Reshaping Television

To my regular readers, I hope you’ll bear with me as I do another rare digression from my usual sci-fi/fantasy/horror-related content for this column, but a television legend has passed away, and I couldn’t bring myself to focus on another subject without first paying tribute to the late, great writer/producer Norman Lear, who passed away this week at age 101.  In addition to his movie credits (“Fried Green Tomatoes,” “The Princess Bride”), Lear’s nearly 70-year legacy in television moved mountains, to put it mildly.

Before the 1970s, the television sitcom was mainly a white-bread, controversy-free universe where family conflicts usually centered around simple problems that were often easily solved within a 25-minute running time by a handy speech from the show’s patriarch.  Family sitcoms such as 1969’s “The Brady Bunch” were typically about a middle-class white family living in a curiously toilet-free house who kept such real-life issues as racism, gender inequality, the Vietnam War or other still-relevant topics off their astroturf lawns.  Occasionally, progressive TV show writers and producers were allowed to bring in a Black actor (Bill Cosby in “I Spy,” Greg Morris in “Mission: Impossible,” Nichelle Nichols in “Star Trek,” etc), but such characters were often seen as flawless archetypes whose own cultural attributes were often downplayed.  Even a groundbreaking series such as 1968’s “Julia,” (which saw Diahann Carroll playing a single mother nurse) tended to stay largely within the margins.  Nevertheless, it was progress.

The Sea Change

“Warning. The program you are about to see is All in the Family. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show – in a mature fashion – just how absurd they are.”

–The network disclaimer that preceded the first broadcast of “All in the Family” on January 12th, 1971.

In 1971, writer-producer Norman Lear took a British family sitcom called “’Til Death Do Us Part” (1965-1975) and retooled it into a working class household from Queens, New York.  After a failed pilot with different cast members in some of the roles, they finally got the formula juuust right, and television history was made.  “All in the Family” (1971-1979) saw gruff, bigoted, working-class patriarch Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) and his ditzy-yet-wise wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) taking in their daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers) and her husband Michael “Meathead” Stivic (Rob Reiner), as Michael struggles to complete his education and get a teaching job.  Real-world controversies and social taboos came left and right during the course of this show, which was far more real than any previous sitcom ever attempted to be for its time (and even today). Conservative Archie and progressive Michael would regularly clash over issues like civil rights, racism, war, religion and wealth inequality—all of which are still every bit as relevant today (if not more so).  The actors looked more like real people, not your typically glamorous TV stars.  You even heard a genuine toilet flushing in the upstairs bathroom (something surprisingly never seen/heard before then)  The medium of television would never be the same.

Taped in Hollywood before a live studio audience, the lead actors seemed to feed off the audience’s energy, which fueled their incredible performances. You fully believed that Carroll O’Connor (a classically trained actor) was an uneducated working-class schlub, just as Jean Stapleton’s blank stares and benign smiles fully masked the actress’s intellect. It was hard to believe that O’Connor was a real-life progressive, as was producer Lear. The actors buried themselves in their roles. Some of the series highlights included the Bunkers welcoming Black neighbors, the Jeffersons (who would later get their own spinoff), as well as Archie’s priceless encounter with entertainer Sammy Davis Jr, and an ultimately tragic arc involving flamboyant, lovable drag queen Beverly LaSalle (Lori Shannon), whom Archie first met while administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Beverly in his cab. There are countless other such memorable moments in this landmark and forever relevant series.

After the departure of Mike and Gloria, a sequel series called “Archie Bunker’s Place” (1979-1983) saw Archie running his own saloon and playing single parent to two young relatives (Danielle Brisbois, Denise Miller). Paired with a Jewish business partner named Murray (character actor Martin Balsam), this Archie was less of the close-minded bigot and more of the lovable, working-class galoot. For this sequel, Archie’s racism, religious intolerance and other abrasive qualities were considerably toned down, resulting in a somewhat diluted sitcom that never quite captured the raw power of the original. Of the sequel’s four seasons, the episode dealing with the aftermath of Edith Bunker’s offscreen death was, by far, an early apex of this otherwise middling series. The increasingly tolerant Archie raised his Jewish niece, and even romanced a Puerto Rican woman (long after the passing of his beloved Edith, of course). Neither quite fish nor fowl, this sequel was a pale imitation of the groundbreaking original.

