Television's Moment: Sitcom Audiences and the Sixties Cultural Revolution 9781782387008

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Television’s Moment

Television’s Moment Sitcom Audiences and the Sixties Cultural Revolution

Christina von Hodenberg

First edition published in 2015 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2015, 2017 Christina von Hodenberg First paperback edition published in 2017 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hodenberg, Christina von. Television’s moment: sitcom audiences and the sixties cultural revolution / Christina von Hodenberg. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78238-699-5 (hardback: alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-78533-505-1 (paperback) -- ISBN 978-1-78238-700-8 (ebook) 1. Situation comedies (Television programs)--Great Britain. 2. Situation comedies (Television programs)--United States. 3. Situation comedies (Television programs)-Germany (West) 4. Television--Social aspects--Great Britain--History--20th century. 5. Television--Social aspects--United States--History--20th century. 6. Television--Social aspects--Germany (West)--History--20th century. I. Title. PN1992.8.C66H63 2015 791.45’617--dc23 2015006527 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78238-699-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-78533-505-1 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-78238-700-8 (ebook)

Contents Illustrations Preface Abbreviations Introduction

Negotiating the Sixties

vi viii ix 1

Chapter 1 Three Sitcoms Till Death Us Do Part – All in the Family –

Ein Herz und eine Seele – Comparison

19

Chapter 2 Three Settings Britain – United States – West Germany – Comparison

32

.

Chapter 3 The Era of Limited Choice Britain – United States – West Germany – Comparison

75

.

Chapter 4

Alf Garnett and the British Lifestyle Revolution 108

Chapter 5

Archie Bunker and the American Lifestyle Revolution 136

Chapter 6

Alfred Tetzlaff and the West German Lifestyle Revolution 182

Chapter 7

Comedy against Racism 219

Chapter 8

Trading TV Bigots: Transnational Trajectories 274

Conclusion

Television’s Social Impact 285

Bibliography

295

Index

319

Illustrations

Figures 1.1.

The Garnetts on the set of Till Death Us Do Part 20

1.2.

The Bunkers on the set of All in the Family 23

1.3.

The Tetzlaffs on the set of Ein Herz und eine Seele 28

2.1.

Wolfgang Menge and cast on the set of Ein Herz und eine Seele 59

3.1.

Per cent of population tuning into Till Death Us Do Part on BBC-1 80

3.2.

All in the Family Nielsen ratings, 1971–79 (per cent) 89

3.3.

Nielsen data for African American audiences in fourteen urban markets, 1977–79 90

5.1.

All in the Family catchwords in U.S. publications, 1969–2005 139

5.2 to 5.5. Private snapshots with Archie Bunker’s chair 143 6.1.

Traditionalist stereotypes among Ekel Alfred’s viewers 195

6.2.

Antidemocratic and nationalist attitudes among Ekel Alfred’s viewers 203

7.1.

Cartoon by David Myers, Evening Standard, 23 April 1968 222

7.2.

Cartoon by William Papas, Guardian, 26 April 1968 222

7.3.

Prejudice against foreigners among Ekel Alfred’s viewers 254

Illustrations

vii

Tables 3.1.

WDR audience research data on Ein Herz und eine Seele 97

6.1.

Evening television schedules for Monday, 26 November 1973 185

6.2.

Gender stereotypes among Ekel Alfred’s viewers 193

7.1.

Racial prejudice among Till Death Us Do Part viewers 230

Preface This is a history of three sitcoms, and a book about how society interacted with television. The iterations of Till Death Us Do Part stand in for a whole range of other successful entertainment programmes that impacted on private lives and public debates in the 1960s and 1970s. I wanted to explore what difference television made, at a particular historical moment – and I hope the findings will speak to both historians and media scholars. The writing of this book would not have been possible without the support of family, friends and colleagues. W. Daniel Wilson, Erica Carter, Robert G. Moeller and the anonymous peer reviewers read the entire manuscript and, each in their way, helped greatly improve it. Andreas Fickers, Gavin Schaffer, Norbert Grube, Craig Griffiths, Mark Glancy and Kinga Bloch provided valuable feedback on chapters. I was fortunate to benefit from Eric Hounshell’s resourceful research assistance in Los Angeles. Birgit Bernard, Erin O’Neill, Gerrit Thies, Andreas Dan, Lynelle Chen and Abby Collins contributed their time and expertise as archivists and researchers. Adam Capitanio, Charlotte Mosedale and Caitlin Mahon carefully shepherded the manuscript through the editorial process. I am also grateful to those scholars who studied sitcom audiences in the 1970s and shared their recollections with me: Neil Vidmar, John Leckenby, John C. Brigham, Timothy P. Meyer, Howard F. Stein, G. Cleveland Wilhoit and Harold de Bock. Just as essential to the book’s evolution was the opportunity to present and discuss my arguments at the Universities of Cambridge, Freiburg and Münster, at Queen Mary and University College London, at the German Historical Institute London, the Göttingen Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, and at conferences in Copenhagen, Mainz and London. The Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam sponsored my project with a Leibniz Summer Fellowship, and the School of History at Queen Mary University was generous with leave and funding. My colleagues were wonderfully supportive, particularly Colin Jones and Miri Rubin. And to my family I owe much more than I can express here. Dan, Martin and Lucy – this book is dedicated to you.

Abbreviations AATV Archive of American Television ABC American Broadcasting Company AGB Audits of Great Britain AHAP Archives of the History of American Psychology ARD Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BFI British Film Institute BR Bayerischer Rundfunk CBS Columbia Broadcasting System CDU Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands (Christian Democratic Union) CSU Christlich-Soziale Union Deutschlands (Christian Social Union) DK Deutsche Kinemathek DM deutschmark DRAF Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Frankfurt DRAP Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Potsdam EP extended play vinyl record ERA Equal Rights Amendment EST Eastern Standard Time FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation FCC Federal Communications Commission HFF Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (University of Television and Film), Munich HIV human immunodeficiency virus HR Hessischer Rundfunk

x

Acknowledgements

IFEP Institut für empirische Psychologie (Institute for Empirical Psychology) ITA Independent Television Authority Independent Television ITV JICTAR Joint Industry Committee for Television Audience Research LP long play vinyl record LWT London Weekend Television MDR Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk MP Member of Parliament NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NARC National Archives Record Center, Perris, California NBC National Broadcasting Company NDR Norddeutscher Rundfunk NOW National Organization for Women NWDR Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk NPD Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands NVALA National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association PBS Public Broadcasting Service PCM Paley Center for Media Süddeutscher Rundfunk SDR SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (Socialist German Student Union) Sender Freies Berlin SFB Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute SL Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands SPD (Social Democratic Party) SWF Südwestfunk SWR Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk Saarländischer Rundfunk SR TAM Television Audience Measurement TW3 That Was the Week That Was (BBC, 1962–63) WAC BBC Written Archives Centre WDR Westdeutscher Rundfunk WGF Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library WHS Wisconsin Historical Society Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen ZDF

Introduction Negotiating the Sixties

About forty years ago, a television show caused some unlikely shouting matches in places far away from one another. On a summer afternoon in 1972, ten-year-old twins Frank and Frederick walked with their parents into a diner in Ogden, Utah, proudly sporting red, white and blue ‘Archie Bunker for President’ T-shirts. When the restaurant manager refused to serve them because of their ‘unpatriotic and offensive’ outfits, a heated exchange followed, and the family left hungry.1 On the other side of the Atlantic, a six-year-old boy from Suffolk shouted ‘bloody silly old moo’ at a saleswoman upon learning that his favourite sweet was sold out. The incident caused outrage in the Rural District Council and was picked up by the London Times.2 Not much later, in West Germany teenagers provoked angry reactions over the kitchen table after bestowing homemade ‘Alfred awards’ upon their fathers – cardboard medals honouring them as ‘the most revolting, appalling, intolerant, ugly, grumpy, inconsiderate, mean father of all’.3 These three seemingly unrelated incidents are deeply interconnected. The boys in Utah, Suffolk and West Germany had been watching the same situation comedy – titled All in the Family in the United States, Till Death Us Do Part in Britain and One Heart and One Soul in the Federal Republic. They had used catchphrases and symbols from a wildly popular TV format to negotiate the generational and political tensions of their time. They were far from alone. Television blockbusters could become highly potent signifiers of cultural change during the 1960s and 1970s. This book explores the links between entertainment television and the wave of accelerated social change that swept across Western industrialised societies in the sixties. Scholars have identified an unprecedented thrust of ‘value change’ from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. In the same period, television’s power as unchallenged leading medium peaked. Its wide reach coincided with a relative scarcity of channels to choose from, resulting in extremely high ratings: the era of limited choice maximised television’s impact. This book is

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Television’s Moment

the first historical study to test empirically the connections between these two developments. It shows that television entertainment indeed accelerated and broadened the wave of sociocultural change. The breakthrough of the sixties cultural revolution in Britain, West Germany and the United States was bolstered by TV series that, beyond mirroring what went on, were also an important agent in societal debates about the acceptance of new values. Broadcasting hastened value change, and in the process slightly deradicalised new norms. To show how television functioned as a catalyst, accelerator and sanitiser of the sixties cultural revolution, this book makes use of historical methods, sociological data and systematic international comparison. To substantiate its claims empirically, it concentrates on one particular example: three uniquely controversial and influential sitcoms centred on a working-class, bigoted antihero and his family. The original, Till Death Us Do Part, had been conceived in London and was aired by the BBC from 1966 to 1975. As part of the international trade in television programmes, the format was then sold in the United States as All in the Family (CBS, 1971–79) and in West Germany as Ein Herz und eine Seele (One Heart and One Soul; WDR/ ARD, 1973–76). The cockney loudmouth Alf Garnett morphed into Archie Bunker and the German ‘Ekel Alfred’ (disgusting Alfred). The three series resembled one another closely, from the characters and settings down to the props and some of the jokes. Although the bigoted patriarch at the centre of the sitcom took on a distinct character in postcolonial Britain, postfascist Germany and the United States of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements, the format of the comedy stayed remarkably stable. It revolved around a working-class family in which a young and an old couple collide, bound together more by dependence than by love. The head of the family (Alf, Archie, Alfred) is conservative, prudish, authoritarian and racist. His wife (Else, Edith) is submissive, dim-witted and equally uptight. Their fashionable, sexy, consumerist daughter (Rita, Gloria) still lives at home, together with her husband (Michael), who lacks an adequate income. Michael, who espouses left-wing ideas, engages in a permanent war of attrition against the patriarch, whose attitudes are thus subjected to constant ridicule. Fierce arguments about race, politics, gender roles and sexuality expose the deep social and generational divisions of the time. Perhaps surprisingly, family strife on TV proved a sensational success with audiences in all three countries. The series shot to the top of the ratings. The British Till Death Us Do Part became ‘the most popular comedy programme in the BBC’s history’,4 reaching between sixteen and twenty million viewers with most episodes – up to a third of the entire population.5 In the United States, All in the Family came to be the most successful primetime series ever, topping the ratings for five years straight. In 1974–75, the

Introduction

3

average episode was watched by fifty million Americans – a fifth of the population.6 In West Germany, the nationwide channel ARD recorded ratings of 50 to 65 per cent for One Heart and One Soul, averaging twenty million viewers – again a third of the population.7 These were sky-high ratings, even for the time. It was the era of limited choice, in which about 90 per cent of households owned a TV set and the daily exposure of viewers was two to five hours.8 With few channels available (often two to three), successful prime-time programmes could count on being watched by at least 30 to 40 per cent of the entire population of a country. Television now easily reached remote locations. Groups that had traditionally been far from the epicentre of social and political change – rural communities, the uneducated, the elderly, housewives, children, some minorities – watched the same shows as their middle-class, urban, young, educated peers. As television ‘blockbusters’, Alf & Co. belonged to that rare group of top hits watched even by those who would usually not be drawn to this kind of show, to its channel or to TV at all. Blockbusters are followed by (almost) all because they are the stuff of discussion at work, at school and at home, and because they occupy the best time slots. They exert unusual attraction only during a limited ‘peak period’, though later on they can remain a popular staple of the rerun mill. And while today’s peaks are often short, they lasted years in the era of limited choice: for the shows in question, from 1966 to 1968 in Britain, 1971 to 1976 in the United States and all of 1974 in West Germany. These peak periods yield the clearest evidence of programming’s impact on societal negotiations. For during this phase, the broadcasts garnered huge attention from all quarters of society. The three series were accompanied by practically immeasurable coverage in other media, and raging controversy in the press, politics and sociological research. As the format revolved around the satirical deconstruction of a monstrously bigoted hero, critics accused the programme of inciting racism, while its defenders argued that it undermined prejudice. The sitcoms also repeatedly pushed boundaries regarding sexual norms, gender roles, religious values, vulgarity and bad language. In doing so, they fuelled debate in public and disagreements within the respective television industries. In all three countries, broadcasters were challenged over scheduling and editorial decisions. The BBC’s Till Death Us Do Part ‘infuriated all opponents of the permissive society’,9 in particular Mary Whitehouse’s Clean Up TV campaign. The American version became a bone of contention between the networks and the courts during the 1975–76 struggle over the ‘family viewing hour’. Trying to rid prime-time programming of controversial content, the network had pushed All in the Family to a late evening slot. The sitcom’s producer, Norman Lear, sued in response and won a landmark ruling that sank the family viewing policy for good. Similarly, the West German programme caused infighting on regional broadcasting boards who on occasion tried to keep it from being

4

Television’s Moment

screened. These controversies contributed to the plug being pulled, despite the show’s ratings success. Although Alf, Archie and Alfred were so contentious, their history has not yet been written.10 This is all the more astonishing for the enormous long-term impact these shows had on the television industry. They introduced new topics and configurations to the genre of situational comedy and spawned spin-off series and copies that ran for decades.11 They helped pave the way for ‘edgier’ shows by proving that controversial issues could play well with audiences without scaring off advertisers and critics. The sitcoms in question were groundbreaking in many ways. In Britain, Alf Garnett headed the first ‘real’ screen family: arguing, swearing, boozing, bragging and solidly working class. Never before had the BBC dared to make racism and an all-out attack on moral and religious values the subject of mass entertainment, and Alf ’s ‘tirades set new standards for vulgar and aggressive language on television’.12 For American TV, All in the Family meant the breakthrough of ‘relevancy’, a period in the 1970s in which prime-time programming addressed social and political realities fairly directly. Archie Bunker’s was the first show to air racial epithets, the sound of a toilet flushing and ‘frontal nudity’ (a baby’s nappy change). It was the first series to broach socially sensitive subjects such as homosexuality, impotence, breast cancer, premenstrual stress symptoms and menopause on prime time. In Germany, One Heart and One Soul was the first situation comedy ever aired, and also the first TV series to satirise racially and politically controversial issues. Alf, Archie and Alfred embodied the demise of the traditional family series with its harmonising, patriarchal message. They also belied the belief that prime-time entertainment needed to be escapist to succeed.13 During the 1960s and 1970s, television sitcoms became a battleground for the controversial negotiation of the value change wrought by the sixties cultural revolution – and as such had an impact on the outcome of those negotiations. As this argument lies at the heart of the book, the assumptions on which it is based need to be briefly sketched out. In the following, I will address the concepts of the ‘sixties cultural revolution’ and ‘value change’ before explaining why I chose sitcoms, and how the historian’s approach to the methodologically thorny issue of researching mass media reception differs from, but also builds on, scholarship in media and television studies.

The Sixties Cultural Revolution This book connects the ways in which audiences received popular TV entertainment with an unusual acceleration of value change that swept relatively uniformly across the Western world during the mid-1960s to late

Introduction

5

1970s. I call this period ‘the sixties’, ‘the sixties cultural revolution’ or, interchangeably, ‘the lifestyle revolution’.14 I will distinguish between ‘the 1960s’ as the decade from 1960 to 1969 and ‘the sixties’ as the era of value change throughout. A body of research on ‘value change’ by sociologists and political scientists, identifying and explaining this comparatively sudden thrust of transformation, functions as an important resource for this investigation. Most contemporaries of the 1960s and 1970s felt that the pace of social change was unprecedented, placing particular stress on the society they lived in. Historians by and large agree, pointing out the ‘unusual speed’ and ‘dramatic scope’ of a social and cultural ‘revolution’ in the twentiethcentury’s ‘golden age’ of stability and prosperity.15 They emphasise a number of very visible developments across highly industrialised nations. Growing affluence brought with it advanced levels of education, income and leisure time. The service sector began to dominate Western economies, and mass consumerism was on the rise. The postwar demographic explosion now translated into the emergence of trendsetting youth cultures; the juvenile became fashionable. Countercultural groups strove for independence and grassroots movements for political participation, while traditional social milieus lost much of their power and cohesiveness. Women defied patriarchal authority in organised groups and in private. Divorce rates skyrocketed, and the classic nuclear family (a married couple with children) was on the retreat, giving way to increased numbers of one-person households and ‘incomplete’ or ‘patchwork’ families. Statistics for divorces, or for single households, confirm a comparatively sudden thrust between 1965 and 1975 across the Western world.16 The liberalisation of sexuality, a process that had been underway for decades, exploded at the same time into a veritable sexual revolution that commercialised and politicised sex as never before. Now the laws regulating sexuality were decisively reworked in most Western countries: premarital sex and homosexuality were largely decriminalised and abortion legalised. The gay liberation movement and the second wave of the feminist movement publicly questioned the established order. The political activism of minorities aimed at deepening and radicalising the ongoing attitude changes in mass society. Simultaneously, the mainstream churches faced an uphill battle against these multiple challenges to the traditional gender roles and sexual morals they upheld. To explain where all these visible, far-reaching social changes came from, it was widely assumed that some kind of underlying, rapid transformation of individual beliefs and attitudes had taken place. Journalists, sociologists, pollsters and others speculated about the triumph of individualism, pluralism, secularisation or mass culture.17 Many lamented the loss of traditional certainties, bourgeois values, religious morals and high culture. While some observers welcomed and others detested the trend, the diagnosis

6

Television’s Moment

was clear: for most people, life no longer revolved around survival and basic needs, but around a search for emotional fulfilment. To a larger extent than ever before, the individual was freed from the constraints of the community. As religious precepts and traditional models of family, authority and hierarchy faded, individuals were increasingly left to their own devices when forging their identities. They turned more and more to nonauthoritarian sources, such as mass media, consumerism, music, art and fashion. The resulting lifestyle revolution was an explosion of pluralism and a victory of popular over ‘highbrow’ culture. To test these swings in ‘values’,18 scholars began to devise long-term surveys from the late 1960s onwards. The best-known researcher to do so was political scientist Ronald Inglehart, who claimed that a ‘silent revolution’, a fundamental transformation from materialist to postmaterialist values, had affected all highly industrialised Western countries. He argued that a traditional focus on stability and economic well-being was losing ground to a new outlook on life that emphasised individual fulfilment, freedom and participation.19 Although Inglehart’s methods came in for harsh criticism,20 his thesis was bolstered by scholars from other camps. The sociologist Helmut Klages found evidence for extraordinary attitude swings between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, with West Germans less and less prepared to do their duty and accept their lot, and more and more keen on autonomy and self-development. Klages registered a rapid movement of previously fairly stable child-rearing values – away from duty and obedience and towards independence and free will – in the comparatively short period of a decade, with the young generation changing attitudes most quickly.21 From similar data sets, showing a decline of the spirit of work and duty and a rise of hedonism, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann deduced a decay of bourgeois ideals in the population between 1967 and 1978.22 International long-term value studies confirmed the picture of a relatively uniform thrust of individualism across Western Europe between 1960 and 1980, with many scholars assuming a slackening of the pace of change from the late 1970s.23 Remarkably, accounts of value change typically point to the mass media, and especially television, as a major cause (besides affluence).24 How exactly television contributed to value change, though, is left open – and a question we need to address. If the 1960s and 1970s witnessed an unprecedented wave of value change, they were also very much a period of transition, characterised by the coexistence and clash of the new and the old. Many contemporaries feared the demise of values such as family, duty, common good, modesty and chastity, or worried about increasing cultural, racial and religious heterogeneity. Everywhere, a backlash formed and grew noticeably stronger during the 1970s. The timing, direction and intensity of counteracting forces varied from country to country but frequently saw conservative and

Introduction

7

liberal opponents of change gathering strength during the first half of the 1970s – in response to governmental liberalisation policies and the economic downturn following the oil crisis, among other factors. The fate of the sixties cultural revolution differed in the three cases examined, as did its timing and – to a certain extent – its content. Not only did countercultures and the feminist and gay movements unfold at a differing pace, some concepts, such as highbrow culture, class, race and the New Left, had nationally specific meanings.25 In all cases, though, the sitcoms can be read as a running commentary on both the sixties cultural revolution and the counterattack. The antihero at the centre embodies the forces of backlash, while his son-in-law is a (critical) portrayal of youthful counterculture. Arguments about politics, countercultures, sexual and gender norms, religion, and fashion feed the endless conflict between the two sides. The TV series added another ingredient to the mix that, to different degrees, formed part of the sixties: race. All Western industrialised societies then faced the challenge of adapting to multiethnic realities, albeit in different forms. Though the influx of immigrants was by no means a new phenomenon, it reached new heights during the 1960s and 1970s in Britain and West Germany. Between 1960 and 1980, the share of foreigners living in West Germany surged from 1.2 to 7.2 per cent of the population (mainly as a result of the policy of hiring ‘guest workers’ from southern Europe and Turkey). In Britain, the debate centred on the black, so-called colonial immigrants whose numbers had tripled between 1955 and 1962 alone, following the breakup of the empire. In both countries, the refusal to define itself as an immigration country and to embark upon active integrationist policies led to increasingly public displays of xenophobia.26 The American case was somewhat different because of the legacy of slavery and the existence of a permanent African American underclass, and because of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, which had already succeeded in framing the debate and pushing it to the top of the public agenda. Though the historical background varied considerably, all three television series reacted to these racial issues by merging the figures of the racist and the opponent of the lifestyle revolution. Characteristically, the sitcoms were all set in working-class neighbourhoods of big urban centres with a long history of immigration (London’s East End, New York’s Queens and Bochum in the Ruhr region). These were the places where working-class families and newly arrived migrants (either immigrants from abroad or African Americans, many of whom had migrated from the southern states of the United States) were bound to clash, competing for jobs and housing. Alf, Archie and Alfred represented not only the traditionalist backlash but also racism, joining two issues that did not necessarily belong together. Still, the blend was convincing enough, as the series’ success attests. The illiberalism,

8

Television’s Moment

traditionalism and xenophobia of the lead character could plausibly be traced back to the same source: fear of pluralism and hostility to social change.

