# Question About All in the Family Theme Song **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 10, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880 "2013-08-10T17:50:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/21 "2013-08-12T17:12:29Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Hubert who? > [@ducati](#): > > [Hubert Humphrey](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld7VVBztuVM). > > [Former V.P of the U.S.A.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Humphrey) Think you got whooshed there, **ducati**. In his rap prior to singing the song, Lehrer tells an anecdote about LBJ being unable to attend a state funeral in some small country. Someone floated a suggestion that he send Hubert (since one of the VP’s “duties” is to attend not-important-enough-for-the-President-but-too-important-to-ignore funerals). And Johnson said, _“Hubert who?”_ ---
**Author:** ![Annoying\_Buzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Annoying\_Buzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annoying_Buzz)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/22 "2013-08-13T08:38:05Z")
What gets me about the song was that Archie was born in 1924\*. He was 9 at most when Hoover left office. \*This gets mentioned in one of the early episodes. It also fits with him being a WWII vet and having a college-age daughter in 1971. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/23 "2013-08-13T09:06:41Z")
> [@Annoying\_Buzz](#): > > What gets me about the song was that Archie was born in 1924\*. He was 9 at most when Hoover left office. > > \*This gets mentioned in one of the early episodes. It also fits with him being a WWII vet and having a college-age daughter in 1971. He was a teenager during the years when FDR was the authority figure in the White House. So he questioned authority. My father was born in 1922. The New Deal turned him into an ardent _laissez faire_ capitalist. In his view, the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. Norman Lear’s view of conservatives was just as stereotyped as Archie Bunker’s view of minorities. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/24 "2013-08-13T14:59:36Z")
Since I was born and raised in Archie Bunker’s neighborhood (Astoria, Queens), I can tell you first hand: NOBODY in Astoria, let alone a working class guy who remembered the Depression, would EVER have reminisced fondly about Herbert Hoover. I liked the show, and thought Carroll O’Connor did a great job imitating a lot of the men in my neighborhood. No question, there WERE a lot of white, middle-aged, blue collar Astorians who tossed around the “N Word” casually, who hated hippies (remember the “hard hat riots” of the Seventies?), and who loathed liberal mayor John Lindsay. So, were they staunch conservative Republicans? Hell, no! If Archie Bunker bothered to vote at all (he frequently didn’t), he voted a straight Democratic ticket. Why? Because he despised Herbert Hoover, and regarded Franklin Roosevelt as a demigod. In my Irish grandfather’s vocabulary, the word “Republicans” didn’t exist. There were only “Democrats” and “Republicanbastards.” Oh, my grandfather was extremely conservative and, yes, racist, but he would NEVER have voted for a Republican or sung wistfully about Herbert Hoover. To blue-collar Astorians, Herbert Hoover was synonymous with soup kitchens and unemployment, while the Democrats were The People’s Party. That Archie Bunker was a bigot and a staunch conservative in many ways is quite believable. I know! But that he’d sing fondly about Hoover? Not a chance. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/25 "2013-08-13T17:27:32Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > That Archie Bunker was a bigot and a staunch conservative in many ways is quite believable. I know! But that he’d sing fondly about Hoover? Not a chance. But wasn’t Archie a bit of an outlier even among his blue-collar peers? Aside from being a diehard Republican (when he voted), he was a loyal Protestant of English-descent while nearly everybody else at his workplace were ethnic Catholics or Jews. I also seem to recall in a few episodes he inveighed against unions even though he was a union-member himself. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/26 "2013-08-13T17:32:04Z")