Note: One final spinoff from the “All in the Family” core was spat up in 1982 with the numbingly generic “Gloria” (1982-3), which featured newly-single mother Gloria Bunker (Sally Struthers) after an offscreen divorce from Michael, who improbably ran off with one of his students.  Gloria, with her young son Joey Stivic (Christian Jacobs) in tow, finds work as a veterinary assistant for crusty old Dr. Adams (Burgess Meredith).  This conspicuously non-diverse sitcom was a waste of all involved (particularly the late Burgess Meredith), and was mercifully killed after one season.  This was a Norman Lear project by vague association only, not any active involvement on his part. 

The runaway popularity of “All in the Family” eventually led to the first of its spinoffs. “Maude” (1972-1978) was centered around Edith’s progressive, matriarchal cousin Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur) and her fourth husband Walter (Bill Macy), who shared a nice, middle-class house with their single daughter Carol Traynor (Adrienne Barbeau) and her son Phillip (Brian Morrison).  The Findlays had a long-suffering Black maid named Florida (Esther Rolle) who later got her own sitcom, and was replaced by a working-class Brit named Mrs. Naugatuck (Hermione Bradley).  Like its predecessor, “Maude” didn’t exactly shy away from controversy, either—tackling many of the same issues of its predecessor, such as divorce, intolerance, infidelity, and in perhaps the series’ most landmark episode, a two-parter where middle-aged Maude made the personally agonizing decision to have an abortion.  Such an episode would still be controversial today, especially after the recent terrifying repeal of Roe vs. Wade in the United States. Maude herself would’ve been justifiably outraged by the loss of a right American women have enjoyed for nearly 50 years.

Note: Costars Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan would later re-team as two of four cohabitating retirees in the wildly popular 1980s sitcom “The Golden Girls,” (1985-1992) which was not produced by Norman Lear. Despite the great chemistry and performances of the “Golden Girls” cast, I wasn’t a big fan of the show, to be honest. 

While not a spinoff of “All in the Family, “Sanford and Son” (1972-1978) was another Norman Lear-produced remake of another British sitcom, “Steptoe and Son,” which was now set in urban Los Angeles and dealt with aging junk collector Fred Sanford (then-controversial comedian Redd Foxx) and his adult son, Lamont (Demond Wilson).  Other cast members included LaWanda Page as “Aunt Esther” (the hilariously Bible-thumping relative with whom curmudgeonly widower Fred often went toe-to-toe) and Fred’s kindly but absent-minded friend, Grady (Whitman Mayo), who later went on to his own short-lived sitcom.  The wildly catchy main title theme of “Sanford and Son,” titled “Streetbeater,” was composed by musical legend Quincy Jones, and is still very memorable to audience members of a certain age like myself. While the show wasn’t as controversy-tackling as “All in the Family” or “Maude,” “Sanford and Son” broke new ground simply  by its existence, since the core cast members were all-Black, and the show was a huge hit in the ratings—something nervous white TV executives wouldn’t have believed only a few years earlier. 

Note: While the producers and writers of “Sanford and Son” were mostly white and Jewish, there were many contributions and dialogue tweaks made by legendary comedian-writers Richard Pryor and Paul Mooney, as well as occasional improvisations by star Foxx and his cast when a line of dialogue was deemed too inauthentic. Considering the time and context, that this hit show existed at all was an accomplishment. 

