All in the Family | |
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The title screen as seen in the opening credits |
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Format | Sitcom |
Created by | Norman Lear (based on Till Death Us Do Part, created by Johnny Speight) |
Starring | Carroll O'Connor Jean Stapleton Rob Reiner (1971-1978) Sally Struthers (1971-1978) Vincent Gardenia (1973-1974) Betty Garrett (1973-1975) Danielle Brisebois (1978-1979) |
Country of origin | USA |
No. of seasons | 9 |
No. of episodes | 202 |
Production | |
Location(s) | CBS Television City, 7800 Beverly Boulevard (at Fairfax), Metromedia Square, Los Angeles, California |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Broadcast | |
Original channel | CBS |
Original run | January 12, 1971 – April 8, 1979 |
Chronology | |
Followed by | Archie Bunker's Place |
Related shows | Maude The Jeffersons Gloria 704 Hauser |
External links | |
IMDb profile |
All in the Family is an American situation comedy that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971 to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, the show was revamped, and given a new title, Archie Bunker's Place. This version of the sitcom lasted another four years, ending its run in 1983.
Produced by Norman Lear and based on the British television series Till Death Us Do Part[1], the show broke ground in its depiction of issues previously considered unsuitable for U.S. network television comedy, such as racism, homosexuality, women's liberation, rape, miscarriage, breast cancer, menopause and impotence.
The show ranked #1 in the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. As of 2008, The Cosby Show has been the only other show to top the ratings for at least five consecutive seasons. TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time ranked All in the Family as #4. Bravo also named the show's protagonist, Archie Bunker, TV's greatest character of all time[2].
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Veteran character actor Carroll O'Connor starred as Archie Bunker, a working-class, very outspoken bigot, prejudiced against everyone and everything not in agreement with his view of the world. His ignorance and stubbornness tend to cause his malapropism-filled arguments to self-destruct. He often responds to uncomfortable truths by blowing a raspberry. He longs for simpler times, when people sharing his viewpoint were in charge, as evidenced by the nostalgic theme song, "Those Were the Days," the show's original title. (In the first pilot filmed, the family name was Justice rather than Bunker [3]).
By contrast, his wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) is a sweet, understanding, if somewhat dense woman. She usually defers to her husband, but on the rare occasions when she takes a stand, she proves to be one of the wisest characters. This is perhaps best seen in episodes "The Battle of the Month" and "The Games Bunkers Play". Archie often tells her to "stifle" herself and calls her a "dingbat",[4] but despite their very different personalities, they love each other deeply.
They have one child, Gloria (Sally Struthers), who is married to baby boomer hippie college student Michael Stivic (Rob Reiner). Michael is part of the counterculture of the 1960s. He and Archie represent the real-life clash between the two generations: those who were born around World War I and those who were born around World War II. They constantly clash over religious, political, social, and personal issues. For much of the series, the Stivics live in the Bunker home to save money, providing even more opportunity for the two men to irritate each other. When they finally move out, it is to the house next door, offered to them by George Jefferson, the owner, who knew it would get to Archie. Archie frequently calls his son-in-law "meathead" and "Polack" (pronounced Polock) to insult Michael's intelligence and Polish ancestry respectively.
The show is set in the Astoria[5] section of Queens, one of New York City's five boroughs.
A number of actors played multiple roles during the show's run:
The name of the establishment is Kelcy's Bar (as seen in the bar window in various episodes). However, due to a continuity error, the end credits of episodes involving the bar owner spell the name "Kelcy" for the first two seasons and "Kelsey" thereafter, although the end credits show "Kelcy" in the "Archie Gets the Business" episode.
In a warning to viewers, CBS ran a disclaimer before airing the first episode (which disappeared from the screen with the sound of a toilet flushing):
"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."
All in the Family was notorious for featuring language and epithets previously absent from television, such as "fag" for homosexual, "hebe" for Jews, "spic" for Hispanics, "mick" for Irish, "dago" and "wop" for Italians, "chink" for Chinese, "Jap" for Japanese, "gook" for southeast Asian, "spade" for blacks, and phrases such as "God damn it." It was also famous for being the first major television show to feature the sound of a flushing toilet; it became a running gag on the show.
While moral watchdogs attacked the show on those grounds, others objected to the show's portrayal of Archie Bunker as a "lovable" bigot. Defenders of the series pointed out that Archie usually lost his arguments by reason of his own stupidity. (It is perhaps worth noting that Alf Garnett, Archie Bunker's counterpart in the original British series, was far from lovable and used much stronger language that would not have been allowed on US network television.)
In addition to its candid political dialogs, All in the Family's story lines also included a sense of realism, and occasional forays into deathly serious subject matter, not previously associated with sitcoms. A 1973 episode, for example, found the Bunkers discovering a swastika painted on their front door. (It had been intended for their Jewish neighbors down the street.) An activist from the fictional "Hebrew Defense Association" showed up, proposing violent retaliation against whoever painted it, but upon leaving, he was blown up in his car, as the Bunkers watched in horror from their front door. To interweave illness, crime, or in this case, the off-screen violent death of a character into the plot of a comedy show was an unprecedented move.
