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Chapter 3: All in the Family
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W [3] All in the Family hereas The Beverly Hillbillies went out of its way to avoid controversy, All in the Family courted it. In fact, Dorothy Rabinowitz, television critic publishing in Commentary in 1975, called All in the Family’s creator, Nor man Lear, the “entrepreneur of the controversial.”1 That’s a fairly accurate label, and Lear may even have liked it. Cer tainly, he and CBS were quite prepared and, I believe, even hoped for a public eruption when the program aired at mid season, January 1971. Histories of All in the Family suggest that CBS had hesita tions about the offensiveness of the program. Indeed, CBS re sponded in several ways to contain the subject matter of the initial program. Executives encouraged using the milder of two episodes completed as of the air date, and they tussled with Lear about multiple specific moments in the show, even tually achieving concessions on only two matters. Addition ally, CBS sent warning notes to its affiliates and requested tol erance while it tried to take new programming directions.2 81 All in the Family / 82 The network alerted the audience by bracketing the program with a disclaimer which declared that the show’s function was “ventilating some of the prejudices and misconceptions in American society today.” Moreover, the network made both episodes available to the critics for their inaugural reviews, hoping for words of praise.3 The premiere episode, “Meet the Bunkers,” establishes the generational conflict by contrasting notions about marriage: it revolves around preparations for Archie and Edith’s an niversary and uses Archie’s early arrival at home, catching Mike and Gloria having sex, to spark debates. The second episode, “Writing the President,” exemplifies the soon to be habitual formula of Archie’s struggle to best his soninlaw. A debate over watching a TV program on environmental pollu tion versus watching football highlights of “spooks” (Archie’s term for African Americans who he says have inherited ge netics for running from animals in the jungle) moves to con trasts between John Wayne and Jack Lemmon, nonnutritional cereals (favored by Archie) and organic food, and good Amer icans and those protesting race relations and the war. Much of the putdown of Archie exists through his own verbal inade quacies, with malapropisms implying an equivalent inade quacy of thought. Other stereotypes such as Archie’s accusa tion that Catholic nuns spend most of their charity money on golden candlesticks also create this potentially controversial representation. The histories of the premiere night emphasize that execu tives such as Robert Wood, in his second year as CBS presi dent, thought the program would be controversial enough to require extra help on the network’s telephones. News reports [13.58.82.79] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:58 GMT) All in the Family / 83 Sidney Harris for Broadcasting indicate that operators logged only about a thousand calls and 62 percent were tallied as favorable.4 Overnight Nielsens must have been fairly disappointing when All in the Family re ceived only a 15 share. I write “disappointing” because, for all of the evidence of hesitation and apology, CBS also showed signs of simultane ously hoping to shock America. Their description of the new show for TV Guide not only “warned” the viewer but tempted as well: Situation comedy takes a giant step with this adult social satire. This series will explore American prejudices by looking at those of one middleclass family—if viewers can take the heat. There’s plenty of All in the Family / 84 abrasive language and subject matter. The family consists of bigoted Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor); his spiritless wife Edith (Jean Stapleton); their naively idealistic daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers); and Gloria’s husband Mike (Rob Reiner), an argumentative liberal who sorely tries Archie’s soul. Mike Evans plays Lionel, a black friend of the younger couple. Tonight, Mike and Archie are wran gling about everything from race to welfare.5 Unfortunately, the premiere did not create the explosion that CBS and Lear might have wished. Perhaps part of the cause for that was CBS’s choice of leading into All in the Family with Hee Haw and then pitting it in the New York City area against movies on ABC and NBC (taking 38 and 30 shares). Just not that many people watched the first show.6 Moreover, as I shall discuss below, CBS’s strategy of turn ing...