Back before there were hundreds of channels and endless streaming services, it really did feel like the whole country united around their TV sets to watch the same exact shows each week on one of the big three TV networks. For those who watched TV in the ’70s, there weren’t many shows that were viewed more than All in the Family.
Back in 1971, when that Norman Lear-produced TV show debuted, it forever changed the landscape of American sitcoms. Before that, family comedies were pretty much universally safe and polite. Think Leave It to Beaver or My Three Sons. Then came Archie Bunker. Brilliantly played by Carroll O’Connor, he was loud, he was stubborn, and very set in his ways. Archie bumped heads constantly with his son-in-law Mike (Rob Reiner), whom he called Meathead, and he most certainly took his sweet and patient wife, Edith (Jean Stapleton), for granted, often discounting and belittling her.