I saw this cartoon by Bill Bramhall and it really brought memories back of Norman Lear. It’s sad that today’s generation doesn’t know so much about our history, including television history. I still pay for cable! I want to cut the cable, honest, but I can’t figure out if I’ll miss it or not.
Bill Bramhall is the excellent cartoonist for the New York Daily News, you can see his cartoons daily at GoComics here.
I grew up watching all of the Norman Lear shows from All in the Family to Maude to Sanford and Son and of course Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. And there were so many more. He basically created 1970s tv. For awhile there, All in the Family was must see tv. Norman died Tuesday, he was 101!
I googled a list of Norman’s shows here.
I think our favorite was All in the Family. My mother and I used to mock Archie Bunker all the time. There was one thing that Archie did when Edith would over-talk, he would make believe he was killing himself. He would slowly load a gun and then shoot himself. Or he would tie a noose and hang himself. My mother would do that when I overtalked. She would just suddenly mime one of the actions, and we would both bust out laughing.
There was a period when Mom used to cut my hair and I would quote Archie. There were a few episodes when Archie was out of work due to a strike or something, and Edith would cut his hair, so when my Mom would ask me how I wanted my hair cut, I would say, “Without blood, Mom, without blood.”
And I would also say, “Go around the back, take some off at the top and when you get to an ear for Gawd sake, stop.” I would say God, the way Archie said it, Gawd.
Archie was a bigot and politically incorrect, we knew it. But so did the 40 to 60 million people who watched All in the Family each week.
Here is a list of Archie’s top 10 most politically incorrect comments.
I’m just thinking now, what Norman Lear would have been an excellent person to interview for my series.
Originally published at tomversation.com on December 7, 2023.
