Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Favorite Episodes of TV Shows: ALL IN THE FAMILY:ARCHIE IN THE CELLAR



“Archie In the Cellar”Original airdate: Nov. 17, 1973 (Season 4)
 
Archie gets locked in the cellar of the Bunker house while everyone else is away over the weekend, and gets drunk on vodka. A man is coming to fix their heat and Archie, drunk by now, confuses him with his maker. This is a great solo piece by Carol O’Connor, especially during the scene when he uses a tape recorder to make a will.

This was written by Don Nichol who wrote more than thirty episodes in the early years. 

ALL IN THE FAMILY was one of the first, if not the first, socially relevant sitcoms. It took on every issue of the day fearlessly.  

6 comments:

George said...

I love "The Ski Lodge" episode of FRASIER. Roz wins a weekend at a ski lodge and trades it to Frasier. Daphne invites along her friend Annie, a swimsuit model. Frasier is attracted to Annie, but she is more interested in Niles. A very funny French farce!

Anonymous said...

My all-time best? The very last scene in Newhart. So brilliantly done.

Dana King said...

I saw a couple of ALL IN THE FAMILY episodes a while back, and was amazed at how well they held up. After thinking about it, i realized, no matter how much buzz the show received for being topical and cutting edge, it was always about people and how they interacted. These things are timeless.

My favorite bit is when Archie busts on Mike for not putting on his shows and socks properly. (YOu're doing a sock and a shoe and a sock and a shoe. Everybody know the right way is a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe.)

pattinase (abbott) said...

I saw that one not long ago. Amazing how angry Carol can act. Just a classic TV character in every sense.

Cap'n Bob said...

Not a fan of the series, though I saw some of them.

Todd Mason said...

One of the best episodes to deviate from their formula...and the only sitcom-like series I can recall to regularly take on Issues of the Day on US tv before ALL was ROOM 222(!).

The episode where Archie is arguing against draft evasion, and calls Vietnam "that goddamned stinkin' war" (reminding us that he saw combat in WW2) was an unusually good moment in another episode...it was always worthwhile when they gave Bunker a fuller character...without making him the kind of bland travesty that M*A*S*H eventually made of all its characters.