Shark Bytes

According to the book Archie, Edith, Mike and Gloria, Lear wanted to end the series when Struthers and Reiner left. One reason why they had Archie buy Kelsey's was to give Archie more characters to "butt heads" with. Once Mike and Gloria were gone, there was really no reason to have Archie at home, because all he'd have conflict with is Edith, and that could get stale fast.

Lear really had no involvement with the show's final season, or Archie Bunker's Place, which was fine by Carroll O'Connor, who always had issues with Lear.

I could not believe it when they had Edith practically raped. I mean Good Lord, they may as well have done that to our favorite aunts. When you create a character people love that much, it limits you as to how much crap you can put them through before the audience rebels.

I for one could not even watch that actor who played the would-be rapist in anything ever again. When I see his face, the channel is changed. Yes, I understand that the actor and the role are different. It's not an intellectual thing, it's purely visceral. In that episode, they really crossed the line.

I always found it interesting that Archie's viewpoint was supposed to be the clearly "wrong" one...yet Archie himself was hardworking, protective of his family...lovable.

Mike's ideology was on "the side of the angels"...yet he was a loafer, a hypocrite...a jerk.

Makes you wonder just which viewpoint Lear was REALLY espousing...

"I am still interested in feedback regarding is the statement 'a conservitive is a liberal who got mugged'."

That is certainly a possibility, especially if brain damage was incurred during the attack.

This show never really jumped the shark. It just ran out of good ideas. The episodes were pretty good until Stephanie moved in. She was atrocious. Not even one good thing about her. She should have been kicked off halfway through the season. Just like in Three's Company, Lana Shields was in 9 eps. and Stephanie should have only been in about 6 episodes. All in all, AITF is pretty good. Better than Maude.

Funniest show on tv by a long shot. Funniest characters ever: 1) Archie Bunker, 2) Al Bundy, 3) Ralph Kramden, 4) Kramer, 5) Denny Crane

People who look back on this show now and think it's "bigoted" or "mean-spirited," just didn't get it.

People who look back on this show now and think it's "bigoted" or "mean-spirited," have obviously never watched a single episode of Family Guy in their entire life.

I would really like to thank the last poster for the support that he or she gave me in regards to my posts that have disappeared! It is great to know that there are people out there who care! In any event, one thing that I am still interested in feedback regarding is the statement "a conservitive is a liberal who got mugged". Take care for now.

Don't take it personally, posts are deleted without rhyme or reason, whether they stay on topic, folllow the rules of JTS, and are civil or not, and so forth.

What's funny is how someone is spamming the South Park boards with posts of random gibberish and fake links...and they're still there. Check it now, they may still be there.

One thing that I am not really finding any rayme nor reason to is what messages stay up here and what get taken down! A couple of days ago, I posted a message about the idea that I conservative is a liberal who got mugged. It is gone! I am not sure if there were one or two other messages in between the last one that is still up there and mine. One thing that I am pretty sure of, however, is that none of these messages contained anything that was vulger or obscene. This being the case, I cannot understand why they got taken down! I guess that since no system is fool-proof, we have to allow for some posts to simply fall down by accedent.

It's a shame political correctness has gotten so bad that a show of this caliber is unlikely to be created ever again.

This show, M*A*S*H, and The Civil War series to me were the 1,2,3 of TV.

The clip show from the late 70s displayed what Lear thought 'cutting edge' was.
It was the episode with Archie diaparing baby Joey. During the clip Lear freeze-framed it, pointed to little Joey's winkie and said "this is what its all about folks, right here".
To Lear, the ability to show a penis on national television as a 'step upward' in our civilization.....
Art.....yeeeeeeeAH........

One of the many claims Norman Lear pronounced was that HIS show, AITF, was the FIRST show to deal with the "issues" he brought forth.
A quick look at TV in that era says otherwise.
Race? Room 222 was dealing with that issue long a full year before AITF.
Abortion? Marcus Welby was dealing with that issue in 1968.
Vietnam? The Mod Squad was dealing with that issue long before AITF.
Sex? By the time AITF came along, several sitcoms were skuirting the boundries already, cop shows and medical dramas were already doing sex-related stories.
AITF was not as 'cutting edge' as people claim.
The British were doing 'cutting edge' years before Norman Lear got on his soapbox.

Dude, you don't need to be 60 to like this show. I'm about half that age and I like AITF. As for pushing a liberal agenda, there were times when liberal Meathead was exposed as a hypocrite. Case in point: He believes latinos, blacks, etc. deserve to be equal. But, when Gloria took up women's lib, it turns out that he feels WOMEN are not entitled to the same equal rights men are. He went so far as to rally support from Archie--knowing he too felt men were superior to women--when Gloria left the house after he kept treating her like an idiot. But once again Archie put him down with some good points.

P.S. My political slant? None of your beeswax.