Posted on 12/15/2025 12:55:20 AM PST by Morgana
They bicker, they argue, and they clash on just about everything - but deep down, Archie and Mike share a bond that makes their love/hate dynamic unforgettable.
00:00 Intro 00:12 From Season 2, Episode 5 ‘Flashback: Mike Meets Archie’ 04:30 From Season 1, Episode 1 ‘Meet The Bunkers’ 06:46 From Season 7, Episode 23 ‘Mike And Gloria Split’ 11:32 From Season 1, Episode 5 ‘Judging Books By Covers’ 13:09 From Season 1, Episode 6 ‘Gloria Has A Belly Full’ 15:00 From Season 7, Episode 7 ‘Beverly Rides Again’ 17:11 From Season 2, Episode 2 ‘Gloria Poses In The Nude’ 21:49 From Season 5, Episode 5 ‘Lionel, The Live-In’ 23:09 From Season 8, Episode 5 ‘Edith’s 50th Birthday: Part 2’ 27:17 From Season 2, Episode 18 ‘Archie Sees A Mugging’ 30:41 From Season 8, Episode 19 ‘Two’s A Crowd’ 35:31 From Season 7, Episode 20 ‘The Joys Of Sex’ 39:37 From Season 6, Episode 22 ‘Joey’s Baptism’ 41:36 From Season 6, Episode 23 ‘Gloria And Mike’s House Guests’ 45:08 From Season 6, Episode 19 ‘Mike’s Move’
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
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‘Two’s a Crowd.’ (Season 8, Episode 19.)
Mike is helping Archie close up the bar for the night and accidentally locks them in a back room.
Summary:
The two start off arguing and yelling, and then the door to the cellar slams and they realize they’re locked in for the night as the rest of the family is gone…Their arguing settles down into talking and Archie reminiscing about the rough family dynamics he had with his dad, and how he grew up. The revelations inspire empathy in Michael (Meathead) for why Archie is the way he is. As the episode ends, Archie doses off to sleep and Michael puts a tarp over him as a blanket... Credits.
Archie Bunker: My old man? Don't be stupid. My old man? Let me tell you, he was never wrong about nothing.
Mike Stivic: Yes he was, Arch. My old man used to call people the same things as your old man. But I knew he was wrong. So is your old man.
Archie Bunker: Don't tell me my father was wrong. Let me tell you something, a father who made you is wrong? A father, the breadwinner of the house there? The man who goes out and busts his butt to keep a roof over your head and clothes on your back you call him wrong? Father, that's the man that comes home, bringing you candy. Father is the first guy to throw a baseball to you. And take you for walks in the park holding you by the hand? My father held me by the hand, hey, my father had a hand on him though I tell you. He busted that hand once, and he busted the other on me to teach me to do good. My father, he shoved my in a closet for seven hours to teach me to do good, 'cause he loved me. Don't be looking at me. Let me tell you something, you're supposed to love your father 'cause your father loves you. How can any man who loves you tell you anything that's wrong?
- IMDB
😭 (The script is heartbreaking when you consider the real life father-son dynamic Rob had to later contend with.)
Archie was a wonderful character, decidedly an enemy of every feminist who was ever to be born:
Edith Bunker meets the gays:
Archie was the “bad, ignorant” conservative. Yet he was the one working outside the home on the loading dock bringing in the money for the rest of them. So they mooched off of him. Eventually Gloria has some shit work study college job for a pittance that presumably went to pay for her college fees, not the HH bills.
The only reality we know about him and his wife is that they are dead. And his public rantings about the “authoritarianism” being brought on by Trump. His fears sounded more paranoic than rational
The rest is all publicity, and staged, reshot , characterizations of human interactions.
The man became an untolerating buffoon in his later years, a ranter like “Archie Bunker”. Very sorry he and his wife ended that way but I am also sorry for all the innocents who die by murder, or self poisoning with drugs everyday in this law flaunting and cursed world.
IMHO
The episode where meathead was having appendicitis is Why I knew that’s what I was experiencing.
A great episode is when meathead got screwed out of a teaching job due to racial quotas
Meathead and his wife were stabbed to death yesterday.
For This Guy’s money, Meathead Mike never exceeded or even met Archie in terms of his basic wisdom, or being/presenting a sympathetic character.
Funny though, that the cast and creators of the show always believed, or had, the opposite perspective/attitude. Even Carroll O’Connor himself.
The humanity of Archie’s character never failed to shine through, despite his flaws, failings, or ‘inarticulateness’
Whereas the shots Mike’s more highly-educated character always seemed free to take at Archie, always seemed cheap—ultimately condescending and unfair. Not unlike donkey party-supporting drones/street thugs today.
Archie was the hero. The whole series was set up to make fun of him, but in the end he was the guy who always did right by his family and took care of them.
Lionel Jefferson nailed Meathead’s condescending a$$:
Lionel: Yeah man just once I’d like for you to talk to me like I was Lionel Jefferson and not a representitive of the whole black race.
Mike: Oh come on Lionel, I don’t do that.
Lionel: What’s the first thing you say whenever I see you? Always something about the black problem right?
Mike: What do you want me to talk about, the weather?
Lionel: Sometimes yeah, I mean black people have weather too you know? We get rained on and everything.
All In The Family shoe was a Hollywood spin program for a lame attempt to show only whites are racist.
aka cover up agenda move and it’s still going on.
All In The Family shoe was a Hollywood spin program for a lame attempt to show only whites are racist.
But Jefferson didn’t rag about the race more about Archie.
The creators thought the people would hate Archie.
Nowadays George Jefferson would be accused of “acting white”.
Lol.
IIRC Norman Lear did say that George Jefferson was a Republican.
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