Sitcoms as Sites of Negotiation Not only because its configuration mirrors the progressive and the traditionalist faction of the sixties cultural revolution, the format based on Till Death Us Do Part is ideally suited to investigate the relationship of mass audiences to social change. The best shows for such a study are broadcast nationwide with great success, inspire controversy and are series with regularly recurring episodes. Sitcoms based on a family theme are a particularly obvious vehicle for normative ideals of family and society, and family series were an established genre from the early days of television. Over several years, the main figures of such programmes enter the privacy of living rooms across the country. They offer points of identification and become part of private and public discussions as well as symbols of nationwide reach, leaving sources for the historian. Therefore, they enable us to investigate the ways in which popular television series impact social change. Four concepts will be employed to analyse such social impact: reach, standing, framing and agenda setting. To explore the sitcoms’ reach means to reconstruct the social and geographical makeup of the programmes’ audiences, testing in particular whether reception stretched to include groups of viewers that had been far from the centre of cultural change in the pretelevision era. The other three concepts, borrowed from political science, serve to examine the ways in which the broadcasts influenced current debates about changing values in the three countries. The shows’ standing signifies that a media message only has an impact because all actors in society believe in its impact. Contemporaries assigned considerable standing to these comedies by making their figures and props into long-lasting national symbols, museum exhibits and material for election campaigns and academic research. Framing points to the way contemporaries used television as a script for their own negotiations of social change; it is a mechanism by which TV provides viewers with narratives and frames into which they can insert their own personal experiences and memories of public debates. And to explore agenda setting means asking whether the series raised awareness of particular issues by introducing new topics or reintroducing old topics to public and political debate. In the era of limited choice, blockbuster TV shows delivered almost universally known, endlessly returning and structurally easy to understand stories that became framing scripts through which viewers could make sense

Introduction

9

of their world and construct their own multiple and fluid identities. In a process of continual negotiation, individuals struggle to give meaning to their lives, to relate them to larger units (such as nations or social groups), and do so in multiple ways, constructing parallel identities as, for example, citizens, workers or women.28 As we negotiate and communicate our identities through language, we make use of the formal structures of stories: temporal and spatial order, a grammar clarifying agency, a beginning and an ending, a climax and possibly unexpected twists. Often, our storytelling relies on familiar heroes and a limited number of tropes or frames.29 Here, TV series can provide us with vocabulary, imagery and characters to weave into our stories: heroes and villains such as the bigot and his son-in-law, fun patterns such as Alf Garnett’s cockney accent, Archie Bunker’s malapropisms or disgusting Alfred’s jokes. Recurring catchphrases such as ‘silly moo’, ‘dingbat’ or ‘meathead’ worked their way into people’s narratives, as did costumes, props or theme tunes from the shows. Referring to frames from a sitcom served to negotiate values in a way that was fun and removed from personal (possibly painful or embarrassing) experiences. It allowed viewers to communicate personal identities to others who also watched the broadcasts. As television entertainment engages in the selection of frames, it sets limits to our storytelling. Television’s scripts can exclude, dominate and suppress minority identities and alternative stories. There is a subtext of power relations structuring television’s framing scripts, and it depends heavily on two factors: the conditions of production, including the show’s staff and the broadcasting system, and the genre of programming. With respect to the first, the personalities of producers and writers confine what is possible in a given programme, as do varying forms of institutional and selfcensorship that are to some extent conditional on who producers answer to and how success is measured. This study will pay particular attention to the role of historical agents – producers, writers, actors, network executives, advertisers, organised interest groups, politicians – and will thus include, but go beyond, the level of discourses and institutional structures. When scrutinising editorial, scheduling and marketing decisions, we thus need to take several factors into account: the people involved, network competition and government interference, the pressure of advertisers and the differing national broadcasting systems. It made a difference how commercialised the industry was; how far developed methods of ratings assessment, merchandising and programme export were; and to what extent the broadcaster depended on government support (say, for the raising of licence fees). We will see to what extent such political and economic factors shaped the content of programming and audience responses. Like production conditions, genre characteristics also set limitations to TV’s storytelling. Since the 1990s, media scholars have devoted a fair share

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Television’s Moment

of attention to the genre of sitcom.30 Because sitcom was seen as a ‘feminine genre’, similar to soaps and telenovelas, much valuable work was contributed by feminist scholars, particularly on 1950s and early 1960s shows and changing ideas of family, gender and sexuality.31 Often, situation comedies are interpreted as inherently conservative and hegemonic. The genre conventions tend towards conservatism because every episode must have a circular structure, returning to the status quo at the end. The characters are not meant to develop: trapped in unchangeable power hierarchies, they remain reduced to essentialist types. Moreover, the domestic setting – the well-lit family home (to accommodate close shots) and the frequent repetition of situations – emphasises warmth and familiarity. The laugh track, the thirty-minute format and the demand for three gags a minute make it even more difficult to explore serious topics. The genre thus invites recourse to slapstick and, worse, ‘old-school humour’ targeting minorities. It has been suggested that sitcom reinforces social tensions as its jokes build on ethnic and gender stereotypes, and as it theatrically stages everyday middleclass life around nonthreatening women and domesticated men.32 In the United States, ‘domesticoms’ revolving around family life are seen as particularly affirmative, as they perpetuate the myth of the American dream.33 Some scholars claim that situation comedy generally masks social inequality and replaces class relations with imaginary social relations,34 or that it serves as ‘a symbolic refuge from … a culture characterized by excessive individualism … and a general lack of commitment to an overarching social deal’.35 Yet it remains contested to what extent these limitations of the genre can be overcome.36 Because of their progressive intentions, 1970s sitcoms such as All in the Family and its variants seem to contradict the overall pattern. They have been branded ‘revisionary’ programmes or labelled a distinct subgenre, ‘erudite didacticoms’ or ‘relevant sitcoms’.37 Scholars disagree whether these series simply replaced one form of hegemony with another (now consolidating liberal instead of conservative ideology)38 or whether the genre indeed grew to allow new, more progressive forms of humour.39 The question is yet unanswered, not least because research on sitcom has neglected the issue of audience reception.40

Mass Media Impact on Society Measuring the responses of mass audiences and the social impact of mass media has long been a particular challenge. Owing to methodological problems and limited access to broadcasts and broadcasting archives, historians typically neglect television sources, though they occasionally factor TV into their arguments.41 While historians have engaged in

Introduction

11

productive debates about the role of media in the French Revolution, or Nazi and imperial Germany, often identifying the reception of new, leading mass media as major drivers of social and political change,42 they have only just begun to explore ways of gauging TV’s impact on social change in contemporary history. So far, their treatment of television’s role has mainly been limited to the medialisation of the political sphere, and to messages rather than recipients.43 The field of media and television studies, by contrast, has seen long, contentious debates about mass media’s impact on audiences. Early research followed a behaviouristic ‘hypodermic needle’ model, in which TV injects messages into the viewer with direct effects. This was quickly rejected, but until the mid-1970s, most media scholars still conceived of audiences as rather passive and at least partially receptive to media messages. They insisted that viewers’ reactions were measurable and followed certain conventions. Many researchers were then working with Paul Lazarsfeld’s ‘two-step flow model of communication’ (stressing the role of intermediary opinion leaders) or the ‘uses and gratifications’ approach, which asked how viewers used media to satisfy needs and generate pleasure. From the late 1970s onwards, following Stuart Hall’s emphasis on the independence and creativity of viewers in ‘decoding’ the ‘codes’ offered to them in programming, most scholarship shifted to assume a principal asymmetry between intended and actual readings. The idea of different types of readings – hegemonic, negotiated and oppositional – of one and the same programme now came to dominate the profession, followed by John Fiske’s notion of ‘active audiences’ who create a myriad of individual readings to agree with their specific social situation.44 By now, a large part of the field had tired of the debate about media impact, and the belief in the findings of quantitative social research – surveys with representative samples, generalising questions and presumed objectivity – had waned. Instead, emphasis was placed on the unpredictability of individual readings, the multiplicity of audiences and viewing as an active, not passive process. Wary of wading into the methodological quagmire of ‘media effects’,45 most scholars interested in past programmes decided to retreat into safer academic havens, researching texts, aesthetics, genres and production rather than reception. Those who insisted on capturing audience reaction began to develop ethnographic and refined sociological methods for the contemporary programmes of the 1980s and 1990s.46 The focus was less on predictable majority responses in mass audiences and more on participant observation, with surprising reactions and creative readings by individuals commanding particular attention.47 How individual viewers derived emotional pleasures and negotiated identities while watching took centre stage, whereas television’s impact on ‘the masses’ and society faded into the background. This shift in scholarship corresponded to television being dethroned as the

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leading medium, bringing with it a fragmentation and dispersal of audiences.48 Current audience research investigates talk shows and particularly reality formats in which viewers participate by commenting or voting on the performances of ordinary people (such as Big Brother, Survivor, Wife Swap or Supernanny). Media scholars monitor audience response with interviews, focus groups and the taping of viewers as they talk back to the screen or show affects with gasps and sighs.49 This work leads back to assuming some direct impact not only on individual viewers but also on society, as it relates television’s messages to the construction of class identities, neoliberal values and gender roles.50 Notably, these studies draw on qualitative interviews and observation of small groups of up to forty viewers, leaving quantitative surveys or ratings aside. And of course they neglect past programmes, as their methodology cannot be extended to the era of early and limited choice television. To what extent is it possible to explore mass audience responses to 1960s and 1970s programmes, then? Television studies scholar Lynn Spigel cautions: ‘The reconstruction of viewing experiences at some point in the past is an elusive project’.51 Indeed, studies looking at prime-time TV of the late 1960s and the 1970s largely avoid investigating audience reactions. They treat television foremost as a mirror, calling it a ‘barometer of changing social mores’ and ‘a showcase of ideological breakdown and reconfiguration’.52 To recover television’s agency and its impact on mass audiences, comprehensive sources on viewing experiences are essential. I argue that these sources are available if one digs deeper than usual and concentrates on particular types of programming. As we are confined to surviving documents and no longer able to reconstruct viewing experiences, a specifically historical approach will be applied, subjecting the material to the validity criteria of historical research: diversity of sources, critical contextualisation, the embedding of historical voices in societal developments, a longitudinal view of collective processes beyond the individual and testing findings by means of chronological and international comparison. The mid-1960s to late 1970s are uniquely suited for the study of TV’s social impact because of the wealth of the remaining documentation. Audiences’ limited choice converged with empirical sociologists’ discovery of television as a subject – they leaped on it with gusto, creating multiple data sets for large audience groups. In addition, broadcasters had developed demographically refined methods to measure ratings. A mountain of data exists about the exposure to TV, the choice of shows and the behaviour of different audiences – including much material on individual readings. In addition, viewers can still be asked about their encounters with particular shows, with many posting unsolicited recollections on the Web.

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For the three sitcoms in question, extraordinarily rich materials on production processes, scheduling, marketing, viewers’ reactions and political conflicts survive. The programmes themselves are almost fully accessible.53 Many producers, scriptwriters, actors and television executives were interviewed and left a wide range of autobiographical and contemporary texts. The press coverage, radio and TV periodicals, independent empirical audience surveys and published as well as unpublished ratings data were consulted in specialised libraries (at least twenty-eight empirical surveys survive on the reaction of different audiences to All in the Family alone). Broadcasters’ archives in Britain and Germany yielded the correspondence of producers, editors and actors, viewers’ letters, internal audience research reports, files on production and merchandising and much more. For the United States, the producers’ files were inaccessible, but a rich haul from other archives shed a bright light behind All in the Family’s façade: personal papers by producers, story editors and scholars; court files on Tandem’s lawsuits; taped seminars at institutions linked to the TV industry; episode scripts from the Writers Guild archive; and correspondence between activists and producers, for example, in the archives of the National Organization for Women.54 Additionally, fan literature, online fan forums, blogs, photo sharing websites and an informal email survey of viewers served to investigate long-term effects. Such a comprehensive body of evidence is only available for certain kinds of programmes. The best shows for the historian are blockbuster series that both entertained and courted controversy, thus generating sources. Furthermore, the most influential shows employ a real-life setting, as we can learn from a multitude of worldwide governmental and charity projects. Nongovernmental organisations have long harnessed mass media power to bring about social change around the globe, typically for purposes of conflict resolution and prevention55 or the improvement of public health. Light entertainment, particularly soap operas and drama series running over months and years, has proven most effective in gaining the following and trust of large audiences. These programmes need to be locally produced and present a ‘real-life’ setting far away from celebrity and high politics. They have to prioritise entertainment, weaving in current issues only in a limited number of subplots and episodes. Several surveys document the success of such real-life drama and soap series in spreading awareness of HIV, lowering fertility rates and tackling domestic violence in Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa.56 The ‘relevant sitcoms’ of the 1960s and 1970s fit this pattern almost perfectly, except that they were comedy rather than drama programmes. They reached large audiences over several years, presented a ‘real-life’ setting adapted to local conditions, generated much debate and privileged entertainment while cautiously engaging in agenda setting.

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Television’s Moment

To investigate television’s historical role in fostering value change, we need to overcome national boundaries. The sixties cultural revolution was an international phenomenon, just as the television industry was always highly reliant on the worldwide exchange of programmes, personnel and techniques. While most historians of television still write in national contexts, media studies scholars have begun to explore the upsurge in the global trade of TV formats. Their work treats such formats as locally adapted franchises that are translated into different national cultures, connecting the global (the TV industry) with the local (audiences). But while the patterns and flows of the more recent programming trade and the localisation of travelling television texts receive much attention, pre-1980 programming and audience responses are all but ignored.57 The present study touches on the global trade in formats and the localisation of the sitcoms in chapter 8. However, it is more concerned with an international comparison of television’s social impact than transnational linkages. It compares the three national settings to address the following questions: How were production and reception processes shaped by national cultures? What was the impact of economic systems, institutional frameworks and historically different definitions of high culture on the content, scheduling and marketing of programming? To what extent could producers stretch genre conventions, avoid censorship and push agendas? The broadcasting system in the United States was fully commercialised, Britain had a carefully regulated dual system and West Germany a state-regulated monopoly. But, surprisingly, it was the profitoriented American industry that was most likely to respond to social change and minority activism. Beyond an exploration of TV’s impact, this book is also a history of three sensationally successful sitcoms. After a brief introduction to the actual programmes (chapter 1), the production of the British, American and West German series in their national settings will be explored (chapter 2). There were structural differences in broadcasting systems, production teams and standards of professionalism. The following chapters turn to reception processes in the ‘era of limited choice’, investigating television’s role in the erosion of old and shaping of new values. To what extent did broadcast entertainment pioneer, accelerate and shape the lifestyle revolution? The sitcoms’ social and geographical reach will be explored in chapter 3. Chapters 4 to 6 then engage with the processes of standing, framing, and agenda setting in the three sitcoms. They ask how the shows influenced current debates about sexual mores, gender roles, religious values and vulgarity in Britain (chapter 4), the United States (chapter 5) and West Germany (chapter 6). The areas in which framing and agenda setting were most controversial were racism and anti-Semitism. Therefore,

Introduction

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chapter 7 will investigate whether the three television bigots were successful in satirically undermining racial intolerance. Or was there an ‘Archie Bunker effect’ by which antiprejudicial comedy backfired, reinforcing bigotry?58 Last, chapter 8 traces the transnational links forged by the format’s export. With the exception of this chapter, the three national contexts will be dealt with separately throughout. An international comparison of the findings will be provided at the end of most chapters, with a summary in chapter 6 and the conclusion.

Notes  1. Frederick (Fritz), ‘Archie Bunker for President’ (blog), 27 August 2008, http://www.fritzliess.com/2008/08/archie-bunker-for-president.html#more (accessed 10 May 2010).   2. ‘Silly moo’ was a catchword popularised by Till Death Us Do Part. Times, 24 May 1967, 2.  3. Poster-Press, 20 April 1974, in Historical Archive of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), 8579.  4. Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 82.   5. BBC Written Archives, audience research reports 1965–75 (VR series).  6. Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 67; Adler, All in the Family, ix.   7. Today top shows rarely break the 20 per cent barrier (Sherry, ‘Media Saturation’, 207–8). Infratest ratings in WDR, 8579, 8577, HF1, UF1, UF2.   8. See chap. 3. Cf. John Ellis’s concept of the (longer) ‘era of scarcity’: Seeing Things, 39.  9. Marwick, Sixties, 477. 10. The literature is limited to popular treatments and fan books such as: McCrohan, Archie and Edith; Campbell, Sitcoms; Habel, Ekel Alfred; Speight, Garnett Chronicles; and Speight, Thoughts (1998). Adler (ed.), All in the Family, is a compilation of primary sources. There are only two articles of scholarly value about the British series (Schaffer, ‘Till Death’; Schaffer, ‘Race’). Studies on TV and racial relations typically devote a few pages to All in the Family (Means Coleman, Viewers; Jhally and Lewis, Racism; Acham, Revolution; MacDonald, Blacks) or Till Death Us Do Part (Malik, Representing; Pines, Black and White; Ross, Black; Mather, Tears; Newton, ‘Shifting Sentiments’). 11. British spin-offs included the sequels Till Death… (ATV, 1981) and In Sickness and in Health (BBC, 1985–92) as well as various one-man stage shows and one-evening television specials and the copy Curry and Chips (LWT, 1969). American spin-offs were The Jeffersons (CBS, 1975–85), Maude (CBS, 1972– 78), Gloria (CBS, 1982–83), Archie Bunker’s Place (CBS, 1979–83) and 704 Hauser (CBS, 1994). Copies or reverse copies included Good Times (CBS, 1974–79) and the adaptation of the British Steptoe and Son series Sanford and Son (NBC, 1972–77). German sequels and clones took almost twenty years to develop; they include Motzki (ARD, 1993), Die Trotzkis (MDR, 1993), Mit

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einem Bein im Grab (1996–97), Lied zum Sonntag (1998) and Familie Heinz Becker (WDR/SR, 1992–2003). 12. Sandbrook, White Heat, 625. 13. All in the Family was the first show based on a ‘relevancy’ formula to climb to the top of the ratings, although some earlier, moderately successful programmes had taken up ‘relevant’ issues: the drama series Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959–64) and Playhouse 90 (CBS, 1957–61) screened after 9.30 or 10.00 P.M. and did not make the top twenty. 14. Speaking of a ‘cultural revolution’ does not mean adopting contemporary connotations of the term, as mobilised by Mao or the leaders of sixties protest movements. 15. Especially those historians engaging in large-scale comparisons of several Western nations use the term ‘cultural revolution’: Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 8, 257– 58, 320–43; Etzemüller, 1968, 9, 13–14, 213–14, 221; Marwick, Sixties. 16. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 321–23. 17. Kaelble, Sozialgeschichte Europas, 119–31; Doering-Manteuffel and Raphael, Nach dem Boom, 61–65. 18. I use the terms ‘values’ and ‘norms’ interchangeably to denote ‘conceptions of the desirable’, that is, seen as justified and acceptable (definition by Clyde Kluckhohn in 1951). See Thome, ‘Wertforschung’, 6–7. 19. Inglehart, Silent Revolution. 20. Thome, ‘Wandel zu postmaterialistischen Werten?’; Albert, Wandel, 84–85. 21. Klages, ‘Verlaufsanalyse’, 518–19. Klages and Kmieciak, Wertwandel, gathers the findings of numerous 1970s empirical projects. 22. Noelle-Neumann, Proletarier. 23. Kaelble, Sozialgeschichte Europas, 125–31; Albert, Wandel, 94; Thome, ‘Value Change’. Historians have recently begun to integrate research on value change into their accounts: Dietz, Neumaier and Rödder, Wertewandel; Raithel, Roedder and Wirsching, Auf dem Weg; Rödder and Elz, Alte Werte. 24. Albert, Wandel, 90, 94; Kaelble, Sozialgeschichte Europas, 130; NoelleNeumann, ‘Elefant’. 25. It also has to be taken into account that the British show peaked earlier (from 1966 to 1968) than its counterparts. 26. Poutrus, ‘Migrationen’, 165; Sturm-Martin, ‘Tradition’, 116. 27. In the case of the United States, Robert Self sees the issues closely intertwined (All in the Family, 6–7). 28. There is no static national, gender or class identity at any one time. The ongoing negotiation of identity is asymmetrical and subject to power hierarchies. See Toews, ‘Historiography’, 535, 539. 29. Ibid., 551. 30. For the United States: Jones, Honey; Marc, Comic Visions; Hamamoto, Nervous Laughter. For Britain: Mills, Sitcom; Mills, Television Sitcom; Koseluk, BritComs. For Germany: Holzer, Sitcom; Keding and Struppert, Ethno-Comedy. 31. Spigel, Make Room; Radner and Luckett, Swinging Single; Haralovich, ‘Positioning’. 32. Quotation: Malik, Representing, 91, 98. See also Ross, Black, 99; Mills, Sitcom, 79; Spigel, Make Room, 154, 180; cf. Langford, ‘Impasse’.

