In praise of Norman Lear

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 7/5/09 at 2:20pm

I say, BRING HIM BACK and the bring the play-like sitcom structure with him!

From the Onion AV Club:

From a consumer perspective, the box set The Norman Lear Collection is something of a missed opportunity. The box contains newly packaged versions of six pre-existing complete first season sets All In The Family, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, and One Day At A Time along with the first 25 episodes of the soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, plus two discs? worth of interviews with Lear and his stars. Lear was involved with more shows than the set covers (including some that have all but disappeared into the vaults), yet aside from the material on the bonus discs, there's little in The Norman Lear Collection that's not already commercially available. A more comprehensive best of set favoring top episodes instead whole seasons, and including footage from some of the British sitcoms, stand-up routines and Broadway performances that inspired Lear might've captured the man more completely and concisely.

But for anyone who doesn't already have the bulk of the material in The Norman Lear Collection?and can afford the set's hefty price-tag the sheer quantity of classic television contained within is something of a revelation. A lot of ink has been spilled over the years about the way Lear brought hot-button social issues to the American sitcom, but it's still bracing to hear his characters debate racism, homosexuality, abortion, and the root causes of poverty so openly and fearlessly. And they're not talking in broad, abstract terms either, but with their own idiosyncratic opinions and personal biases laid bare. Even the look and sound of All In The Family and Maude and the like seems somehow edgier and more exciting now. Lear staged his shows like short two-act plays, shot on video in front of a live studio audience, and his actors responded with performances that were both bold and nuanced, with a lot of slow-building interplay between the characters. Lear's heroes were complex, too; they could be charming even when they were wrong, and annoying even when they were right.

Not everything in The Norman Lear Collection is golden. While All In The Family, Maude, Good Times, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman are still thrilling in their uncompromising topicality and intimate style and while the first season of Sanford & Son is likeably low-key compared to the more broadly cartoonish show that emerged later The Jeffersons plays too much like a Frankenstein stitch-up of Lear?s prior hits, and One Day At A Time undercuts its on-target portrait of a divorced single mother with an excess of shouting and winking innuendo. On the other hand, that shouting is something of a Lear signature. If Lear has any legacy remaining on contemporary television, it's not in today's best sitcoms which tend to be gag-oriented and stingless, not achingly relevant but in the sports analysts and political pundits yelling at each other all across the cable TV spectrum. The problem is that none of those bozos are as funny or endearing as Archie Bunker or Maude Findlay.

Key features: Over two hours of reflections from the man himself and the people who worked with him.

Updated On: 7/5/09 at 02:20 PM

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 7/5/09 at 3:26pm

Is Bea Arthur interviewd?

[nmartin]

Posted: 7/5/09 at 4:44pm

I bought the first season of Maude. Those episodes aren't nearly as good as I remembered them.
I have been waiting for years for both seasons of Mary Hartman to be released.

Posted: 7/5/09 at 5:33pm

His stuff hasn't aged well. But it was, in it's time, amazing.

[Q]

Posted: 7/5/09 at 6:21pm

I still think much of All in the Family works - mostly on the strength of the two lead performances.

[MisterRussell]

Posted: 7/5/09 at 9:27pm

Release "Hot l Baltimore!"

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 12:07pm

I loved what the article said about the shows being like little plays. They actually let the actors ACT...They even took pauses! Imagine! For instance, I had no idea how good an actor Conrad Bain was until I saw his work in the first season of MAUDE.

And Lear took much of his performers from the NY stage. In this day and age, Carroll O'Connor, Bonnie Franklin, Bea Arthur and all the others probably wouldn't be "do-able" enough. The only other sitcom I can think of that came close to this aesthetic was ROSEANNE. CHEERS, SEINFELD, even the great GOLDEN GIRLS was about the joke, the joke, the joke.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 12:38pm

I have to agree that his material hasn't aged well. But I don't agree that it was so great. I believe that the actors were always top notch, but the material never rose to their talent.

All in the Family (probably the best of the Lear catalog). Jean Stapleton first played Edith as a more sarcastic, backtalking housewife. She was someone that you could identify with and say that you knew someone like her. Over the years, she was made into this over the top, brainless, screechy housewife. Nobody knew anyone like that.

The arguments between Archie and Meathead are just noise, all yelling, little substance. And Meathead comes off as an ungrateful parasite mocking the people who support him.

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 1:53pm

I actually think the abortion episode of Maude still holds up. There's really nothing I can think of that covers that today...they always talk about it but they always end up having the baby.