Filmdum

OSCAR: First of all I just want to say how much I loved Rob Reiner (RIP) in this show. He took an outside character (in the beginning) and made it a fan favorite amongst the television icons. “Meathead” aka Michael Stivic became Archie Bunker’s antagonist thus creating a hilarious foil to Archie’s dictatorship in the Bunker household. It was a genius move by the writers to have Archie’s daughter Gloria fall in love with the liberal minded Stivic as she was Archie’s only child and held both the hearts of the conservative, old fashioned father and the hippy, liberal son-in-law. The other person who held the hearts of both of these men was the mother of the house, Archie’s wife Edith, brilliantly played by actress Jean Stapleton, who would often be the bridge between the two warring male in-laws. All of these dynamics made this one of the greatest sitcoms of all time in my opinion and a groundbreaker in bringing in characters of different races who could verbally fence with Archie and often foil his narrow look at society.

EMMY: I seriously doubt that a sitcom like this could or even should survive in today’s culture but it sure was entertaining and funny back in the 70s (we didn’t have an infinite number of channels back then). It also birthed another great sitcom about the Jefferson’s (Archie’s neighbors of color) who would pop in and add just the right spice to Archie’s word salads as he would often trip over his own words “trying” to say the right things to them (in his mind) but would come out quasi-offensive without him fully realizing it. That was the thing about Archie’s character: he often rebuked others for being unconscious of their own (conceived) faults or missteps but HE was the king of faults and missteps!!!

What are YOUR thoughts on ‘All In The Family’? Let us know….