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33. Marc, Comic Visions, 26; Jhally and Lewis, Racism, 4–5, 132–33; see also Jones, Honey, 6. 34. Haralovich, ‘Positioning’, 70. 35. Hamamoto, Nervous Laughter, 153. These critiques fit in well with philosophical and literary theories of humour and comedy; see Mills, Sitcom, 76–91. 36. See Mills, Sitcom, 30, 103–4. 37. Marc, Comic Visions, 165, 200, 209; Attalah, ‘Unworthy Discourse’, 108. 38. Attalah, ‘Unworthy Discourse’, 108–10; Hamamoto, Nervous Laughter, 82. 39. Mills, Television Sitcom, 44–45. 40. In contrast to the rich literature about soap opera audiences (see Haralovich and Rabinovitz, ‘Introduction’; Brunsdon, D’Acci and Spigel, Criticism), the only extensive study of a sitcom’s reception is Jhally and Lewis, Racism. See also Mills, Sitcom, 113. 41. Hodenberg, ‘Expeditionen’; Bösch, Mediengeschichte, 212. 42. For the French Revolution, see Chartier, Cultural Origins; Darnton, Bestsellers. For Nazi Germany, see Ross, Making. For imperial Germany, see Kohlrausch, Monarch. 43. See Bren, Greengrocer; Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time; Vogel, Unruhe. 44. Hall, Encoding; Fiske, Television Culture. 45. In part, this resulted from the highly charged debate on violence on-screen. See Barker and Petley, ‘Introduction’, 8–9; Ellis, Seeing Things, 49; Gauntlett, Moving Experiences. 46. For example Dorothy Hobson, David Morley and Ien Ang: see Wood, Talking, 101–5; Brunsdon and Morley, Nationwide. 47. Hobson, ‘From Crossroads to Wife Swap’, 124–25; Wood and Taylor, ‘Feeling Sentimental’, 147. 48. New technologies and the deregulation of the TV industry have led to the decline of mass audiences and family viewing, with users navigating media content increasingly on their own terms in ‘multi-set, multi-channel and multi-media’ homes. Jermyn and Holmes, ‘Audience’, 49–50. 49. See Wood, Talking; Skeggs and Wood, Reacting, 14, 124–25. 50. Skeggs and Wood, Reality Television and Class and Reacting. 51. Spigel, Make Room, 187. 52. Bodroghkozy, Groove Tube, 17; Spigel and Curtin, ‘Introduction’, 5. See also Levine, Wallowing; Dow, Prime-Time Feminism; Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America. A notable exception is Vogel, Unruhe, who explores TV’s political role during West Germany’s student protests. 53. All German and American episodes are available on DVD; the British series is only available for 1972 and 1974. Early episodes of Till Death Us Do Part survive on tape at the British Film Institute in London, as published or archived scripts (at the BBC Written Archives Centre in Reading and the Deutsche Kinemathek Berlin) or remain lost. 54. Like other scholars, I was denied access to All in the Family files by CBS Corporation and the independent production firm Tandem. Its head, Norman Lear, tightly controls the interpretation of his own legacy. Email communication from Ana Maria Geraldino, Act III Communications, to the author, 3 November 2009: ‘Mr. Lear is writing his autobiography and so we’re limiting access to

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those files until that book comes out’. Norman Lear’s memoirs appeared with Penguin Books in late 2014 while the present study was in production. 55. See the Search for Common Ground project, operating in twenty countries (www.sfcg.org/sfcg/sfcg_evaluations.html), and the California-based organisation Equal Access, working in Afghanistan, Nepal, Laos, Cambodia and elsewhere (www.equalaccess.org/) (both accessed 20 February 2013). 56. See the 2002–4 radio series Yeken Kignit (www.populationmedia.org/where/ ethiopia/yeken-kignit/ethiopia-results/) and the South African Soul City series (www.soulcity.org.za/) (both accessed 20 February 2013). Usdin et al., ‘Achieving’; Usdin et al., ‘Communicating’. For Tanzania, see Vaughan and Rogers, ‘Model’. 57. See chap. 8. See also Esser, ‘Editorial’; Moran, TV Formats; Oren and Shahaf, Global Television. A rare historical approach is applied by Chiara Ferrari (‘“National Mike”’). Imports and formats from the 1980s, particularly Dallas, have been studied by Silj and Alvarado, East of Dallas; Ang, Watching Dallas; Rössler, Dallas; Liebes and Katz, Export. 58. Marger, Race, 34, 56–57; Singhal and Rogers, Entertainment-Education, 157– 59, 207.

1

Three Sitcoms Till Death Us Do Part From 1966 to 1968, the situation comedy Till Death Us Do Part was the BBC’s biggest hit. The show revolved entirely around East London docker Alf Garnett, whom the producer characterised as ‘a liar, a materialistic greedy bastard’1 and a ‘bigoted Conservative, arrogant in his prejudices against all forms of change’. Alf is convinced ‘that all foreigners are rubbish, that Britain was utterly wrong to give away her empire … and that all modern forms of permissiveness and relaxing of erstwhile puritanical disciplines, are destruction. He therefore believes utterly in Heaven and Hell, the Conservative Party, the British empire, the British Monarchy and “Keep Britain White”’. At Garnett’s side is his wife Else, ‘a pleasant cow-like lady … of slow mentality, unread and unintelligent … anchored by marriage’. In their tiny row house set in a working-class district, they are joined by daughter Rita – ‘mini-skirted to a degree’ – and unemployed son-in-law Mike. The Liverpool-born Mike ‘has very long hair and wears fairly outrageous clothes as a symbol of the young person’s revolt against authority’. Thus, the format relied on ‘a true life situation set in the heart of London’s cockney East End dockland with social undertones’.2 This was the backyard of ‘swinging sixties’ London, where the less well-off and immigrants lived side by side with an affluent metropolitan youth with its penchant for fashion, pop music and partying. The opening credits contrast the symbolic glory of the British nation with its miserable reality and economic decline. An aerial view of the ornate Houses of Parliament is juxtaposed with the brick façade of Alf ’s pitiful twoup, two-down Wapping domicile. The underlying instrumental music is a majestic theme with Big Ben’s chiming bells, which slowly disintegrates and

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ends on a flatulent tuba note. The episodes themselves remain largely confined to the small sitting room, encapsulating the family’s entrapment in an unbearable situation (figure 1.1). Here, a succession of shouting matches between Alf and Mike unfolds: ‘no plot – lots of lovely chat’, as producer Dennis Main Wilson put it.3 Author Johnny Speight used Mike and Rita ‘as the spokesmen for intellectual socialism, humanism and the needle which goads the father Alf into his outrageous statements and behaviour’. Thus, the young generation argues against the older, conservative against socialist, taking on ‘any subject under the sun … be it God and Jesus versus Atheism, be it the Colour Bar versus Semitism, be it Liverpool Football team versus Borussia Dortmund, be it the life story of the Duke of Windsor – everything comes out stark, brash vulgar and very, very real’.4 The cockney dialect, the furnishing and the props made it unmistakeable that this family is at the lower part of the social spectrum, and that Alf is stuck in bygone days. Winston Churchill and the Duke of Windsor smile down on the Garnetts from above the sideboard. Throughout, the stodgy old couple’s ‘ethic of scarcity’ is contrasted with the flamboyantly dressed young couple and their consumerist attitude.5

Figure 1.1. The Garnetts on the set of Till Death Us Do Part. Reprinted by permission of BBC Photo Library.

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All early critics acknowledged that the series, with Alf and Mike constantly at the top of their lungs, was unusually noisy – and also that it was ‘desperately funny’, ‘rolling us … in the aisles’.6 When the show screened in the mid-1960s, it had considerable shock value. Contemporaries were stunned by Till Death’s irreverence in religious, sexual and political matters. Fierce arguments developed over the use of four-letter words, blasphemy and insults to the Queen and prime minister. Speight’s comedy named and shamed politicians and commented regularly on current political affairs. In 1968, for example, Alf Garnett discussed ‘the Nation’s problems. Little things like devaluation, General de Gaulle, Nasser, darling ’arold [Wilson] and all the other “bloody bolsheviks”’.7 Equally controversial was the way in which the programme addressed racism. Alf ’s ire was directed against black and Asian immigrants as well as Jews, the Irish and everything foreign, and he assaulted these taboo subjects from a working-class perspective. Mass audiences particularly enjoyed the antimoralist, antielitist thrust of the sitcom. A typical 1966 episode ‘electrified’ viewers because it offered ‘offence to practically anybody who was prepared to take it’, ridiculing ‘Tories and Socialists’ as well as ‘the Royal Family and God’.8 The report cited above was referring to an instalment in which the Garnett family is having Christmas dinner, becoming increasingly drunk and loutish. The scrooge Alf, having given no presents, complains about the ‘substandard’ socks and cigars he has received. Raucous fights develop over the table, starting with Mike mocking Alf for standing to attention while the national anthem plays on the radio. Alf urges respect for the monarch, whereas Mike outs himself as a ‘republican’. Alf insults Mike as a ‘hairy nellie’ and an ‘ignorant misbegotten lying layabout socialist scouse git’. Thereafter, Mike and Alf heatedly disagree about whether there is a heaven. Mike insists the Bible is ‘not history’ but ‘mythology’ and maintains that religion’s purpose is to make poor people accept their lot. At Else, stuffing her face and occasionally trying to silence the raging arguments, Alf directs a ‘Shut up, you silly moo!’ Finally, Alf pours his pint over Mike while Mike throws the Christmas pudding at him.9 This show was seen by 40 per cent of the British population, who overwhelmingly enjoyed it as ‘very funny’ and ‘true to life’.10 It also produced ‘over 130 letters complaining that it was crude, blasphemous and full of bad language’.11 Other episodes concentrated on government policies, sexual morals or racism. A June 1966 programme, for example, depicts Alf at a football match, shouting abuse against foreigners. As a consequence, he loses his voice and has to visit the doctor, who happens to be black. Alf insults him, calling him a ‘coon’, ‘sambo’ and ‘nignog’. Mike weighs in that the doctor is English, as he was born in Manchester, and turns the tables on Alf, whom he labels a ‘Yid’ because his grandfather’s name was Solly Diamond.

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According to the BBC, this show was ‘acclaimed by the critics of the National Press as a courageous script exploring the theme of racial prejudice’. But it also received ‘a half-dozen letters from various types of foreigners – i.e. Scots and Jewish, who protested that the programme was in bad taste’.12 Till Death’s peak period lasted until its cancellation in February 1968. After a four-year hiatus, the show came back in 1972 for another three years. Now, the novelty appeal was lost. ‘Two in five reporting viewers, many of them admitted erstwhile fans’, were disappointed, complaining that the programme was ‘running out of ideas’.13 The producer blamed the show’s tiredness on filming in colour (‘which I think softened it and made it vaguely yet another sitcom’) and the cast being ‘now famous as opposed to anonymous characters’.14 But above all, the times had changed. What Alf stood for still resonated with a mass audience but was no longer a provocative, exceptional, must-see television experience.

All in the Family Initially, the American version drew substantially on the British scripts, which producer Norman Lear had bought together with the rights to the format.15 Contrary to what is often suggested, the pilot and early episodes of All in the Family were remarkably similar to the original, copying not only characters’ names but also storylines and jokes. But although Lear had read the scripts and seen a few British episodes, he aimed at ‘doing it 180 degrees removed… . I was doing an American situation comedy, and what they did was an argument on a subject … for a half hour’.16 Thus, the format was swiftly localised, substituting specifically British traits for American features. As Archie’s conservatism could obviously not draw on Queen, church and empire, he instead supported President Nixon and the Vietnam War while opposing civil rights and women’s liberation. Mother Edith, compared to the original Else, resembled ‘a beauty contest winner’ and was neither lazy nor abusive but a devoted household goddess.17 The son-in-law morphed from a Liverpool layabout into a son of Polish immigrants and a student of sociology. He studied hard, graduated and over time pulled himself up into the middle class by becoming a professor, fostering the perennial myth of the American dream. Another characteristic change to the format was the introduction of African American neighbours. Exponents of other social groups who challenged Archie’s closed mind – such as hippies, Jews, feminists, draft dodgers, swingers, gays and transvestites – dropped in from time to time.

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Figure 1.2. The Bunkers on the set of All in the Family. Reprinted by permission of MPTV/ Camera Press.

With these additions to the mix, the show’s setup reflected accurately the crisis American society was going through (figure 1.2). By making the sonin-law a student, story editors could weave in campus radicalism. Mike Stivic embodied the white youth radicalised by the Vietnam War, the draft (in effect since 1969) and the massacre at Kent State University in May 1970. And with African American neighbours, the series made racial tensions a continuous topic. Archie, the hard hat, stood for the ethnicity revival among the white working classes. Like many working-class whites in 1971, he felt his interests squeezed by an alliance of white liberals and nonwhite minorities. He was enraged by what he saw as attempts to pacify minorities with welfare expenditure. The divide between hard hats and middle-class liberals – there had in fact been violent street clashes between construction workers and student peace protesters in New York in May 1970 – was taken up in Archie and Mike’s relationship.18 In the show’s second episode, Archie wrote a letter to President Nixon, commending him for defending hard hats against liberals.19

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The shouting matches between young and old in the Bunker household mirrored the agony many families experienced at the time. TV critics noted ‘the almost constant hysteria, the rapid pacing set to the sounds of argumentative shouting’ measuring in at a disturbing peak of sixty-one decibels six times in thirty minutes.20 The Bunkers’ frenzied arguments were a reflection of the seething anger and violence that rocked American society in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Ghettoes burned, prison inmates rioted, university students battled police. ‘Nobody thinks of 1968 and 1969 as being fun’, one observer recalled, and another added: ‘It was traumatic … the late 1960s were great if you were young and were having a lot of fun, but for the majority it was the scariest time ever. America seemed to be falling apart’.21 In response to the upheaval, a nostalgic wave swept the lower middle classes and conservatives during the early 1970s. All in the Family’s producer Lear rode the wave by making Archie the fossil of a bygone era. The antihero’s regressive longing for national glory and consensus was an element of the British format that translated well into the American setting. The wistful theme song (‘Those were the days’) and the sepia colour scheme emphasised that the Bunkers were stuck in the past. Here were Edith and Archie at the piano, opening every episode with a song harking back to the days of Herbert Hoover, when ‘guys like us we had it made’, one ‘didn’t need no welfare state’ and ‘girls were girls and men were men’. The narrow set with its tired, unfashionable furnishings matched Archie’s narrow, washed-out, backwardslooking mind. Yet, presenting Archie as a relic of the 1930s did not mean that the show promoted everything the young generation stood for. As Lear explained, ‘the son-in-law is often just as uninformed and narrow-minded with his liberal viewpoints as the diametrically opposed old man’.22 During the first two seasons, Mike was portrayed as a cardboard liberal, Gloria spouted women’s lib slogans she did not understand and the hippies visiting the Bunker house were grotesquely overdrawn figures of ridicule.23 The costumes reflected critical distance to youth subcultures, too. The wardrobe designer made Mike ‘really despicably looking … with these tie-dyed awful shirts … everybody’s nightmare son-in-law’. And Gloria was to be merely ‘a wind-up doll’ with her ‘fashionable little shirts and … little flippy skirts’.24 Contrary to the press reaction, which remained fixated on racism, the production team always stressed the show was ‘not about bigotry’ per se, but rather about the real problems of working-class families.25 Scriptwriter Mel Tolkin explained the basic pattern of the series as ‘a moment of crossroads, of cultural revolution, cultural change. That moment, when the ordinary worker, uneducated worker was in trouble, when that worker would have to be under a woman, or befriend a gay, a whole world which he was unprepared for … that was the basic joke’.26 The intention was to showcase ‘a lot of very real things’. ‘It’s just blue collar, low income in Queens, and how an average

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family lives there.’27 ‘Everything is carefully considered in terms of … does this happen in New York, are those the traffic regulations in New York?’ Likewise, director John Rich insisted the actors really ate food in dinner scenes and wore clothing appropriate to the changing seasons.28 At the core of the show’s design was working-class reality. From Archie’s beer belly to his cheap cigars, the details underlined his uneducated, lowerclass identity. Set in a low-earning household, the programme departed from the typical suburban affluence of prime-time entertainment. What in the British version had been a small terraced house with a twelve-square-foot front room, a scullery and an outhouse in the back was transformed into a much larger semidetached house. But it had only one bathroom, no car and, crucially, was in an urban area where blacks were moving in. Bunker’s lines mirrored ‘the language of the school yard and the language of the parking lot’.29 ‘This is lower class New York. This is a man who works on a loading platform. When he gets angry, sometimes he says hell or damn’, head writer Michael Ross explained.30 Archie was to read the tabloid New York Daily News, while his upwardly mobile black neighbour, George Jefferson, would peruse the Wall Street Journal.31 The wardrobe designer developed a ‘nostalgic, sepia, family album look’ for costumes and furnishings. The set and props were designed ‘to keep bright colors from popping’, and almost all clothes were overdyed. The idea was ‘to open everybody’s family album … it was everybody’s family confronting the issues of the day’. In search of ‘odd, old textures’, wrinkly cotton and battered hats, Rita Riggs toured the junk shops of Pasadena’s poor neighbourhoods. Archie’s outfit symbolised ‘the American working man out of the thirties who believed he was the class equal of everyone in our country’. He embodied the lower class without blue-collar gear, wearing a fedora instead of a working man’s cap. His off-white shirts had to look so well-worn that ‘you knew Edith Bunker ironed those every day’.32 In keeping with the class theme, the Bunker household was supposed be slightly dirty and in disarray.33 And while Archie and Edith were held hostage by their class status and lack of education, they were surrounded by characters who aspired to higher things. The young couple were ‘people of Kultur’, going to concerts, museums and (in Mike’s case) university.34 The Jeffersons were ‘moving on up’, and Aunt Maude was an envoy from affluent suburbia. Whenever a storyline suggested Archie flirting with middle-class characteristics, Norman Lear pulled the brakes. He stridently opposed the idea of Archie buying the corner pub during the eighth season, and kept his distance from the spin-off Archie Bunker’s Place (CBS, 1979–83).35 The working-class context saturating All in the Family was highly unusual for American television. The networks habitually presented middle-class and upper-class characters, since they had learned that shows stressing class distinctions were ‘killjoy television’ bound to fail: it was safer to display society as classless. In the case of All in the Family, this meant that public

26

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discussion about the series fairly consistently displaced class issues onto racial ones.36 Media coverage overwhelmingly focussed on the treatment of race at the expense of tensions over class, gender and other values. While many episodes of the series revolved around race, others were about sexual, gender, political or health issues. A typical show from the first season saw the Bunkers playing Monopoly, and Mike daring Archie to join him in donating blood. The patriarch refuses because he worries about benefitting ‘some radical who blows up buildings’. He argues that all blood types are ethnic, with ‘mafia’ in Italian blood and ‘rhythm’ in African blood. Mike asserts all blood is the same, a view Archie deems ‘commie propaganda’. The next day, at the blood bank, Bunker is puzzled at the Chinese American doctor (whom he calls a ‘chink’) and the presence of the family’s neighbourhood friend, young African American Lionel Jefferson. As Archie is disgusted at the thought of black donors, Lionel jokily warns him he could turn black if black blood were put into him. A debate about recent advances in heart transplants ensues. Archie is horrified by the thought of a man receiving a woman’s heart, or a Christian a Jewish heart. Mike insists a heart is just a pump, like a car’s. Lionel mocks Archie with the story of a white man with a black heart in segregated South Africa who did not know which restroom to use. Archie is then called up by the nurse, boasts to her about his war experiences (mainly, chasing Italian signorinas), but faints when he sees his own blood. Back home, he resumes his fight with Mike and Gloria, this time arguing that dying is in God’s and not modern medicine’s hand. The family returns to the Monopoly game; Archie loses and is sent to jail.37

Ein Herz und eine Seele (One Heart and One Soul) The West German version of the hit series started only in 1973; it peaked in 1974 and was briefly revived in 1976. When Ekel Alfred (Disgusting Alfred, the nickname Germans gave the series) shot to fame, the sixties cultural revolution was in full swing. Society and politics had been thoroughly changed by the fallout from student protests and emancipatory movements. After twenty years of Conservative-led governments, in 1969 a coalition of Social Democrats and Liberals had taken the helm. A reformist euphoria swept the country. The foreign policy of the republic, formerly frozen in anticommunist dogmatism, saw a dramatic turn towards accepting the realities of German division. By 1973, the forces of reform appeared to be firmly in control. However, a backlash developed from 1974 on. Helped by the oil crisis, the economic crisis and the terrorist challenge (an offshoot of the student movement), the political climate