Norman Lear’s next sitcom would be another “All in the Family” spinoff, or rather a spinoff of a spinoff, since it involved Maude Findlay’s former maid, Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) and her working poor family in “Good Times” (1974-1979), another sitcom with an all-Black cast set in a public housing project in Chicago.  Florida’s family included husband James Evans Sr. (John Amos, who was subtly-aged to match his TV wife, who was nearly 20 years older), son James Jr. aka “JJ” (Jimmie Walker), daughter Thelma (Bern Nadette Stanis), younger son Michael (Ralph Carter) and single neighbor Willona (Ja’Net Dubois).  The series put considerable distance between itself and predecessor “Maude,” as the Evans family worked hard just to pay bills and keep a roof over their heads, unlike the affluent Findlays.  The series would tackle its share of tough subjects as well, including the death of James Sr in a devastating episode that saw the character killed offscreen in a car crash while working out of the state (I still remember Esther Rolle’s heartbreaking “Damn! Damn! Damn!”).  Another episode would see neighbor Willona taking in and later adopting a young neighbor girl named Millicent (future pop superstar Janet Jackson), who was a victim of child abuse. 

Note: The real reason behind John Amos’ abrupt departure from the show came from his frustration with his TV ‘son,’ costar Jimmie Walker (who was only 9 years younger than Amos). Walker was getting the lion’s share of stories and dialogue after JJ became the show’s breakout star, much like Henry Winkler’s “Fonzie” in ABC’s “Happy Days” (1974-1984).  Amos’ departure changed the nature of the show from a patriarchy to a matriarchy, as Esther Rolle effortlessly led her TV ‘family’ after her TV husband’s demise. 

Norman Lear then ushered in yet another spinoff of “All in the Family” led by a mostly-Black cast.  This sitcom focused on the Bunkers former neighbors, “The Jeffersons” (1975-1985), whose single laundromat became a franchise chain, which brought affluence to George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) and his grounded wife Louise (Isabel Sanford). George and Louise had now moved “on up to a de-luxe apartment” in Manhattan—complete with sassy maid, Florence (Marla Gibbs).  The Jefferson’s son Lionel (Mike Evans) and his wife, Jenny (Berlinda Tolbert) regularly visited, as did Jenny’s mixed race parents, Tom (Franklin Cover) and Helen (Roxie Roker), to whom George made no secret of his disdain.  George’s mother (Zara Cully) would occasionally visit as well, to dote on her successful son and exchange barbs with Louise. Also living in the building were shifty doorman Ralph (Edward Wertimer) and eccentric Englishman Bentley (played by American Paul Benedict), whose occasional lumbago required the assistance of pint-sized George, who gladly walked along the lanky Brit’s spine as therapy. 

Note: Eschewing some of the controversy of its predecessors, “The Jeffersons” was more comedy for its own sake, and marked a slight shift away from the more topical-based comedy from which it sprang. On the other hand, the Jeffersons was still groundbreaking in its depiction of a wealthy Black family nearly a decade before NBC’s “The Cosby Show” (1984-1992). Following Bill Cosby’s rape conviction in 2018, the latter series has been largely buried, while “The Jeffersons” continues to enjoy a cult following to this day. Also notable is the changing face of Lionel Jefferson, who was first played by Michael Evans, before being briefly replaced by Damon Evans (no relation). This was done so that Michael Evans could have more time to write for “Maude,” a series he helped create. Michael Evans would later return to “The Jeffersons” after Maude’s cancellation.

After his success producing shows depicting working-poor families, Norman Lear would oversee another sitcom told from a previously unheard voice in 1970s television—that of a divorced single mother raising kids on her own. “One Day at a Time” (1975-1984) saw recently divorced Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) moving into a new apartment with her two teenage daughters, Julie (Mackenzie Phillips) and kid sister, Barbara (Valerie Bertinelli).  Their new apartment building is overseen by lecherous but harmless superintendent Schneider (Pat Harrington).  Beyond raising two daughters alone, Ann also has to fend off her own divorce attorney, David Kane (Richard Masur), a slightly younger man who makes frequent (and creepy) passes at his newly-single client (unfortunately, the ‘MeToo’ movement was still 40 years off).  Hormonal teens Julie and Barbara create other headaches for Ann as well.  Notable episodes involved Ann facing her 40th birthday as a single mother, and rebellious Julie running away from home. The series would later be rebooted for Netflix in 2017 with a Cuban-American cast (more on that below).

