He knew how to make entertaining TV. I kind of laugh, because he was a die hard leftist, but his two most popular characters: Archie Bunker and George Jefferson were two sides of the same coin—men who loved America and were, if a bit on the buffoonish side, conservative and capitalist.
Archie was a union man but a social conservative who wanted law and order. George was an entrepreneur who climbed the socio-economic ladder through hard work.
Lear’s attempt to make men like him hated didn’t work out. I know he wanted these characters played for laughs—but as a social message Lear was saying to his audience Jefferson and especially Bunker were not to be emulated.
Oh well.
I hope he made peace with his Creator before he died.
One of my favorite scenes involved Lionel Jefferson and Meathead, when Lionel took him to task for only wanting to talk about racial issues with him.
“Why don’t we ever talk about the weather? Black people have weather too, you know!”
I don't think he wanted guys like Meathead to be emulated neither, he was always being attacked for being a freeloader off of Archie.