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swung back to a more conservative attitude. This change of mood also affected Ein Herz und eine Seele. After the West German producers bought the rights to the format, they were sent Johnny Speight’s scripts and decided to keep the original structure and characters but adapt the details. Alf became Alfred Tetzlaff from Bochum, a town in West Germany’s largest steel and coal district (the Ruhr). Just as in the original, he shared his small row house with wife Else, daughter Rita and son-in-law Michael. As West German living standards were higher, Alfred’s house had no outhouse and scullery but rather a proper bathroom and kitchen. Still, Tetzlaff was comparatively poor: he had no car or phone. His working-class identity was mirrored in ill manners and vulgar language. He liberally used four-letter words and often labelled his wife an ‘addlebrained cow’ (dusselige Kuh). According to the scripts, Alfred’s job was to disburse pencils and pens to the employees of a large firm, bringing him into contact with Turkish guest workers.38 Therefore, his racist tirades were aimed mainly at foreign workers from southern Europe. Alfred’s other target was his son-in-law, a refugee from communist East Germany. Fierce anticommunism was at the core of the traditionalism that Alfred so staunchly defended. He feared the Russians coming any minute and urged West Germans to stand together, prepared to combat the Eastern foe. Espousing the values of the ‘Occidental’ movement of the 1950s, he embraced a highly selective understanding of the West as conservative, Eurocentric, corporatist and anticommunist.39 Alfred was meant to be a relic of the early Federal Republic. Consequently, the decor came straight from ‘the era of the fifties’, with furniture and fridge ‘of an older make’ and ‘middle-class wallpaper’ (figure 1.3).40 Alfred and Else, typically for the older German generation, embraced the true spirit of hard work, duty and renunciation. Michael and Rita championed youthful concepts of life based on individual fulfilment: consumerism, political participation and sexual liberalisation. The heavily made-up, sexily dressed beautician Rita embodied the modern, hedonistic girl of the sixties.41 Political opposition and counterculture merged in Michael’s character. His speech teemed with the typical language of student protesters: ‘capitalist entrepreneurs’, ‘anarchy’, ‘expropriation’ and policemen as ‘pigs’. A conscientious objector, he had avoided the draft. He slouched on the sofa with his long hair, reading the critical weekly Der Spiegel or listening to Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones, appearing more like a student than a working-class lad.42 In many ways, One Heart and One Soul was infused with the spirit of the West German movement of ‘1968’. Alfred was supposed to embody the overbearing authoritarianism and stuffiness of traditional society. By satirising him, the series indirectly propagated liberalisation. Producer Peter Märthesheimer wanted the series to ‘problematise, provoke,

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Figure 1.3. The Tetzlaffs on the set of Ein Herz und eine Seele. Reprinted by permission of Westdeutscher Rundfunk.

scandalise’ and foster ‘collective dreams’ of a better society.43 Thus, Alfred idolised fading values such as fatherland, honour, chastity, decency and austerity, giving them the kiss of death with his absurd reasoning. Alfred’s pleas for authoritarian government, patriarchal family, and law and order were twisted and illogical. Ultimately they fell back on him, for example, when he or his wife had to answer to the police for minor offences.44 Likewise, Alfred’s inflexible political outlook parodied the anticommunist consensus of the fifties. Here, the series supported the anti-anticommunist thrust of the West German student protesters. Storylines frequently commented on current political affairs in both West Germany and ‘the Eastern zone’ (as conservatives called East Germany). Tetzlaff attacked Social Democrats as communists and Chancellor Willy Brandt as an East German spy, and insulted Michael as an ‘anarchist scumbag’ and ‘Komsomol in chief ’.45 The Nazi past was only indirectly referred to. Viewers learned little about Alfred’s past, though they got glimpses of his anti-Semitism and wartime exploits. A rather typical episode from July 1974 drops in on the Tetzlaffs deliberating plans for the summer vacation. Alfred wants to go abroad for the first time, as the beer prices in their usual West German resort have risen. But he declares that Africa is out of the question, because ‘the whole continent is full of coons’. Winding him up, Michael warns that African

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tribes have been known to castrate German travellers. Rita suggests going to Yugoslavia, where she wants to sunbathe in the nude. Alfred and Else are outraged: Else because of the nudity, Alfred because she would even consider a communist country. Alfred then rants about Social Democratic chancellor Willy Brandt, who recently visited his ‘partisan colleague’ Tito in Yugoslavia, just so he could be coached on how to sell out West German interests. According to Alfred, Brandt was born in a basement, forged his school certificates, ambushed German soldiers in the war and travels around in a special train just like Lenin in 1917. Alfred then declares the family will go to Greece – ignoring Michael, who objects that the Greek generals destroyed democracy. The next scenes see Else, Michael and Rita deliberating with a travel agent whether an Italian location will do, in light of Alfred’s hatred of Italian guest workers. Meanwhile, Alfred is borrowing diving equipment and accidentally locks himself out of the house with his full diving gear on, nearly being arrested by a passing policeman.46

Comparison As the format travelled national boundaries, the basic setup remained the same, though the details were swiftly localised. All three series showcased a working-class setting in which a white breadwinner defended tradition, leading to heated conflicts between the older couple, stuck in the past, and the progressive, hedonistic young couple. While all took up controversial social and racial issues and wove in political issues of the day, the flavour differed according to the show’s location. Thus, anticommunism was present in all variants but most dominant in West Germany. The criticism of monarchy and religion was characteristic of the British version, while the American programme echoed the divisive clashes over civil rights and student protest.

Notes   1. Dennis Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 1, side 1, transcript, 9.   2. Background notes to the series for the 1967 Golden Rose of Montreux festival, BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC), Reading, T12/1321/1.   3. Main Wilson to D. Nichols, 28 November 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1.   4. Background notes, 1967, WAC, T12/1321/1.   5. Notes for promotion meeting, 28 November 1968, WAC, T12/1321/1. See also Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 1–2.  6. Daily Express, 7 June 1966; Sunday Times, 15 January 1967.   7. Notes for promotion meeting, 28 November 1968, WAC, T12/1321/1.  8. Daily Mail, 28 December 1966, WAC, R78/2811.

30

  9. 10. 11. 12.

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II/1, ‘Peace and Goodwill’, 26 December 1966. Audience research report, WAC, VR66/719. Kathleen Hacke to BBC secretary, 9 January 1967, WAC, R78/2811/1. I/4, ‘Intolerance’, 27 June 1966, script: WAC, T12/1254/1. Promotional text for repeats, 10 September 1966, WAC, T12/1254/1. 13. WAC, VR75/633, VR75/705, VR72/754, VR74/11, VR75/12. 14. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 6, transcript, 17–18. 15. Memo from General Manager TV Enterprises, 7 February 1968, WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight/1. See also chap. 8. 16. Norman Lear Archive of American Television (AATV) interview, pt. 5. 17. Los Angeles Times, 16 October 1972, D20. 18. Self, All in the Family, 41–46; Carroll, It Seemed, 56–57; see also McQuaid, Anxious Years, 157–60; Gitlin, Sixties, 414–19. 19. I/2, ‘Writing the President’. 20. New York Times, 26 September 1976, D29; McCrohan, Archie and Edith, 184 (fifty-five decibels is considered comfortable). 21. Journalist Thomas Frank and historian Rick Perlstein, quoted in Bothmer, Framing, 14. 22. Quoted in McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 73. 23. I/7, ‘Mike’s Hippie Friends Come to Visit’; I/11, ‘Gloria Discovers Women’s Lib’. 24. In later years, Mike’s ‘progression’ was reflected by adding ‘to his stature with … chambray shirts, and that was very much a statement politically in the 70s’. Rita Riggs AATV interview, pt. 4. 25. Larry Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6. 26. Mel Tolkin AATV interview, pt. 7. 27. Scriptwriter Mort Lachman AATV interview, pt. 5; Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 56. 28. Story editor Michael Ross, in Ross and West, Writing; Rich, Warm Up, 138– 40. 29. Norman Lear in a taped seminar, 14 October 1998, Paley Center for Media, New York (PCM), T:27578. 30. Ross and West, ‘Writing’. 31. Rich, Warm Up, 123. 32. Rita Riggs AATV interview, pt. 3, 4. Riggs joined after the first nine episodes. 33. Stapleton, quoted in McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 111. 34. Marc, Comic Visions, 183. 35. It salvaged Archie’s character after the end of the original series, but featured him as less bigoted and more middle class than before. Norman Lear AATV interview, pt. 9; Carroll O’Connor AATV interview, pt. 5. 36. Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis argue that American society prizes the idea of classlessness so highly that it ‘does not have a way of talking about one of its central organizing features’ (Racism, 70, 73, 134). See also Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 219. 37. I/4, ‘Archie Gives Blood’. 38. I/19, ‘Tapetenwechsel’; II/4, ‘Schlusswort’. 39. For the ‘Abendland’ movement, see Schildt, Zwischen Abendland. See also Märthesheimer, quoted in A. Brockes et al., ‘Zwischenprüfungsarbeit’, 67, in Historical Archive of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Cologne, 8578.

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40. List of basic props for first episode (1972), WDR, 447. 41. See press release, early 1973, WDR, 8574. I/4, ‘Die Beerdigung’; I/3, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’; I/20, ‘Der Staatsfeind’. See also Radner and Luckett, Swinging Single. 42. I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’; I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’; I/1, ‘Das Hähnchen’; I/12, ‘Silvesterpunsch’; I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’. 43. Märthesheimer, ‘Woher denn’, 23, 27. 44. I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’; I/16, ‘Selbstbedienung’. 45. I/15, ‘Frühjahrsputz’; I/17, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’. 46. I/18, ‘Urlaubsvorbereitungen’.

2

Three Settings The three sitcoms shared the same format, but were shaped by nationally specific conditions. Broadcasting systems differed structurally, and the degree of professionalism with which the shows were produced varied widely – as did the social background of producers, writers and actors. What were the circumstances surrounding the launch of the series? What did the team involved in its production and management and the production process look like? These questions will be explored one country at a time. We can then gauge the varying degrees of professionalism and commercialisation of production, and how these impacted the content of the sitcoms.

Britain When Till Death Us Do Part was devised and piloted, in 1965–66, the BBC was going through a difficult time. The nationally based, publicly owned broadcaster had begun to respond to the pressure of competition, struggling to keep its commercial rival ITV at bay. ITV had entered the market in 1955; it was a network of regional franchises funded by advertisements, but still heavily regulated by the supervisory body ITA.1 Mass audiences had quickly been lured away from the BBC by means of game shows, westerns, imported films and huge entertainment successes such as the twice-weekly soap opera Coronation Street (1960–present). BBC director general Hugh Carleton Greene described the situation at the end of the 1950s: ‘ITV, still a novelty, held the lion’s share of the television audience, and the BBC, with not much more than a quarter of it, was beginning to fight back, and to realise that competition could be stimulating’. During the early 1960s, the BBC regained some ground by opening up to political satire (That Was the

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Week That Was, 1962–63), working-class comedy (Steptoe and Son) and more critical political reporting in current affairs programmes. What Greene called ‘the BBC’s new attitude’ was a departure from tradition.2 Over decades, the BBC had been saddled with the nickname ‘Auntie’, a term that could be used affectionately but also conjured up images of old-fashioned righteousness, stuffiness, provinciality and boredom. The ‘Auntie’ label came to sound ever more critical during the youth-crazed sixties. Because the BBC did not want to become everyone’s unwanted relative who would soon be banished to a back room, it now opened up to the forces of change. In the mid-1960s, the BBC was thus in the middle of remaking itself while facing multiple challenges. Costly channel proliferation was one of these. The new TV channel BBC-2 opened in 1964; a fourth radio channel and a chain of local radio stations followed in 1967. A swift increase in staff numbers3 and the impending switch to colour TV4 also demanded additional funding. The only way to generate more income, though, was to persuade Parliament to raise the licence fee that was levied on all households with a television set. That would not be easy. The corporation had to strike a balance between pleasing licence fee payers and Parliament. It had to win back working-class audiences, as it needed to convince the public of its capacity to entertain all and not only the upper middle class. At the same time, the decidedly middle-class Reithian ideals of public service and educational mission that had guided the BBC’s course since its inception could not simply be discarded.5 The corporation’s Royal Charter clearly stated its duty not only to entertain but to ‘inform’ and ‘educate’, and this had won renewed backing from a royal commission, the Pilkington Committee, in 1962. The committee had recommended strengthening the BBC against ITV’s competition, and its chairman had even suggested raising the annual licence fee to six pounds.6 But the government resisted a swift increase, forcing the BBC to resort to borrowing – although the House of Commons and House of Lords debated the issue almost every year. The licence fee for a radio and black-and-white TV set, which stood at four pounds in October 1963, was eventually raised to five in 1965; it reached six pounds only in January 1969.7 In many respects, a series like Till Death Us Do Part could only have originated during the mid-1960s. It reflected the current discussions about immigration and race, the BBC’s newfound tolerance in regard to satire and political criticism, and its quest to attract working-class audiences. Nevertheless, the series was not a purposefully planned success – the BBC hit rather accidentally on this winning streak – and its launch faced considerable opposition from within the corporation. The history of Till Death mirrors the situation of the BBC at the time, with its staff torn between conflicting imperatives and gradually adapting to the reality of a more competitive television market.

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Situation comedy was not a new genre to the British market. Since the early 1960s, both BBC and ITV had aired a number of sitcoms, the most popular being the BBC’s celebrated Steptoe and Son (1962–65, 1970–74).8 Well aware of the significance of Steptoe’s success with mass audiences, and in search of something that could rival ITV’s Coronation Street, the BBC management at Bush House allowed for a gradual expansion of the Light Entertainment section. It was made a programme group (under Tom Sloan) in 1963, with two branches led by assistant heads: one for variety (Bill Cotton) and one for comedy (Frank Muir). From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, Light Entertainment counted typically around twenty producers and five executive producers.9 The in-house standing of Light Entertainment was somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, the BBC traditionally prized information and education over entertainment, and most executives were dismissive of popular fare. During the 1950s, Light Entertainment ‘was still regarded by the BBC Old Guard as a necessary but rather raffish, below-decks, below-stairs department’.10 On the other hand, as Bill Cotton put it, ‘we certainly weren’t the poor relations in any way, shape or form’. By the early 1960s, the corporation ‘had fully taken on board that to survive … against commercial television, it was going to have to have a very powerful entertainment arm to it’. Thus, comedy and variety were guaranteed ‘a decent number of really fixed slots on BBC-1 … with decent budgets’.11 In 1968, Sloan’s group put out eight hundred productions a year – roughly sixteen shows a week – and had an annual budget of two million pounds.12 In the class-sensitive microcosm of the BBC, the comedy and variety people were neither fish nor fowl. In the BBC Club, ‘one of the longest bars in the world’ and meeting point for thousands of employees, Light Entertainment staff would not mingle at the working-class big bar – ‘all the mates drink in the big bar, props and scenery go in the big bar … they’ve all got their own little patch’. Instead, they frequented a small side bar, together with the ‘BBC newsroom, editors and journalists’.13 While many of the Light Entertainment crew hailed from middle-class backgrounds,14 others defined themselves as working class and resented the middle-class values espoused by most of the corporation’s executives and editors. Conflicts between BBC executives and comedy producers or writers often boiled down to perceived class differences. Light Entertainment staff hated to be talked down to and were quick to accuse senior figures of patronising. The arguments surrounding the pilot episode of Till Death Us Do Part are a case in point. The pilot had been broadcast on 22 July 1965 as a one-off play in Comedy Playhouse, which had been a launchpad for other BBC sitcoms, including Steptoe. As producer Dennis Main Wilson recalled:

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When we made the pilot, which we knew was good, we had great confidence. [Author] Johnny [Speight] and I went drinking in the White Elephant in Curzon Street that night… . In the Elephant, you get next morning’s papers round about half past eleven in the evening. So the crits were super, so we … drank champagne all night and then had breakfast. Turned up at the BBC Club bar at lunchtime still on champagne, and all our friends came up and said, wow, follow that. It was aggressive… . We’d destroyed Harold Wilson, we’d destroyed Ted Heath, anybody in charge in Britain, wild, wild… . The audience didn’t know what had hit them.

Main Wilson then described how ‘all the bosses of BBC Television’, having just reviewed the week’s output, came down from the programme board meeting. Speight addressed Light Entertainment head Tom Sloan, What about that for a bloody series, mate, eh? And Tom froze and actually said, over our corporate dead body do we make a series out of subversive murk like that. And my heart sank. The man was a Scottish Presbyterian … also he was not Cavalry like I was, he was Royal Artillery which was much more dull but typical. British timorous middle class, with a set of rules to follow which belong somewhere round about Enid Blyton 1924… . Luckily down from the same board meeting came the Controller of Programmes BBC-1, Michael Peacock, and the Controller of BBC-2, David Attenborough. And David giggled and nudged Peacock and said, if you don’t want it on One, I’ll have it on BBC-2. Which sorted that out.15

This delightful story highlights some important issues. First, Main Wilson and Speight saw themselves as working-class lads facing the outdated middle-class outlook of BBC top brass. Main Wilson especially hated those ‘tender souls in management’ who interfered with production. His reference to cavalry versus artillery is telling; the experience of the war had shaped his attitudes. Having seen ‘incredible bravery and suffering’ at the front, he was ‘not going to be put upon by some berk up on the 6th floor of the BBC who has got no balls to do something worthwhile’.16 Second, the life of comedy producers revolved just as much around the pub or the BBC Club as around the studio. And third, with ratings coming in late, the early fate of the series depended entirely on the opinions of executives and press critics. It was by no means unusual that the ‘light’ programmes popular with mass audiences drew the wrath of BBC executives. Entertainment staff could only counter this disapproval by referring to favourable audience ratings. But most executives dismissed ratings as a tool of little value, because the BBC did not ultimately depend on its success with viewers. During the 1960s and 1970s, the BBC’s internal audience research department selectively monitored audience size and reactions for one or two shows a day only. The results were delivered to the editors no earlier than four to six weeks after the event.17 This delay meant that in decision making, ratings only weighed in after a few months. When gauging the success of a show

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before that, producers and department heads mainly relied on the reactions of the studio audience, colleagues and critics. For the pilot episode of Till Death, ratings took twenty-eight days to materialise. But remarkably, the internal decision to embark on the new series had already been taken before then. By 17 August 1965, the BBC had signed a contract for six new episodes.18 In all likelihood, the initial press reaction had been key – the television critics of the major dailies commanded considerable attention at the time. The Daily Mail’s Peter Black commended the play for having taken him ‘into a solitary purple haze of laughter’ and said that it ‘must not die with but one performance’.19 Ratings, then, were little more than a belated confirmation of decisions already taken. Therefore, writers and producers felt little or no pressure from audiences, advertisers or the internal sales department. Rather, they strove to network with press critics and the line managers of their programme group. Of course, they were also answerable to the director of television, the director general and the two boards governing the BBC (the Board of Governors and the Board of Management). Through the Board of Governors, political parties, trade unions and other bodies could make their interests felt, but only indirectly.20 While the director general and the Board of Management had ‘a direct and major influence on editorial policy through … staff policy and the allocation of resources to the various programme services’, the Board of Governors (which appointed the director general) concentrated on longterm strategy and liaising with the government. It refrained from day-to-day control and typically remained ‘remote from production staff’, with ‘their discussions and decisions not made sufficiently known’. In addition, there was a General Advisory Council designed to represent viewers’ interests. It served a ‘purely advisory and ambassadorial function’ and met relatively rarely. BBC editors felt it to be ‘too large for efficiency’ and ‘more distinguished than representative’ in its membership.21 Because of this setup, the history of specific BBC programmes was shaped more by political manoeuvring than by the quest to be popular. This also goes for Till Death Us Do Part, which from 1966 on became a bone of contention in board meetings, council meetings and even parliamentary proceedings. Decisions about the continuation, scheduling and content of the series have to be understood in this context. Whoever wanted to impact programming and scheduling usually aimed for the director general and the BBC boards, hoping that pressure would eventually be passed down to middle managers, producers and writers. This was the strategy of politicians and external pressure groups, such as (most notably) Mary Whitehouse’s Clean Up TV campaign, founded in 1964. Whitehouse, a deeply religious teacher from rural Middle England, was publicly supported mostly by upper-middle-class voices: clergymen, Conservative MPs, Rotary Club presidents and girls’ grammar school headmistresses. In 1965, the movement

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collected 366,000 signatures, but Hugh Carleton Greene still refused to receive a deputation at the BBC.22 The campaign then evolved into the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (NVALA), whose allegedly one hundred thousand members in 1968 claimed to represent a majority of viewers. Railing against permissiveness, degeneracy and unbelief, Mary Whitehouse fought a very public war against the BBC’s director general, Greene.23 Greene was a reformer and moderniser. He wanted the BBC ‘to take account of the changes in society, to be ahead of public opinion, rather than always to wait upon it’.24 In 1965, Greene stressed that ‘relevance’ was the key to programming – ‘relevance to the audience, and to the tide of opinion in society… . Provocation may be healthy and indeed socially imperative’.25 Such views brought him into conflict with many parties at once. He faced not only Mary Whitehouse’s rage, but also lost favour with the Labour government. Prime Minister Wilson tried to undermine Greene’s agenda by appointing a former Tory minister, Lord Hill, as chairman of the Board of Governors in 1967. From then on, the strained relationship between chairman and director general made it difficult for the BBC to react constructively and with one voice to public criticism.26 The rift was mirrored in some of the periodic scandals provoked by Till Death Us Do Part. They pitted representatives of Whitehouse’s campaign and the political parties against BBC directors, boards and councils. At the receiving end of such conflicts were the people involved in producing the series: a team of forty-something men who hailed mostly from East London and whose lives had been turned around by the Second World War. Their personal background was distinctly different from their counterparts in BBC management and Mary Whitehouse’s campaign. Author Johnny Speight, born in 1920, was the son of a ship scaler from London’s docks at Canning Town. His family was poor, of Irish descent and ‘very devout Roman Catholic’. He left school at fourteen to take up ‘terrible’ factory jobs: ‘I went from factory to factory, I was either sacked or I left’. Three things came together to change his life: listening to jazz on the radio, watching American films in the cinema and the war. ‘The war was … like going into university… . I was really in the narrow confines of Canning Town, that was all I knew… . And going to the army, meeting all different walks of life … in the barrack room there was people from universities… . You picked up things, it was like an education for me.’ After the war, he jobbed part-time as an insurance salesman and a jazz drummer in nightclubs and pubs, then started to include comic lines when playing. Around 1950, having read George Bernard Shaw in Canning Town’s public library, he sold his drums, bought a typewriter and began a brief spell at the radical workingclass Unity Theatre at London’s King’s Cross. He started to contribute to radio shows by the comedians Frankie Howerd, Eric Sykes and Spike

