Those Were The Days

Norman Lear passed away this week at the age of 101. He worked on over 100 TV shows and created Maude, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jefferson, Good Times, and of course, All in the Family.

All in the Family debuted in 1971 and ran until 1979. I was too young to pay any attention to it at first but I think I started watching it a few seasons into its run. Even though I was just a kid in elementary school, I was in on the joke. The patriarch of the family was Archie Bunker, played brilliantly by Carroll O’Connor. Archie was a working-class guy in Queens and also a bigot incapable of adapting while the world changed around him. The show was the first to tackle many serious subjects like racism, homosexuality, feminism, antisemitism, infidelity, breast cancer, abortion, rape, the war in Vietnam, and impotence among many others.

Perhaps the funniest aspect of the show is that a lot of conservative viewers saw Archie as their champion, even though he was kinda oafish, often the butt of the jokes, and usually burned by his bigotry at the end of each episode. This was similar to conservatives not understanding that Stephen Colbert’s brilliant Bill O’Reilly-inspired talk show host was making fun of them.

Archie was surrounded by people who weren’t as intolerant as he was, such as his sweet naive wife, his feminist daughter, and super liberal son-in-law. Norman Learn did the reverse of this with Fred Sanford, a black junk dealer with prejudice and outdated views living with his more tolerant son, Lamont. Fred and Archie insulted everyone who came into their paths. Norman really should have gotten them two together for a crossover. We did get to see Archie and George Jefferson spar and The Jeffersons, as well as Maude, were spin-offs of All in the Family.

I liked several of Norman Lear’s shows and grew up mostly on Sanford and Son, Good Times, and my favorite, The Jeffersons. I still want to live in a penthouse in the sky.

Of course, Norman Lear wasn’t a bigot, but Republicans would love to rewrite the theme to All in the Family, “Those Were the Days,” return us to a nation of suppression, and “make America great again.”

Creative note: I wrote this yesterday while writing ideas for CNN. I didn’t write this one for them as it wasn’t on my assignment and it’s probably too wordy for the newsletter. I wrote the first three verses yesterday which is how many there are in the theme…I think. I actually didn’t go back and listen to it but I did read the lyrics. I added an extra verse this morning because I was having too much fun with it although this much lettering is a lot of work. I just now realized that every line in the fourth verse ends on the exact same words as every line in the second verse. Pretend you don’t see that. I’ll be Lennon/McCartney next time.

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