THE JEFFERSONS (Norman Lear, 1975-85) Shout! Factory
Despite its ever-lasting popularity and runaway hit
status on television, Norman Lear’s The Jeffersons (1975-85) has always
been considered the poor (or maybe I should say, ‘po’) relation to Lear’s own All
in the Family, from whence it was spun off. I suppose it didn’t help, Lear himself considered this franchise, his ‘lesser’ among many, a sort of ‘reverse
racism’ take on Archie Bunker’s stoic reticence. However, while Archie’s bias
was broadly set against virtually anyone, from any nationality or sexual
preference not his own, George Jefferson’s hyper-critical frost was commonly
directed at whites, generally homogenized as simpler-minded polite rich folk
who blindly submit, contribute to, and, reflect his general disdain of them.
That was truly the cream of the jest in The Jeffersons – that and the
inclusion of a then unknown Marla Gibbs, cast as the caustic and glib housekeeper,
Florence Johnston. Movin’ on up to that ‘dee-luxe’
apartment in the sky on New York’s east side certainly proved a definite plus
for the irrepressible, George (supremely realized by Sherman Hemsley who,
rather obscenely, was only once Emmy-nominated for the role – in 1983), Louise
(affectionately known as ‘Weezy’, memorably played as the sturdy voice of
reason by Isobel Sanford, an justly receiving consecutive nominations for her
work between 1979 and 1985) and their son, Lionel (Mike Evans for the first
season, and, Damon Evans – no relation – until Season 5). Aside: as a matter of
record, Sanford’s Emmy win in 1981 was the first such honor bestowed on a black
actress. The official departure of George and Louise as the Bunker’s lovably
confrontational neighbors after 1975’s episode, ‘The Jeffersons Move Up’
set the stage for the couple’s arrival at their fashionable Colby East high-rise
where George continued his lucky streak in business as the owner of a dry-cleaning
chain.
The Jeffersons’ relocation was not without its propitious
friendships. Louise, almost immediately, befriended Tom (Franklin Cover) and
Helen Willis (Roxie Roker) – an interracial couple George only ‘tolerated’
despite Tom’s child-like naiveté and desire to become his best friend. Interesting
to consider the racial climate of the times. Roker, when interviewed for the
part by Lear, nervously asked if she would be ‘comfortable’ playing a black
woman married to a white man, whereupon Roker produced a photo of her real-life
husband, Sy Kravitz, who was white. So much for taking ‘the edge’
off! The Willis’ had two adult children
whom George openly disparaged as ‘zebras’ because of their blended heritage:
Allan (first played by Andrew Rubin in Season 1, but otherwise barely glimpsed
in the incarnation of Jay Hammer, most intermittently visible in Season 5), and
Jenny (Berlinda Tolbert), who eventually fell in love with, and married, Lionel
– much to George’s chagrin. In Season 2, the couple had their own child, later
played by Ebonie Smith). It all worked out in George’s favor, alas, when Lionel
and Jenny divorced in final season of the show. Ironically, Mike Evans would
return to the role of Lionel for The Jeffersons’ 6th and 7th
season, by then, the co-creator and one of the writers on TV’s other wildly
popular all-black sitcom, Good Times (1974-79), and a successful real
estate investor. Producer/director, John Rich had always preferred Mike Evans, despite
Lear’s passion to cast Cleavon Little. According to close pal, Jimmie Walker, Evans
negotiation for more money led to his dismissal from The Jeffersons
after only one season. He was not unemployed for very long, co-starring as
Lenny in Danny Thomas’ short-lived sitcom, The Practice (1976-77). And
although the cast shake-up led to some minor consternation for The Jeffersons’
writers, the brief return of Mike Evans as Lionel in 1979 (the same year Good
Times was cancelled) gave a much-needed rating’s boost, to see The
Jeffersons through its most highly rated year – debuting at No. 3 in the Nielsen’s.
Marla Gibbs arrival as the sassy, but sincerely spiritual
domestic, Florence (a role for which she was consecutively Emmy-nominated as
Best Supporting actress between 1981-85) proved the most memorable and charming.
