Norman Lear, the television pioneer who changed the face of small screen comedy with shows like All in the Family, Sanford & Son and The Jeffersons, has passed away. At 101, he was one of the longest-living icons of American television.
Norman Lear is undoubtedly one of the most important figures not just in shaping television but pop culture as a whole. It’s one thing to have heard of his biggest shows, but to have them consistently ranked as some of the best in the medium – as is the case with the aforementioned All in the Family, Sanford & Son and The Jeffersons – shows just the kind of mark he left on audiences. And who can forget their memorable theme songs?
As a developer, producer and writer, Norman Lear was never afraid to face hot-button issues that most others would never dare to. With All in the Family, which premiered in 1971, Lear brought ideas of racism, rape, abortion (the focus of the most famous episode of spin-off Maude), and more into living rooms. One year later, he – through star Redd Foxx – helped popularize Black-focused sitcoms, which launched a wave of followers, including his own Good Times. On tackling such issues head on, Lear once said, “You looked around television in those years and the biggest problem any family faced was ‘Mother dented the car, and how do you keep Dad from finding out’; ‘the boss is coming to dinner, and the roast’s ruined.’ The message that was sending out was that we didn’t have any problems.” His longest-running series, however, was The Jeffersons, another spin-off of All in the Family, running 11 seasons and more than 250 episodes. He would revisit some of these shows through the Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials.
Considering Norman Lear’s output in the world of comedy television, it might be surprising that his first program was The Deputy, an NBC western that featured Henry Ford in the lead role and ran from 1959 to 1961. Prior to winning a surprisingly small number of Emmy Awards – including four for All in the Family in the Outstanding Comedy Series category – Lear earned an Oscar nomination for writing the comedy film Divorce American Style.
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