Norman Lear died December 5th at age 101. Created shows like All in the Family and several spin-offs and spin-offs of spin-offs such as Maude, The Jeffersons and Good Times. I didn't know it until years later, but Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life were his work, too. His shows had their own extended universes.
Even as a ten-year-old, I didn't understand why a supposedly radical or at least liberal show like All in the Family was so anti-working class. The audience would laugh whenever Archie mentioned that he was in World War Two and I would strain to see the joke. Why was a radical like Meathead so dismissive of the war against fascism? Now I find it strange that four adults live together and the only one with a job was the bad guy.
Here are the words of Richard Nixon himself on All in the Family:
“Archie is sitting here with his hippie son-in-law, married to the screwball daughter. The son-in-law apparently goes both ways. This guy enters. He’s obviously queer, wears an ascot, but not offensively so. Very clever. Uses nice language. Shows pictures of his trip and all the rest. And so then Arch goes down to the bar. Sees his best friend, who for two years used to play professional football as a linebacker…God, he’s handsome virile, strong, this and that. And then the fairy comes into the bar…”
I know the episode he was talking about. I guess it's nice that Nixon watched. I had Republican grandparents who liked the show, not because they were rooting for Archie but they were amused by Meathead's frustration with him.
I wish they'd show Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman again somewhere.
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