We assume that modern audiences wouldn’t tolerate shows as un-PC as these because we're all such snowflakes now, right? Of course, they turned television completely upside-down back then. It’s not like the early ‘70s were this huge bastion of sophisticated television. The networks had just completed a purging of rural and old-timey programming in the late ‘60s, not because they strove for sophistication, but because the hick shows were not delivering the demographics that advertisers coveted. Advertisers wanted urban audiences, and the networks needed new urban-oriented programming to appease them. Norman Lear stepped into a massive void at precisely the right time, blew up all the paradigms. It was really a cultural whiplash, but the advertisers were moving their cars and washing machines, so Lear couldn’t be denied.
But it’s a weird dichotomy. The episode of The Jeffersons that ran tonight bleeped the same N-word that was broadcast without a problem in the ‘70s. It got a huge shock reaction back then, but it wasn’t bleeped. But at the same time, the shouting and strident speechifying (and predictable applause breaks) in these old shows are tired tropes now. They haven’t aged well. They are simultaneously too edgy and too old hat.
Absolute fool's errand to recreate the roles of Archie and Edith Bunker. Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton created two completely indelible and inimitable acting performances. Harrelson and Tomei were game, but they didn't have a chance, nor would anyone else.
Jamie Foxx came close to Sherman Hemsley’s George Jefferson, certainly got his voice down, but that was an impressionist’s performance. Foxx couldn’t capture the deep arrogance of Hemsley’s performance – Foxx could glower, but he couldn’t capture Hemsley’s utter contempt. Wanda Sykes was quite good as Louise, but Isabel Sanford’s Louise wasn’t as indelible as Hemsley, O’Connor or Stapleton, so the bar was somewhat lower for Sykes, I think.
I thought Ike Barinholtz and Ellie Kemper did okay as Mike and Gloria. They were mostly there to yell at Archie, honestly, just like Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers did.
There are about 100,000 British actors working in Hollywood. If you don’t want to go with a British actor, there are about 500,000 American actors in Hollywood who can do effective British accents. Couldn’t they find ONE to play Bentley? Paul Benedict on the original show was SO weird and otherworldly – he wasn’t from England, he was from Mars. I like Stephen Tobolowsky, but he contributed nothing as Bentley.
Casting Sean Hayes as Frank Lorenzo was an odd decision. Vincent Gardenia played Frank with a great joie de vivre, and I never really realized it, but that character did a lot to invert a lot of what was then considered straight male behavior – he cooked, he danced, he was very open to undermining traditional male/female roles within a marriage, all the while maintaining an unquestionably lusty relationship with his wife. Sean Hayes just kind of came off like a closeted homosexual.