Word: bunkers
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...Yorkin and Lear repackaged excerpts from "Family" as an LP album and a book of Bunkerisms. Archie Bunker T shirts and beer mugs appeared. Well before Archie received a vote for the vice presidency at this summer's Democratic Convention, Columnist William S. White revealed that Washington politicos were talking about a "Bunker vote," reflecting a lower-middle-class mood of anger and resentment at a tight economy and loose permissiveness. In the White House, Richard Nixon watched an episode in which Archie's attack on "airy fairies" was blunted by the discovery that one of Archie's pals...
...Among the first through that new door for the coming season were ? once again ? Yorkin and Lear. This time they have a spin-off from "Family" called "Maude," and already it ranks as one of the fall's top prospects. Maude is Edith Bunker's cousin who lives somewhere in upstate New York. As played by the formidable (5 ft. 9 in.), husky-contral-toed Beatrice Arthur, she may do for liberal suburban matrons what Archie has done for urban hardhats...
...first hove into view on a "Family" episode last season. The entire Bunker family fell ill and Maude took over the household ? especially Archie ("You can either get up off that couch and eat your breakfast or lie there and feed off your own fat ... and if you choose the latter you can probably lie there for months"). The CBS brass was watching and, in Norman Lear's words, "saw a star." A second episode ? in effect a pilot ? was concocted, in which Archie and Edith visited Maude on the eve of her daughter's wedding...
...When a writer says, 'I'd like to see Edith Bunker in menopause,' I know we can peel back layers of Edith and Archie," says Lear. "When I hear an idea like that, I'm like a dog hanging on to a bone. I'll hang on forever until the show is right." One of this season's early "Family" episodes, about Archie's infatuation with the brassy wife of an old Air Force buddy, was conceived in June1971. After eight major rewrites, it was scheduled for taping last February. Lear withdrew it at the last minute for more work...
...Lear has the sort of temperament that might be described by Archie Bunker as "hebe Hollywood egghead" ? or, if Archie knew the word, compulsive. The only eye in the hurricane of activity that he whips up around him each day is the moment when he retires to the men's room for a thorough perusal of the New York Times. One of his two outside interests is writing letters to Presidents and other political leaders on such topics as Viet Nam, the ICBM debate and school desegregation. His voluminous correspondence with four Administrations is filed in a cabinet...