While Archie's bigotry and short-sightedness were the focus of much of the humor, Mike Stivic's naive, liberal nature was on the receiving end of occasional jabs. In the episode Edith Writes a Song, where the family is held by African-American burglars, Mike attempts to intervene on Archie's behalf, explaining to the burglars how Archie does not know about the pain of ghetto poverty. One of the burglars, played by Demond Wilson and Cleavon Little, responds: "And YOU do?"
Lear bought the rights to Till Death Us Do Part and incorporated his own family experiences with his father into the show. Lear's father would tell Lear's mother to "stifle herself" and she would tell Lear's father "you are the laziest white man I ever saw" (two 'Archieisms' that found their way onto the show).
There were three different pilots shot for the series, first, shot in New York in 1968, was named "Justice For All" in reference to Archie's family name (later changed to Bunker). The second, shot in Hollywood in 1969, was titled to Those Were the Days. Different actors played the roles of Mike, Gloria, and Lionel in the first two.
ABC became uneasy and canceled the project at about the time Richard Dreyfuss sought the role of Michael. Rival network CBS was eager to update its image, and was looking to replace much of its then popular "rural" programming (Mayberry R.F.D., The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres) with more "urban", contemporary fare (see Rural purge), and was interested in Lear's project. They bought the rights from ABC and re-titled the show All in the Family.
Lear initially wanted to shoot in black and white, perhaps feeling that it would emphasize the Bunkers' stark surroundings to greater effect. While CBS insisted on color, Lear had the set furnished in rather neutral tones, keeping everything relatively devoid of color.
All in the Family was the first major American series to be videotaped in front of a live studio audience. At the time, sitcoms were shot on film in front of an audience (like Mary Tyler Moore and The Dick Van Dyke Show), and the 1960s had seen a growing number of sitcoms filmed on soundstages without audiences, with a laugh track simulating audience response. After the success of All in the Family, videotaping sitcoms in front of an audience became common format for the genre during the 70s. However, the use of videotape also gave All in the Family the look and feel of the classic sitcoms of early television, which had been performed live before a studio audience (including the original live broadcasts of The Honeymooners, to which All in the Family is sometimes compared).
In the final season, the practice changed to playing the already taped and edited show to an audience and recording their laughter to add to the original sound track. Thus, the voice-over during the end credits was changed from Rob Reiner's "All in the Family was recorded on tape before a live audience" to Carroll O'Connor's "All in the Family was played to a studio audience for live responses." (Typically, the audience would be gathered for a taping of One Day At A Time, and get to see All In the Family as a bonus.) Throughout its run, Norman Lear took pride in the fact that canned laughter was never used (mentioning this on many occasions); the laughter heard in the episodes was genuine.
The house shown in the opening credits is located at 89-70 Cooper Avenue in the Glendale neighborhood of Queens, New York. One may notice there is no porch on that house. The fictional address of the Bunker home was 704 Hauser Street and a number of scenes took place on a porch during the series' run.
All in the Family is the first of three sitcoms in which all the main characters won Emmy Awards (O'Connor, Stapleton, Struthers, and Reiner). The other two are The Golden Girls and Will & Grace.
It won numerous Emmys:
It was nominated an additional 34 times.
Its Golden Globe Awards are:
There were also 21 nominations.
The longest sustained audience laughter in the show's history occurred in the famous episode-ending scene in which guest star Sammy Davis, Jr. plays himself. Archie is working as a cabdriver. Davis leaves a briefcase behind in his taxi and goes to the Bunker home to pick it up. Davis asks for a photograph with Archie. At the moment of the photograph Davis, after hearing some of Archie's racist remarks, suddenly kisses a stunned Archie on the cheek. The ensuing laughter went on for so long that it had to be severely edited for network broadcast, as Carroll O'Connor still had one line ("Well, what the hell — he said it was in his contract!") to deliver after the kiss. (The line is usually cut in syndication.)
Another memorable episode involves Edith's experience with menopause. In order to help her through this difficult period in her life, Archie attempts to be kind and sensitive to her, despite her sudden and hilarious mood swings. The effort almost kills Archie. His eventual explosion is a comic masterpiece.
All In the Family is one of two television shows, The Cosby Show being the other, that has been number 1 in the Nielsen Ratings for five consecutive TV seasons.
