Legendary TV showrunner/creator Norman Lear — arguably the first “name” TV showrunner, famous for hits like All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Maude, One Day at a Time and Sanford and Son — has been everywhere of late, promoting his new autobiography, Even This I Get to Experience. That said, he was recently on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, where he dropped a nugget that I found interesting: Trey Parker and Matt Stone created Eric Cartman to be their version of Archie Bunker from All in the Family.
“They wanted to do an Archie…so they did a kid,” Lear told Maron. “So that’s how Cartman came about. I couldn’t be prouder of anything. Because I LOVE South Park.”
Also highly recommended: Norman Lear’s Fresh Air interview. In that interview Lear detailed some of the negotiating he had to do with CBS executives in the ’70s to get the language that Archie Bunker used — language often rife with racial and sexual slurs — on the air.
Gross: So in your memoir, in your autobiography, you write that the network executives gave you notes asking you not to use the language that we just heard, and I’m going to read a memo that you quote in your autobiography. “We ask that homosexual terminology be kept to an absolute minimum and, in particular, the word ‘fag’ not be used at all. ‘Queer’ should be used most sparingly and less offensive terms, like ‘pansy,’ ‘sissy,’ or even ‘fairy,’ should be used instead. A term like ‘regular fellow’ would be preferred to ‘straight’.” So, but the way you’re using it, those words are being used by a character who’s obviously representing the wrong way of thinking. I mean, you’re obviously not endorsing those kinds of, you know, stereotypes. So how did you get around the network executives who didn’t want you to use the language and say the things that you are obviously doing, even in that clip we just heard?
NORMAN LEAR: Well, basically I said, you know, if you force the change I won’t be back. That sounds so much like a big deal. It wasn’t as it played out, at the time, a big deal. In the very first show, Archie had a line – they came in from church ’cause he hated the sermon and the young people were – thought they had the house alone and they were going to go upstairs to make love. They heard the door open, they came down quick – Archie got the moment, he understood what had happened then he said, 11:10 of a Sunday morning. They wanted that line out. It had to be out. And why? Because it was specific, the audience would know exactly what he was talking about. And I said, of course they would, they were going to bed. I said, well, they’re also married, what is the problem with a married couple…
GROSS: …Having sex. Yes, we can say that (laughter).
LEAR: And so, 20 minutes or so before it was to air in New York, I was on the phone with the president of the company saying they were going to put it on but they were going to cut that line. Well, the show would’ve been just fine with that line cut, it wouldn’t have hurt the show. But it was such a silly, little argument that if I lost that, I would’ve continued – or the scripts, the shows would’ve continued to lose, on a constant basis, those little arguments. And I knew I just couldn’t live with that.
