Those Were the Days : Why All in the Family Still Matters / Jim Cullen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cullen, Jim, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

All in the family (Television program).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 pages)

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Between 1971 and 1979, All in the Family was more than just a wildly popular television sitcom that routinely drew 50 million viewers weekly. It was also a touchstone of American life, so much so that the living room chairs of the two main characters have spent the last 40 years on display at the Smithsonian. How did a show this controversial and boundary-breaking manage to become so widely beloved? Those Were the Days is the first full-length study of this remarkable television program. Created by Norman Lear and produced by Bud Yorkin, All in the Family dared to address such taboo topics as rape, abortion, menopause, homosexuality, and racial prejudice in a way that no other sitcom had before. Through a close analysis of the sitcom’s four main characters—boorish bigot Archie Bunker, his devoted wife Edith, their feminist daughter Gloria, and her outspoken liberal husband Mike—Jim Cullen demonstrates how All in the Family was able to bridge the generation gap and appeal to a broad spectrum of American viewers in an age when a network broadcast model of television created a shared national culture. Locating All in the Family within the larger history of American television, this book shows how it transformed the medium, not only spawning spinoffs like Maude and The Jeffersons, but also helping to inspire programs like Roseanne, Married... with Children, and The Simpsons. And it raises the question: could a show this edgy ever air on broadcast television today?

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

1. Situation Comedy, Situation Tragedy

2. The Revolution, Televised

3. Fuzzy Reception

4. Producing Comedy

5. The Character of Home

6. Not Bad for a Bigot

7. A Really Great Housewife

8. Left In

9. “Little Girl” to Mother

10. Family Resemblance

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

1-9788-0580-2

OCLC:

1129015766