Cultural Impact
Being one of television's greatest and most groundbreaking programs, the program has been referenced or parodied in countless other forms of media. References on other sitcoms include That '70s Show, The Brady Bunch and The Simpsons. The animated series Family Guy pays homage to All in the Family in the opening sequence which features Peter and Lois Griffin playing the piano and singing a lament on the loss of traditional values.
Popular T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers showing O'Connor's image and farcically promoting "Archie Bunker for President" appeared around the time of the 1972 presidential election. In 1998, All in the Family was honored on a 33-cent stamp by the USPS.
Archie and Edith Bunker's chairs are on display in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Originally purchased by the show's set designer for a few dollars at a local Goodwill thrift store, the originals were given to the Smithsonian (for an exhibit on American television history) in 1978. It cost producers thousands of dollars to create replicas to replace the originals.
Also, then-US President Richard Nixon can be heard discussing the show (specifically the 1971 episodes "Writing the President" and "Judging Books by Covers") on one of the infamous Watergate tapes.
Rapper Redman has made references to Archie Bunker in a few of his songs, specifically his smoking of large cigars.
Read more about this topic: All In The Family
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or impact:
“The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not “Am I really that oppressed?” but “Am I really that boring?””
—Margaret Atwood (b. 1939)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)