TV Quote of the Day (‘All in the Family,’ With ‘Archie Bunker's Bicentennial Minute’)

Archie Bunker [played by Carroll O’Connor] [to liberal son-in-law Mike Stivic]: “That ain't the American way, buddy. No, siree. Listen here, professor. You're the one who needs an American History lesson. You don't know nothin' about Lady Liberty standin' there in the harbor, with her torch on high, screamin' out to all the nations in the world: ‘Send me your poor, your deadbeats, your filthy.’ And all the nations send 'em in here, they come swarming in like ants. Your Spanish P.R.'s from the Caribboin, your Japs, your Chinamen, your Krauts, and your Hebes, and your English fags. All of 'em come in here and they're all free to live in their own separate sections where they feel safe. And they'll bust your head if you go in there. That's what makes America great, buddy.” [exits the Stivic house]

Mike Stivic [played by Rob Reiner] [to Gloria]: “I think we just heard ‘Archie Bunker's Bicentennial Minute.’"—All in the Family, Season 6, Episode 7, “Mike Faces Life,” original air date Oct. 27, 1975, teleplay by Mel Tolkin, Larry Rhine, and Johnny Speight, directed by Paul Bogart

I felt a shock of recognition when I heard about these lines a few weeks ago. For starters, it was Archie’s benighted view of immigration—one, with its nonstop onslaught of slurs and utter disregard for any notion of a "melting pot," that might have seemed ready to fade into the margins a half-century ago, but resurgent now, with the issue even central to the 2024 Presidential election.

But that phrase “Bicentennial Minute” also struck a chord with me. These short educational segments commemorating the American Revolution aired on CBS—the same network that ran All in the Family—from July 4, 1974, until December 31, 1976.

During that two-year period, one of my high school’s history teachers thought of including similar segments during morning announcements. I was selected to write them. 

Though I enjoyed learning about such bits of history, I came to groan each time as I watched members of my homeroom roll their eyes when the pieces were read into a microphone in the principal’s office and heard all over the school.

It’s funny how the world turns. Public television viewers were lucky to take in Ken Burns’ documentary series on the Revolutionary War, rolling out with greater depth and complexity than those “Bicentennial Minutes.”

On the other hand, the White House has announced the Salute to America 250 Task Force (“Task Force 250”). One of its early initiatives, “The Patriot Games,” doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, with a name sounding all too much like “The Hunger Games.” How much will its participants learn about the groups that heeded the call of Lady Liberty?

This Day in Television History (‘The Flintstones’ Premieres)

Sept. 30, 1960— The Flintstones, the first animated cartoon to run on primetime network television, premiered on ABC.

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, annoyed that critics labeled as “children’s entertainment” their first two TV cartoons, Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound, conceived of this show as a way to attract adult audiences as well.

The creators were originally inspired by a 1955 Tex Avery animated short, The First Bad Man, on the history of Texas 1 million years ago.

But Hanna—much to the irritation of his partner—openly admitted that Fred Flintstone bore many than a passing resemblance to Ralph Kramden, another loud, burly guy with an endlessly understanding wife and with a neighbor and sidekick, from The Honeymooners.

If Honeymooners’ star and creator Jackie Gleason ever felt like suing for plagiarism, he soon got over it, realizing that millions of youngsters would have blamed him for driving their favorite show off the air. (Such fears did not prevent the creators of the comic strip “Hi and Lois” from squawking that the original name of the series, “The Flagstones,” was all too reminiscent of their own couple, the Flagstons.)

For adults, there were winking references, throughout the series’ six-season run, to celebrities (often guest-starring as themselves) such as “Stony Curtis,” “Gary Granite,” “Ann-Margrock,” “Liberocki, “Arnold Palmtree,” and “Wednesday Tuesday.”

The prototype set by The Flintstones—a jerk of a dad with a more level-headed wife—wasn’t irretrievably lost when the show went off the air. More than two decades later, it would be revived by The Simpsons.

The quartet who created Fred and Wilma Flintstones and neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble had extensive acting experience, especially of the voice kind:

*Alan Reed, who preferred radio to film work, was the voice of “Boris” in Disney’s Lady and the Tramp before taking on the role of Fred—a character whose ample physical dimensions were modeled on his.

*Jean Vander Pyl played not only Wilma but Pebbles, before going on to The Jetsons, Top Hat, The Secret Squirrel Show, and The Magilla Gorilla Show.

*Bea Benaderet, the voice of many female characters in Warner Brothers Looney Tunes, had to withdraw from her role as Betty Rubble because of scheduling conflicts with a new series, Petticoat Junction.

*Mel Blanc, my favorite of the group—nicknamed “The Man of a Thousand Voices” for his long and versatile career in animation—not only gave vocal form to Barney and Flintstone pet Dino, but also to more than 40 other characters on the show. So integral was he to the show that, after he was involved in a near-fatal accident several months into the show’s run, his colleagues gathered at his hospital bedside so he could participate in episodes as he recovered.