The show was about whatever producer/writer/political activist Norman Lear wanted it to be about, even if that meant stretching Archie out of his normal bigot-ridden bounds on occasion. It was ground-breaking in that it covered such fare as racism, homosexuality, women’s liberation, rape, miscarriage, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, and impotence. And at that it was a softened-down copy of the British series _Till Death Do Us Part_. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/27 "2013-08-13T17:59:38Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > It was ground-breaking in that it covered such fare as racism, homosexuality, women’s liberation, rape, miscarriage, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, and impotence. And the sound of the terlet flushing. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/28 "2013-08-13T18:11:11Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > But wasn’t Archie a bit of an outlier even among his blue-collar peers? Aside from being a diehard Republican (when he voted), he was a loyal Protestant of English-descent while nearly everybody else at his workplace were ethnic Catholics or Jews. I also seem to recall in a few episodes he inveighed against unions even though he was a union-member himself. That’s what I’m getting at: Archie was an entertaining character but he didn’t make sense as written. I knew Archie! I lived next door to him (seriously, the steamfitter next door said comically racist things all the time). But that guy was a die-hard union man and a loyal Democrat. The real-life guys who inspired the character were very reactionary in some ways but tended to vote for liberal Democrats. Norman Lear’s modus operandi was to make Archie the voice for every cause Lear opposed, even if a blue collar New Yorker would never really hold the opinions being mocked. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/29 "2013-08-13T18:34:42Z")
> [@ducati](#): > > Has anyone heard a thing? 😃 He’s sad and he’s cross and he’s gathering moss. You folks need to rewatch All In The Family. Archie’s prejudices that he has been taught are almost always wrong, but in the end he always does the right thing for the reason that it is right and humane. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/30 "2013-08-13T18:50:42Z")
Those times were trying for many families as much as for the country. Old met new with a painful collision. Everyone was clamoring for notice of their issues. All at once. And better media services made us all aware of it. If I hadn’t have been so young and inexperienced I would have realized how unprecedented it was. If you’ve ever seen _Born on the Fourth of July_ you have had a peek at some of the issues that were damaging American families. I think that program was a real gem and a gift to middle America at a time when we could hardly speak to each other because of our differences. Everybody got their say and everybody took a shot. And Edith was just there to remind us not to let ideas get in the way of love. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/31 "2013-08-13T19:02:31Z")
> [@Hermione](#): > > …I wish they’d left that last verse in instead of the “La Salle” verse. That line “I don’t know just what went wrong” is ALSO a perfect summing up of Archie’s character. > **(And what would a working-class family like the Bunkers be doing with a ritzy car like a La Salle, anyway?**) I don’t think audiences were supposed to believe that Archie had _written_ the song. In the world of the show, presumably, this was an existing song that Archie and Edith simply enjoyed singing. As for studio audiences laughing at Archie’s racist remarks–wasn’t this discussed at the time? As in, the producers intended that Archie be despised, but people are inexplicably identifying with him. Similarly, today, right-wing viewers supposedly watch Stephen Colbert’s show with no awareness that he is actually _parodying_ right-wing pundits. They take him at face value and enjoy his reactionary remarks as much as they enjoy those of Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/32 "2013-08-13T19:09:01Z")
In one episode, Archie and Maude are arguing, and it comes up that Maude’s favorite president was FDR, while Archie’s was Herbert Hoover. Regardless of how realistic that may have been for a Bronx construction worker, that was explicitly stated in the show. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/33 "2013-08-13T19:17:24Z")
Crud. Edit window has ended. Please disregard my previous post; I apparently misremembered an exchange: [ > [@IMDB](#): > > Archie Bunker: [Maude refuses to get out of Archie’s chair] Well, I got the secret weapon that can lay this little lady right away. Here we go. This country was ruined by Franklin Delano Roosevelt! > > Cousin Maude: You’re fat. > > Archie Bunker: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt… > > Edith Bunker: Archie, you promised never to say that name again in front of Maude. > > Archie Bunker: Franklin Delano Roosevelt! > > Edith Bunker: [to Maude] He don’t mean nothing. His whole family was for Roosevelt. > > Archie Bunker: That was for two terms. But that was it. We didn’t know the guy was going to hold on to the job like a pope! ](["All in the Family" Cousin Maude's Visit (TV Episode 1971) - Trivia - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0509845/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu)) Archie also compares FDR unfavorably to _Richard Nixon_, which is probably the germ of the false memory I have. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/34 "2013-08-13T19:19:25Z")
