What are your favorite shows which were produced and/or developed by this man here?

Good Times

The Jeffersons

One Day At A Time

Maude

Sanford and Son

TrivialPursuit said:

Good Times

The Jeffersons

One Day At A Time

Maude

Sanford and Son

Same here [although I rank The Jeffersons #1 instead of Good Times... ]. But lets not sleep on All In The Family. The first 4 seasons of that show [including my all time favorite episode where Archie & George meant face to face for the first time] are the TV sitcom classics.

Just about all his shows from the 70's-80's

TonyVanDam said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Good Times

The Jeffersons

One Day At A Time

Maude

Sanford and Son

Same here [although I rank The Jeffersons #1 instead of Good Times... ]. But lets not sleep on All In The Family. The first 4 seasons of that show [including my all time favorite episode where Archie & George meant face to face for the first time] are the TV sitcom classics.

Just as a note, I think people forget the number of spinoffs from All In The Family. Maude was the first, then The Jeffersons. Checking In was a spin-off of The Jeffersons. Gloria ran one season. After Edith died, it was Archie Bunker's Place for 4 seasons. Also, 704 Hauser had a different liberal black family with a conservative son in the Bunker's old house from AITF. Mike & Gloria's son Joey made an appearance on there. It didn't past a few episodes.

Good Times is sort of a spin-off, in that Florida was a character on Maude, but her backstory was changed greatly by the time Good Times came on. Henry became James, they were in Chicago projects - many changes left it quite independent of Maude. And Maude was never mentioned either. It's more like an alternate timeline.

I never cared for AITF. When I was young, I didn't get that it was satire and Archie was a stereotype and that the show actually battled bigotry. I saw it as embracing it. (Again, I was a kid.) My dad, who is really bigoted, despite having a gay son (me) and biracial grandchildren, really like AITF. I kind of think he thought it was just some normalizing of white supremacy. It's noisy, lots of yelling and squawking. I can't deal with it even today.

Here are mine:

"All in the Family" and "Sanford and Son" were my favorites.

TrivialPursuit said:

TonyVanDam said:

Same here [although I rank The Jeffersons #1 instead of Good Times... ]. But lets not sleep on All In The Family. The first 4 seasons of that show [including my all time favorite episode where Archie & George meant face to face for the first time] are the TV sitcom classics.

Just as a note, I think people forget the number of spinoffs from All In The Family. Maude was the first, then The Jeffersons. Checking In was a spin-off of The Jeffersons. Gloria ran one season. After Edith died, it was Archie Bunker's Place for 4 seasons. Also, 704 Hauser had a different liberal black family with a conservative son in the Bunker's old house from AITF. Mike & Gloria's son Joey made an appearance on there. It didn't past a few episodes.

Good Times is sort of a spin-off, in that Florida was a character on Maude, but her backstory was changed greatly by the time Good Times came on. Henry became James, they were in Chicago projects - many changes left it quite independent of Maude. And Maude was never mentioned either. It's more like an alternate timeline.

I never cared for AITF. When I was young, I didn't get that it was satire and Archie was a stereotype and that the show actually battled bigotry. I saw it as embracing it. (Again, I was a kid.) My dad, who is really bigoted, despite having a gay son (me) and biracial grandchildren, really like AITF. I kind of think he thought it was just some normalizing of white supremacy. It's noisy, lots of yelling and squawking. I can't deal with it even today.

The thing about the Archie Bunker character is that you do not laugh with him; You laugh at him. My favorite AITF moments were when Archie was on the receiving end of the joke such as when Sammy Davis Jr. kissed Archie &/or when Archie [a white bigot] finally meant his match in his first face-off against George Jefferson[a black bigot].

I have complete series of the 6 long running 70s sitcoms on dvd except One Day at a Time (Shout Factory JUST released this set so I'll get it soon) and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. AITF and MH, MH are the greatest of the bunch and the others are a notch below but still very good. One Day at a Time 2017 on Netflix is terrific as well.

