And with that advisory above, a television legend was born, on a cold winter Tuesday evening in January 1971.
Welcome to All in the Family, and it gave viewers the first chance to "Meet the Bunkers."
One wiki that covers the series, the All in the Family TV show Wiki, called the first episode "plotless." Indeed, it's just four people - five, if you count Drop-In Character Lionel Jefferson – involved in normal household conversation. But it's what the script had that set the tone for the next eight years – or 12, if you count the After Show Archie Bunker's Place – and would start the process of breaking taboos and touching on controversial topics, all while maintaining humor and putting human faces on the human condition.
In the opening, Mike and Gloria are at home alone, planning a Sunday brunch for Archie and Edith (who are observing their 22nd wedding anniversary), who are at church. The two, however, are completely hot for each other and make out in the living room. Just then, there is a knock on the door, and it's Lionel Jefferson, the young black kid who's friends with the family and there to deliver dry cleaning from his father's store, which he had just opened a second location. Lionel muses about Archie and how he's always degrading him for his skin color, but is doing what he can to tolerate it and be a nice guy.
Later, Archie and Edith arrive home and find the table and food all ready to go. Lionel, who has to get back to the store, subtly needles the reactionary Archie with broad African-American stereotypes before leaving. Edith is delighted that Mike and Gloria prepared dinner and remembered their anniversary, but Archie just wants to sit down in front of the TV and (perhaps) watch football.
Mike calls Archie out on his ungratefulness, and this kicks off a high-decibel argument – immediately, it is made clear this is routine – over a myraid of topics, from racial profiling to Archie's prejudices, problems with the nation's government, Mike's atheism and the fact that despite going to college he (the "Meathead") is unemployed. This takes up most of the episode.
In the end, Archie (reluctantly) joins the family at the table and agrees to follow through with the anniversary brunch. He seems grateful (finally) ... but you can tell there is something about this guy.
And what a guy Archie – and the rest of his family – would become.
Ratings were so-so for this episode. In fact, legend has it that extra telephone operators at CBS were hired in case millions of angry callers flooded the switchboard, outraged at what they saw. Instead, reaction was minimal. Again, viewership was tepid, but when the episode was shown again in the summer (during rerun season), things began taking off.
And an American icon was born.
Tropes associated with this episode:
- Atheism: Mike scoffing, "What God?" Unheard of prior to this single episode — someone who doesn't believe in God (although Mike would clarify in later episodes that he is agnostic). note When Archie demands an explanation, Mike is ready: "We don't see any evidence of God."
- Big "SHUT UP!": Except for dramas and cop shows — and very scattered instances on sitcoms — nobody was as bold or daring to liberally tell people to "stifle" themselves as Archie, especially to that Dingbat of a wife. In this first episode, Edith goes on the first of many of her patented rambles, and Archie says "stifle" several times.
- Content Warnings: The advisory aired prior to the opening scene.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In addition to Archie being a complete jerk with a hostile attitude over anything and everything, including his own family, the first two episodes were accompanied by a subcaption: "Suggested For the Mature Aduience." Edith herself is not as flighty or dimwitted as she would be in future episodes; she'd be more sarcastic herself at times, but it was clear she was put-upon and had to put up with a lot from Archie.
- Forgotten Anniversary: Archie doesn't seem to remember — nor is he interested in remembering — that it is his 22nd anniversary to Edith.
- Fun with Flushing: When you heard Archie (off-screen) flush the toilet, you knew this show was not going to be The Brady Bunch.
- N-Word Privileges: Averted ... Norman Lear was very adamant that this protagonist — although heelish, unsympathetic and bigoted — never would use the word "nigger." But he would be very comfortable calling black people "coons." Archie was, however, very loose-lipped when calling people he disliked or annoyed him: fags, commies, pinkos, hippies, etc.
- Sour Prudes: Right from the git-go, this is Archie's attitude toward the dynamic between Mike and Gloria, and as long as they were living under his roof, this attitude never softened.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: And that thing is Mike, and the person annoyed by that "thing" — his Meathead son-in-law — is Archie. This first episode established that Mike and Gloria had been married for just more than a year (presumably, sometime in the fall of 1969) and that Archie — reluctantly — allowed him to board there for a year, with the expectation that he find a job. A year later, Mike — in his junior year in college — still has no job (choosing to focus on academics) and the Stivics have no savings, and Archie still has a Meathead living under his roof.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: In the first 22 minutes, it becomes clear this lead character, Archie Bunker, was not always right, conflicted with others, had negative traits about him and most importatnly was not afraid to express his oft-reactionary cultural and political opinions as loudly as possible ... whether others in earshot agreed or not, or wanted to listen to them or not. Check back 12 years and 303 episodes later to see if Archie has changed.
- Not in this episode, but later on, he would (more than once) be soundly put in his place.
- Welcome Episode: Much of what set the tone for the next 7-1/2 seasons — father and son-in-law bickering over everything, taboos broken and political satire — is established in 22 legendary minutes.