Note: Despite a lack of diverse casting, the series was still pioneering, as it was the first to depict a single mother dealing with two teenage daughters, but women-led TV sitcoms were already a thing with the aforementioned “Julia” (1968-1971) and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970-1977). Also of note, the lives of both Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli would be heavily influenced by music, as Phillips was the daughter of “The Mamas and the Papas” lead singer John Phillips (who was a terrible influence on his daughter, as both struggled with addiction) while Valerie Bertinelli was famously married to (and later divorced from) the late rockstar Eddie Van Halen (1955-2020). 

Recent Revivals

In 2017, Netflix released a reboot of Lear’s “One Day at a Time.” The new series shifted the setting from 1970s Indianapolis to 2017 Los Angeles, as a single mother and Army veteran Penelope Alvarez (Justina Machado) raises her teenage daughter Elena (Isabella Gomez) and young son Alex (Marcel Ruiz). The reboot smartly changes the original characters to Cuban-American, and adds legendary Oscar-winner Rita Moreno (“West Side Story”) as Penelope’s Cuban-born grandmother, Lydia.  The new series also dealt with Penelope’s struggles with PTSD, and teenaged Elena’s emergent identity as a lesbian. Netflix ran the revised sitcom for three seasons before cancelling it in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. This audience-adored, critically-acclaimed reboot was later picked up for a 4th and final season on the PopTV streaming platform.  The reboot was developed by Gloria Calderón Kellett and Mike Royce. While Norman Lear was not actively involved in the reboot’s development, it was still based on his original premise of a single mother raising two kids in a new city—granted, that’s not a novelty in the real world, but it was bold for a mid-1970s sitcom.

In 2019, comedian and late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel honored that golden era of TV sitcoms with the rollout of “Live in Front of a Studio Audience,” an ongoing series of vintage television scripts performed and broadcast live on ABC network from Norman Lear’s canon. These live broadcasts featured all-new casts (including some Oscar winners) now playing the familiar sitcom roles.  Norman Lear, who was in his late 90s at the time, returned to cohost these stage productions, which were reproduced nearly verbatim (save for omitting the N-word) from the original scripts. The live broadcasts recreated episodes from Lear’s diverse canon, including episodes of “All in the Family” (“Henry’s Farewell,” “The Draft Dodger”), “The Jeffersons” (“A Friend in Need”), “Good Times” (“The Politicians”), “The Facts of Life” (“Kids Can Be Cruel”) and “Diff’rent Strokes” (“Willis’ Privacy”).

Note: For full disclosure, I didn’t watch the recreations of “Diff’rent Strokes” or “The Facts of Life” as I wasn’t terribly fond of those shows in their original runs, to be honest. I was more interested in the recreations of “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times.”

The two “All in the Family” live shows feature Woody Harrelson as Archie Bunker, Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei as Edith, Ike Barinholtz as Michael “Meathead” Stivic, and Ellie Kemper as Gloria Stivic. This is, in many ways, a dream cast, as both Harrelson and Tomei are A-list actors. However, despite the actors throwing themselves into their roles, I found them a bit too glamorous to be convincing.  The first episode produced, “Henry’s Departure,” features the Bunkers’ Black next door neighbors, the Jeffersons (Jamie Foxx, Wanda Sykes).  Harrelson certainly channels Archie Bunker’s bigotry, but he’s too fit to portray the famously paunchy Archie. Tomei does a fantastic recreation of Edith’s famously scampering walk, but ultimately she reminds me of the pretty actress who wears thick glasses to feign homeliness.  Of the two episodes produced, “The Draft Dodger” (one of the more potent episodes of the original series) is the more effective, with guest stars Kevin Bacon as Archie’s pal Pinky Peterson—who lost a son in Vietnam—and Jesse Eisenberg as David Brewster, a draft-dodging friend of Michael’s who’s down from Canada to have Christmas dinner with the Bunkers.  The fireworks fly, and the actors all do an admirable job, despite their somewhat questionable casting.