A close relative, hearing that I’d be creating this post, said, “You can’t write about the show without discussing the theme song.”

True enough. I readily confess to being more than a little hazy about some episodes and characters after all these years, but “Meet the Flintstones” is engraved in my memory, as it is, I suspect, for more than a few baby boomers.

That catchy tune, with lyrics by Hanna and Barbera and an irresistible melody by composer Hoyt Curtin, wasn’t heard until Season 3. But it’s the way that everyone has recalled ever since.

Central to the appeal of The Flintstones are its cheerful anachronisms.  Start with that “Meet the Flintstones” line about the “modern Stone Age family. Think also of “The Barney Copter,” an experiment in flight that Fred promptly takes control of (and dooms) as “The Flintstone Flyer”: Dino (dinosaurs, scientists say, had disappeared well before homo sapiens came along); and Christmas (the Stone Age was, of course, centuries before Christ).

Oh, one more thing you might wonder: Where did Fred’s catchphrase, “Yabba Dabba Doo!", come from? Reed improvised it, improving on the script’s “Yahoo!”, inspired by the Brylcreem slogan, "A little dab'll do ya."

TV Quote of the Day (‘All in the Family,’ As Archie Reveals His Mastery of English—and German)

Archie Bunker [played by Carroll O’Connor]: “It's irrelative.”

Mike Stivic [played by Rob Reiner] [correcting him]: "Irrelevant."

Archie: “Whatever, it ain't German to the conversation.” —All in the Family, Season 1, Episode 3, “Archie’s Aching Back,” original air date Jan 26, 1971, teleplay by Norman Lear, Stanley Ralph Ross, and Johnny Speight, directed by John Rich

Carroll O’Connor, a veteran character actor who reached stardom as Queens blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker, was born 100 years ago today in Manhattan.

Over the last half dozen years, and especially during the isolation of COVID-19, I have been able to watch well-known actors in their more obscure roles. That has been an especially fascinating experience when it comes to watching the pre-Bunker career of O’Connor.

My jaw dropped, for instance, when I spotted him as Casca, one of the conspirators against Julius Caesar, amid the multitudinous cast members in the notorious 1963 epic Cleopatra. I also caught him, in more modern clothes, in the neo-noir films Marlowe and Point Blank, and the early Sixties cop show, Naked City.

Like another actor with a burly frame, James Gandolfini, he might have been fated simply to a career of colorful but subordinate roles until he came across a part that, at best, could be described as an anti-hero—someone who thinks (and often acts) appallingly, but who, through the actor’s overwhelming talent, becomes all too recognizably human.

O'Connor was a major reason why Norman Lear's sitcom became that era's equivalent of "Appointment TV" not only in America, but our house in particular. The actor, you see, bore something of a physical resemblance to my father.

I chose the above quote for a couple of reasons.

First, contrary to viewers who never noticed the show’s satiric bent, these lines make unmistakably clear that Bunker is an idiot who is continually shown up.

Second, I wouldn’t be surprised if this exchange, like many during the show’s run, was not in the original script but instead improvised by O’Connor.

(Incidentally, as the son of a liberal lawyer and teacher, the actor was not remotely close to the character he played. According to this 2001 Irish Echo article, some people had a difficult time believing it, notably the board of New York's famed Dakota, which looked askance at his application for an apartment. It took a reference from Paul O'Dwyer, the Irish-born New York lawyer, politician and activist whose progressive bona fides were beyond doubt, to do the trick.)

I can’t think of another character in sitcom history who’s fractured the English language with malapropisms more often or more hilariously than Archie Bunker.

With Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers, and then Jean Stapleton gone, O’Connor chose to continue playing the character that won him four Emmy Awards in Archie Bunker’s Place.

But without this trio as foils, I’m afraid it was like Michael Jordan closing out his career with the Washington Wizards without the “supporting cast” he enjoyed with the Chicago Bulls.

(Yes, I know he played Chief Bill Gillespie for eight seasons on In the Heat of the Night. But it’s like Dick Van Dyke: Do you remember him for the five years he played Rob Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show or the eight years he played Dr. Mark Sloan on Diagnosis: Murder?)

 

TV Quote of the Day (‘Perry Mason,’ on Della Street’s ‘Most Fascinating Job’)

Anne Brent [played by Mari Aldon]: “I’ve always wanted to meet my husband’s most famous tenant.”

Perry Mason [played by Raymond Burr]: “Infamous might be a better word. Have you met my secretary?”

Anne:  “I envy you, Miss Street. You must have a most fascinating job.”

Della Street [played by Barbara Hale]: “It is. Just don’t ask me about the hours.” —Perry Mason, Season 1, Episode 34, “The Case of the Gilded Lily,” original air date May 24, 1958, teleplay by Richard Grey and Gene Wang based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, directed by Andrew McLaglen