[blueunicorn6]

My father never understood that they were making fun of people like him.

[freepertoo]

Boy,the way Glenn Miller played...

[dfwgator]

What’s funny is that Archie and Lionel got along fine.

There was a great episode where Lionel dressed down Meathead for only wanting to talk about racial issues, “Why don’t we ever talk about the weather, black people have weather too you know.”

[ClearCase_guy]

I was young. Hated that show. Very heavy handed and stupid, it seemed to me. I know they were going for a certain “style” of presentation and message sending, but it came across to me as awful acting by all involved.

[CaptainMorgantown]

Established the precedent that conservative characters can only be portrayed by liberals, with storylines and dialogue written by liberals.

Nonetheless, the audiences instinctively Archie and Edith much better than Gloria and the Meathead.

[Huskrrrr]

Gloria was incredibly hot. Sorry, I was a 15 year old boy at the time.

[Little Ray]

Archie Bunker was a hero to my father and I.
Maybe it didn’t always turn out right, but he kept trying to do the right thing to the best of knowledge and ability.

[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.

Archie was the ultimate strawman for liberals to punch.

[piasa]

I hated that show.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Ironically, they could never get away with airing that show today.

[Bonemaker]

Archie was right then and he’s right now...Meathead is an asshole.

[airdalechief]

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

[ifinnegan]

Piece of crap show.

Didn’t age well.

[MercyFlush]

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

[Demiurge2]

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.

[glimmerman70]

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

[pepsi_junkie]

why it succeeded

Two words: Archie Bunker

[Gay State Conservative]

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”.

[alternatives?]

I always wanted to see a show like MASH and the military about the EPA or a welfare office.

[wolfman]

Sorry, I always saw the show as liberal propaganda.