ALL IN THE FAMILY (Norman Lear, 1968-1979) Shout! Factory

It is a fitting epitaph to today’s mediocre and thoroughly pedestrian slew of sitcoms that one of television’s finest, if not the finest, has finally been given its due on home video. Perhaps a challenge, it is not entirely impossible to suck the same startle and amusement from the marrow of All in the Family some 40 plus years after the show’s debut. But when All in the Family (1968-79) premiered, Hollywood, and indeed America, were at a cultural crossroads. The ground beneath both had shifted to create a then perceived steep decline in North American socio-economic prosperity. Until All in the Family, television had basically chosen to ignore such looming changes, flooding the market with sanitized versions of life at home, or with a roster of fanciful adventure/sci-fi/western programming, maintaining that oppressively squeaky-clean reputation of America as a somewhat glamorous, clean-cut nation, hermetically sealed in its post-fifties' quaint domesticity. All in the Family did more than simply alter this perception. Quite simply, it shattered that ‘traditional’ American family circus to its core. Gone - the socially affluent suburban house dweller who dressed for dinner with every hair and behavioral nuance firmly in place, replaced by a sloppy, haggard and emotionally frazzled chaos, the cornerstones facing middle-class working families valiantly struggling just to get by.

The genius of All in the Family - it sought to illustrate the American family unit not as we all wished and hoped it could be, rather, as it was for millions living across the fruited plain. The Bunkers could have been our neighbors. We probably knew more families like theirs than we did the Van Dykes or the Cleavers. And this made All in the Family both poignant and relevant to an America striving to keep its collective head above the water.  With so much written about the Bunkers since their debut it is easy to forget they almost did not make it to TV. Initially CBS only commissioned 13 episodes to fill a mid-season programming gap. Unsuccessfully, producer/creator, Norman Lear had tried twice to market his brainchild under two different titles with an alternate cast, but to no avail. It is rumored Lear’s first choice for Archie was Mickey Rooney! CBS - dead last in the ratings - needed to fill dead air. So, reluctantly, they agreed to green light Lear’s passion project under its new title ‘All in the Family’ - but only if Lear preempted each episode with a disclaimer profusely to apologize to the viewing audience for what executives had already deemed 'incendiary content'. Neither Lear nor CBS could have expected the tidal wave of audience inquiries once the initial 13 episodes went off the air. Yet flood the front offices fans did, with enthusiastic praise for both the show and its stars.  Officially debuting in the fall, All in the Family went on to become one of the flagship programs in CBS’s lineup – launching two successful TV spinoffs (Maude and The Jeffersons). It also became a cultural touchstone and the only series in CBS’s history then to remain #1 in the Nielson ratings for a consecutive 5 years.

It has become somewhat fashionable in our present age of political correctness, and, far too much of an oversimplification, to simply whitewash Carroll O’Connor’s iconic Archie Bunker as nothing more than a bigoted, hate-mongering hypocrite and racist. Had Archie only been a bigot and a racist, it is unlikely we would still be talking about him some 40 years since All in the Family’s premiere. But Lear and his staff of savvy writers knew better, as did Carroll O’Connor who created one of the most loveably flawed and outrageously sympathetic patriarchs television has ever known. The comedy derived from watching O’Connor rail about the ‘hebes’, ‘spics’, ‘wops’ and ‘jungle bunnies’ – to name but a handful of the slurs Archie frequently bandied about. Interestingly, it does not stem from the insult, but from Lear’s ability to illustrate just how utterly misguided Archie is in his views, exposing his foibles while making none of the more obvious judgment calls that would have rendered All in the Family liberal speak-ease for the ‘message’ sitcom. Nevertheless, the point is made by both Lear and O’Connor. Archie might be misinformed and culturally cockeyed, but he could also be your grandfather.

And Lear and his writers were unafraid to challenge the more pressing social issues facing America at that time; abortion, rape, homosexuality, race-related violence, staggering unemployment, the war in Viet Nam and so on. Indeed, the world-weary oppressions that had caused Americans to increasingly feel isolated in their own homes came charging up the steps of 704 Hauser Street in Astoria, Queens - the fictional home of the Bunkers. But the cast of All in the Family did not simply face these demons as a morality play. Rather, like the lower middle-class scrappers they are, each character fought back to keep their own thin slice of the ever-dwindling American apple pie. To say All in the Family reinvigorated America with hope and promise for the future at a particular epoch when both were in woefully short supply is perhaps overstating the show’s premise. But there is no denying the Bunkers were a walking illustration of America’s collective desire to rise above its then current malaise and forge a new, more permanent place that reality seemed intent on denying the traditional family of its generation.