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Milligan. By the mid-1950s, he was a successful freelance comedy writer and had moved out of the East End.27 Entirely self-taught, his talent made Speight a (newly) rich man. As the Sun put it in January 1967: ‘Speight comes from the poorest possible East End background … and now lives in almost satiric stockbroker splendour’. His Middlesex home, described as ‘palatial’ and ‘grandiose’, sported a minstrel’s gallery, enormous chandeliers, landscaped gardens and a Rolls-Royce in the driveway.28 Speight liked to boast about his fees and used the dailies to put pressure on BBC executives during contract and censorship negotiations, which made him a minor celebrity. He cut a colourful figure on the London circuit. Some journalists ridiculed him for his gold bracelets, unmatching suits, unbuttoned shirts and strong aftershave.29 Less elitist portraits pointed out the contradictions between his upper-class lifestyle and enduring working-class consciousness, his outlook remaining one of an ‘old-style Marxist’ steeped in cockney vowels and class hatred.30 Speight had indeed joined the Communist Party while working at Unity Theatre, but he ‘rapidly became disgusted’ with their ‘very partisan’ approach. When the theatre rejected one of his plays because it did not conform to the stereotype of a ‘noble working class … much maligned by these awful capitalists’, Speight left and acquired a Labour Party card instead. To this he held on while refusing to toe any kind of party line. He described himself as ‘an anarchist as well as an atheist… . I’m so far left I am out of sight’.31 The cautious distance he kept from Labour stemmed from his wish to defend true working-class interests against liberal middleclass elites.32 Producer-director Dennis Main Wilson was just as instrumental as Speight in shaping the series. His life story was somewhat similar to Speight’s. Born in 1924 in Dulwich, London, to a working-class family (his mother was a downstairs maid, his father worked his way up from tea boy to factory manager), he was raised on a co-operative housing estate. His opportunity came with a scholarship to a local grammar school. ‘In six years, they hammered good manners and knowledge in us’, and even more important, ‘I got rid of the bleeding accent like that and I spoke proper’. This, and having learned German and French, helped the seventeen-year-old land a job as a recorded programmes assistant at the new BBC European Service in 1941. Here he met Hugh Carleton Greene. But it was the war that thrust Dennis Main Wilson into a remarkable career at a young age. He excelled during training and was sent to Sandhurst, allegedly becoming ‘the first working-class officer to be allowed into the squadron’ of his cavalry regiment. A captain at war’s end, the 21-year-old was ordered to denazify the German broadcaster Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) and found himself head of its light entertainment section. Demobilised eighteen months later, he entered the BBC’s variety department and began to produce comedy shows for radio, from 1956 on for television.33 Looking back, he marvelled

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at how the war had lifted him, the ‘Ex-Cockney gutter street fighter’, out of oblivion. ‘Had there been no war, I’d [have] ended up … in the post office.’ Moreover, his time at Hugh Greene’s NWDR had given him ‘enormous confidence and I wasn’t going to be pushed around by any bureaucratic bastard in the BBC’.34 His style of producing reflected these experiences. He loathed rules and was ‘careless about money’. He was known to storm about BBC corridors to get his way and anger executives with his chaotic, ‘personal gut feeling’ way of doing things.35 Had it not been for his fighting spirit and his closeness to Greene, Till Death might not have survived. Main Wilson only slightly exaggerated when he said: ‘Sloan hated it for its entire run, although we were top show, reaching a peak of 24 million viewers. I defied Sloan, who kept wanting to cut Johnny Speight’s lines, and used to get sacked every Tuesday morning and re-employed by Carlton Greene, then Director General, in the afternoon’.36 Main Wilson strove to balance Speight’s ‘more politically obvious’ left-leaning dialogue with his own more ‘conservative production and direction’.37 The third person to exert lasting impact on the show was Warren Mitchell, the lead actor. As Speight’s scripts were usually delivered incomplete, Mitchell was given much leeway in his interpretation of Alf. Born 1926 as Warren Misell to Russian Jewish parents in Stoke Newington (northeast London), he gave his background as ‘working-class’ or, more accurately, ‘lower middle class’.38 His father was a glass and china merchant and owned a house on the border of a council estate. Mitchell went to grammar school and began to study at Oxford when the war intervened and he decided to turn to acting. After many minor roles for theatres and television, his career only took off with Alf Garnett.39 Mitchell had ‘always felt strongly about racialism’. Although a confessed atheist and married to a Gentile, he vividly remembered his grandmother’s descriptions of Eastern European pogroms and had been impressed by the fate of Ilsa, a German Jewish girl from a Kindertransport whom his family had taken in in 1938. He became ‘a fervent German-hater’.40 Politically, he described himself as ‘to the left of the official Labour party’.41 The three other main actors were not as influential. Their generational, social and regional background was more varied, too. Dandy Nichols, who played Alf ’s lethargic wife Else, was an engineer’s daughter from London’s Hammersmith.42 Anthony (Tony) Booth, born 1937 in Liverpool and an outspoken supporter of the Labour Party, costarred as Mike. He had left school at sixteen and had been trying to break into television for a while when Johnny Speight recommended him to Main Wilson. Booth (later father-in-law to Prime Minister Tony Blair) had few other BBC commitments.43 Completing the cast was Una Stubbs, born in Leicestershire in 1937. She began as a chorus girl at the London Palladium and then appeared as a dancer and actor in many television shows, particularly Cliff

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Richard’s ones.44 Rita’s part in Till Death was ‘rather different to Una’s previous work’, shifting her from dancing into acting.45 Taken together, the production team was white, overwhelmingly male, mostly upwardly mobile working class and politically left leaning. Speight, Main Wilson and Mitchell were men born in the 1920s and raised in London’s poor ‘cockney’ quarters. The war had changed their lives, built up their confidence and instilled in them a sound mistrust of the British establishment. Their series was meant to challenge traditional values of class, race and gender with a plot built around the generational tensions of the sixties. This was no accident, as all in the team (except for Dandy Nichols) were in their midforties or younger when the series was launched. Although he was only forty-one years old in 1966, Dennis Main Wilson already had ten years of experience as a TV producer under his belt. He organised the production process, keeping to a tight budget and timetable. Early on, Main Wilson worked with a small production crew of five, including the office secretary.46 The end title credits of the 1974 series named only six people besides him. Main Wilson coordinated the budget and the actors, booked rooms and studios, directed the rehearsals, ordered props, filmed the opening and closing sequences and managed the selection of the studio audience.47 He was closely involved in the development of the script at all stages, tending to Speight, who ‘needed some very hairy looking after’.48 He also did all the casting, first trying to woo Peter Sellers and Leo McKern but eventually choosing Warren Mitchell for Alf ’s part.49 For the first series, in 1966, the crew recorded one episode per week for seven weeks. This was revised for the second series to include a week off roughly every fourth week, to give actors and production staff time to recover, and – crucially – giving Johnny Speight more time to deliver.50 The production kept to the weekly strike until the end of the series in 1975. Five days would be spent rehearsing, with Main Wilson giving the actors their moves only on the third day. On day four, there was a ‘tech run for cameras, lights, sound and the crew’.51 On the last day, the programme would be recorded in the studio in front of an audience. This tight schedule proved ‘impractical’. During the first series in 1966, one of the seven shows needed to be cancelled and the cast paid off.52 In February 1968, the same happened to the final episode of series three, as Speight had ‘dried up’.53 In March 1972, a whole series of six shows had to be abandoned.54 With the exception of one occasion when Dandy Nichols fell ill, this was all due to scripts coming in late and unfinished. Main Wilson called Till Death ‘singularly difficult’ and ‘always a very last minute job’,55 despairing in 1973 that ‘Johnny Speight is contracted to deliver the seven scripts … by next Monday, 22nd October. There is not a hope in hell that he will be able to honour his contract… . Nothing new about this’.56 The production team was also faced with the author not ‘writing to the standard

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we expect in seven days per script’ and leaving ‘much more to be done by the production office than the average writer of jokes’. Speight did not adhere to the rules of thumb for comedy productions, such as the frequency of jokes in a script (‘we used to reckon on six laughs a page, 60 pages, that’s 360 laughs in half an hour’). This led to ‘a full seven day and night week for the production crew’ and Main Wilson already in 1966 pressing for adjustments to the timetable – highlighting his ‘vested interest in not dying until the end of the series’.57 Eventually, long production pauses developed. There was a four-month pause between series one and two in 1966–67. Ten months passed before series three ran in January and February 1968, and a full four years and seven months before the start of series four in September 1972. During this long recess, Speight spun off two movies and a similarly themed comedy series named Curry and Chips for commercial broadcaster London Weekend Television (LWT). He even threatened to take Till Death Us Do Part to LWT after the BBC’s Tom Sloan had decided to end the show’s run in February 1968. But after contractual obligations had thwarted LWT’s offer, and the controversial Curry and Chips had been cancelled, Speight was ready to return to the BBC.58 Till Death series five to seven followed with production pauses between nine and fourteen months. Causing these lengthy gaps was, frequently, the author’s and producer’s alcohol abuse. Johnny Speight remembered: ‘I was drinking quite a bit … in drinking I was a professional’. In 1970, Speight was fined eight pounds by the Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on a charge ‘of drunk and disorderly behaviour’.59 Main Wilson ‘met Johnny in many bars’ and recalled: ‘I was drinking like a fish, Jesus Christ I was drinking’. While he was a ‘genius producer’ before a liquid lunch, afterwards he was ‘impossible’.60 Shortly before the rehearsals for a new series in 1973, Dennis Main Wilson wrote to actress Dandy Nichols to reassure her that ‘everybody is sober’: ‘Tony’s been off it for the last four months. Even I (regrettably) am only drinking wine and am thoroughly fed-up but it’s all in a good cause!’61 It was not booze alone that made ‘the psychology of the cast … very difficult’.62 Tony Booth’s behaviour caused many conflicts. In May 1967, he was caught with an unauthorised product placement deal with a supplier of menswear on London’s Regent Street – ‘whereby in return for a sum of money (£50) paid to Booth, it was agreed that Booth would wear three jackets supplied to him’ onstage. The head of Light Entertainment fumed that the supplier was ‘taken for a mug’ and that ‘no artist could enter into such an agreement’.63 In July 1967, when the fees for the third series were negotiated, Booth drove such a hard bargain that he almost lost his contract.64 He only stayed on because Johnny Speight intervened, writing to Sloan that Booth was ‘essential both in character as “yobbo” Mike Rawlings and as his rather slovenly Booth self to drive Alf Garnett to the pitch that he reaches

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every week (Warren Mitchell … could not give the same performance with another actor because he hates Booth so much)’.65 By 1974, however, Booth had lost all support. In Main Wilson’s words: Speight and I propose to fire him as of the end of the current series… . He is good type-casting but as the type-casting is of a lazy, layabout bum with anarchist attitudes, the type-casting doesn’t help the precision of the show. We fire him because he doesn’t regard the author’s lines as important and is happy to paraphrase them, because, for him, that is how one should act. He only learns his own lines and doesn’t bother to get the gist of the entire script. He is not a very good actor.66

Nevertheless, Booth kept playing Mike until the last episode. However high emotions ran during rehearsals, internal strife remained invisible for viewers – those at home and in the studio. All episodes were filmed in front of a carefully selected studio audience. ‘The success of the show depends enormously on the quality of the 320 members of the audience’, the producer wrote to the assistant in charge in 1973. The tickets were distributed ‘very carefully – about 40 per cent to a good solid London working-class audience, about 30 per cent to students or young intellectuals and the rest a smattering of general public’.67 Recording in front of an audience had the advantage of delivering genuine laughter, which spurred on the actors’ performances.68 But it also complicated rehearsals, as actors had to time their words to accommodate the laughter. The studio and the set were particularly narrow in order to emphasise ‘the claustrophobic quality’ of the Garnett household.69 The set measured only twelve square feet, forcing the team to work with five cameras and ‘five studio dollies, like knitting with the tripods interlocked’, all in order to show ‘the aggression, the claustrophobia, in that room’ – making the entrapment at the heart of the plot visible on-screen. With much of the 100-by-80-foot studio taken up by seating, fronted by ‘ten feet for the fire lanes and public exits and these dreadful men in the London fire brigade’, about half the studio’s lighting was unusable. ‘With a live studio audience you cannot really fine light a scene’, Main Wilson recalled. It was also difficult to stop, do some reverse shots or change scenery because ‘the moment you do that you’ve lost the audience, and you’ve got to pick them up, and start all over again’. From 1966 to 1968, the producer thus aimed for a show that ‘goes straight through as good as a one act play in a West End theatre’ and relied on cast members to entertain studio guests whenever necessary.70 It was Warren Mitchell who used to do the audience chats during scene changes. But over time, the producer as well as fellow actor Dandy Nichols took issue with ‘his music hall act during the recording’ – ‘because he loses the character of Garnett totally and cannot get back into character for the next scene’.71 In early 1973, Mitchell was told that his ‘approach to the studio audience will be strictly governed and that he will talk to them only with the express

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permission of the Producer’. Now, a professional warm-up man was hired to hold the studio audience during recording breaks.72 These recording breaks became more frequent in the 1970s because of the ‘ever increasing complexity of Johnny Speight’s scripts’. The early episodes had consisted mainly of straightforward dialogue and relied on only one or two sets: the Garnetts’ living room and either the pub, the marital bedroom or a restaurant.73 In contrast, the later shows involved, for example, ‘twelve separate scenes necessitating six recording breaks for set and/or major wardrobe change’.74 There were also more film sequences in outside locations such as the beach at Bournemouth, the London docks, the supermarket or the football stadium. The September 1972 episode ‘Bird Fancier’ is a case in point. For it, the following new studio sets were designed: interior and exterior of pub, a high-rise council flat interior, a train buffet bar and Bert’s backyard. Film sequences were shot at Liverpool Lime Street station, Euston station and bus stop, in a train and on a stage at Ealing. Several walk-on actors, ten pigeons, a train, a taxi and many more props were needed.75 More challenging scripts also meant higher production costs. While in autumn 1966, each half-hour episode was estimated at £4,376 in total (of which £1,966 went for the use of BBC facilities, £1,050 for artists’ fees and £600 for the author),76 costs climbed in the following years. The total costs per hour, including overheads, were £11,626 as of September 1966 and £26,033 as of early 1974.77 Still, compared with other hit programmes, this was reasonably cheap. The average for BBC TV programmes of any genre stood at £4,798 per hour in 1966.78 The producer’s files hardly mention budget worries, and if a particular episode overran, it did not lead to disputes. Raising the writer’s and artists’ fees was more of an issue, at times causing protracted negotiations. In April 1967, author Speight insisted on a fee of £1,000 per episode (he had started with £600 and then £700). This was difficult, since a government white paper subjected the corporation to a pay freeze. The controller of BBC-1, Michael Peacock, intervened, authorising the Copyright Department to accept Speight’s demands in order to not ‘lose the services of this extremely valuable writer’.79 Similar haggling occurred in 1973 when the BBC was subject to a governmental ‘prices standstill’ of November 1972. This time, Speight asked for £1,250 per programme and ended up with £1,100.80 The actors were easier to bargain with, although they, too, asked for substantial raises. Una Stubbs started with a fee of £105, Anthony Booth with £120 15s., Dandy Nichols with £131 5s. and Warren Mitchell with £210 per programme. These fees had gone up to £250, £300, £775 and £1,000, respectively, by 1974.81 Compared to other BBC series, Till Death Us Do Part paid some of the highest fees around. In 1967, only the writer duo Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, the creators of Steptoe and Son, earned more than Speight.82

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In the end, the impact of fee negotiations on the production process was minor. The bargaining between agents and the BBC usually lasted no longer than a month at a time. Despite the recurrent pay freezes, all involved were paid ‘mind blowing’ prices. Clearly, the series belonged to that special category that Light Entertainment head Bill Cotton labelled not ‘workaday’ things, not ‘really good things’, but rather those ‘things that are crucial … you can’t afford to lose them, it doesn’t matter what you pay’. Such a show had to have ‘international implications’, ‘enormous audience’ and political prestige to the extent that ‘the prime minister’ thought it worth viewing.83 Till Death ticked all these boxes. It sold abroad, won a huge following and received continuous attention from politicians. The series, then, was produced with a relatively high degree of professionalism by technical, administrative and creative staff. Episode recording was fast, cost-effective, well planned and took advantage of the BBC’s fully up-to-date technical equipment. The cast handled disagreements professionally, and the studio audience was large enough, carefully selected and warmed up. Only two factors weakened the production process: complete reliance on one rather unpredictable author (instead of a team) and the drinking habits of writer and producer. Both issues taken together led to long production pauses and the cancellation of at least eight episodes.

United States An import of Till Death Us Do Part was an unlikely candidate for American prime time. The three major networks that divided the market among them – CBS, NBC and ABC – usually strove to keep a distance from politically, socially or racially controversial material. Locked in fierce competition in a high-profit market, these broadcasters had settled on entertaining, uncontroversial mass-market fare, judging the success of their shows solely through ratings. Such ratings were monitored by a third party, Nielsen, and were the basis upon which advertising time was sold. Clearly, television programmes were bought, scheduled and aired with advertisers, not audiences, in mind.84 Most shows were produced not by the networks themselves but by big motion picture companies or small independent producers who jockeyed to sell their fare to the networks.85 This system led to conformist shows dominating prime time. The industry of the late 1960s labelled these ‘least objectionable programming’, or ‘LOP’.86 Situation comedies were the ideal LOP. Perfectly suited to advertisers’ needs, they were ‘the most enduring and resilient’ genre of American prime time, ‘accounting for more top-rated programs than any other type’ for decades.87 Mainstays of the schedule since the 1950s, American sitcoms usually adopted a middleclass, suburban family setting (Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver) and in

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the mid-1960s turned to escapist fantasies (Bewitched).88 On prime time, critically or politically inspired entertainment programmes were few and far between. That All in the Family, the American adaptation of Johnny Speight’s comedy, made it onto the screen was only due to the specific constellation of network competition in the early 1970s. The perennial ratings leader among the three networks, CBS,89 was then desperately trying to update its schedules. The CBS shows appealed to wide audiences, but primarily to older and rural viewers. This formula no longer guaranteed success, because Nielsen ratings had recently begun to deliver ratings based on age, sex and household income, and advertisers were starting to target particular groups, most of all the 18- to 49-year-olds. CBS now simply attracted the wrong demographics, those with less purchasing power. The new, 45-year-old president of CBS television, Robert (Bob) D. Wood, saw that ‘the wrinkles were beginning to show on the face of the CBS network’. In the first season that he planned, 1970–71, he geared the schedule more towards younger and urban viewers and cancelled rural hits such as Mayberry R.F.D., The Red Skelton Hour and The Beverly Hillbillies. They were replaced by series such as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and, a year later, M*A*S*H. It was a gamble with high stakes, but one in which Wood was backed by CBS’s founder, William S. Paley, the sales department and programming chiefs Mike Dann and Fred Silverman.90 Supporting Wood’s shift towards younger audiences and more realism was one thing; tolerating All in the Family, with its abrasive take on political and racial conflict, was another. After having seen the pilot episode, Paley warned of ‘the tremendous risk involved in putting such a different kind of program on the air’. He strongly opposed the show’s use of racial epithets and political controversy. Likewise, the network censor, William Tankersley (known as ‘Mr. Prohibition’), disliked the sexual references and Archie saying ‘goddamn’.91 The CBS executives had every reason to be cautious. Not only did the man behind the show, Norman Lear, have not much of a track record in television producing. He had been trying to sell the programme for more than two years after CBS’s competitor ABC, in 1968, had commissioned two pilot episodes and then turned it down.92 The show’s pilot had tested ‘terribly’ with sample audiences both for ABC and CBS, which rated it ‘below average’. Thus, the CBS research department predicted that the show would fail, but kept the door open a crack: ‘We believe that many viewers were ashamed to admit, in the test situation, to enjoying certain programs … although we think it unlikely, this program may be a worthwhile entry’.93 In spite of these misgivings, Bob Wood pressed ahead. In a telegram to affiliates who ran CBS-owned stations, he invoked the ‘willingness to dare’: ‘The days are gone in programming where we can afford to be imitators