The ratings for each season, at the end of the season, were:
Season | Ratings Rank |
1970-1971 | #34 |
1971-1972 | #1 21,114,000 households[7] |
1972-1973 | #1 21,578,400 households[8] |
1973-1974 | #1 20,654,400 households[9] |
1974-1975 | #1 20,687,000 households[10] |
1975-1976 | #1 20,949,600 households[11] |
1976-1977 | #12 16,304,800 households[12] |
1977-1978 | #4 17,787,600 households, tied with 60 Minutes and Charlie's Angels[13] |
1978-1979 | #9 18,550,500 households, tied with Taxi[14] |
The series finale brought in 40.2 million viewers
All in the Family spawned several spin-offs, beginning with Maude on September 12, 1972. Maude Findlay, played by Beatrice Arthur, was Edith's cousin; she had first appeared on All in the Family in December 1971 in order to help take care of the Bunkers when they all were sick. Maude disliked Archie intensely, mainly because she thought Edith could have married better, but also because Archie was a conservative while Maude was very liberal in her politics. Maude was featured in another All in the Family episode in which Archie and Edith visited Maude's home in Westchester County to attend the wedding of Maude's daughter Carol — it aired near the end of the second season in the spring of 1972. The episode was essentially designed to set up the premise for the spin-off series Maude. In the episode, Bill Macy played Maude's husband, Walter; it was a role he would reprise for the weekly series that fall. Marcia Rodd, the actress who played Carol in the episode, was replaced by Adrienne Barbeau in Maude.
The second and longest-lasting spin-off of All in the Family was The Jeffersons. Debuting on CBS on January 18, 1975 The Jeffersons lasted 11 seasons compared to All in the Family's 9 seasons. The main characters of The Jeffersons were the Bunkers' former next-door neighbors George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) and his wife, Louise "Weezie" Jefferson (Isabel Sanford). George Jefferson was the owner of a chain of seven successful dry-cleaning stores; as The Jeffersons begins, they have just moved from the Bunkers' neighborhood to a luxury high-rise apartment building in Manhattan's Upper East Side. George was considered to be the "Black Archie Bunker", and just as racist as Archie. George and Louise would later appear on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. They bought the Banks mansion on the last show.
Other spin-offs of All in the Family include:
There were also two spin-offs from spin-offs of All in the Family:
A 90-minute retrospective, All in the Family 20th Anniversary Special, was produced to commemorate the show's 20th anniversary which aired on CBS February 16, 1991. It was hosted by the creator, Norman Lear, and featured a compilation of clips from the show's best moments including interviews with cast members Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers. Reiner and Lear promoted the special the previous week on The Arsenio Hall Show.
The series' opening theme song "Those Were the Days"[15], written by Lee Adams (lyrics) and Charles Strouse (music), was presented in a unique way for a 1970s series: Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton seated at a console or spinet piano (played by Stapleton) and singing the tune on-camera at the start of every episode, concluding with live-audience applause. Several different performances were recorded over the run of the series, including one version that includes additional lyrics. The song is a simple, pentatonic melody (that can be played exclusively with black keys on a piano) in which Archie and Edith wax nostalgic for the simpler days of yesteryear. The additional lyrics in the longer version lend to the song a greater sense of sadness, and make poignant reference to social changes taking place in the sixties. A few perceptible drifts can be observed when listening to each version chronologically: In the original version Jean Stapleton was wearing glasses and after the first time the lyric "Those Were The Days" were sung over the tonic (root chord of the song's key) the piano strikes a Dominant 7th chord in transition to the next part which is absent from subsequent versions. Jean Stapleton's screeching high note on the line "And you knew who you WEEERRE then" became louder, longer, and more comical, Carroll O'Connor's pronunciation of "welfare state" gained more of Archie's trademark enunciation and the closing lyrics (especially "Gee, our old LaSalle ran great.") were sung with increasingly deliberate articulation, as viewers had initially complained that they could not understand the words. Also in the original version the camera angle was shot slightly from the right side of the talent as opposed to the straight on angle of the next version. In one version, at the conclusion Archie hugs Edith at the end, while another verson sees Edith smilling blissfully at Archie, while Archie puts a cigar in his mouth and returns a rather annoyed look to Edith.
In interviews, Norman Lear stated that the idea for the piano song introduction was a cost-cutting measure. After completion of the pilot episode, the budget would not allow an elaborate scene to serve as the sequence played during the show's opening credits. Lear decided to have a simple scene of Archie and Edith singing at the piano.
The closing theme (an instrumental) was "Remembering You" played by Roger Kellaway with lyrics co-written by Carroll O'Connor. It was played over footage of houses in Queens intended to represent the Bunkers' neighborhood.
Except for some brief instances in the very first episodes, there was no background or transitional music.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Columbia Tri-Star Home Entertainment) has released the first six seasons of All in the Family on DVD in Region 1.
Season releases
DVD Name | Broadcast Season | Release Date | # of Eps |
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The Complete First Season | 1971 | March 26, 2002 | 13 |
The Complete Second Season | 1971-72 | February 4, 2003 | 24 |
The Complete Third Season | 1972-73 | July 20, 2004 | 24 |
The Complete Fourth Season | 1973-74 | April 12, 2005 | 24 |
The Complete Fifth Season | 1974-75 | January 3, 2006 | 25 |
The Complete Sixth Season | 1975-76 | February 13, 2007 | 24 |
The Complete Seventh Season | 1976-77 | TBA | 25 |
The Complete Eighth Season | 1977-78 | TBA | 24 |
The Complete Ninth Season | 1978-79 | TBA | 24 |
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