TrivialPursuit said:

Good Times

Sanford and Son
All In The Family
The Jeffersons

One Day At A Time

Maude

I vary from TP's order a bit.

Family remains the most important Lear show.

But Good Times and Sanford and Son are my favorites.

[Edited 11/21/17 9:19am]

Not a lot of love for Diff'rent Strokes

JabarR74 said:

Not a lot of love for Diff'rent Strokes

I don't think it was produced by Norman Lear. He's not in the credits.

JabarR74 said:

Not a lot of love for Diff'rent Strokes

We're talking about Norman Lear. He had nothing to do with that show. If you're relating Conrad Bain to it, he didn't play the same character as he did on Maude. The show was a vehicle for him to have his own show, but Normal Lear didn't create, write, nor produce it, or had anything else to do with it.

TrivialPursuit said:

JabarR74 said:

Not a lot of love for Diff'rent Strokes

We're talking about Norman Lear. He had nothing to do with that show. If you're relating Conrad Bain to it, he didn't play the same character as he did on Maude. The show was a vehicle for him to have his own show, but Normal Lear didn't create, write, nor produce it, or had anything else to do with it.

Um, FYI, Lear developed Diff'rent Strokes, remember? I said shows he produced and/or developed.

RodeoSchro said:

"All in the Family" and "Sanford and Son" were my favorites.

Same here.

JabarR74 said:

TrivialPursuit said:

We're talking about Norman Lear. He had nothing to do with that show. If you're relating Conrad Bain to it, he didn't play the same character as he did on Maude. The show was a vehicle for him to have his own show, but Normal Lear didn't create, write, nor produce it, or had anything else to do with it.

Um, FYI, Lear developed Diff'rent Strokes, remember? I said shows he produced and/or developed.

And as I said, he had nothing to do with that show. His name ain't even on the IMDB page or a wikipedia page. But you can look at the first season ending credits if you think otherwise:

He's been heavy on the podcast circuit this year as an interviewee...so much television history with this man, I have to say I grew up on all of his shows and pretty muh have a soft spot for each one.

Different strokes is the only one I can remember or played here in New Zealand. The American dad send up was hilarious where Brian Lewis is based on Arnold Jackson - Wotchu talkin about Stan.

.

I did watch a documentary in Good Times and it seemed Esther Rolle did not like all the attention JJ was getting in the show. In reality it was a poor stereotype, they lived in the projects, JJ was lazy and jive ass and a modern day Zip Coon. Plus the fact he had huge lips did not help and that he said "Dyno - mite". I think whites liked it, because JJ reminded them of an inoffensive plantation stereotype that would make them laugh. The other people on Good Times were proper actors and they had some serious issues based around poverty - but it was 90% on JJ and his antics. I am not black, but if I was , I would have cringed watching that thing and feel sorry for black people who went to school or work next day and kept getting asked to be or act like JJ by white people whose only view of Blacks may have be JJ or Fred Sanford and the Blaxploitation movies.

.

And before anyone calls me racist, I got the same shit until recently when ever a Maori or gay character appeared on TV and even in the 80s and 90s a show called Crimewatch seemed to only feature Maori and Pacific Island offenders, people would ask me If I had family reunions watching it or was watching the "Maori news". JJ was a bad role model and thank god as the 70s got into the 80s, more positive ones showed up. Even Different Strokes was racist, two Black kids saved by White daddy/massa who got to smack them when they played up, no wonder Willis grew out of that shit quickly.

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Plus even though these shows had black casts and black stories, most of the people behind the scenes were white, writers, producers, directors and the guys cutting the checks - I can imagine a conversation like "Hey Jimmie, say Dyno mite a few more times and grin, the audiences go crazy over that". In the 70s the only truly black show was Soul Train and the Cosby Show was really the first Black run Black TV show, even though several writers were white, Bill (Rufie) Cosby was the executive producer.