The Platinum Age of Television by David Bianculli

Author:David Bianculli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

ALL IN THE FAMILY

1971–79, CBS. Creator: Norman Lear. Stars: Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers.

“The program you are about to see is All in the Family,” ran the warning-label crawl preceding CBS’s January 1971 mid-season premiere of its newest family sitcom. “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.”

It was a complete change of pace for TV in general and for CBS in particular. This was the network that, in 1969, had fired the Smothers Brothers, and pulled The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour from its schedule, largely in reaction to that show’s persistent efforts to be topical, court controversy, and examine such third-rail issues as race, women’s liberation, and the war. Now here was the same CBS, warning its own viewers that what they were about to see and hear, in that first telecast of All in the Family, might be a little rough.

And it was, but in a creatively exhilarating way. Norman Lear, anticipating by half a century the now-common TV trend of adapting successful shows from other countries, had been given a script of a current hit British sitcom, Till Death Us Do Part. The series, which had run in the U.K. for seven years before Lear brought the concept stateside, starred Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett, a loudmouthed, opinionated working-class conservative with a deferential wife, flighty daughter, and liberal son-in-law. Something in the story resonated with Lear’s own memories of his contentious relationship with his father, and based on the script alone, he set about casting the major roles and making a total of three pilots. The central character was now called Archie Bunker, and he was reimagined as a cabdriver living in Queens, with his wife, Edith, his daughter, Gloria, and his son-in-law, Mike, whom Archie referred to disparagingly as Meathead. Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton were cast as Archie and Edith and remained through all three pilots. The younger characters were played each time by different actors, and the third time was the charm. With Rob Reiner, the son of Carl Reiner and a former staff writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, as Mike, and Sally Struthers as Gloria, All in the Family hit the air, and by the end of the summer, thanks to word of mouth, it was not only a must-see show but the spearhead of a TV revolution. It won its first three Emmy Awards that first year, including Outstanding Comedy Series. In time, All in the Family would win a total of twenty-two Emmys, as well as a personal Peabody Award for Norman Lear.

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