All in the Family

Mine dad loved "All in the Family" too. We watched every episode together in the '70s, and when it went into syndication, still laughed just as hard even after seeing each episode six or eight times.

Best scene ever.

Jean Stapleton was a gem.

Meant to post at r2

It's still a great show today.

[quote]It would never make it today.

And it shouldn't. I watched an episode recently and all the yelling between Archie and Mike was too much. And the last couple of seasons were crap.

"A can of Hmmm-hmmmm-hmmmm in heavy syrup". LMAO. I almost pee my pants laughing just thinking about that bit.

My mom and I adopted that reference to cling peaches.

David Dukes made my young mussy moist.

Frank and Irene were the first gender-swap couple.

Carroll O'Connor was notoriously hung like a horse. He used to let the gay boys have a suck in West Hollywood on his off nights.

I loved how Edith came to accept and love drag performer Beverly LaSalle. It wa so sad when Beverly was murdered as result of a hate crime, and Edith was so devastated.

We are living this type of racism with Stuupid Trump. Trump is the Archie Bunker of today, except multiply it by 1000% and that’s how bad Trump is for our country.

R13 oops stupid, not Stuupid

I wasn't even born when it started, but it's one of my favorite shows.

Archie would be the ultimate Trumper. The scenes with The Meathead would be epic.

Is this thread for real?

Time for a reboot. Meathead has become a fat deplorable who is forced to move in with Joey and his Mexican husband.

The first 4 seasons were great, the last 4 were crap. The cast needed a strong director to rein them in. Unfortunately, in the later seasons the cast (O'Connor in particular) were allowed to mug endlessly and chew every bit of scenery.

Does anyone remember the episode where Archie explained how we kicked England out of the US? He explained that England was a "fag country", and their whole society was based on a kind of "fagdom". You could never air cutting edge stuff like that today.

DL favorites Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan made an impression on two different shows. Bea’s Maude was introduced here and Rue played half of a wife swapping duo who’s ad Edith mistakingly answers. Both episodes were classics.

Funny, the comparisons of Archie to Trump as these buttons were very popular back in '72.

Sorry, I meant to post this one...

I thought that, even after Meathead and Gloria left, the show was still good, in that, by that time, Carol and Jean had become so in synch with one-another that their exchanges were almost like Burns and Allen. Even though the writing wasn't as good in later years, and especially with the addition of their annoyingly precocious little niece, watching Archie and Edith exchange dialogue was a joy. Archie's fake "suicides" while listening to Edith never-ending stories never failed to make me laugh: Archie would be pantomiming Rusian Roulette, while Edith, would be babbling on and on about some old, dead relative, completely oblivious to Archie's "suicide".

Edith's change of life episode is insane. This sketch was on the comedy record LP as well.

I guess the problem I have with this show - and others like this - is that if the actor who plays the reactionary/racist/homophobic character that provides the tension for everyone else to clash with is any good - then their character ends up becoming normalised and everyone starts thinking of them as like some old uncle you once had or something - and before you know it, the lovevable old racist starts becoming a rallying point for those who actually share those views.

It happened with All in the Family ‘cos O’Connor was a great actor who humanised Archie Bunker - who was - face it! - a pretty vile human being. Nonetheless, I suspect people like my parents loved the show because Bunker dared to say things that they also secretly felt - but knew better than to voice in polite company.

Similarly this happened in the UK with Warren Mitchell’s Alf Garnet character in Till Death Us Do Part -the show that All in the Family was based on.

There are just some behaviours that need to be jettisoned and let go into the mists of history - not revived and seen as harmless and amusing.

Forget the name of the character that Harry Enfield used to do in sketches in a show in the UK - it was meant to be a stupid lout of a soccer hooligan - played for laughs! - but soon the character was adopted as a badge of pride by people actually like that. Enfield meant to ridicule the venal stupidity of the type - and when he saw it was helping to normalise their bad behaviour - he just dropped the character from his repertoire and refused to do him anymore. Difficult decision for a comic - it was one of his most popular characters.

Even though the early seasons were better overall, some of the later episodes are among my favorites. The one where Archie and Mike get locked in the storeroom and we learn why Archie is the way he is was great. I also love the one on the train when Mike hit the belligerent drunk husband who was abusing his wife. I actually like the episodes where they aren't all screaming at Archie better than the ones that focus on his stupidity.