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rather than innovators… . We have to attract new viewers… . After seeing All in the Family I think you will agree that nothing quite like this series has ever been done on American TV’. Wood even had a special screening arranged for the affiliates, trying to win their support.94 According to Silverman, Wood then had ‘a major, major fight with Paley, who hated the show, but he prevailed, and they kind of snuck it on the air, in January … on Tuesday night at 9.30 … you couldn’t find a worse time period in the schedule’.95 That the show eventually aired at all was a surprise, not least to those involved in its production. The producer had fully expected the project to be ‘too hot for any U.S. network to handle’, and was advised by friends and colleagues that it was too risky a venture to stick with: ‘People … said this will be off the air in three weeks, or they gonna make you change it anyway, don’t do it’.96 John Rich, who directed All in the Family’s first four years, did not bank on more than one season. Scriptwriters hesitated to commit for longer than five or eight weeks. The actor playing Archie, Carroll O’Connor, had insisted on a return airfare to Europe in his contract. Even the crew behind the scenes was unanimous in its verdict, as cameraman Ben Wolf recalled: ‘We … laughed at all the jokes, and – blacks some of it … we said, you know, it’s funny – it will never get on the air’.97 When the first instalment of the ‘shock show’, as O’Connor called it,98 was broadcast, the network geared up for an outcry of protest. All of the larger affiliated stations hired extra switchboard operators to answer the expected ‘hundreds of thousands’ of phone calls from outraged viewers. But it remained rather quiet; Silverman recalled ‘a tempest in a teapot’. In New York, for example, only 511 calls came in, 287 of which denounced the program’s vulgarity and prejudice.99 In other areas, ‘the calls were largely favorable’. And this after CBS’s Department of Program Practices had largely failed when it ‘spent literally dozens of hours’ trying to talk Lear out of ‘certain areas of the pilot script’. Lear had refused major changes, saying that ‘in my opinion CBS and “All in the Family” had to jump in the water together and get fully wet the first time out. I felt if we didn’t do that with the very first episode the series would never get further than wading’.100 The show started out with modest ratings but, as the network had bought thirteen episodes, was allowed to build up a following gradually. The breakthrough only happened during the summer reruns.101 All in the Family was the first and biggest hit of the turn to ‘relevancy’, sparking a new era of candour on 1970s prime time. The idea was to woo young and urban audiences with programmes ‘telling it like it is’ – embracing the reality of racial and generational strife, showing a social conscience, courting controversy.102 Lear’s comedy came to embody the very principles of relevancy, while its many spin-offs and copies would outlast the wave by many years. The Bunkers were the first to draw on racial conflict for laughter

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(which earlier shows such as Julia had not dared).103 Three years later, the four top prime-time shows were ethnic comedies.104 By then, Norman Lear had a stable full of ‘relevant’ sitcoms that dominated ratings and swept the Emmy Awards. All in the Family remained number one for five years, from 1971 to 1972 and 1975 to 1976. Lear’s shows Sanford and Son, Maude and The Jeffersons often made it into the top five as well.105 Throughout the decade, All in the Family cemented its reputation as ‘one of the most popular programs in the history of television’. Four episodes were among Nielsen’s list of the top twenty-five programmes with the largest all-time audiences, and the 1975 Guinness Book of World Records showed the sitcom charging the highest ever advertising rate in television: $128,000 for one minute.106 Today, the show remains one of the most well-known historical TV series, with reruns continuing on many channels. The triumph of All in the Family came as a complete surprise to the producer. With his unusual background, Norman Lear did not seem predestined to become a huge star in television producing. He had no college degree, had grown up in poverty and lived a precarious existence until he was well into his forties. His antinetwork and vaguely anticapitalist leanings set him apart from most TV producers.107 His background was also in sharp contrast to most network executives who, according to CBS’s head of programming, ‘were really Greenwich country club … they were used to having it all’.108 Lear was hardly used to having it all. He had been born in 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut, into an American Jewish family with Russian roots. His father was a self-employed salesman who went to prison for three years when Norman was nine: ‘I watched my father and my mother … go belly-up in the Depression’. At nineteen, Norman enlisted in the air force and, in 1943, went to Italy as a radio operator. He was eager to help bomb German targets. ‘All I wanted to do is kill … the Germans … being Jewish had everything in the world to do with it.’109 Back from the war, Lear helped his father sell small appliances, then moved to Southern California, where he peddled furniture and baby pictures door-to-door before becoming a writer for comedians like Jack Haley and Jerry Lewis. He was unemployed for two years in the mid-1950s and, fearing for his livelihood, did not dare to defend blacklisted writers during the McCarthy era.110 In 1959, Lear and his business partner, Bud Yorkin, founded the production company Tandem and produced a few movies before deciding to go into the more profitable genre of TV sitcoms. Lear then happened to stumble across a TV Guide report ‘on the great success’ of Till Death Us Do Part in Britain and acquired the rights. But All in the Family was never Lear’s one-man show. From the first season, the producer relied on a large team of writers. Scripts were typically produced in teamwork, then revised by story editors and director John Rich. Initially, story editors Don Nicholls, Michael Ross and Bernie West managed

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a handful of full-time writers, Mel Tolkin and Larry Rhine among them, plus many occasional contributors and freelancers. In later years, Mort Lachman and Milt Josefsberg, then Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf, took over as head writers. The hierarchy would express itself in titles such as ‘story editors, executive story editors, executive producers, producers … the title is who rewrites who last’, Mort Lachman explained.112 Some story editors would over time become writer-producers, combining in-their-hands control of both the writing process and the production of the finished episode.113 Lear himself, soon juggling several series at once, tried to ensure the quality of the programme by taking part in the selection of storylines and attending at least the camera run-through for each episode to request last-minute changes.114 He also took great care to assemble a group of writers whose backgrounds more or less matched his. Almost all scriptwriters were white Jewish men in their late forties or older, mostly from the East Coast and lower-middle-class origins. There were virtually no African American writers, despite Lear’s efforts to recruit some.115 The team was white and middle-aged: Rhine, Lachman, Schiller and Weiskopf were born in the 1910s; Ross, West, Nicholls and director Rich in the 1920s. Many had worked their way out of modest beginnings. Michael Ross ‘grew up in the slums’, John Rich went into show business to escape poverty. And though some, such as Don Nicholls, had little formal education,116 everyone involved had considerable experience in comedy writing. The cast, too, were all comedy professionals. The two principals, Jean Stapleton and Carroll O’Connor, were theatre-trained actors with extensive experience in film and stage productions. Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner had also done several films and comedy productions before landing the roles of Gloria and Mike.117 The cast was consulted about storylines in the creation and first drafts of scripts, helped to refine the writing and added finishing touches. The writers let the actors ‘participate by guarding our characters … and if something was not in character, we were allowed to discuss it and then go back and fix it’.118 It was no accident that both the cast and the writers involved were experts of the genre. Generally, the American series was produced in a highly professionalised way compared to the British or West German versions. There was a strict division of labour between the network and the production firm, with the latter asserting remarkable independence from the CBS executives. The production was streamlined to make timely and costeffective use of facilities and personnel. All involved adhered to firm deadlines, budgets and rules. Scripts and finished episodes were usually delivered on time. And even aspects that were considered minor in Britain and West Germany, such as the warm-up of the studio audience or the final editing of the taped studio performance, received considerable attention.

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The production of episodes took place in rather modest CBS-owned facilities in Hollywood’s Television City. Offices and dressing rooms were small, cramped and without windows or closets. Until Tandem moved to Metromedia quarters in 1974, the studio and rehearsal hall were used by two Lear series at the same time, exacerbating the already hectic schedule.119 It took seven days to produce an instalment, with work days nine to ten hours long and all involved ‘lucky to receive a half-hour break’ for lunch. The first day, Wednesday, saw a cast read-through of the current script with story editors and directors, followed by two days of rehearsals and rewrites. A first run-through without cameras happened on Friday. Writer Michael Ross explained: We watch the run-through … we do rewrites, we send a new script to mimeo, and they [the actors] get a script on Saturday mornings delivered to their homes… . Monday evening there is a camera run-through. We are there, with the director, with the producer … we do a little rewrite… . Tuesday there is more camera rehearsal, and there is a dress rehearsal at 5:30, which is on tape, right? At 6:30, we’re in the dressing room with them again, more notes, more rewrites … until the air show at 8:00.120

From Monday on, fourteen technicians for the camera, audio and recording equipment joined the production, together with the staging, props, costume and lighting people.121 What distinguished the show from others was mainly the continuous presence of the story editors throughout the production process. The story editors were closely involved in rehearsals and cast discussions, and kept revising until the final performance.122 On average, six writers were involved in producing a given show. By the time the weekly script was taken to the table on Wednesday, it had already been through the mill of story editing several times. The cast had commented on the storyline at a quick run-through two weeks in advance. Any freelance writers who might have created the original plot were no longer part of the actual production week. Their role was to deliver one-page proposals with ideas for shows, or sometimes an early version of a screenplay, and then settle for a screen credit and a fee anywhere between $508 and $3,500.123 Thus, the reliance on story editors was one key to the show’s quality; another was the video editing process that followed the two Tuesday tapings (the ‘dress’ and ‘air’ sessions). While on Wednesday the cast, director and writers turned to the next episode, technical director Gary Shimokawa and codirector Bob LaHendro would spend two long days editing the final programme. They spliced together the best bits from the two recorded sessions, using lines and laughter from both, and drawing on the videotapes of the four cameras employed. Their aim was to pick the better laughs while ensuring clarity of dialogue and quality of acting. In each 24-minute episode, there were fifty to sixty edits on average. To enable these edits, designers and

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actors had to ensure the two performances would match perfectly – with Archie holding his beer can or cigar in the same hand, ties and collars taped down, Edith’s apron the same on both sides, and all actors trying ‘to maintain the most consistent physical positions between the two performances’. Each week, a number of late ‘pickups’ (scene repeats after dress and air) had to be recorded for the final version. By 1973, the final edit was carried out on a CMX-designed computer system, which was advanced at the time but still limited to cuts, fades and dissolves. The audio track was at times separated from the video to correct sound imperfections. Audience applause and laughter was always ‘sweetened’, that is, audio levels were adjusted. Thus, the technique of videotaping (instead of filming) episodes, which All in the Family had pioneered – and which was originally meant to be a cost-effective and more ‘authentic’ mode of production – had by 1973 become much more technically improved and expensive, though it was still cheaper than filming.124 The end product was almost as refined as a filmed episode, though ‘without destroying the feeling that it is all happening live at that moment’. And while the series kept to its promise to abandon canned laughter and applause, it nevertheless edited audience reactions, shifted them from one recording to another and used the laugh track to cover cuts.125 The wish to be ‘authentic’ was shunted aside by the drive for professionalism and perfection. In contrast to the British show, production in the United States tightly followed established rules and schedules. Budget and schedule limitations forbade delays or postponements, even if Carroll O’Connor or the director fell ill.126 Scripts were on the table when they were needed, and the skilled story editors kept to trusted comedy formulas. They strove to start an episode with a strong laugh, to begin a new season with a novelty (such as Archie becoming a grandfather), to include three proper acts in each script and to ensure a steady stream of jokes.127 Running gags, actor Rob Reiner observed, were usually served up three times in a row. Many jokes and funny situations employed a ‘setup, reaction, punch’ principle. Flagging scripts were perked up by adding in more catchphrases, malapropisms and Archie-typical mannerisms (such as belches, raspberries and toilet flushes). The industry rule of three gags per page of comedy script seems to have been adhered to, as an average 24-minute episode counted no fewer than ninety-nine laughs.128 The studio audiences (two different crowds of seventy-five viewers at dress and one hundred at air) were considered a big part of the show’s success. Audience members were preselected, so that the majority would be white with All in the Family, but African American with a ‘black’ sitcom like Sanford and Son. The team made sure that viewers would not miss any of the action being obscured by cameras. Moreover, the warm-up, lasting thirty minutes to an hour, was performed by Lear himself for years, and later by head writers Mort Lachman or Bob Schiller.129 To get the best reaction out

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of the studio audience, the team rarely stopped the performance or did retakes, eschewing cue cards or time lapses in the plot. Producers were also ‘very conscious … not to order too many sets and get carried away’. In order to accommodate the budget and the studio audience, there were to be no exterior settings and no crowds.130 This well-oiled production machinery operated smoothly most of the time. Occasionally, however, it was challenged by the egos of those involved. Carroll O’Connor, who seemed uncomfortable with the less loveable traits of Archie’s personality, ‘always rewrote all day long’, changing and adding in lines.131 He objected to the character falling ‘into caricature’ and rejected some storylines outright. On occasion, this led to conflicts with story editors, director and producer. It was O’Connor who insisted (often unsuccessfully) that Archie should no longer make Polack jokes, that Archie would never do a minstrel show and that Archie’s sex life should not be put down. Norman Lear and his principal actor regularly clashed over such issues.132 O’Connor complained about director John Rich holding him back in making changes, and in 1974 even took legal steps to obtain ‘script control’ and an ‘executive capacity’ in the production of the show. During the conflict, he walked off for two instalments, then came back when his salary was raised to $28,000 an episode (without granting him more influence over the production).133 In summer 1975, O’Connor negotiated that Archie would be written out of four episodes and written ‘light’ on two additional ones. He was also guaranteed that Lear had to ‘consult with Mr. O’Connor concerning the script, story line, and/or concept’ well ahead of each taping – though, ‘should there be a disagreement, the decision of Norman Lear/Tandem will prevail’.134 The conflict came to a head in 1976, when head writer Mort Lachman spoke of ‘open war … between Carroll and Norman’. ‘People were quitting in droves … it was terror time.’ Things then calmed down after Lachman’s arrival, and with director Paul Bogart.135 There were few other drawn-out conflicts. Sally Struthers, who played Gloria, once tried to get out of her contract in 1975 but settled for a compromise.136 Even though there were conflicts, the overall production process was smoother, more professional, indeed, more industrialised than in the British case, with bigger teams, more division of labour and the breaking up of scriptwriting and editing into smaller parts. All in the Family’s production was also slightly different from the making of other, comparable American sitcoms. A doctoral student who compared production processes on three prime-time comedies in 1973 – All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and M*A*S*H – concluded that Lear’s show was created in the most hectic and experimental way. M*A*S*H relied on established filming techniques ‘developed and polished over almost half a century’ and was produced in ‘traditional surroundings’. The Mary Tyler Moore Show had begun ‘to move toward modernization’ but still provided ‘a very homelike

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atmosphere’ and lots of ‘breathing space’ for the team. It worked with ‘threecamera film, a technique with about twenty years of development bringing it to a slick, relatively formularized process’. In contrast, the Bunker series was pioneering the much ‘faster-paced’ videotape techniques coupled with entirely new computer editing systems, leading to ‘tensions’ and the need for ‘extremely consistent performances by the cast’.137 The decision to videotape the show had originally been dictated by financial considerations. Lear and his Tandem business partner, Bud Yorkin, ran a small independent production firm. They could not dare to engage in deficit financing and long waits for delayed profits. Therefore, Tandem – like comparable independent firms – tried to kick-start business by moving into sitcoms. This genre, with reruns and low production costs, provided a better and faster payoff than others.138 Hour-long dramas, for example, required the producers to pay considerable amounts up front and thus to cede control to a studio or other backer before reaping profits from syndicating the programmes to local stations. In contrast, the creation of half-hour comedy was cheap enough for the small independents ‘to keep control and make a financial killing’. In return for airing the episode twice, the network would pay a fee that would cover the cost of making it. The revenue from syndication, sales abroad and merchandising would stay with the producer, filling the coffers with every rerun.139 Thus, it becomes clear why Tandem sought to keep production costs down, particularly during the first seasons. At the beginning, Lear calculated a meagre $80,000 per episode. This is why he chose videotaping, which was considered to be at least a third cheaper than filming. He also paid the director $1,500 instead of his usual $2,500.140 He advised story editors to hold the purse strings tight when ordering sets. The costume designer had to get by on $850 a week, browsing in junk shops and altering and overdyeing clothes.141 The firm managed to be ‘in profit on every single show’ from the start.142 After a while, the budget was allowed to grow – primarily because of actors and writers renegotiating their contracts and more refined video editing. Carroll O’Connor, as Archie, was paid $28,000 per episode in 1974 and about $32,500 in 1977. Story editors’ fees also went up with each season they agreed to stay.143 In 1973, the cost of a finished episode had risen to $115,000–125,000, slightly overtaking rival sitcoms M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In 1977, the final cost was close to $175,000.144 In spite of higher costs, the production firm broke even with the network’s original fee. In 1976–77, the half-hour episode sold to the network for $170,000.145 Tandem would then make vast profits later, once the series went into syndication. A package of about a hundred episodes of a successful show was worth ‘a fortune’ if all programmes were trimmed by a few minutes ‘so that more commercials could be inserted, and sold … back to local stations, or even the network itself, for daily broadcast in the

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morning, afternoon, or late at night’.146 All in the Family, with its 208 episodes, had grossed more than $87 million already by 1980.147 While the producers made most of their profit from reruns, the returns for the network were immediate. For CBS, it presented a financial risk to commission the pilot or the first season of a given programme. But this was offset by the very high earnings once a show had taken off. Each half-hour episode of All in the Family included six minutes of commercial breaks. In mid-1973, one minute sold for $120,000; in 1975, for $128,000.148 It was estimated that each instalment yielded $375,000 of net profit for CBS in 1975.149 During the course of the decade, advertising costs rose dramatically, reaching $250,000 per minute on a comparable prime-time programme by 1980. The higher stakes involved created an even greater ‘need for instant success’. Tandem’s president, Alan Horn, stated that while by 1975, the networks had engaged in ‘gentlemanly competition’, by 1980, they were ‘at war’.150 Aggressive ‘counterprogramming’ was on the rise, trying to break the rival network’s new entries and disrupting their prime-time flow by scheduling major hits at the same time.151 Masters of counterprogramming were hot property. Fred Silverman, the CBS programming vice president who had had a hand in Archie Bunker’s rise, switched to ABC in 1975 for a $250,000 yearly salary plus perks.152 The production of All in the Family remained relatively unaffected by the war between the networks and the fluctuating ratings and advertising costs. As long as the show remained in the top ten or twelve prime-time programmes – and that was the case throughout its entire run – little changed for the team behind it. Advertisers were unable to exert direct influence on the content of particular episodes. They bought packages of spots ‘up front’ for the entire quarter or even year, and the top shows were always oversubscribed.153 Thus, if sponsors protested against an episode (which happened in 1972 with Lear’s spin-off Maude when Edith’s cousin had an abortion), CBS could sell their slots to others. In any case, during the mid1970s, a network could not afford to lose Norman Lear’s services. By 1976, Lear was producing nine successful sitcoms simultaneously and had become the industry’s largest independent contractor.154 In the space of a decade, he had become one of the most influential men in television, a celebrity and a multimillionaire.155 Behind this success was an extremely efficient production process with a well-developed division of labour and reliance on experienced comedy writers and actors. Well-organised teamwork, clear hierarchies, tight schedules, restricted budgets and story editors firmly in control of scriptwriting added up to a high level of professionalism that was standard in the U.S. industry. Production elements pioneered by All in the Family – the videotaping technique and stage play authenticity – amounted to no more than slight modifications of the genre. In addition, the increasingly

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refined way the videos were edited and audience reactions ‘sweetened’ shows that producers clearly prioritised ratings success over experimental authenticity.

West Germany Alf and Archie’s German sibling entered the scene with a bang. His nationwide on-screen debut on New Year’s Eve 1973 started with the words ‘Du Arschloch’ (you asshole), shocking conservative viewers and broadcasting executives alike. The editors of the show had defied a last-minute plea by their boss to cut this ‘vulgarism’ from ‘a programme debut to which we have tied so many hopes and expectations’.156 Foul-mouthed and obnoxious, the German Alfred was supposed to confront West Germans with surviving elements of fascism and authoritarianism in their society. The ‘hopes and expectations’ that the broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) invested in the series had little to do with entertainment value, ratings or commercial success. It was rather the educational and antiracialist potential of the programme that led West German producers to transform Johnny Speight’s format into Ein Herz und eine Seele (One Heart and One Soul) in 1973. Though Alf Garnett was now christened Alfred Tetzlaff and his terraced house stood in one of the Ruhr area’s mining towns, the show’s characters, plot and storylines were initially very similar to the British and American versions. In the context of West German television, a transplant of Till Death Us Do Part was an audacious experiment. Although West German stations had already adapted quite a few formats from the BBC, and successfully, they had always concentrated on educational fare rather than light entertainment.157 Popular comedy had never seemed suitable enough to be considered. Traditionally, the West German broadcasting system – which was noncommercial and regionalised – catered to the educated middle classes and followed a strong educational mission. Entertainment was part of the programming, but often was included only reluctantly. This was one reason why it took West German broadcasters seven years to warm up to the BBC’s successful formula. The other reason was that the format went completely against audience expectations. German viewers had never before been offered a sitcom, let alone one with a political slant. They were also new to the antihero comedy format, to a family-themed series with a workingclass setting and to expletives in prime time. Earlier family serials had been firmly rooted in middle-class values; they had celebrated harmony, reinforced traditional gender roles and shied away from politics.158 It was all the more surprising that Ein Herz und eine Seele became a runaway success.

