Lamont Sanford: You know what they say, the truth will set you free. Fred Sanford: Your uncle Edgar told the truth, and the judge gave him six months.
A Dom Com (of sorts) from sitcom kingpin Norman Lear about a Grumpy Old Man and his long-suffering son who live in a rundown house situated in the middle of a junkyard. Hilarity ensues. An Americanization of the British sitcom Steptoe And Son.Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson played the title characters of Fred and Lamont Sanford from January 14, 1972 until March 25, 1977 on NBC and shared the screen with a number of memorable supporting players (notably Whitman Mayo as the forgetful Grady Wilson and LaWanda Page as bible-thumping harridan Esther Anderson). The father-son duo engaged in frequent arguments about everything under the sun and truly got on each other's nerves, but despite the loud fights and constant disappointments the two remained devoted to each other. The series was one of the highest rated sitcoms of the 1970s before internal strife caused both Foxx and Wilson to walk away from the show in the spring of 1977; subsequent spinoffs and revivals failed to recapture the magic.
Ambiguously Gay: An antiques collector who hires Fred and Lamont to move a piano in "The Piano Movers". Fred spends most of the episode doing everything short of outright asking him to find out if he is or not.
Beleaguered Assistant: Lamont often points out that he does the majority of the actual work while Fred spends most of his day watching television and sleeping.
Catch Phrase: "You big dummy!" "Watch it, sucker!" "...on account of my arthur-its."
...and of course: "This is the big one!"
That line may be a Beam Me Up, Scotty!. I know he did often say: "This is it! Hear that Elizabeth? I'm comin' to join ya, honey!"
Later episodes often had Fred introduce himself as "I'm Fred G. Sanford, and the G is for (whatever the main setup for the plot was)"
Characterization Marches On: In the early episodes Lamont is shown to be almost as greedy as Fred (sometimes more so) and having a great disdain for Fred's girlfriend Donna whom he calls "The Barracuda". Not much later Lamont becomes the more sensitive of the two and often acts as somebody trying to broaden his father's horizons and even becomes quite friendly with Donna.
Cue The Rain: During a disastrous camping trip, Lamont notes that it could be worse. When his father asks how, Lamont notes "It could snow." Sure enough, it instantly starts snowing right there and then.
In one episode, for his birthday, Fred gets a new hat. Both repeatedly state how it would get spots if worn in the rain. After Fred rudely reacts to just about every other gift Lamont gives him, Lamont finally gets fed up and leaves him at a Chinese restaurant. When Fred walks out, wearing the hat...
The Danza: Don Bexley as Bubba Bexley. Also Redd Foxx's real name was John Elroy Sanford.
Drop-In Character: Grady, Aunt Esther, Bubba Bexley, Officers Smitty and Hoppy, etc. In other words, the entire supporting cast.
Early Installment Weirdness: The first season while having the same tone as most of the others lacks many of the show's memorable supporting cast (see Drop-In Character above for a partial list) that would give episodes their flavor. Most of these would be introduced in the second season. (Part of this the result of a number of first season Sanford episodes being adapted Steptoe And Son scripts.)
Enemy Mine: As much as Fred and Esther despised each other, in the episode featuring "Big Money" Grip, they both teamed up to challenge him on his claim that he was Lamont's father.
The Fun in Funeral: In one episode Lamont brings home two (hopefully not used) coffins which Fred refuses to let in the house.
Juggling Loaded Guns: After Lamont buys an old musket, Fred starts explaining how his Revolutionary War-era ancestor fought the British. The gun goes off, and both Fred and Lamont begin thinking that he killed a neighbor across the street.
Mistaken for Gay: When Rollo led Lamont into a gay bar to be "adventurous", Fred and Bubba see them enter and begin thinking they are gay to Fred's panic. When they decide to investigate, Fred and Bubba enter the bar...only for Lamont and Rollo to see and begin thinking the same thing about them. Lamont likewise begins freaking out.
My Name Is Not Durwood: In his early post-retcon appearances, Grady repeatedly forgets Lamont's name and has to be prompted, despite the fact that Lamont is his godson and he is a frequent visitor to the Sanford home. Later, it is revealed that Lamont's middle name is in fact "Grady" and the running gag was dropped.
There was an episode where Lamont was about to marry longtime girlfriend Janet. Before they could wed, Janet's assumed dead husband returns and she and Lamont do not marry. This was the basis for the show Baby I'm Back, in which things were changed around and Demond Wilson played the role of the the presumed dead husband after Sanford and Son was cancelled.
Retcon: Grady Wilson was originally Fred's cousin, married, and had a daughter with designs on Lamont. By his second appearance, the wife, daughter and blood relationship with Fred had been dropped, with Grady now an old family friend.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Officers Hopkins and Swanhauser tended to fill their explanations with so much police jargon and legal terminology that Officer Smitty had to translate.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Grady Wilson, who was eventually un-substituted and given a spinoff creatively entitled Grady for all of four episodes.
Averted in The Sanford Arms when Fred and Lemont are replaced by a widower named Phil Wheeler and his children and averted even harder in Sanford where Lemont is replaced as Fred's business partner by Cal a fat, white redneck.
Twenty Minutes into the Future: One episode features what is most likely the first time on Network Television that the word 'crib' was used to mean a home.
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