I was pretty young when I saw this tv episode that I really think was an early “All in the Family.”
But it appears i may have made it up.
The episode involves the parents bustling around and calling their children down from the upstairs. Bustle, bustle, call kids down for breakfast, do more things…daughter comes down…call son again…bustle, bustle around; call son again…still nothing.
Then someone goes upstairs, and comes down to report that the son has died.
We never meet the son, he is never spoken of again, and the show goes on with its plot line for years.
I could have sworn this was the first episode of All in the Family, but I haven’t been able to verify it.
Can anyone help? For the record, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the mysterious older brother Chuck, from Happy Days.
For the last 40+ years this episode stuck with me! and now I’m questioning if I made it all up.
It wasn’t a son (Gloria was an only child, and the only “son” in the house was Archie’s meathead son-in-law ).
It was Archie’s (Edith’s?) freeloading Cousin Oscar, never seen onscreen. The dialogue establishes that he’s been mooching off them for a few weeks. They send Mike up to get him downstairs for breakfast, and Mike returns, stunned, to announce that Oscar’s dead. The rest of the episode deals with the funeral responsibilities (and expenses) being shoved off on Archie. (Seems Oscar was a moocher to the bitter end.)
Or maybe you’re conflating that one with the Archie Bunker’s Place ep that deals with Edith’s death? It’s never shown onscreen–we pick up the new season several weeks after the fact. Archie describes trying to shake Edith awake before realizing what’s happened.
Hmmmm. . I think it is likely the freeloading cousin episode. It may have been one of the first ones I watched. Any idea what season and episode this was?
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the death of Edith as I wasn’t watching the show at that time and never saw those episodes.
Also, there was Michael’s Uncle Cas (Michael Conrad), who went upstairs and never came down. Michael went up to get him, and came back down saying he had died.
And it seems like there was another ‘guest’ of some sort who died. I can’t recall the details, but I remember him singing ‘There’s an old spinning wheel in the parlor.’
Wow! I am now the same age of Walter from Maude. Walter!!
And yes…I mourned the death of Rob Reiner for a half a second.
I can still picture Mike Stivic coming down the stairs with that dopey stunned look on his face after finding dead cousin Oscar.
Off topic… Anyone remember a couple episodes with a transvestite type character? Bev? A man who dresses as a woman? Edith became close with him/ her? I’m wracking my brain here. Didn’t this character die from getting beaten up?
Wow, miscarriage, death, and the murdering of trans people… this show was before my time and I never really watched it. I never realized it dealt with so many heavy issues.
Are you sure about that? The episodes in which Uncle Cas appeared had him coming to the Bunker household to take part in Mike and Gloria’s wedding in a flashback. Archie angered Mike by making bigoted comments about Poles and Cas played peacemaker between Archie and Mike. I don’t recall Uncle Cas going upstairs and dying. I believe he went back home to Chicago after the wedding.
Wasn’t AITF also the first show to show a woman going through childbirth (as opposed to just showing the family in the waiting room until the doctor came out to announce, “It’s a boy/girl/twins”)? Actually, I find that a little hard to believe - you would expect any of the medical dramas of the 1960s to have at least one - but I also seem to recall that this is what someone (CBS? Norman Lear?) claimed in TV Guide.
And a near rape (of Edith), gentrification, gay rights, feminism… All in the Family was extremely edgy in its day. It was banned in a lot of households, including mine, and I came from a very liberal family. But there were too many episodes that dealt with “adult” issues, plus Archie and Edith were essentially carbon copies of my dad’s parents, and Mom didn’t want to watch a show that made her feel like she was visiting her inlaws. (Years later, I felt the same way about The Sopranos.)
I let my daughter watch most of it today, and it’s still pretty forward thinking, although not so shocking. When I realized that the episode airing wasthe rape one*, though, I asked her to change the channel. She knows what rape is, but it’s a really realistic, emotionally harrowing episode that’s extremely hard even for me to watch. Not appropriate even for today’s 9 year olds.
*Detailed plot summary complete with many spoilers at that link.
Interestingly enough, I came from a fairly conservative household and this show was not banned. My parents watched it, but I don’t remember much of the early episodes in first run as I was too young. I do remember the later seasons and watching reruns. Made for some interesting and very good discussions.
I thought about that more after I hit Submit, and I think maybe that’s *why *my mom wouldn’t let me watch it. I think she was afraid that I would see Archie and Edith as the role models, not the out of date models.
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