Norman Lear's "All in the Family" was one of the best shows on TV. Situated back in Queens of the 1970s, it featured the working-class Archie Bunker, his naive but real wife Edith the "Dingbat", their often-confused daughter Gloria and her liberal-minded husband Mike "Meathead". They touched on all the pertinent topics of the time.
Little did they know that on one particular episode, they were WAY ahead of their time.
For some reason, it's been on my mind recently. I recalled a particular episode from 1976, when Archie stuffed the ballot box when his little grandson Joey was entered into a 'beautiful baby' contest. This naturally led to discussions of the then-recent presidential election, Gerald Ford vs. Jimmy Carter.
Watch the video, if you like:
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDNQFMYUaio[/youtube]
At 4:35, Mike says..."I'm talkin' to a man who, in the last election, didn't like Ford, didn't like Carter, so he wrote in Richard Nixon". Later, Archie reveals that he only said that to drive Mike crazy, and that he had actually written in Reagan--which he always pronounced as "Reegan".
Later in the episode, at 9:25, Archie announces to Mike, "You're gonna get REEgan in 1980, wise guy!"
This was a BIG joke in 1976, but how prescient Archie was...