Florence absolutely refused to ‘accept’ her place as ‘a servant’, chiding
George with “I ain’t no damn secretary!” when asked to take a letter, bossing
her employer around, and, often deriding George, particularly when he was at
his most pompous and authoritative, knocking him down a peg or two with quips
about his diminutive physical stature and male-pattern baldness. The other main staple at the outset of the
show was Zara Cully as George’s acid-tongued mama, Olivia who deviously frowned
upon her daughter-in-law. Like Hemsley and Sanford, Cully had come from All
in the Family, first to appear in that show’s 1974 episode, ‘Lionel’s
engagement’, and, in the first two seasons of The Jeffersons, to
remain a prominent fixture as she slyly tried, in vain, to drive a wedge
between George and Weezy. Interestingly,
the writer’s seemed to lose interest in her character and Cully
appeared only sporadically over the next 2 years before being written out entirely
at the outset of Season 5. Mother Jefferson’s absence was never dealt with ‘officially’
(Cully died of lung cancer in 1978). But her character was honorably mentioned
as ‘having passed’ at the end of Season 5. The final reoccurring character on
the show was Paul Benedict’s Harry Bentley. Like Cover’s Tom, Bentley was
played strictly for laughs as the Jefferson’s next-door Brit ex-pate who,
despite his rather adolescent outlook on life, and chronic tolerance of having
George slam the door in his face in mid-sentence, nevertheless remained
steadfastly loyal to his neighbors, and, held the competent post of interpreter
for the United Nations. In 1981, Benedict unofficially ‘left’ The Jeffersons
for nearly 2 seasons (he just wasn’t around), marking his return in 1983, even
as the first signs appeared that the series was fast winding down.
By 1985, the Jeffersons had come a very long
way from their debut as an appendage of Lear’s All in the Family – Lear,
expressly conceiving the role of George for Sherman Hemsley, delayed from
marking his first appearance on that show until its second season, due to prior
commitments on the Broadway musical, Purlie. To fill this gap,
Lear had briefly whetted audience’s appetite by introducing Weezy and Lionel to
the Bunkers during the 8th episode, and later, actor, Mel Stewart (cast
as George’s younger brother, Henry), rather unceremoniously jettisoned from the
line-up once Hemsley became available. Until 1975, the Jefferson family were an
integral part of All in the Family’s success; Lear, deciding at the end
of Season 5 to take a gamble and spin-off the characters into their own half-hour
as he had previously done with great success for Bea Arthur’s Maude (1972-1978).
Lear’s golden touch was working overtime in the mid-70’s, as The Jeffersons
were immediately embraced by audiences, though ironically, not before virtually
all of their extended relations – briefly glimpsed in All in the Family,
were recast for the spinoff. While no one could confuse The Jeffersons
more traditional – even quaint – slant on domestic life, with All in the
Family’s then ‘ground-breaking’ address of the socio-political afflictions affecting
the world in its day, The Jeffersons nevertheless maintained its own
edgy diplomacy, with a handful of episodes devoted to racial prejudice, suicide,
gun control, transgenderism, the KKK, and adult illiteracy. For the first 3
seasons, the loaded sobriquets ‘nigger’ and ‘honky’ readily
appeared, usually downplayed for their incendiary qualities by Hemsley’s
flippant, off-the-cuff usage and delivery, later, eased from the show’s dialogue entirely.
Unlike All in the Family, The Jeffersons managed only one
spinoff – the failed ‘Checking In’ an attempt to give Marla Gibb’s her
own spotlight. It barely lasted for 4 episodes in 1981. Even so, Gibbs would
mark a valiant return to television with 227 (1985-90), a riotous sitcom
that cast her as street-savvy wife and mother, Mary Jenkins, living in a cozy tenement
in a suburb of Washington D.C.
Ironically, The Jeffersons ended its run that
same year - 1985, but in controversy, when CBS inexplicably canceled it without
any fanfare or even a proper farewell. The entire cast were taken aback, not
only by the news, but later to discover CBS had made their executive decision
nearly two full months prior to publicly making the announcement. Sherman
Hemsley learned he no longer had a job by reading a squib in his local
newspaper, while Sanford – informed by a cousin who had read it in a tabloid -
took the snub personally, and Franklin Cover, similarly discovered he was done
by tuning into an episode of Entertainment Tonight. Mercifully, it did
not take Hemsley long to find gainful employment as the star of another popular
sitcom, Amen (1986-90), playing the widowed deacon of a Philadelphia
First Community church. In its time, The Jeffersons was TV’s longest
running prime-time sitcom, its 11-season run preempted by CBS’s desire to
launch a revamped version of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (1985-89)
as well as a pair of new comedy shows to star Flip Wilson and George Burns. Interesting
to consider CBS’s eminence that year, with both Murder She Wrote (1984-96)
and Crazy Like a Fox (1984-86) entering their second seasons. The
network had aggressively moved away from sitcoms, except for Newhart
(1982-90), concentrating on hour-long programming that included the popular
night-time soaps, Dallas (1978-91), Falcon Crest (1981-90), and, Knots
Landing (1979-93), in addition to the detective show, Magnum, P.I.
(1980-88). 1985 was also the year, CBS pulled the plug on two more popular
franchises, The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-85), and, Alice (1976-85).
