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Season 2 Episode 24, 'Rated X': Fred tags along to a movie casting call that Lamont and Rollo hope will make them respected black actors, not suspecting this film is blue. Lamont (Demond Wilson) calls Aunt Esther (LaWanda Page) to bail him, Fred (Redd Foxx) and Rollo (Nathaniel Taylor) out of jail.Sanford and Son - Fred, Lamont, and Rollo Are Arrested, and Bailed Out by Aunt Esher

Nathaniel Taylor, the actor best known as Rollo Lawson, the street-smart best friend of the son on the 1970s sitcom "Sanford and Son," has died. Taylor died Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles after a heart attack, his son Kaedi Taylor told The Associated Press Saturday. The elder Taylor was 80. Taylor's character, Rollo, was the sidekick to Lamont Sanford, played by actor Demond Wilson, and often drew the skepticism of TV patriarch Fred Sanford, who thought Rollo was a bad influence on Lamont because he'd spent time in jail. The fast-talking but good-hearted Rollo...

Screenwriter Ray Galton, who co-wrote the landmark British comedy series “Hancock’s Half Hour” and “Steptoe and Son,” has died at 88. Galton’s family said Saturday that he died Friday evening after a “long and heart-breaking battle with dementia.” […] Galton and (Alan) Simpson wrote “Hancock’s Half Hour” for popular post-war comedian Tony Hancock. Their biggest hit was “Steptoe and Son,” a sitcom about father-and-son junk dealers, which ran between 1962 and 1974. Producer Norman Lear adapted it into the U.S. sitcom “Sanford and Son.” …

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GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) -- A weekly newspaper publisher on New York's Long Island is defending its decision to portray President Barack Obama and his wife as characters from the TV sitcom "Sanford and Son." Some local political leaders and others contend it's a racist depiction.

Oh, my. Can you just imagine if Sarah Palin or John McCain made a crack like this and botched up their pop culture references to famous black comedy shows? Can you just imagine the high dudgeon from every minority lawmaker? WaPo and NYTimes columnist? Civil rights organization? The cries of RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACISM would shatter the political Richter scale. Can you just imagine: This is what happens when a candidates goes off script. Barack Obama, in Raleigh, N.C., was doing a riff attacking John McCain for supporting the idea of putting some mandatory retirement money into the stock market. “If Senator...

This could be worse than mixing metaphors. If Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama is going to ad lib in a speech about the economy by invoking black 1970s breakthrough TV, he could at least get it right. In his Oct. 29 speech in Raleigh, N.C., Obama railed against Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain on various issues about the economy, specifically including tax cuts and the privatization of Social Security. He proposed that had Social Security been invested in the stock market – it might cause a Fred Sanford-style reaction. “If Sen. McCain is elected, we’ll have another president...

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) - LaWanda Page, who played the fearsome, Bible-toting aunt Esther Anderson on the 1970s television comedy "Sanford & Son," has died. She was 81. Page died Saturday at Centinela Hospital Medical Center from complications of diabetes, friend and producer Donald Welch said Monday. After the aunt Esther role from 1973 to 1977 on "Sanford & Son," Page appeared as aunt Esther in the short-lived spinoff "The Sanford Arms" in 1977. She also starred in "Detective School" in 1979 and "B.A.D. Cats" in 1980. Born in Cleveland on Oct. 19, 1920, Page began her show business career as...