During its initial run, All in the Family took a stark, unvarnished look at the social issues traditional entertainments and the political machinery of its day seemed unwilling, or at the very least, powerless to address in any sort of concrete way. Crime, inflation, economic instability, et al; All in the Family became a flash point of heated discussion that sought to frankly address, often in a pseudo-humorous way, the crippled face of a weary nation’s ability to take a clear-eyed look at itself.  Of course, Archie couldn’t do this alone, even though he arguably would have rather tried. So, Lear and his writers gave him a dysfunctional family to navigate; ‘dingbat’ wife, Edith (Jean Stapleton), daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers) and her seemingly unemployable, college hippie/husband, Mike ‘Meathead’ Stivic (Rob Reiner). The disagreements between Archie and Mike eventually became an integral part of the show, pitting Archie’s arch conservatism, often sympathetically flawed, against Mike’s equally problematic ultra-liberalism. “Sticks and stones may break my bones…but you are one dumb Pollock!” Archie would rail, forcing Mike into a juicy confrontation where no barb was spared.  

Over the years Archie’s mounting inability to cope with these changing times made for some very funny TV. As when he erroneously suggested Shirley Temple was too young to know she was doing anything ‘wrong’ by dancing with Bill Bojangles Robinson, allowing Mike to reason that if God had wanted whites and blacks to dance together “he’d a’ given us rhythm too.”  Or the moment when Archie frustratingly attempted to explain that ‘God-damn’ was “beautiful words from the holy book…don’t show your ignorance, Edith!” But the moment that elicited the longest recorded laugh in sitcom history came when Archie shared a cab with Sammy Davis Jr. In gratitude, Sammy – recognizing Archie’s aversion to blacks but refusing to be riled or unruffled by it – agrees to pose for a photograph together. On the count of three, Sammy kissed Archie for the photo-op, resulting in one of the most awkward and deeply paralytic angst-ridden double takes Carroll O’Connor ever made. During the show’s run, the Bunkers had their share of neighbors: Louise (Isobel Sanford) and George Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley) and their son, Lionel (Mike Evans), Irene Lorenzo (Betty Garrett) and Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur). All of them made their mark, the first and the last, getting their own successful spinoff series.

In the 40 plus years since its premiere, All in the Family has lost none of its raw intensity to get under our skin.  War, abortion, racial conflict, the foibles associated with human sexuality, etc. are perennially with us. Topics that were timely back then seem strangely more timeless now, even as that vintage that spawned the Bunker clan looks more like a relic, not simply from another time, but another planet. It isn’t an overstatement to suggest everyone watched All in the Family back in its heyday. With only three major networks, the show’s audience was practically guaranteed and 65 million regularly tuned in to get their fill of laughter and social commentary seamlessly blended and effortlessly sold as mass entertainment.  The tragedy in today’s programming is that there is no room for ground-breaking television like All in the Family. Thankfully, there is more than ample room for it on home video. Ah yes, “those were the days”. And Shout! Factory has resurrected them in one box set for the first time. To what effect? Plenty. Sony, the previous custodians of single season incarnations marketed on DVD has afforded Shout! the opportunity to repackage everything from those single seasons, while tacking on a few more extras to sweeten the deal. First off, Shout!’s transfer quality seems to be identical to Sony’s. Is that good or bad?

Norman Lear always wanted a very earthy ‘real’ look to All in the Family, and while I would have sincerely preferred that Shout! go back to the original elements and do some digital boosting, merely to stabilize and marginally clean up these transfers to look their optimal best, I can’t rightly say that these episodes look any better or worse than I recall from my original TV broadcast viewing experience. Recorded on digital tape, rather than film, the image suffers from color bleeding and all the other shortcomings inherent in the medium; halo effects, streaking during fast motion, and a general softness that pretty much kills fine detail. This is, if not as it should be, then most definitely as Lear intended – either, to preserve his vision of ‘artistic integrity’ or merely to save a few bucks. You decide. The Dolby mono is adequate, but just that. Again, it’s a pity that one of the best and best-loved TV sitcoms ever made has not been given the upgrade it so obviously deserves. But let’s be honest here. Even if some due diligence had been applied, its effect would have only marked a marginal improvement in overall image quality at best. So, it isn’t as though Shout! has been lax or short-sighted. They merely crunched some numbers and reasoned Sony had done as much as was permissible to license and still turn a profit. And, considering the time and money it would take to remaster 208 episodes, frankly, it isn’t all that surprising either!

Extras include a new, very brief interview with Norman Lear, two documentaries about the series, the pilot for Archie Bunker’s Place and Gloria (the two failed spinoffs after All in the Family went off the air) and the two failed pilots that helped launch the series; both starring O’Connor and Stapleton, but with Tim McIntire and Kelly Jean Peters as Mike and Gloria in the first, and Chip Oliver and Candy Azzara in the latter. We also get a handsome 40-page booklet with critiques by noted TV critics, with background info on the series. While this DVD box set won’t win any awards for best remastering effort, strictly speaking its content is worth its weight in gold. Recommended on that basis alone. Plan your purchases accordingly. 

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

2

EXTRAS

3