> [@bup](#): > > In one episode, Archie and Maude are arguing, and it comes up that Maude’s favorite president was FDR, while Archie’s was Herbert Hoover. > > Regardless of how realistic that may have been for a Bronx construction worker, that was explicitly stated in the show. I realize that. I’m just saying that, in reality, no blue collar New Yorker would have had a single good word for Herbert Hoover in the Seventies. Indeed, the Democrats were still running against Hoover decades after the end of the Great Depression. Norman Lear and his writers made a conscious choice to put Archie on the “wrong” side of EVERY political issue, no matter how implausible that might have been. Like it or not, the blue-collar whites (whether in large Northern cities or small Southern towns) now regarded as hopeless bigots or mocked as “fundies” were yellow dog Democrats! Bible thumping Mississippi Klansmen voted for FDR four times, based on the pocketbook issues. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/35 "2013-08-13T19:53:52Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Crud. Edit window has ended. Please disregard my previous post; I apparently misremembered an exchange: > > [url=["All in the Family" Cousin Maude's Visit (TV Episode 1971) - Trivia - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0509845/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu)] > > Archie also compares FDR unfavorably to _Richard Nixon_, which is probably the germ of the false memory I have. And woe be to the Meathead whenever he said anything negative about Nixon. Archie was a staunch Nixon supporter. At least during his first term. ---
**Author:** ![Hermione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cdc98d/32.png) [@Hermione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/36 "2013-08-14T03:00:11Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Crud. Edit window has ended. Please disregard my previous post; I apparently misremembered an exchange: > > [url=["All in the Family" Cousin Maude's Visit (TV Episode 1971) - Trivia - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0509845/trivia?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu)] > > Archie also compares FDR unfavorably to _Richard Nixon_, which is probably the germ of the false memory I have. I always liked Maude’s line: “One of his fireside chats is worth a barrel of ‘now let me make this perfectly clear.’” ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/37 "2016-04-05T17:34:50Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I realize that. I’m just saying that, in reality, no blue collar New Yorker would have had a single good word for Herbert Hoover in the Seventies. Indeed, the Democrats were still running against Hoover decades after the end of the Great Depression. > > Norman Lear and his writers made a conscious choice to put Archie on the “wrong” side of EVERY political issue, no matter how implausible that might have been. > > Like it or not, the blue-collar whites (whether in large Northern cities or small Southern towns) now regarded as hopeless bigots or mocked as “fundies” were yellow dog Democrats! Bible thumping Mississippi Klansmen voted for FDR four times, based on the pocketbook issues. My understanding is that while Archie would have been a likely FDR supporter IRL, he belonged to a faction of Democratic voters (white middle aged uneducated blue collar worker) that felt alienated by the Democratic party when it became the party more closely associated with the civil rights movement, anti war protests, social liberalism, etc., during the Johnson administration and although he lived in the Northern U.S. he belonged to a demographic that switched over to the GOP as a result of of its Southern Strategy. In my experience, when someone changes their party affiliation they tend to view their votes and opinions of the past with 20/20 hindsight. Regardless of what Archie might have thought of Hoover in 1932, he belonged to the party of Archie’s current favorite, Richard Nixon, and thus in the 1970s Archie still might feel that he “should have” voted for him back then. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/38 "2016-04-05T18:13:30Z")
Just want to say how great it is that this question isn’t the one I saw all the time in the 1970’s and 80’s? “What’s the line after ‘Everybody pulled his weight’?” ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/39 "2016-04-05T19:04:58Z")
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880/40 "2016-04-05T19:34:28Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Doesn’t scan. Try “Jimmy Carter.” 😃 A good choice, but “Lyndon Johnson” scans as well. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-all-in-the-family-theme-song/665880.md?page=1)