"All In The Family" - How Many More Seasons Will You Buy? (1 Viewer)

I watched the two hour E! True Hollywood Story on AITF this morning and I got to thinking about future DVD releases of this show. We've already got seasons 1-4 on DVD. We still need DVD releases of seasons 5-9. In September 1979 the name of the show was changed to "Archie Bunker's Place." Some people consider ABP to be a different show than AITF, but I maintain it's the same show with a different name, a different setting, and some new characters. If ABP was a spin-off it would have happened while AITF was still on the air, but it didn't. AITF morphed into ABP. Also, there wasn't a lot of "down time" between AITF and ABP. Just the summer (1979). AITF ended in the Spring of '79. ABP was on by September '79. Just like any regular season. Anyway, my point is that if Sony Pictures Home Entertainment eventually releases all 9 seasons of AITF on DVD, do you think they'll continue by releasing ABP on DVD? Also, for those of you buying the season sets - How many seasons are you going to buy? Myself? I'd like to have all 13 years/seasons on DVD. All the way up to the April 4, 1983 series finale. Here are the remaining episodes to be released on DVD.

I'll buy 'em all. I don't buy much TV product, but what I do, I want to have all of.

I'll buy them all as well. While Archie Bunker's Place wasn't quite as good as All in the Family, it was still a really good show. I just wonder if they'll even consider ABP worth releasing. Considering the show doesn't even really air in re-runs anymore. And when it does, they never run for very long.

I'll definatly get all of All in the Family though, even if they never release A.B.'s Place. It's my favorite classic show, and pushed the boundries a great deal for the era. After all, it's chiefly responsible for inspiring modern shows like Married with Children and Family Guy.

I'll buy it up until Mike and Gloria leave town. I might relent and get the final FAMILY season but no way I'd buy ABP.

I bought Season 4, but the picture quality was so bad I sent it back for a refund. Unless they clean up these episodes and re-release this set (which I highly doubt will happen), I'll just stick to The Jeffersons.

I know I should say I'd buy them all just to guarantee that they'd all be released, but I'd probably go up to and including season 8 with Mike and Gloria, after they "go west". IMO, the show was never the same without Mike and Gloria.

Dave -- I understand your frustration about the DVD quality (though I still have yet to pick up my own copy of season 4). But my question is -- what's your alternative? I hate like hell when quality is low and the company doesn't appear to care, but aren't those episodes as they appear better than not having them at all?

Somehow I don't see myself collecting both series forever, but the 2nd season opener of ABP featured a stellar performance by Carrol O'Connor: Mourning the loss of Edith. I saw it in college with a bunch of other guys. There wasn't a dry eye in the room!

I'd love to see that one again.

Ric

I would buy all thirteen seasons.

BTW, does anyone know who did the "From Television City in Hollywood" opening narration from Season 2-on? It's not included on the Seasons 2-3 sets. I know the announcer from Season One also did the closing "taped before a studio audience", which was done by Rob Reiner in Season 2.

The real test is: who would go one step further and buy "Gloria" - if it was ever to be offered.

I would probably buy up until Mike and Gloria leave the show. I hated the ones with Stephanie and the Puerto Rican lady (no offense to Liz Torres, but the show was getting REALLY OLD by that time). I never found ABP to be funny AT ALL. GLORIA was so short lived I never really got a chance to watch it.

Mike, Gloria, and so Joey did return when Rob Reiner & Sally Struthers guest-starred in a 3-parter in which the Bunkers and Stephanie visited California. It was the 1978 Christmas show. Things didn't work out, because the squabbling Stivics were divorced.

Also early in 1982 on Archie Bunker's Place, Gloria visited Archie, Stephanie, and Billie (Archie's older niece, who was a regular during the last 2 years). Then Sally got her own sitcom Gloria which bombed. Too bad, because Gloria got a job working for a veteraniarian (played by Burgess Meredith)! I watched that show every week when it first aired. Carroll O' Conner didn't have time to guest star as planned, so in one more dramatic episode Gloria is hypnotized to deal with a traumatic event in her childhood! A good excuse for her to talk to "Daddy" even in her mind.

ABP outlived that final All in the Family spinoff!