R26 the storeroom episode is my favorite as well. The look on Mike's face when Archie is talking about his father breaking his hand punching him, he finally understands Archie and how and why he became the way he is.

I remember watching old All in the Family episodes on youtube (half were uploaded until deleted) years ago. Almost all the commenters were pining for the '70s and wishing people like Archie were in charge of the country. They took him seriously and considered him some kind of savant. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by 2016.

Too much like Jackie Gleason in the Honeymooner's, too much screaming and yelling...Disturbing!

Maude is way more shouty.

The show is so good, especially seasons 1-5, but it's a real throwback. Many episodes play out in real time, some take place solely in the living room and almost all feature only a single plot. Friends, which is terrible by comparison, sometimes featured three plots going on at the same time in episodes that would run 3-4 minutes shorter.

Archie was a product of his time,and the 60s-70s saw that time rapidly changing. He was like a fish out of water. But he loved his wife and family,even Meathead,and ultimately he was a good man. Just rough around the edges and hideously politically incorrect. The show was huge in its time,very few people didnt watch it!

CBS was so sure there would be hoards of complaints, they hired a whole shift of operators just to handle to supposedly outraged viewers calling in to the network. Instead, there were few complaints and the few calls that did come in were congratulatory. My parents were big fans but I remember my mom saying to my dad, "they'll never get away with airing something this mature" Luckily she was wrong. I think the time was simply right. CBS had finished it's "rural purge" and AITF really ushered in the age of the 'dramedy'. However, I preferred Edith the first half season, when she spoke in Jean Stapleton's regular voice.

R16 you are so correct! I would love to watch.

They used the element of irony to make the point that Archie was always wrong. I guess irony isn’t funny anymore.

The episodes where Edith would behave out of character always made me laugh. The one where Archie was mugged in his cab, but HE was the one charged (for having a tear gas gun), where Edith rips a donut out a cop's mouth always makes me laugh.

A comedy about a "loveable bigot", as Archie Bunker was called? No, I don't think that would wash today. I suppose the laughs were to be derived from the "humor" of Archie's ignorance, but I thought the bigotry and stupidity of Archie Bunker wore thin pretty quickly. There's an episode where he laments "the coons are coming!" and rages against the oncoming "watermelon rinds flying out the window!" It's gross, not funny. It's really excruciating to hear him spew epithets like spics and spades and wops and hebes and kikes and micks and fags. But back in the day it was considered hilarious. By the way, a lot of people AGREED with the loveable bigot Archie Bunker. There were buttons that said "Archie Bunker for President." Well, now we DO have Archie Bunker for President. How fucked up is that?

My favorite (I think) is the episode where Archie's boorishness causes everyone to flee, and they all end up at the apartment of one of Gloria's girlfriends, where two hippy chicks (one of whom was played by Mary Kay Place) sing a song about Communism to Archie. "If Communism comes a-knockin' at your door...don't answer it!".

What surprised Carol O'Connor was that so many viewers watched because they agreed with Archie.

It was based on the English version

What was funny to me was that Archie and George Jefferson should have been best friends, if they could have gotten past their mutual dislike for one-another. They thought almost exactly alike. They were both loud and could be obnoxious, suspicious of everyone who wasn't like them, both were hard workers (Archie worked himself up from a loading dock worker to a small business owner, when he opened his own bar, while George built is own dry cleaning business), and like Archie, George was also a Republican (which appalled Lionel and Meathead), and their wives were close friends.

Archie always called Edith a dingbat and Michael was Meathead.

A hilarious show about a time and place that have passed. I remember Queens when it was like that in the 70’s. And yes the humor was due to the ignorance of the character Archie Bunker.

Really R42?

I thought one of the only criticisms of the show was that the Archie Bunkers of the world had long left Queens by the 70s, that Astoria was a Greek neighborhood by then and there were very few white Protestants in general (most whites were Catholic or Jewish)

Did people like Archie still exist?

R26 R27, This is the episode you're referring to. It's painful to watch. The series is wonderful to watch. I grew up back then, so I'm not offended. I know things are different now.

"Did people like Archie still exist?"

There's one in the White House.

Fair enough R45, though I have read several articles (and DL posts, for that matter) that point out that the neighborhood where Trump grew up was largely Jewish and they were among the only white Protestants in the area.

OMG,I cried my eyes out at R44 !

Cousin Liz (a Lesbian episode), ahead of its time.

Pardon me, this is the correct clip.

