Television
features:
PROVOCATIVE TV PRODUCER NORMAN LEAR RETURNS TO ARCHIE BUNKER'S OLD PLACE AT
'704 HAUSER' FOR HIS NEW CBS SITCOM. WILL IT BE ANOTHER FEATHER IN HIS CAP OR
JUST... OLD HAT?
(Entertainment Weekly) SOURCE: Benjamin Svetkey; 04-15-1994
I knew when I created this show that someday a journalist would come in here and
accuse me or repeating myself, of stealing from my past, of reversing the All in
the Family formula." Norman Lear slumps into the arms of his office chair. "And
here you are." Sorry about that, Norm. But the similarities between Lear's old
Archie Bunker show and his latest sitcom, 704 Hauser (CBS, Mondays, 8:30-9
p.m.), are kinda tough to ignore. For starters, the new series takes place in
the same tacky tract house-704 Hauser Street in Queens, N.Y.-where Archie Bunker
resided from 1971-1983. And while the show isn't about a loveable bigot and his
left-wing, meathead son-in-law, it does feature a '60s-liberal African- American
dad (John Amos) who's locked in ideological combat with his ultraconservative,
Clarence Thomas-loving son (T.E. Russell).
It also has a
feisty, anti-Edith mom and a hot-to-trot potential daughter-in-law who happens
to be-Socially Relevant Plot Point!-white and Jewish. For Lear, 71, moving a
black family into Archie's old abode is more than a gimmicky stroll down memory
lane-it's a return to the territory that turned him into a TV legend. The
success of All in the Family, the first sitcom to take on such TV taboos as
racial prejudice and anti-Vietnam War protest, started a string of
groundbreaking spin-offs that made Lear one of the most ace-high producers in TV
history. Edith's cousin got her own show, Maude, in 1972.
Maude's maid got
a series, Good Times, in 1974. The Bunkers' neighbors moved on up to The
Jeffersons in 1975. At one point in the mid-'70s, Lear was juggling seven series
at the same time (including Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, and Mary
Hartman, Mary Harman). No wonder he was called King Lear. But that was then.
These days Lear is better known for his lefty advocacy organizations (People for
the American Way,) The Business Enterprise Trust) and his reported $100 million
1987 divorce form his wife, Frances. His recent TV offerings-a.k.a. Pablo
(1984), Sunday Dinner (1991), The Powers That Be (1992)
have all tanked. Question is, will his latest All in the Family riff
recapture that old Bunker magic? " I'll tell you how the show came about," Lear
offers while fielding phone calls in his sparsely furnished Hollywood office.
"I've been keeping the sets for All in The Family in storage since it went off
the air.
Every year my
accountant calls and yells at me for spending money on storage bills. The last
time he called, I happened to be reading Thomas Sowell, who is perhaps the most
listened-to voice of black conservatism in the country. A true scholar. And the
next day it just hit me-there's a show in a black liberal father and his
conservative son living in Archie Bunker's old place." Being neither black nor
conservative didn't daunt Lear in the least. To give 704 Hauser a dose of
political verisimilitude, he hired right-wing black radio host Armstrong
Williams as a creative consultant ("I make sure Lear's liberal writers don't
turn the characters into conservative stereotypes," Williams says). Lear also
cast Amos, who years earlier had left Good Times because of conflicts with him
over creative and racial issues. "At Good Times, I thought we should've had more
black writers on staff," Amos recalls. "I felt I should've been more involved in
the development of scripts. But we don't have those fights on 704 Hauser.
Lear is more
willing to listen nowadays. He's mellowed. We've both mellowed. We actually
enjoy working together." What they're working on, Lear makes a point of
stressing, should not be construed as All in the Family: The Next Generation. "I
chose to set it in the Bunkers' house because I couldn't resist the
theatricality of it," he says. "But I could have set it anywhere. Its characters
are totally different from All in the Family. Archie and Mike were
fools-wonderful and delicious, but fools. The people in 704 Hauser are much more
responsible. They know what they're talking about when they argue. That's one of
the show's biggest differences." It may also turn out to be one of its biggest
weaknesses. Some reviewers are already complaining that the show is too earnest
for its own good, with its characters delivering more speeches than punch lines
(see EW 217). Nevertheless, CBS is clearly putting its muscle behind Lear's
project: The network has given the show a prime time slot, leading into Murphy
Brown. "I want the series to be entertaining, above all else," says Lear. "But I
also want the show to have meaning. I'm a grown man. I don't play with toys. I'm
a serious person. Everything I've ever done has been serious. This is a serious
show." Maybe so, but it would be a shame if Lear dusted off the formula for his
most enduring masterpiece only to leave out a crucial ingredient-laughs.
Copyright 1994
Time Inc. SOURCE: Benjamin Svetkey. |
