A MOST UNINSPIRATIONAL BUT HILARIOUS QUOTE

"The three purposes of the University?--To provide sex for the students, sports for the alumni, and parking for the faculty."

^{-Clark Kerr}
Former President of the University of California

MY REVIEW: 'LIVE BEFORE A STUDIO AUDIENCE'

    

It's no secret that Norman Lear is one of the true pioneers of television.  After years writing for other people's programs, he decided to branch out on his own.  He started directing a few motion pictures and then had a idea while watching a British sitcom called "Till Death Us Do Part" while on business in England.  He decided to buy the U.S. rights, Americanize it by very loosely basing the characters on people he knew and changing the title.  However, this was no overnight success.  After 2 failed pilots, a third titled "All In The Family" debuted in early 1971....to low ratings.  However, summer reruns caught viewers eyes and it eventually became the #1 show for several seasons.

     Lear quickly started to break minor characters off into to 'spinoff' shows.  Edith Bunker's cousin Maude got her own show.  Maude's housekeeper Florida Evans got her own show.  The Bunker's neighbor's the Jeffersons got their own show.  Suddenly Lear was a rich and successful mini mogul in his own right, cranking hit after hit of topical and often controversial in-your-face comedy based mainly on characters that were sometimes bigoted, sometimes ignorant, sometimes arrogant but deep where supposedly well meaning.  The language subject on these shows were raw and uncensored and many local affiliates refused to broadcast certain episodes, but a hit is a hit in showbiz so these refusals never lasted too long.  Most importantly the scripts were meticulously plotted by some of the best comedy writers and were almost always flat out hilarious.

     After ruling the 1970's Lear's interests lead him elsewhere but at the age of 94 he had an unexpected comeback with an all Latinx version of "One Day At A Time."  Suddenly Lear was hot again.  Jimmy Kimmel took note of this and wanted to team up with Lear and had a novel suggestion: "Why not take one classic episode each of 'All In The Family' and 'The Jeffersons' and use the exact same scripts but with new actors taking on the iconic roles?"  Lear was game and even threw in another twist:  Do them live just like many early television sitcoms were done.

     And so this happened a few weeks ago and, like many diehard fans of these classic shows, tuned in to see how these classic but somewhat topically dated scripts would fare in today's world.  Oh, and they got TV best sitcom director ever James Burrows to helm these episodes.

     How did it go?  First, the actors updating the iconic roles and their versions of the characters seemed a bit irrelevant to me as long as they didn't do anything too distracting like getting Christopher Walken to play Archie Bunker.  And because it was live there where a few mistakes here and there but to me that was part of the fun; to see if the actor could 'get back on the horse and keep riding' which thankfully never failed to happen.

     Of course, it was heaven to see the surprise casting of Marla Gibbs stepping back into the her role as the Jeffersons' maid Florence Johnston and she knocked it clean out of the park. I almost cried.

     But, of course, the main question was: would the original scripts which were not changed one word (causing one contentious word to be bleeped) be as funny as they were over 40 years ago.   Yes and yes to both episodes because they were impeccably structured originally and only a fool would try to change these Emmy Award winning writers words.  And some parts of these scripts are unfortunately just as relevant as ever.  People who say Lear was trying to change the world with these shows are missing the point.  Getting people with differences to have a meaningful dialogue is what was and still is desired.

     And, of course, it was refreshing to see characters having differences and then having them try to work them out with the people they disagreed with standing just a few feet away without any 'firewalls' between them.

     If Lear and company can find a way to this again with more daring episodes like 'Maude's Pregnancy' or  the "Good Times" classic 'Black Jesus' episode with as much care, I say 'bring it on!'