“The Jeffersons” live show recreates the first episode of the series, “A Friend in Need,” with newly wealthy wife Louise (Wanda Sykes) tasked with hiring a maid.  Louise befriends a woman in her building, not realizing the woman thinks Louise is, like herself, a maid.  Eventually, Louise and her nouveau riche husband George (Jamie Foxx) hire sassy, smart-talking Florence Johnson (Marla Gibbs, reprising her original role). Both Foxx and Sykes return as George and Louise from a previous “All in the Family” live broadcast (“Henry’s Farewell”). Most surprising for me was seeing the 90-year old Marla Gibbs recreating the role of Florence with the same energy she brought to the role nearly five decades earlier.  Sykes does an admirable job as Louise “Weezy” Jefferson, though Oscar-winner Foxx seems a bit too tall and handsome to play the insecure, shrimpish George. The actor also slips and breaks character at one point (hey, it’s live TV, right?).  Flubs aside, the actors throw themselves into their roles, clearly relishing this chance to partake in these lovingly-produced homages to Norman Lear’s groundbreaking shows.  As a bit of icing on the cake, Oscar-winning actress/singer Jennifer Hudson sings the show’s famed main credits theme song, “Movin’ On Up.”

The “Good Times” live show featured the episode “The Politicians” which saw the Evans household divided over two competing Black candidates for local office, with JJ (Jay Pharoah) and father James Sr. (Andre Braugher) siding with establishment guy Alderman Fred Davis (original series costar John Amos), while mother Florida (Oscar-winner Viola Davis), daughter Thelma (Corrine Foxx) and neighbor Willona (Tiffany Haddish) side with idealistic young candidate, Jimmy Pierson (Jharrel Jerome).  Once again, an original series’ cast member returns, but this time in a stunt-cast role as the episode’s cynical villain.  And, of course, there’s more Oscar-winner gravitas with Viola Davis as Florence. Music legend Patti LaBelle—the Godmother of Soul herself—sings the titular main title song for this one, too.  Of the recreated episodes I’ve seen, I’d say “The Politicians” and “The Draft-Dodger” were arguably the most successful to date.  

More episodes of “Live in Front of a Studio Audience” had been announced, but COVID and the recent writers/actors strikes have no doubt slowed things down a bit.  Here’s hoping we’ll see more of these live shows sooner than later in the wake of Norman Lear’s passing, to whom these shows are a loving, heartfelt tribute. 

The shows mentioned in this column are just part of the nearly 70-year legacy of Norman Lear, who grew up in a modest Jewish household in Connecticut.  According to the indispensable book, “All in the Family: The Show that Changed Television,” by Norman Lear and Jim Colucci (with a foreword by Jimmy Kimmel), many of the family dynamics seen in Lear’s shows came from observations within his own family.  For example, when Lear was a kid, his traveling salesman father went to prison for selling fake bonds, which partly inspired the shadier aspects of Archie Bunker (who once famously forged his wife Edith’s name to get a bank loan). This made the families seen on his shows so relatable; the stories of different generations, ethics and ideologies colliding were universal. As a kid, I saw recognizable bits and pieces of my own family in the Bunkers, as well as the Findlays, the Jeffersons, and Evans families. I also have a best friend of mine and her sister who were raised by a single mother—very similar to Ann Romano with her two daughters.  

By exposing these often unflattering but universal truths behind real families, Norman Lear blew the lid off the idiot box and changed the medium forever.  Thanks to Lear, we can never again retreat back into the saccharine, censored, toilet-free falseness of “The Brady Bunch” or “Father Knows Best.” For that alone, this humble giant of entertainment will be forever missed.

Norman Lear, July 27th 1922-December 5th, 2023.