When I was a kid I was in the hospital during the prime of AIF, maybe season 2. I had been admitted late Saturday afternoon and they couldn't get a TV turned on in my room until the next day. My mom went out in the hall to stretch her legs and she came back and said every TV on a floor or maybe 40 rooms, most with two people/two TVs in each room was turned to AIF. People not alive back in the day probably can't really appreciate what a huge hit the show was. People in those days, including young people, stayed home on Saturday nights to see the CBS lineup, which included the MTM show and I think Carol Burnett on at the end from 10 pm to 11.

Thank you R44. Who was able to watch that and not cry?

R51 If only I understood the import of that scene when I was younger and my father and I had such a contentious relationship.It was only a few years ago I found out from my elderly aunt what a horrific upbringing they had. Their father was a grade A gold plated bastard . No one ever spoke about him when I was growing up. Never. Now I know why my dad joined the marines at 17 . Watching that scene really drove home the damage that is done to children,and how long the effects last. I wish I could talk to my father one more time and tell him I forgive him and I understand now .

The scene where Archie tells Mike about the abuse at the hands of his father didn't make ME cry. Abuse as a child doesn't excuse bigotry as an adult. And that's not even counting Archie's other bad behaviors. He takes a bribe rather than prosecute a young man who robbed him. He supposedly "loves" Edith but he treats her like shit. And he commits a crime in order to get the money to open his bar; he forges Edith's signature in order to take out a second mortgage on their house. I never found Archie Bunker "loveable." And an abusive father is no excuse for his immorality and bigotry.

Goodness R53 ! How do you sit down comfortably with that big ole stick up your ass ?

R43 and R53 are the same asshole. Comes on here to argue everything.

R50 It wasn't until the 1990s that the networks gave up on programming Saturday nights, remember in the 1980s, NBC replaced CBS as the dominate power on Saturdays with shows like Golden Girls, Gimmie A Break, Different Strokes, 227, Amen, Empty Nest, The Facts of Life, and Hunter. The last real hits on Saturdays were Dr. Quinn and Walker Texas Ranger on CBS and Cops and America's Most Wanted on FOX.

I am R43 but not R53

Maybe someone can explain the "IGNORE" button to you and how to use it?

Comparing Archie to trump is ridiculous. Archie was a working class man who happened to be a garden variety bigot. In the end though he was a genuinely good man "suffering" from the times and circumstances he grew up in. Trump is a scheming, manipulative, corrupt, morally bankrupt "businessman" suffering from tiny hands syndrome who has never worked an honest day of work in his life.

Let's not forget that Archie admitted that he would have still given Beverly mouth to mouth knowing she was a man. Confronted the klan when they were going to burn a cross on mike and Gloria's front lawn. He threatened them by telling them that he had black blood in him( transfusion from black nurse). He adopted a little Jewish girl. Loved getting kissed by Sammy Davis Jr..

"Comparing Archie to trump is ridiculous."

Archie Bunker was a racist/bigot. So is Donald Trump. Archie was profoundly ignorant. So is Donald Trump. And as I recall, when Sammy Davis Jr. kissed him Archie looked like he wished he were dead. At any rate, Archie Bunker was a total asshole. And so is Donald Trump.

The big difference is Trump was handed everything in life and Archie was at best paycheck to paycheck raised and probably downright poor during the depression. Archie worked hard all his life and Trump, to this day, never worked a day in his life.

For a comedy, it explored sadder thoughts. I don't really understand why, but they seem more effective delivered from a comedy.

Killing off Edith was SO wrong. It was done out of greed; the network wanted the show to continue, but Jean Stapleton wanted out. Of course there was no way to do the show without Edith, so they drastically killed her off. AITF should have ended when Mike and Gloria left. The show had been losing steam anyway, but after they left it really started going downhill. They even brought in a child character, a true jump the shark moment. An orphaned Jewish girl child suddenly gets dumped into the Bunker's laps; it was so stupid. And of course "Archie Bunker's Place" sucked big time. AITF went on so much longer than it should have.

Originally they were going to end it when Reiner and Struthers decided to leave. But they threw money at O’Connor and Stapleton and the show continued to be a hit. Creatively it wasn’t the same without Mike and Gloria, but it still retained moderate ratings when it morphed into ABP. Then Stapleton left and it really was never the same. O’Connor carried on because he had more creative control and more money. By this time Norman Lear wasn’t in his face every day and he could do what he wanted.