To remove Archie Bunker’s most egregious racial epithets?
I’ve heard this, but a google search doesn’t bring up any answers.
It seems unlikely that Archie’s racial slurs would be acceptable for the 70’s but not now.
Anybody know?
Don’t know, but my recollection is that even in the 70’s, he said “colored” and “hebe”, not “nigger” and “kike”.
Local stations often edit syndicated re-runs of old sitcoms and dramas. This is usually for length (they want to squeeze in more commercials) rather than for content. But it’s at least possible that a local station might edit a show to avoid complaints about racial remarks. I doubt that they’d be edited this way on a national basis, though.
I haven’t checked, but aren’t most episodes of *All in the Family * available in unedited format on DVD?
Rube, that’s my recollection too, that Norman Lear went to the edge, but not over it.
Lonesome, I expect the unedited shows are available.
The reason I asked is because someone said Archie’s language in the reruns has been edited for political correctness. It seems silly, and I was curious as to whether it was true.
I think they just skip episodes where he pushes the envelope.
There was one episode where he says, “… we’ll be up to our armpits in jungle bunnies…”
I’ve only ever seen it once, when it originally aired.
True. Although it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the episode, I seem to recall him saying, when another character dropped the “N-Bomb,” that he stopped using the term years ago.
Archie was a bigot but, in terms of epithets, he did have his limits.
Although I doubt he said “using the term” as opposed to “sayin’ dat”.
There was the episode “The Draft Dodger” that got censored even before it made its first broadcast.
It was a damned good episode.
The only time I heard the word nigger used was by George Jefferson.
Interesting that the only word mentioned as being censored in that episode was the first syllable of “Goddamn,” not a racial epithet.
I’ve noticed censorship of this type in many shows these days. Cursing and swearing is OK, but not violating a biblical commandment. It seems to me that censoring anything from All in the Family would be counter to the original purpose of the show.
I think that’s wrong. There are specific words used on TV these days (tit, asshole, and of course the ubiquitous bitch) that never would have made it on the air in the '70’s, but there were shows that were pushed the envelope then in ways that no one is trying today. Seriously, could you even imagine a show today doing Chevy Chase and Ricahrd Pryor’s “White? Black. Negro? Whitey. Colored? Redneck. Tarbaby? Peckerwood. Spearchucker? White trash. Junglebunny? Honkey. Nigger? Dead honkey.” sketch from SNL?
–Cliffy
I’d rather they just edit out Archie. And come to think of it, Edith, Gloria, and Meathead.
Just a half-hour of staring at that awful, vomit-colored Queens row house living room is quite bad enough without the dialog.
Oh, and they can have “Alice”, too. What a hamfisted muckup of of a Scorsese film to TV adaptation.
Gaw, now I remember why I hate Sundays. From the God Channel on every station to prowrestling to the most hideous sitcoms in existance, I’m surprised humanity ever made it past 2 o’clock.
I could say something about “Hee-Haw”, but I’ll save it for a more relevent Pit thread.
Stranger
Nothing like resurrecting a thread after 20 years!
First, I watched the draft dodger episode on CBS the night of the original broadcast and could have sworn that they did not sensor the swear word. It is possible my brain simply interpolated the missing syllable and I’ve convinced myself that I heard it. I do believe it was never aired a second time without editing.
Second, I am very dismayed about the episodes being edited for content over at least the past decade if not two decades. AITF was in heavy syndication rotation through the end of the twentieth century, and I would hear the same dialogue in the reruns back then that I heard when they were first broadcast. At some point in the new millennium that started to change. The dialogue was not dubbed but rather phrases and lines were cut and this was very noticeable to me.
Just today I watched a classic first season episode where Archie is claiming a whiplash injury and insists on hiring a Jewish lawyer. The first attorney who visits from the firm of Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz, and Rabinowitz is ironically not Jewish and goes so far as to identify himself as the “token gentile" and the “house goy,” before Archie throws him out, proclaiming “bring me a Jew!” Well, the house goy comment was excised from the cable broadcast to my horror. It was there and then I decided I need to buy the complete DVD set which I’ve been assured is not edited for language. Watching an episode on TV and realizing it’s been butchered is just too traumatic.
Lastly, my memory of 205 episodes over 9 seasons is far from photographic, but I can’t recall the n word ever being voiced by a white character/actor, only by Black characters/actors. Sherman Hemsley was definitely one who did it more than once. Perhaps the most notable, and possibly the first, was Sammy Davis, Jr.
That episode of SNL is available unedited on Peacock.
The broadcast versions of Sanford and Son have been heavily edited. Fortunately I have the complete DVD set.
“Look at all the N*****s in this courtroom” became “Look at all the Brothers in this courtroom.” Just as one example.
Ironically even in the 2000s on broadcast TV they’d leave racial slurs in movies but censor the words shit and bitch. Now it’s totally the complete opposite, where you’ll hear the word SHIT in The Waterboy but completely excise the scene with the KKK guy even though the whole joke is he literally gets kicked into the sky.
Larry David used essentially the same joke on Curb Your Enthusiasm when his character hired a lawyer named Berg who turned out to be Swedish.
I have All in the Family and The Jeffersons on box set.
I think Archie only used “the N word” once. This was when he was with Mike locked in a room. He was drunk and opened up about his past and stuff. But, I don’t remember the details.
There was one time where Mike said “niggardly” (I think) and Archie made a comment on it, and Mike had to explain that it was a different word.
On the Jeffersons it was used occasionally, especially at the beginning.
There was one time Archie said God Damn. And he explained how it was okay because both God and Damn were in the Bible.
I recall the time when a swastika was painted on their front door. The double-take Archie makes after grabbing the paper off the porch, closing the door, and starting to walk away is priceless.
Unfortunately, he covers it with an American Flag draped vertically, yet wrongly places the stars in the upper right. A Boy Scout helpfully comes along and it about to fix it right when he sees what’s beneath and backs away.
It was some liberation front of some kind and I won’t give away the ending yet it’s apparently figured out the target was across the street.
But in another episode, the first time a black man (Sammy Davis, Jr.) kisses a white guy on TV!
On Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, James McGill changed his name to Saul Goodman for similar reasons.
That episode has stayed with me all these years. The ending was traumatic to me. I was way too young to be watching that. I always felt it was a strange choice to cast Gregory Sierra as the Jewish defense league guy.