That's true, and Edith was in only 2 episodes of Archie Bunker's Place in the 1979 half of the 1979-80 season because Jean Stapleton was no longer under contract as regular by then -- only as a guest star. At first Archie simply wasn't home as much. Then Edith got a full-time job during the day (when Archie was home). Jean didn't appear after that, so in the 1980 one-hour season opener Archie grieves in a dramatic show in the aftermath of Edith's death.

Actually Bunker bought the bar when Mike & Gloria still lived in the house next next door. That was during the 1977-78 season and originally the name on the door was Archie's Place. Two years later it was changed to Archie Bunker's Place to accomodate the show's new name.

Not all of the characters on ABP were new. Mr VanRanSeleer (the old blind guy played by normal-sighted Bill Quinn), Jason Wingreen as Harry, and Archie's friend Barney Hefner (Allen Melvin) were all seen on All in the Family going back to the season Archie bought the bar. Actually Barney goes back even further than that, when he and Archie worked for a tool and die manufacturer.

A few other trivia bits:

The bar Archie purchased used to be Kelsey's Bar -- which he frequented as a customer to the time All in the Family premiered in 1971.

The house next door: Original owners: The Jeffersons (1971 to 1974). Next owners: Mike and Gloria Stivic (1975 to 1978). Last (??) owner: Barney Hefner (1978 to 1983).

Although there are some good episodes in Season 9, the series ends when Mike and Gloria leave for Calfornia. There's even two good episodes of ABP - Edith's death, and Mike and Gloria's Thanksgiving visit - the last time the original four actors appeared together.

Allan Melvin guest-starred as a judge in "Archie in the Lock Up" before he became Barney Hefner (and also had a recurring role on The Brady Bunch!)

Does anyone think that they used the same kitchen set for the Jeffersons, the Lorenzos, and the Stivics?

I don't think Barney lived in the Stivic house - they just used the same living room set. George Jefferson sold it to the Bambinis before Mike and Gloria left. Then the next year he sold it again to another black family.

Yes, I forgot The Stivics visted the Bunkers on Thanksgiving in 1979 on a 1 hour episode of "Archie Bunker's Place". It was the last time the 4 original cast members worked together and marked the final appearances of Rob Reiner and Jean Stapleton in the series. However, an episode with Edith taped before this aired just a few weeks later.

I'm pretty sure the Stivics bought the Jefferson house though. They also had Louise Jefferson sell it for them months after they moved to California (Isabel Sanford guest starred in a 1979 episode of All in the Family).

To me, AITF didn't seem as funny after it went from being taped before a studio audience to where you had the "AITF was played before a studio audience for live responses" spoken (by O'Connor, IIRC) over the end credits. I suppose this is just a coincidence, as this decline coincided with in-show developments mentioned above: Archie-Mike arguments were getting old, and Mike and Gloria had or were about to leave the show. The "live-response" laughter seemed to be weaker, as if the audience was smaller (or the jokes not as funny!). Also, sometimes it seems that sitcom actors don't work as hard when there's no audience in the studio to play to.

Although most of the classic shows I like happen to have a studio audience, one show that went away from that but still seemed to be just as funny (if not funnier) was Barney Miller.

BTW, I'd buy the whole series and all of its spin-offs (Maude, anyone?).

Dan, both AITF and Archie Bunker's Place were always taped before a live studio audience, and the audience was usually a full one even in the later years!

O' Connor's comment above was only during the final season of All in the Family (1978-79) as a JOKE to show how poor Archie Bunker's command of the English language was! Besides, since Rob Reiner had left the show they felt they needed someone else to mention that the show was taped in front of an audience so they got Carroll.

Not to dispute you, but why is there such a distinct alteration in the sound of the audience laughter during these years (and I speak only of AITF, as I haven't seen much of ABP in years)? Different studio? No "sweetening" of any kind (not that AITF needed it)? I'm going by my Columbia House tapes, which include several of these later episodes. To me, it's like night and day--the laughter is much weaker and closer to canned laughter than real audience laughter. Plus, I thought perhaps that one of these "live responses" years came before Reiner and Struthers left.

I used to watch the series (both versions) all the time during the original run, and also occasionally in reruns of both. I never heard any major differences in the sounds of the audiences. Then again, every audience is different so not all live laughs are going to be the same.

Although sometimes at tapings of sitcoms the audiences usually have to be prompted to laugh anyway when a "LAUGH" sign is lighted up or held up