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West Germans embraced Ekel Alfred (Disgusting Alfred), as the sitcom affectionately came to be known, almost against the will of broadcasters. Clearly, the WDR was not interested in sweeping up large audiences. It seemed to strive to scare away the unwanted viewers – those watching just for fun. The sitcom started out on the WDR’s relatively new and unpopular third channel. While the WDR was the largest broadcaster within the regionally organised radio and television network ARD, reaching almost a third of the West German population, its third channel was known for highbrow fare.159 Its prime-time ratings were so low that no one even bothered to measure them. The new series was placed poorly and scheduled erratically. At first, Alfred occupied a Monday evening slot every two weeks. After a three-week and then a five-month break, he returned in a four-week cycle until the end of 1973. The series competed with the popular political shows Panorama, Report and Monitor on the nationwide first channel of the ARD.160 Under these conditions, it could reasonably not have been expected to gain more than a 5 per cent share. In addition, there was very little advance publicity. The producers relied mainly on word-of-mouth recommendations and short announcements preceding and concluding the screening.161 For the entire first year of its run, Ein Herz und eine Seele remained an ‘insider tip’, spreading like wildfire among friends and colleagues, according to then 35-year-old fan Ferdinand H. from Wuppertal.162 By autumn 1973, signs of Alfred’s extraordinary success were unmistakeable. Broadcasting executives discovered that competitor Panorama on the first channel had lost a quarter of its audience by October 1973. It turned out that unbeknown to its producers, Ekel Alfred had acquired a share of 35 per cent in North Rhine-Westphalia.163 Around the same time, Bochum’s municipal theatre, at the heart of the industrialised Ruhr region, began to reenact current episodes on stage for local workingclass audiences.164 More and more regional broadcasters now began to jump on the bandwagon. By September 1973, the series also screened on third channels in Bavaria, Hesse and southwest Germany and thus reached a clear majority of the West German population.165 It was at this point that the ARD decided to move the sitcom into the first channel, giving it nationwide coverage during 1974 and again in 1976. As an independent public broadcaster financed by licences and governed by public law, the ARD (short for the unwieldy Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) had followed a noncommercial, educational strategy since its inception. By the early 1970s, the ARD consisted of eleven mainly regional TV and radio stations, which all delivered programming to its nationwide TV channel – with the WDR being the biggest contributor.166 As an umbrella organisation, the ARD’s job was to bind together the highly regionalised TV stations

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while ensuring their independence from government and commerce. This had its pitfalls because of the growing influence of party politics over most of the regional broadcasting institutions. After the war, the Western Allies had tried to break up the German broadcasting industry into regional entities and to strengthen its political independence with legal guarantees. But a quarter of a century later, the two big political parties – the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU or, in Bavaria, CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – had managed to circumvent many of the original hurdles. The CEOs (Intendanten) and most of the members of the committees governing the regional stations, as well as many editors and producers, were now selected according to party allegiance. So contemporaries typically assumed the Bavarian and southwestern stations to toe the CDU/CSU line, while they understood the WDR to be a bastion of the SPD.167 In the ARD committees, the supporters of both parties regularly sparred with each other over programming deemed overly political. Therefore, transplanting Ein Herz und eine Seele into the ARD’s nationwide first channel meant driving over a minefield. As soon as the sitcom had begun to screen nationwide, almost every episode sparked controversial debates in the committees advising the ARD and the regional TV stations, with regular expressions of outrage by representatives of the churches, conservative parties and vocal groups of refugees from formerly German Eastern territories.168 Conservatives saw the series as a ‘platform for agitators’ and ‘leftist propaganda’, arguing that Alfred’s contorted antisocialist rants strengthened the position of Social Democratic chancellor Willy Brandt.169 These protests formed part of a long-standing political campaign by the North Rhine-Westphalian Conservatives against the WDR’s editorial and personnel policies. Starting in 1973, CDU representatives tried to rebrand the Westdeutscher Rundfunk as ‘Rotfunk’ (red radio) or even ‘house of Mao’.170 CDU politicians as well as employers’ organisations criticised the allegedly socialist content and diminishing artistic standards in the WDR’s television plays. The main protagonists behind One Heart and One Soul, Günter Rohrbach and Peter Märthesheimer, were singled out in a strategy paper informing the CDU’s media policy: ‘Particularly the important department TV drama – with all its possibilities of political indoctrination – is fully under the control of ideological editors and producers such as Dr Rohrbach, Dr Canaris and Märthesheimer. They exert considerable influence on the shaping of viewers’ opinions, advancing a leftist critique of society’.171 How accurate was this charge? Was the team behind the series left-wing and ideologically motivated? Four men became instrumental in the making of the German series. The idea of buying the British format came from Günter Rohrbach, head of the WDR’s Department for TV Drama.172 He commissioned one of the producers he line managed, Peter Märthesheimer, with the realisation of the

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project.173 During the summer of 1972, Märthesheimer recruited two independent collaborators: the experienced scriptwriter Wolfgang Menge and the novice director Joachim Preen from Bochum’s theatre.174 The entire team openly embraced Anglo-American models and TV formats. Rohrbach had studied production methods at the BBC, on a WDR-sponsored visit in 1965, and was impressed: ‘Their system was enormously organised throughout … they were an industry, we were craftsmen’.175 Menge had worked for the British-led German News Service and as a journalist in London at the beginning of his career. He frequently travelled to London to visit friends and the theatre.176 And producer Märthesheimer consulted American publications on television serials and eagerly embellished his speech with English phrases.177 But what principally guided Märthesheimer, well beyond Western values, were deeply held political convictions formed during the time of West Germany’s student movement. In many respects, Peter Märthesheimer was an archetypal ‘68er’, a member of the generation of student protestors. Born in 1937, he studied sociology and political science at Frankfurt University. His teachers had been the heads of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno (whom he later invoked as his ‘intellectual master’), and the SPD politician Carlo Schmid.178 During the early 1960s, Märthesheimer had been editor of the Socialist German Student Union (SDS) journal neue kritik. He had been support worker for a student hall of residence, press officer of the trade union Industriegewerkschaft Metall, had conducted sociological studies at steel manufacturer Mannesmann and had published in the left-leaning intellectual journal Frankfurter Hefte.179 When he was editor and producer at the broadcaster WDR, the unrest of 1968 became the chief inspiration for many of his projects. ‘At the end of the sixties’, Märthesheimer wrote, ‘societal developments’ provided television plays and films with a wealth of new ‘impulses’, which he described as ‘possibly a bit of Marx, but in any case a lot of Bloch; possibly a bit of Lenin, but in any case a lot of Marcuse; possibly a bit of the Godesberg programme, but in any case a lot of Willy Brandt. What Dutschke and Grass shouted on the streets, Ho-Tschi-Minh the former and Es-Pe-De the latter, was echoed among the editorial staff’.180 Here, Marxism-Leninism and the Frankfurt School rubbed shoulders with West Germany’s Social Democratic Party under Chancellor Willy Brandt (1969–74). Märthesheimer’s convictions clearly influenced the show’s production. He aimed at ‘a cheap, simple entertainment programme for the many … with certain enlightening elements … in respect to … foreign workers, peculiar political attitudes, certain sexual taboos and so on’.181 Alfred was envisaged as ‘a comic figure contradicting existing [social] conditions’. Tetzlaff’s task was to enliven viewers’ fantasies and to alert them to ‘imaginary possibilities’ – such as ‘the longing for more freedom, freedom from alienated

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work, freedom for oneself ’. The average viewer, fixated on his ‘fetishised car’ and the payments due for his furniture, should be encouraged to resist ‘the convention of the status quo’ and the interests of the privileged.182 This concept again bowed to iconic figures of the West German 68er movement, most of all Karl Marx and Ernst Bloch. Märthesheimer’s production of the series was informed by Marxist concepts: working-class alienation, the commodity as fetish, the demand to break through the veil of false consciousness and reinvigorate fantasy and, last, the intellectual vanguard trying to liberate the masses. Just as typically Marxist was the fixation on the male worker. Alfred was an inversion of Marx’s revolutionary hero, an ironic comment on the disappearance of an oppositional working class. Märthesheimer was only one of a whole faction of ‘neo-Marxist young editors and producers’ who populated the WDR’s cultural divisions during the early to mid-1970s. They ‘saw radio and television as welcome tools to transform society’, recalled Günter Rohrbach, head of the Department for TV Drama. In Rohrbach’s view, this generation of producers strove to realise the aims of ‘the cultural revolution, the movement of the late sixties and early seventies’. Rohrbach, who held a doctorate in German literature and belonged to the Social Democratic Party, was born in 1928 and thus somewhat older than the 68ers.183 Still, he lauded their critical mindset, their ‘progressive pizazz’ and their belief in ‘society’s permanent ability to reform’.184 ‘I wasn’t the same generation, but there were 1968ers all around me … I had a liberal attitude towards them … they were the most interesting, the most alive figures’, he recalled.185 Because Rohrbach himself conceded there was a direct ‘link between externally controlled television entertainment and alienated working conditions’, he did not mind younger colleagues wanting to employ TV as a weapon against manipulation. But he objected when producers prioritised ‘ideologically critical argumentation’ over entertainment. Rohrbach favoured programmes that were not ‘narcotic’ but still amusing. If they hinted at ‘utopias’ and ‘stimulated the imagination’, they also had to entertain.186 Ein Herz und eine Seele united Märthesheimer and Rohrbach in their intent to educate mass audiences. The series was supposed to be socialist, or at least progressive working-class enlightenment disguised as entertainment. For Rohrbach saw this sitcom as a tool to shift the mission of the WDR’s new third channel away from the educated middle classes to a socially critical instruction empowering the working classes. This was directed against his internal rival, Werner Höfer, who had succeeded in making the WDR’s third channel an exclusively highbrow affair, tailored to the educated elites.187 Rohrbach was tired of TV plays enshrining middle-class values. He wanted them to criticise society and educate the masses. Under his guidance, producers were encouraged to be political and to treat working-class realities and current affairs in a more naturalistic or journalistic way.188 These aims

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were shared by Joachim Preen, the show’s director. By 1972, the 32-year-old Preen was assistant to Bochum’s theatre director, Peter Zadek.189 One of Germany’s most famous directors, Zadek followed a populist approach in trying to remake this theatre in the midst of the Ruhr district – with its mining and steel industry – from a temple of the middle class into a workingclass attraction. Preen helped Zadek to rebrand the theatre as a progressive cultural centre, and Ekel Alfred proved a great fit. On the Saturday and Sunday mornings before the taping of an episode, Alfred and his quarrelling family would perform on the Bochum stage. In order to attract workers, the entry ticket included a plate of stew after the curtain fell and a one-mark discount on the next theatre ticket.190 Like Preen, scriptwriter Wolfgang Menge welcomed the concept of progressive television comedy for working-class audiences (figure 2.1). Menge was about fifteen years older than Preen and Märthesheimer and already a sought-after television author with huge success in the genres of crime and satirical drama. Shortly before Ekel Alfred, he had collaborated

Figure 2.1. Wolfgang Menge and cast on the set of Ein Herz und eine Seele. Reprinted by permission of Westdeutscher Rundfunk.

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with Peter Zadek on his 1969 film Ich bin ein Elefant, Madame, which sympathetically mirrored the antiauthoritarian protest movement of the time. Although Menge was critical of middle-class values and the capitalist economy – he had just written a bestseller exposing the manipulative tricks of advertisers and sellers – he kept a distance from the 68er movement.191 ‘I probably marched with them for about 100 metres … and I had some friends who went there’, he recalled decades later, but ‘I found it to be balderdash’.192 In writing Ekel Alfred, Menge was motivated less by the New Left than by the desire to confront German viewers with a prototype of ‘the paranoid petit bourgeois’. For him, the bigot was not supposed to embody ‘a fossil from the Hitler era’ but a ‘fearful, disoriented and aggressive’ German square enraged ‘by everything liberal – by minorities of all kinds, by long-haired students, foreign labourers and above all by the left’.193 Although Menge was highly aware of the legacy of Nazism in West German society, he was exceptionally careful not to overdo references to Alfred’s anti-Semitism and Nazi past. This caution stemmed from Menge’s Jewish heritage – many of his relatives had perished in concentration camps. As he never mentioned this in interviews of the time, colleagues and audiences were usually unaware of his Jewishness.194 Aside from being Jewish, the biggest difference between Menge and the rest of the production team was his distance from the academic world. The West German production team, in stark contrast to the British and American teams, was closely linked to university circles. Rohrbach, Märthesheimer and Preen had studied sociology or German literature at universities. Particularly Märthesheimer still pursued academic ambitions. He kept in contact with scholars and encouraged them to conduct research on his series. While production of One Heart and One Soul was in full swing, in 1974–75, universities in Hamburg, Aachen, Münster and Munich taught courses on the programme. Märthesheimer corresponded with undergraduates and doctoral students, visited seminar discussions and gave the entire collection of viewers’ letters to a lecturer at Munich’s University of Television and Film.195 In a way, the producers’ longing to enter the ivory tower was typical, because the West German protest movement of the sixties as a whole had a more theoretical outlook and language than its global counterparts. Therefore, the team behind the West German sitcom was male, relatively young, left-wing, academically trained and with direct links to the student protests of the late sixties. Two of the four men were young members of the New Left (Märthesheimer and Preen) who saw the series as an opportunity to make ‘socially relevant’ television, to subvert unreconstructed Nazis and to bolster the case of the antiauthoritarian wing in the divided society of the early 1970s. The other two (Rohrbach and Menge) belonged to the preceding generation of the ‘1945ers’ who had opened the media up to Western and

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republican values since the late 1950s. Though they remained wary of too much theory and Marxist orthodoxy, they agreed with the 68ers in their deeply critical view of contemporary society and tolerated their activities.196 Altogether, political intentions guided the production of the West German sitcom – profit calculations or viewing quotas took a backseat. By comparison to the British and American shows, the West German variant was unencumbered by ratings pressure. This affected the production process. To contemporary observer Friedrich Knilli, the sitcom demonstrated how badly the West German industry trailed behind its U.S. counterpart. A playground for the individual personalities of authors and producers, the ‘handcrafted’ West German programmes languished on the level of ‘a boy scout nativity play’. ‘Creation and development of the family series One Heart and One Soul reveal how our television system is geared to the authoritarian state and almost prebourgeois culture’, Knilli maintained. ‘Of this, the most popular German TV series ever, eleven episodes were produced and then only four additional ones’ before the plug was pulled. The broadcasters in their backwardness ‘threw away’ a success series because they were indebted to ‘the preindustrial production practices of artisans and artists’.197 Is there merit to Knilli’s analysis? The biggest difference between the West German production and its overseas siblings was that the West German team had no experience with the genre. Editor Rohrbach, producer Märthesheimer and writer Menge had never before dealt with comedy. ‘Alfred’ was the first television job for director Preen.198 And though Märthesheimer had watched Till Death twice, and Menge All in the Family ‘a couple of times’,199 they had neither observed sitcom production abroad nor asked British or American colleagues for advice. The writer was issued with twenty-four of Speight’s manuscripts but had never seen any of the BBC programmes.200 He carefully read and harvested at least sixteen of the British scripts.201 The Germans also introduced substantial changes to the format. It was expanded from thirty to forty-five minutes, making for a rather slowpaced programme. There were no scriptwriting rules in place: jokes were not timed, scripts not divided into acts and running gags and catchwords used infrequently. Instead, writer and producers prioritised a side aspect of the format: up-to-date commentary on recent political events.202 They even introduced elements of Brechtian epic theatre (lead actor Heinz Schubert had been a member of Bertolt Brecht’s Berlin Ensemble for a decade), trying to increase the distance between audiences and the action. The early shows opened with the camera sweeping the empty stage, the expectant viewers, the camera and the lighting crews. The episode was then interrupted several times by full-screen subtitles.203 Nevertheless, German audiences were in stitches – after all, it was the first sitcom they knew.

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When the WDR board approved the project for its third channel in 1972, the plan was to broadcast live and to keep costs ‘as low as possible’. As Rohrbach summarised it, ‘the format will be adapted to the German setting and include current events… . Aspects of spontaneity, liveliness and authenticity will play a primary role, aspects of technical perfection a secondary role’.204 Therefore, Ekel Alfred was produced on a low budget and often suffered from technical hitches. The shows were taped about an hour before they aired on the third channel, leaving hardly any time to edit the tape. Menge was advised ‘to completely avoid film clips’ and work with ‘as few sets as possible’.205 The small Cologne recording studio only allowed two sets opening towards the audience (kitchen and living room), with two further sets in the back that were only visible on two wall-mounted monitors. It was impossible to accommodate more than sixty or seventy viewers.206 The early instalments were confined to the Tetzlaffs’ kitchen and sitting room, with later programmes introducing additional locations such as bedroom, phone booth, pub or restaurant. A supermarket setting was scaled down to show only the till, as shop shelving was considered too expensive to build.207 As a result, the show was ‘extremely cheap’ (Märthesheimer).208 The black-and-white tapings for the WDR’s third channel cost 62,000 deutschmarks (DM) each. When the series moved to colour and the first channel, the budget was 90,000 DM; this went up to 100,000 DM in 1976.209 To Rohrbach, this was excellent value, as he had to pay between 500,000 and 700,000 DM for an average feature film in 1974.210 The actors’ fees were likewise modest. In 1973, actor Heinz Schubert (Alfred) received 5,000 DM, Elisabeth Wiedemann (Else) 4,000 DM and the two youngsters Hildegard Krekel (Rita) and Diether Krebs (Michael) both 2,200 DM per show. Director Joachim Preen took home 4,000 and writer Wolfgang Menge 5,250 DM.211 That was about a third or a quarter of what the star, director and author of any television feature film (taking six or seven weeks to make) would earn.212 While the payments for the cast stayed relatively stable, Wolfgang Menge’s fees shot up once the success of the series became clear.213 Still, Rohrbach quickly discovered that the format turned out to be ‘a lot more economical than earlier genres of programming’. This came in handy because of the financial crisis faced by the ARD broadcasters in 1974. With politicians refusing to raise the television licence fee, it was estimated that the ARD’s deficit would balloon to 825 million DM by 1977. In mid-1974, the broadcasters reacted by cutting down on expensive specials, repeating programmes more often and skimping on technology. The WDR’s austerity policy led to what Rohrbach called an ‘almost irresponsible’ condition of ‘the technical equipment in our studios’.214 If there were production problems, they were usually the fault of the studio, and not the writer or production team. Scripts were delivered four weeks in advance, and delays were rare.215 Each show was produced within

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seven days and with a crew of twenty-one people besides the cast. Both Märthesheimer and Menge were often present during rehearsals, allowing for updates and last-minute changes. The final recording involved four cameramen and an editor at a mixing desk.216 Already in April 1973, the producer complained about a whole array of technical problems. The screens for the studio audience were too dark, the screens on the mixing desk faulty, a spotlight shining on the audience could not be switched off, plus the studio door was stuck and led to sounds from the hallway filtering in during the entire taping.217 On 1 October 1973, the mixing desk broke during a recording and the crew panicked: the finished tape was only delivered a few minutes before it was due to air.218 There were also problems with substandard special effects. When new opening credits were filmed in December 1973, the desired effect (pages of a family album turning) was unconvincing – the pictures wobbled and were out of sync with the music.219 Some deficiencies of the programmes can thus be traced back to technical problems; others were due to the handling of the studio audience. The team behind the sitcom was unaware of the value of laughter. There was no warmup, and the studio was too small to accommodate more than about seventy viewers, a fact harshly criticised by a ‘disquieted’ broadcasting executive in 1973: ‘Such comedies need a studio audience of 200 or even 300 people seated right in front of the stage. Why do I have to explain that audience laughter is like a chain reaction, and like a nuclear chain reaction depends on a certain critical mass?’ This plea to transfer the production to a bigger studio went unanswered.220 What is more, even though would-be viewers battled over entry tickets, there were no principles guiding the selection of audiences. Often, whole groups from local bourgeois associations filled the seats. In February 1974, for example, fifty of the seventy seats were given to the ‘lovely and shapely’ middle-aged ladies of the Cologne Deutscher Lyzeum-Club.221 No wonder the laugh track of the finished programme was comparatively modest. While inexperience with the genre and outdated equipment left their imprint on the shows, the production process ran smoothly and was certainly not understaffed. A maze of bureaucratic restrictions was navigated effectively. Firemen had to be present during tapings and the actors required ‘smoking permission’ onstage. The Bauaufsichtsamt (construction supervision authority) prohibited gas fires in Alfred’s oven. Weekend rehearsals necessitated the canteen’s opening hours to be changed. After evening sessions, the team dismantling the props needed a permission slip to work at nighttime (indeed, neighbours once called the police because of the noise). The head of the studio even distributed consumption vouchers for the Kölsch beer the cast drank in a pub to celebrate the end of the series.222 It seems producers spent more time negotiating bureaucratic regulations than analysing audience reaction. As there were no ratings delivered for shows on

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the third channel, the team could only guess about the series’ success in 1973. After the programme moved to the first channel, producers were updated every few weeks on the ratings. It could take more than six weeks for the full results to come through.223 Although the ratings confirmed the enormous popularity of the show, it was cancelled after only eleven regionally screened and thirteen nationwide instalments. The decision to ditch Ein Herz und eine Seele after September 1974 was due to three factors. First, by the spring of 1974, broadcasting executives suspected that some viewers indeed laughed with, and not at, Alfred. High ratings thus worked not for but against the series, as the ARD committees feared the show to be poisoning public morale. Second, the strained relationship between the WDR’s CEO Klaus von Bismarck and the committees played a part. Ekel Alfred had drawn regular flak from several influential committees throughout 1974. Meanwhile, Bismarck faced reelection in 1975, with the Conservatives up in arms against the ‘red radio’ and the Social Democrats wanting to replace the crossbencher Bismarck with a regular party hack. At the time of the cancellation, Bismarck was navigating choppy waters, with the WDR’s personnel divided into warring factions and several editors accused of being fellow travellers of the terrorist Baader-Meinhof group.224 All this likely impacted on Bismarck’s decision to suspend the highly contested sitcom until early 1976, or possibly scrap it altogether. Finally, the third factor was the falling-out of director and actors. When the director of the WDR’s TV branch, Werner Höfer, announced the show’s withdrawal, he argued that the four actors had ‘become estranged’.225 Indeed, when the cast was asked to renew their options in July 1974, three of the four asked whether director Joachim Preen would be replaced soon. Heinz Schubert deplored ‘dreadful team spirit’, Elisabeth Wiedemann bemoaned the ‘awful state of relations among all of us’, and Diether Krebs stressed he was sick of trying to arbitrate between his colleagues by means of endless ‘conversations face-to-face and on the phone’.226 Thus, the end of the sitcom was just as much due to personal and political as to structural causes. In some aspects, Knilli’s claim of outmoded production practices rings true. West German production conditions were trailing far behind those in the United States. The studio equipment was certainly not state-of-the-art, and neither was the technology of audience research. The writing process was not team-oriented and not broken up into distinct stages, with fewer revisions of drafts and no storyline conferences. Writer Menge and producer Märthesheimer towered over the series. Their personalities and intentions left a deep imprint on the show, since they did not have to worry about ratings and felt free to make the programme into a vehicle for their own ideas. None involved considered themselves part of an industrialised production process; all prioritised ideals of artistic independence, political mission and societal greater good. If ratings had

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governed broadcaster policy, if the station had operated for profit or at least faced private competition – such as in the United States or Britain – the comedy series would certainly have continued well beyond 1974 and its short-lived (four-episode) revival in 1976.