And while Variety – the showbiz bible – inferred The Jeffersons was
canceled due to low ratings, in reality, after a mid-run slump between 1981-83,
the franchise had shown definite signs it was at the cusp of a rating’s renaissance. Since its time, The
Jeffersons has never entirely left our cultural conscience, endlessly
replayed on cable channels devoted to ‘classic’ TV series.
Shout! Factory’s ‘complete series’ box set, packaged
as a ‘Dee-Luxe’, 6-volume/33-disc offering, housing all 253-episodes, is a
cause for minor celebration. Like all of Norman Lear’s vintage television
programming, The Jeffersons was shot and edited quick and dirty on
digital tape and looks about as awful as that media’s grotesque limitations.
So, don’t expect perfection and you won’t be disappointed. Sony, the rather infamous custodians of this
franchise, only to release its first 6 seasons as stand-alone offerings, has
made the whole series available via Shout!’s third-party distribution; in all, 74-hours
of pure Jeffersonian nirvana with a few minor ‘treats’ thrown in. Image quality
here is what you should expect from digital tape; color smearing, boosted
contrast, edge effects and built-in flicker. Point blank: you aren’t buying
this to show off the capabilities of your new 4K set-up. Contrast varies from
show to show, and color grading is virtually a foreign concept here, toggling
between warm flesh tones and anemic washed out colors that occasionally look as
though to be on the verge of imploding altogether. The 1.0 mono is adequate,
though just, as dialogue, while clear, very often is strident. We get a
featurette on the show's production, and several crossover episodes. Run times
suggest these are the unedited versions as they originally aired, sans
commercials. Extras are nominal at best: the first episode of Marla Gibb’s
derailed Florence spin-off, Checking In, an episode of the failed
hour-long 1984 sitcom, E/R (no, not that other ER, a drama,
with a legendary run from 1995-2009). Shout! has also ported over the only 2
extras originally furnished by Sony, the All in the Family Season 5
episode where George and Weezy move out of Queens, leaving the Bunkers behind,
and Movin’ On Up – a real threadbare offering that attempts to summarize
the show’s creation and longevity in less than 20-mins. There is also a rather
bogus essay by TV critic, Tom Shale who, despite having won a Pulitzer (they
give those out like Pez candy these days) just cannot seem to wrap his head
around the potency of the ‘N-word’.
Placed in its proper perspective, The Jeffersons
endures as a less ‘message-orientated’ sitcom from the Norman Lear catalog, in
no small way owed to Lear’s partner, Bud Yorkin’s emphasis on a
brighter/breezier outlook for George and Weezy. With its memorable theme,
composed and sung by the late and multi-talented Ja’Net DuBois, who played the
vivacious neighbor, Willona Woods on Good Times (1974-79), The
Jeffersons hit the airwaves as a mid-season replacement with a one-two
knockout punch, and, with only 13 episodes to recommend its kick-start, nevertheless,
ended its first run as the 4th highest watched ‘series of 1974-75. As The Jeffersons never delved into the
deeper issues affecting society, George’s venial businessman, with a natural
antipathy towards whites, bolstered most of the show’s light farce. I still fondly
recall the episode where George provides his neighbor, Tom with a custom-made
mixed drink – a white mule. When Tom curiously inquires as to the drink’s
origins, George explains that it is ‘a honky donkey!’ Now, that’s funny!
And if comparisons to Sherman Hemsley and Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker
persisted at the outset of the show, George Jefferson eventually evolved into
far more than his black counterpoint; unlike Archie, to mellow toward his white
neighbors, even to illustrate compassion for Bentley – whom he generally and
otherwise regarded as a complete airhead.
Perhaps, straddling the great racial divide is one
reason critics were rather apoplectic towards the show. Regardless of their
disdain, and even in lieu of Norman Lear’s own discounting of such a lucrative
franchise, The Jeffersons eventually proved to be Lear’s longest-running
and most financially successful sitcom. And, in hindsight, the show’s
roller-coaster ratings seem predicated more on CBS’s incongruous inability to
maintain a regular time slot; moving The Jeffersons, not just from hour
to hour, but night to night, around their programming chess board sixteen times
- a record in television broadcasting, and one that would have likely sunk the
longevity of any other show. When we look back on The Jeffersons now, the
show seems to hail from another planet entirely – refreshingly outspoken, and decidedly
its own stand-alone success story, definitely worthy of our renewed appreciation.
Audiences have never forgotten George and Weezy, nor should they. And Shout!’s DVD
set clarifies the reasons why. Enjoy them all.
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
Overall – 4
VIDEO/AUDIO
Overall – 2.5
EXTRAS
2
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