All in the Family

▪ American television show

      American television situation comedy that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System (now CBS Corporation) for eight seasons (1971–79). The show continued from 1979 to 1983 under the title Archie Bunker's Place.

      All in the Family became one of the most successful sitcoms of its time. The show was based on the popular British comedy Till Death Us Do Part (1965–75) and was adapted for an American audience by producers Norman Lear and Alan (“Bud”) Yorkin. Breaking new ground with its often controversial subject matter, All in the Family became the top-rated show in the United States for five consecutive years and won four Emmy Awards in a row for outstanding comedy series. Much of its success came from its frank and satirical treatment of sensitive or important topics, such as race, gender, sex, bigotry, and social inequity. The willing and deft portrayal of these topics made a dramatic impact at the time and a lasting influence on television.

      The show concerns the domestic life of the Bunkers, a lower-middle-class white family living in Queens, N.Y. The protagonist and source for much of the humour was Archie Bunker (played by Carroll O'Connor), a vocal and prejudiced blue-collar worker. Archie, an ever-grouchy social conservative, holds a nostalgic view of America and sees his way of life threatened by the rise of ethnic minorities, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and Jews (all of whom he refers to using derogatory epithets). Archie's harangues are tolerated by his neurotic and passive wife, Edith (Jean Stapleton), but are constantly challenged by his live-in son-in-law, Mike Stivic (Rob Reiner, later the director of such motion pictures as A Few Good Men [1992]), a college student and liberal married to Gloria (Sally Struthers). While Mike's sympathies are the opposite of Archie's, they are equally vocal and antagonistic.

* * *