Gmork - 2015-08-24
Wholesome family bigotry.
|
Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2015-08-24
So *this* is the wellspring of US culture.
|
|
Bort - 2015-08-24
"... and you Polacks are meatheads! And someday, you're going to make 'North'!"
|
Xenocide - 2015-08-24 One day I'm going to invent a portal gun like the one Rick Sanchez has. And wherever I go I'll introduce myself by saying, "Greetings. I hail from the universe where they made 'North.'"
|
infinite zest - 2015-08-24 Hey now, that's the same universe that This Is Spinal Tap came from, just like how Happy Feet and Mad Max exist in the same one.. how exactly does this happen?
|
The Mothership - 2015-08-24
This was an extremely popular show at the time.
|
|
garcet71283 - 2015-08-24
No offense meant to those above this post, but saying this show is racist or bigoted is the same as claiming Blazing Saddles is or that Beavis and Butthead glorified delinquent behavior.
The show was intended as satire and regularly had Archie learning his lesson at the end or his racism putting him into funny predicaments.
Carroll O'Connor himself was a pretty hardcore democrat that really got pissed off when people thought his character was somehow glorifying the bad behavior.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Old_Zircon - 2015-08-24 IZ, you could probably add Soap to that list, too. I was a little too young to catch it but from what I've seen of it, Billy Crystal's character was more human and real than most gay characters on network TV even today, unless the handful of episodes I've seen were uncharacteristic.
|
|
John Holmes Motherfucker - 2015-08-24 >> I can't think of too many shows that covered the racial/ideological/sexual divide like AITF did, and that was like 40 years ago!
And then there's Maude! I saw a clip from "Maude" on youtube a while ago, and I realized that you still don't see middle-aged people being sexual like that on TV very much. Maude and Walter were kissing!
|
|
|
Bort - 2015-08-24 About "Cheers" and race, are you thinking of Louis, the "rather large black man" that Cliff accidentally got fired? That was pretty openly racist of Norm -- he wasn't scary because he was large, but because he was large and black.
|
infinite zest - 2015-08-24 Man.. I don't remember any of these things about Cheers. Then again I watched it because I was a 13-year-old with insomnia and Cheers came on the one other network besides PBS that we could pick up at around midnight. Who knew that for all the zany bar antics I'd one day wind up a weird combination of Norm and Frasier..
|
|
fluffy - 2015-08-24 My criticism of Cheers regarding race is more that they went 11 seasons and only had like two black people in the background ever. Hell, there were probably more black people in the old-timey artwork in the intro than there were in the show itself.
|
fluffy - 2015-08-24 Oh wait, the delivery guy was black. And he even had a speaking line! In 1991.
|
|
Old_Zircon - 2015-08-25 To be fair, Fluffy, that was probably a pretty accurate portrayal of the ethnic profile of a townie bar in downtown Boston in the late 80s. Boston was and is segregated as fuck.
|
Prickly Pete - 2015-08-24
What's funny is that they aren't offended that Archie is gay bashing, they're offended that he's profiling this guy as gay because he's sensitive, wears glasses, and from England. If anything, they're just as bigoted as he is.
|
John Holmes Motherfucker - 2015-08-24 Well, not quite, but I see your point. The episode itself was more enlightened than Mike.
|
il fiore bel - 2015-08-24
So they smoke like chimneys over there. What's the big deal?
|
TeenerTot - 2015-08-24 Shhh. Nobody tell him.
|
John Holmes Motherfucker - 2015-08-24
"England is a fag country" is exactly the kind of thing that AITF did so well, something that people actually believed that suddenly seemed ridiculous when somebody said it out loud on TV.
|
Rodents of Unusual Size - 2015-08-24
Classic comedy about how it used to be illegal for people to have gay sex. Good times.
|
That guy - 2015-08-24 please tell me you understand the tone of the show and what it did for American television.....
|
John Holmes Motherfucker - 2015-08-24 I repeat, at the time, affiliates all over the country, including my hometown in upstate new york, refused to air this episode. simply because they talked about homosexuality. In 1970, simply acknowledging the existence of homosexuality was violating a major social taboo, AND THEY VIOLATED IT! And the thing is, even if they refused to air the episode in your town, that made it a topic of conversation. Not long afterword, it became something people talked about on tv.
I think this was huge step toward getting to where we are, Someone was going to make it sooner or later. All in the Family made it.
|
Rodents of Unusual Size - 2015-08-24 I do understand the time they were living in but I can't really laugh at this. I mean at the time what they were doing was considerably brave in discussing it but considering how gays were basically jailed at every opportunity I can't really find it humorous. I'll never really be able to laugh at this show. It just depresses me if anything.
|
infinite zest - 2015-08-24 I can't remember if I read this or if someone just told me this, but I guess AITF was originally conceived without the laugh tracks (or live studio audience whichever it was) but that wouldn't sell like a regular sitcom. I guess people needed to know what and when to laugh. I mostly remember the show as the first to have a toilet flushing sound, which was like two people in the same bed.
|
|
chumbucket - 2015-08-25
This was a beautifully done comedy. What's kind of sad about it is that likely 70-80% of all American households from this or a generation before were in many ways like this.
|
Register or login To Post a Comment |