YMMV / Archie Bunker's Place

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The Thanksgiving episode with Mike and Gloria isn't much of a picnic to begin with but the whole thing takes on a whole new level of sadness when you realize that this is the last time we'll get to see these four characters together. Edith will die in the second season premiere, and Gloria and Mike's problems will prove unsolvable and the two of them will divorce by the time of her spin-off Gloria.
  • The "Custody" two-parter briefly has Archie draw a parallel between Stephanie's deadbeat father and Mike, saying that as unhappy as ol' Meathead could make him, he was still a better husband and father than the other guy ever was. A year later, we'd learn that Mike ended up choosing activism over his family and went to live on a commune.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Barry Gordon, who played Archie's accountant Mel, would later be the voice of Donatello (bringing it full circle when that show moved to CBS in 1990), Razor/Jake Clawson, and the NesQuik Bunny.
  • Joe Mantegna appears in the third season episode "Of Mice and Bunker".
  • Joe Penny appears in the show's final episode "I'm Torn Here".
• Tear Jerker: The second-season premiere, "Archie Alone", where Archie starts talking to one of Edith's old slippers before looking up (while crying):
  Archie: It wasn't supposed to be like this, you know. I was supposed to be the first one to go. I know I always used to kid you about you going first. You know I never meant none of that. And that morning when you was laying there. I was shaking you and yelling at you to go down and fix my breakfast. I didn't know. You had no right to leave me that way, Edith. Without giving me just one more chance to say I loved you!

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