Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
As long as theres been TV, the family has been one of its favorite go-tos.
All week long, Vulture is exploring how its been represented on our screens.
In your career, was it always your desire to work out political issues through family?
My family used to argue at the top of their lungs and the edge of their throats, constantly.
Ah, thats not what Im doing!
Youre the dumbest white kid!
So that show was very close to my experience.
Hearing about it, I said, I wonder if there could be an American version?
and Bud said, We could never do it in America.
You wont get a data pipe to put it on!
But that was the extent of the kinds of problems they faced on comedies.
It was less problems in the culture generally.
How did you feel about those sorts of shows?They seemed so odd to me.
They were dealing with problems that were discussed in the schoolyard.
I think thats what the Establishment believed.
It wasnt what I understood from, at that time, my relatively young life.
Im a serious mind.
I understand something about the foolishness of the human condition, but Im serious.
I see the humans at the end of the telescope, focusing on the real.
They hadPetticoat JunctionandBeverly Hillbilliesand he wanted to change the nature of their comedies.
He called me and said, I want to doAll in the Family.
And they had to know what families were going through.
I cant think of a single writer on my shows that wasnt married or had children.
They all seemed to have families.
The pool we drew from was the national culture.
He put a suit and tie on.Yes, to get to write the letter!
My point of view was, Funny is funny is funny is funny.
Thats why Shakespeare works still, hundreds of years later.
It doesnt matter that we dont get all the references in Shakespeare.
Whenever something is good, or funny, or great, it doesnt matter what time it came from.
So we won that battle, and we were topical starting with that second show.
We couldnt be more topical than having Archie write the president.
And the subject of his letter was guns!
He couldnt be more correct!
that didnt also say at the end, Go back to wherever you came from, you bastard.
In other words, the ones who were saying, Right on, Archie!
understood the point of view of the show.
They didnt go with it, but they got it.
Or maybe people just love to take things out of context?Well, look what just happened!
The president talked about shithole countries, and you have to learn what percentage of America agrees with him.
Do you think Archie would have voted for Trump?I havent thought about it.
We would never know.
Based on what you thought of him, you could think what you wish.
There was a great, great guy who ran programming practices, the euphemism for censorship at the time.
We had a great relationship.
When I did the abortion shows onMaude, he couldnt believe I was taking on the subject.
That was part of the two-episode arc.
We had that kind of collaboration, and we did it.
You tried to make a follow-up toAll in the Family,704 Hauser.
Why didnt that one work out?Because I started too fast.
I started out running, and I shouldve started out walking, then trotted, then run.
In the very first show, they were sitting on a couch and they were kissing.
Ive done that with shows a couple of times.
Dont forget that one!
AndAll That Glitters, the soap opera, was terrific.
What about it disturbed you?
It was something about the tone of it.
It was just made like a film.
I wanted to ask you about the originalOne Day at a Timeand the new, Netflix version.
ButOne Daywas its own separate thing.
Theyve both died now.
She was an actress, and they had the idea together because they lived it.
and I said, I love the idea, so I called Rita Moreno.
I wouldnt have guessed that.Yes, I think its very well done.
AndSouth Parkis basically a family show.
Its all about families.
You likeSouth Park?I loveSouth Park.
Those guys are kind of libertarian anarchists with some reactionary tendencies.
I mean, it has Cartman, a little character who does the same thing Archie Bunker did.
When I say I loveModern Family, it doesnt mean I watch every single episode.
Ive seen enough to know its terrific, but it isnt like Im there every week.
We just did a pilot for that.
That could fall under the heading of an unaddressed taboo: age and mortality.
I wroteGuess Who Diedin 2010.
Thats what I kept hearing.
