Archie was the ultimate strawman for liberals to punch.
What's reasonable about putting on a sock then a shoe?
I could say the same about Meathead for Conservatives.
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.
“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.
I'm in the same age bracket as you and also grew up with the show. It might have been the intent of Norman Lear to present Meathead as the "reasonable liberal counterpoint" to Archie's bluster but as I grew older, I began identifying with Archie more and more and began viewing Meathead as a lazy bum who had no shame mooching off his wife's parents instead of making an honest living.
Not that Archie was what we would call a conservative today. For one thing, he idolized FDR and was pro-union.