media!)
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To: rightwingintelligentsia

I always bring up thi sshow. Alas my wife is 10 years younger than me and the kids more so, so nobody understands what i am talking about. This is one I could binge watch Netflix style.


29 posted on 01/11/2021 10:36:01 AM PST by When do we get liberated? (A socialist is a communist who realizes he must suckle the breast of Capitalism.)
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To: Borges

So many liberals (including Norman Lear himself) were miffed that viewers found Archie Bunker a far more richly-realized human mensch than any of the progressive stereotypes in the show.


30 posted on 01/11/2021 10:36:19 AM PST by Demiurge2 (Define your terms!)
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To: Borges

Lmao. That show would never make it today. What about different strokes or the jeffersons.


31 posted on 01/11/2021 10:37:15 AM PST by glimmerman70
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To: dfwgator

at least O’Connor was acting.


32 posted on 01/11/2021 10:37:20 AM PST by Leep (Save America. Lock down Joe Biden!)
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To: Borges
why it succeeded

Two words: Archie Bunker

33 posted on 01/11/2021 10:43:23 AM PST by pepsi_junkie (Often wrong, but never in doubt!)
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To: Yo-Yo
Archie was the ultimate strawman for liberals to punch.

That's what was supposed to happen, as meathead triumphs ever week. But to their shock people loved Archie and thought meathead was an insufferable arrogant jerk.

34 posted on 01/11/2021 10:45:24 AM PST by pepsi_junkie (Often wrong, but never in doubt!)
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To: MercyFlush

Good times? The Jeffersons?


35 posted on 01/11/2021 10:46:03 AM PST by Borges
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To: Yo-Yo

“When All in the Family was on the air between 1971 and 1978, I was 12 to 19 years old, and even back then it was obvious to me that Archie was always spouting the unreasonable, bigoted, racist, right wing extreme point, and Meathead was always countering with the ‘reasonable’ liberal counterpoint.”

Your statement is intriguing to me as I was maybe 1-2 years younger than you but I saw it just the opposite. Yes, I did see some racism in Archie, though it wasn’t hatred but mostly ignorance. His points all mostly made sense to me, on war, politics, though he said them in less than smooth ways. At the same time I saw Meathead as a moron.

Maybe it was the environment I had grown up in. Parent were old fashioned and very traditional. IDK, but I found it interesting to read your view.


36 posted on 01/11/2021 10:50:16 AM PST by Zack Attack
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To: Borges

I wasn’t a huge fan...I watched it occasionally but that’s it. Of the lines I recall my favorite happened when Meathead bumped into Lionel. As usual,Meathead started in about “the struggle” and how terrible things are for blacks. Lionel listened politely for a minute or two and then interrupted Meathead and said something like: “Hey,Mike...how come you and I never talk about the weather? We black folks have weather too,you know”.


37 posted on 01/11/2021 10:50:50 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (Trump: "They're After You. I'm Just In The Way")
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To: Borges

Even ‘Maude’.

Watch these shows with a critical eye and you’ll see the leftist tropes they pushed at the time that are now causing cities to burn. Maude, by the way, was a closeted lesbian and when you see the show now you’ll see her for what she was.

More shows of the period followed Lear with their overt anti-American themes such as MASH, The Partridge Family, and etc.


38 posted on 01/11/2021 10:52:08 AM PST by MercyFlush (Donald Trump is my President and Free Republic is my social media!)
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To: MercyFlush

Yep, right after “The Rural Purge”.


39 posted on 01/11/2021 10:54:55 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: Gay State Conservative

And I remember Lear pointing out that the character of George Jefferson was a Republican. And of course he made George look like a bufoon as well.


40 posted on 01/11/2021 10:56:15 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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