Comparison The ‘relevant’ sitcoms, showcasing familial and political strife from a working-class perspective, were a new variation on an established genre. They were seen everywhere as an audacious experiment; broadcasting executives had grave misgivings. Initially placed in unfavourable time slots, the three series overcame the odds to become an enormous success. The reaction to this accomplishment throws the differences between national broadcasting systems into stark relief. In the commercialised American TV industry, the show was quickly and fully supported by network staff. In the British dual system, channel competition convinced some but not all BBC managers to underwrite popular comedy as a celebration of lowbrow culture. Only in the largely monopolistic West German system was success with audiences met with suspicion, and elitist conceptions of educational programming persisted – although staff members were divided among those who favoured traditional middle-class values and those who pressed for a socialist reeducation of the masses. The cross-national similarities also extended to the biographical background of writers and producers, as they were rather unusual left-wing, ‘progressive’ types in all three countries. But progressivism meant different things in different contexts. In Britain, it was a nonideological, nonpartisan understanding of the working class defying the establishment, while in the United States, it amounted to no more than vague antinetwork and pro-counterculture leanings. The West German team, in contrast, followed the neo-Marxism of the New Left closely. The comparison of production practices shows the American system was already much more industrialised than its counterparts. Efficiency, professionalism and division of labour were most developed at Tandem and CBS, moderately at the BBC and least at the WDR. The same goes for the degree to which production teams were familiar with the conditions of the genre. While the makers of the American series were well-versed in the possibilities and pitfalls of situational comedy, their British colleagues had tried their hand at a few sitcoms already by the mid-1960s, and the Germans had no experience with the genre at all. Moreover, rather predictably, ratings governed broadcaster policies to an almost exclusive extent in the commercialised U.S. industry, moderately so in the British dual system and were at best marginal in West Germany.

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These findings are of consequence. Subsequent chapters will show that the content of the series varied according to the professionalism of production, previous genre experience and the impact of ratings. The degree to which producers and writers could follow their own mission depended on production conditions. Where a team stuck to genre conventions and tight efficiency schedules, producers’ original intentions were likely to be watered down. Where an artisan, anti-industrial ethos ruled and dilettantism was admissible, the series could develop into a mouthpiece of ideology.

Notes  1. Downing, World, 16–17, 27.   2. Greene continued: ‘I doubt whether we should have had Alf Garnett without “TW3”.’ BBC Handbook, 1969, 11–12.   3. From 14,350 in 1962 to 19,275 in 1967: O’Malley, Closedown, x.   4. BBC-2 introduced colour on 1 July 1967, BBC-1 and ITV in 1969.  5. John Reith, the first director general, held that audiences were not to be entertained, but to be morally elevated, critically informed and culturally challenged. Küng-Shankleman, Inside the BBC, 70–71.  6. Briggs, Competition, 306–7; Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 78–79.  7. Briggs, Competition, 306–8; Briggs, Governing, 279–80.   8. Other popular sitcoms of the early 1960s were Sykes (BBC, 1960–65), The Likely Lads (BBC, 1964–66) and The Morecambe and Wise Show (ITV, 1961– 64, 1966–68). See Langford, ‘Impasse’; Bignell and Lacey, ‘Introduction’.  9. Briggs, Competition, 390–91; BBC staff lists, WAC. 10. Guardian, 22 January 1997; see also Burns, BBC, 146–47. 11. Bill Cotton interview (BFI), tape 2, side 3, transcript, 1; see also Landy, Monty Python, 19–21. 12. Briggs, Competition, 196; Daily Mirror, 20 January 1968, 11. 13. Dennis Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 6, transcript, 21. 14. Landy, Monty Python, 6–11. 15. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 4–5; see also Johnny Speight interview (BFI), tape 1, side 2. 16. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, sides 5–6, transcript, 8, 3, 17. 17. See VR series files at WAC. 18. Heather Dean, Copyright Department, to Speight’s agent Beryl Vertue, 17 August 1965, WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight/1. For ratings, see WAC, VR65/397 (19 August 1965). 19. Daily Mail, 20 August 1965, quoted in Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 13. 20. Briggs, Governing, 15, 31–33. 21. Quotations from Uplands Management Conference reports, an internal workshop for senior BBC producers and managers, 30 May to 9 June 1967: Syndicate B, 2; Syndicate C, 2; WAC, R123/25/1. 22. Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 164, 171.

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23. See Black, ‘There Was’; Whitehouse, Woman, 54–65; BBC Handbook, 1966, 11–19. 24. On 9 February 1965, quoted in Briggs, Competition, 323; see also Briggs, Governing, 19. 25. Greene, Third Floor, 103. 26. Briggs, Governing, 21, 36, 120–29. 27. Speight interview (BFI), tape 1, side 1; Speight, For Richer, 143; Late Night Line Up (DVD). 28. Sun, 5 January 1967, 21 November 1970; Guardian, 6 July 1998; Radio Times, 7 September 1972. 29. London Standard, 30 August 1985, 23. 30. Sun, 21 November 1970. 31. Speight interview (BFI), tape 1, side 1; tape 2, side 1; Sun, 21 November 1970; Guardian, 31 March 1971; Radio Times, 7 September 1972. 32. Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 472. 33. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 1, side 1, transcript, 1, 7, 8, 11; side 2, 12–13. 34. Ibid., tape 1, side 1, transcript, 8; tape 1, side 2, 14–16; Glasgow Herald, 10 September 1983, 9. 35. Guardian, 22 January 1997; Observer, 26 June 1988; Times, 22 January 1997; quotation: Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 2, side 3, transcript, 9. 36. Glasgow Herald, 10 September 1983. 37. Main Wilson to Head of Light Entertainment Group, 1 February 1974, WAC, T12/1475/1. 38. Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 17; biographical notes on flyer for Montreux festival in 1967, WAC, T12/1321/1. 39. WAC, TV Art 3: Warren Mitchell, 1963–1970, 1971–1980; Evening News, 30 September 1966. 40. Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 17; Scotland on Sunday, 10 October 2004. 41. Sun, 6 November 1966. 42. Born in 1907, she had worked as a factory secretary for twelve years before her acting career. Daily Mirror, 7 January 1967, 6 January 1968. 43. In 1963 and 1964, Booth unsuccessfully sent telegrams to BBC producers asking them to consider him for parts. WAC, TV Art 3: Booth Anthony, 1963–1970. 44. Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 19; Daily Mail, 7 April 1967. 45. Letter from Stubbs’s agent Barry Ford to BBC producer George Inns, 11 March 1966, WAC, TV Art 3: Una Stubbs, 1963–1970. 46. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 8. 47. Production files, WAC, T12/1321/1, T12/1253/1, T12/1475/1. 48. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 2, side 3, transcript, 3. 49. Ibid., tape 3, side 5, transcript, 4. 50. List of recording dates, WAC, T41/505/1. Main Wilson to Assistant Head of Light Entertainment (Comedy), 7 October 1966, WAC, T12/1321/1. 51. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 2, sides 3–4, transcript, 10–11. 52. Main Wilson to Assistant Head of Light Entertainment (Comedy), 7 October 1966, WAC, T12/1321/1.

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53. Tom Sloan to Head of Copyright, 30 January 1968, WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight/1; see also R.W. Gilbreath to TV accountant, 16 February 1968, WAC, T12/1322/1. 54. Head of Copyright to Beryl Vertue (Speight’s agent), 23 November 1971 and 9 March 1972, WAC, R Cont 20 Johnny Speight, 1970–1974. 55. Main Wilson to Head of Studio Management, TV, 1 August 1966 (WAC, T12/1321/1) and 31 January 1974 (WAC, T12/1475/1). 56. Main Wilson to Head of Light Entertainment (Comedy), 17 October 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1. 57. Main Wilson to Assistant Head of Light Entertainment (Comedy), 7 October 1966, WAC, T12/1321/1; the laughter rule is quoted in his interview (BFI), tape 2, side 4, transcript, 16. 58. On Curry and Chips, see chap. 7. Guardian, 31 March 1971; Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 468–70; correspondence Frank Muir and Tom Sloan, February and March 1968, WAC, T12/1321/2. 59. Times, 31 July 1970; Speight, quoted in Late Night Line Up (DVD). 60. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 4; tape 3, side 6, transcript, 18–20. 61. Main Wilson to D. Nichols, London, 28 November 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1. 62. Main Wilson to Head of Studio Management Television, 31 January 1974, WAC, T12/1475/1. 63. Sloan to Booth, 18 May 1967, WAC, T12/1321/1. 64. Myra Fleming, Artists’ Booking Department, to Main Wilson, 11 July 1967: ‘Tony Booth, as requested by us and accepted by you, has been lost at 200 guineas.’ WAC, T12/1321/1. 65. Confidential notes for Tom Sloan by Johnny Speight, n.d. [July 1967], WAC, T12/1321/1. 66. Main Wilson to Head of Light Entertainment, 1 February 1974, WAC, T12/1475/1. 67. Studio plan from 1972, WAC, T12/1421/1. Main Wilson to Marian Day, Assistant Studio Audiences, 17 October 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1. 68. Main Wilson thought dub laughter ‘appalling’: ‘I have never added a laugh ever.’ Interview (BFI), tape 2, side 4, transcript, 15. 69. Notes for production meeting on 28 November 1968, WAC, T12/1321/1. 70. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 2, side 3, transcript, 10; tape 2, side 4, transcript, 12. 71. Duncan Wood, Head of Light Entertainment (Comedy), to Mitchell’s agent A. Murray, 13 February 1973 WAC, T12/1475/1; Main Wilson to Wood, 17 October 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1. 72. Nichols even made this a condition of renewing her contract. Duncan Wood to John Moore and David Gower, 8 February 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1. 73. III/1, ‘The Phone’, 23 November 1968; I/3, ‘A House with Love in It’, 20 June 1966. 74. Main Wilson to Head of Light Entertainment (Comedy), 12 September 1972, WAC, T12/1421/1. 75. Chief Assistant General Scenic Design to Main Wilson, 19 July 1972, WAC, T12/1421/1.

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76. Programme budget estimate, 13 January 1966, WAC, T12/1321/2. 77. Summary programme budget estimate, September 1966, WAC, T12/1321/1; budget report for the 1973–74 series, WAC, T12/1475/1. 78. BBC Handbook, 1966, 194. 79. Correspondence of Head of Copyright R.G. Walford, Assistant Controller Television Administration Leslie Page and Peacock, April 1967, WAC, T12/1321/2. See also WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight, Copyright I. 80. Head of Copyright letters, 23 March and 9 February 1973, WAC, R Cont 20 Johnny Speight, 1970–1974. In August 1975, Speight’s fees were raised to £1,500: WAC, R Cont 21 Johnny Speight, 1975–1979. 81. Overview of artists’ contracts, n.d. [late 1966], WAC, T12/1321/1. See WAC T12/1475/1 for 1974 contracts. WAC, TV Art 3 Warren Mitchell 1963– 1970, gives an overview of artists’ fees for 1965–68. 82. Together, they were paid £1,200 for the shows with Frankie Howerd: Head of Copyright R.G. Walford to Assistant Controller Leslie Page, 13 April 1967, WAC, T12/1321/2. 83. Cotton interview (BFI), tape 2, side 3, transcript, 22–25. 84. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 3, 25. 85. Ibid., 132. 86. Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 4–5. Prime time represents only a fraction of the actual broadcasting time, that is, the 8.00–11.00 P.M. period on the three major networks. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 11. 87. Hamamoto, Nervous Laughter, 1; Jones, Honey, 6; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 29. 88. Haralovich, ‘Positioning’; Spigel, Make Room, chap. 5; Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 7–13. An exception was the working-class setting of The Honeymooners (CBS, 1955–56). 89. In 1972, CBS had 27,842 employees and a net income of $82.9 million. In 1973, profit climbed to $92.9 million. Metz, CBS, 316–17. 90. Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 43, 45; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 53, 205–9 (quotation: 206); Fred Silverman AATV interview, pt. 3; Paley, As It Happened, 256, 263–66. 91. Paley, As It Happened, 266; Dann, quoted in Metz, CBS, 332–33; Silverman AATV interview, pt. 3. 92. Norman Lear AATV interview, pt. 5; Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 1. 93. The report continued: ‘Viewers might feel required to criticize him [Archie], even if deep down they identify with him … we are somewhat less sure of our prediction for this program than is usually the case.’ Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 33, 35–36 (quotation), 212. Rich, Warm Up, 185–86. 94. Metz, CBS, 333; see also Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 210–13. 95. Silverman AATV interview, pt. 4. 96. R. Barber in TV Guide, quoted in McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 72; Lear AATV interview, pt. 5. 97. Rich, Warm Up, 2–5; Bernie West in 1974 in Ross and West, Writing; Adler, ‘Introduction’, xxiii; Ben Wolf AATV interview, pt. 6. 98. Quoted in McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 77. 99. Metz, CBS, 332–34; Silverman AATV interview, pt. 4; Rich, Warm Up, 2–5.

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100. Norman Lear in U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, ‘Freedom of the Press’, 1972, 535–37. 101. Silverman AATV interview, pt. 2, 4. 102. Bodroghkozy, Groove Tube, chap. 6. 103. Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 47–79; Riggs (dir.), Color Adjustment; MacDonald, Blacks, 125–26. 104. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 26. 105. MacDonald, Blacks, 187. 106. Adler, ‘Introduction’, xxxiii–xxxiv. The TV Guide named All in the Family the most expensive programme from 1972 to 1975, charging $97,000 to $120,600 for one minute of commercial time (27 May 1978, 4). 107. In 1978, Lear talked about the networks as part of ‘a world climate that has resulted in the misuse of human potential for profit only, or for short-term gain’ (Lear, ‘Taboos’, 59–60). See also Lear AATV interview, pt. 8. 108. Silverman AATV interview, pt. 3. 109. Lear AATV interview, pt. 1. 110. Ibid., pts. 2–4. 111. Ibid., pt. 5. 112. Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 6. 113. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 391. 114. Lear during a seminar at the Museum of Broadcasting in June 1986, www. normanlear.com/backstory_interviews_3.html (accessed 12 August 2010). 115. With limited success, Lear tried to groom black writers especially for The Jeffersons, Good Times and Sanford and Son, all of which were highly popular with black audiences. See ibid.; MacDonald, Blacks, 186; Montgomery, Target, 72; Hamamoto, Nervous Laughter, 104–5. 116. Biographical details in AATV interviews by Larry Rhine, Mel Tolkin, Mort Lachman, Bob Weiskopf and Bob Schiller. For Ross (Isidor Rovinsky) and West (Bernard Wessler), see Ross and West, Writing; Rich, Warm Up, 6, 9; McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 85–90, 364–65. 117. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 390–91, 366–67, 111–17. 118. Jean Stapleton AATV interview, pt. 2. 119. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 4; McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 183, 373–74. 120. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 102–4, 199–204 (quotation: 200); Ross, in Ross and West, Writing. 121. Lynch, ‘Seven Days’, 223–24; see also Wolf AATV interview, pt. 6, 7. 122. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 103. 123. Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 8–12; Lynch, ‘Seven Days’, 221; McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 202. All in the Family daily schedule (1975): Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS), Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. 124. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 184–86, 203–8, 277–80, 375 (quotation: 205). For the matching process, see Rita Riggs AATV interview, pt. 4; Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 20–22. 125. Lynch, ‘Seven Days’, 235; Lear AATV interview, pt. 7. 126. Lynch, ‘Seven Days’, 225. 127. Larry Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6. 128. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 116, 286, 293; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 83.

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129. Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 14; McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 193; Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf AATV interview, pt. 7; Lear AATV interview, pt. 7, 8. See also All in the Family daily schedule (1975), WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. 130. Ross and West, Writing; Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 24. 131. Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 10. 132. Tolkin AATV interview, pt. 7; Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6, 7; Lear AATV interview, pt. 6; McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 103–4, 109 (quotation). 133. Carroll O’Connor AATV interview, pt. 5. See also TV Guide, 6 April 1978, 4–8; 13 April 1978, 12–17; New York Times, 31 August 1975, 89. 134. Lear to Kanter, 27 June 1975, and Alan Horn (Tandem) to Kanter, 10 July 1975: WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. 135. Lachman AATV interview, pt. 4; Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 67–68. 136. New York Times, 31 August 1975, 89. CBS had already agreed to three All in the Family scripts without Struthers. Alan Horn to Daryl Egerstrom, 3 July 1975, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. 137. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 372–76. 138. Lear AATV interview, pt. 5. 139. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 132. 140. Lear AATV interview, pt. 6; McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 395; Rich, Warm Up, 2–3. 141. Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 24–25, 28; Riggs AATV interview, pt. 3, 4. 142. Lear AATV interview, pt. 6. 143. New York Times, 31 August 1975, 89; Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 71. For writers’ pay, see Ross and West, Writing; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 71, 135. 144. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 396; Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 62. 145. Knilli, ‘Die Serie’, 151–52. 146. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 66. 147. TV Guide, 3 September 1983, 36. 148. MacDonald, Blacks, 184; Adler, ‘Introduction’, xxxiv. See also TV Guide, 27 May 1978, 4. 149. New York Times, 31 August 1975, 89. 150. New York Times, 17 August 1980, D1. In contrast, a CBS prime-time minute in 1964 cost $50,000. MacDonald, One Nation, 152. 151. MacDonald, One Nation, 201; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 60. 152. New York Times, 7 September 1975, 232. 153. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 254. 154. New York Times, 5 May 1974, D17; 11 December 1976, 32. 155. Tandem was sold in 1985 for $485 million to Coca-Cola Co., and Lear’s divorce settlement in 1985 awarded more than $110 million to Frances Lear. Wall Street Journal, 8 April 1988, 1. 156. Werner Höfer to Günter Rohrbach, 28 December 1973, WDR, 8578. 157. By the early 1960s, once West German TV had warmed up to political criticism, British formats such as Panorama were adapted. Hodenberg, Konsens, 302–6. 158. Wick, Ein Herz; Wichterich, Unsere Nachbarn; Seesslen, Der Tag; Wünsch, Decker and Krah, Wertesystem. 159. Katz et al., Am Puls, 46.

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160. It also ran against science and health documentaries on the second channel (ZDF), such as Querschnitt, Aus Forschung und Technik and Gesundheitsmagazin Praxis. Hör zu!, 15 January 1973 to 31 December 1973. 161. Scripts of such announcements from January, March and April 1973, WDR, 8574. 162. Communication to the author. 163. Der Spiegel 53, 31 December 1973, WDR, UF3; Der Spiegel 12, 18 March 1974, 57; Märthesheimer to Beryl Vertue (Speight’s agent), 14 March 1973, WDR, 8574. 164. Lehndorff to Reichelt (both WDR), 4 September 1973, WDR, 8574; Märthesheimer to Hoffmann (WDR Programmverwaltung), 8 January 1974, saying ‘the series won additional publicity through reenactment in Bochum’, WDR, 8574. 165. Folder ‘Programmaustausch’, WDR, 8574. 166. The regional broadcasters additionally administered regional radio channels and a regional ‘third’ television channel. 167. Hodenberg, Konsens, 316–17. 168. See chaps. 6, 7. 169. CDU politicians cited in Der Spiegel 18, 28 April 1975, 4, 57–60. 170. Schmid, ‘Intendant’, 349; see also Katz et al., Am Puls, 300–3. 171. Undated CDU ‘Medienpapier’ of the mid-1970s, quoted in Hickethier, Fernsehspiel, 61; see also Der Spiegel 33, 14 August 1978, 34. 172. [Hauptabteilungsleiter Fernsehspiel], WDR print 340, August 2004, 13. 173. The Rohrbach-Märthesheimer duo also brought the American serial Holocaust and several Rainer Werner Fassbinder movies to West Germans. Der Spiegel 1, 1 January 1979. 174. Correspondence from June and July 1972, WDR, 8574. 175. Author’s interview with Rohrbach, 19 January 2012; see Rohrbach, ‘Das Subventions-TV’, epd Kirche und Rundfunk, 7 May 1977. 176. He also sent his son to a British university. Author’s interview with Wolfgang Menge, 16 June 2009. 177. Märthesheimer’s library receipt, WDR, 8577; Märthesheimer, ‘Woher denn’. 178. ‘Geistigen Lehrmeister’. Obituary in Süddeutsche Zeitung, 21 June 2004, 19; curriculum vitae dated 1 October 1982, WDR, Printarchiv Biographie. 179. ‘Fernsehinformationen’, 1 October 1982, WDR, Printarchiv. 180. Märthesheimer, ‘Woher denn’, 20. 181. Quoted in de Haas et al. (dirs), Requiem für ein Ekel. 182. Märthesheimer, ‘Woher denn’, 26–28. 183. Katz et al., Am Puls, 219; Rohrbach in Die Zeit, 1 November 1974, WDR, D1146. 184. Rohrbach, ‘Papier für den medienpolitischen Kongreß der SPD’, epd Kirche und Rundfunk 26, 4 April 1984, 16. 185. Author’s interview with Rohrbach. 186. Rohrbach, ‘Gesellschaftlicher Auftrag’, 200–3, 206. 187. Funk-Korrespondenz 45, 5 November 1970, 11a–b. 188. See Rohrbach in Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 23 May 1971; Schneider, ‘Fernsehspiel’, 13–14.

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189. Preen (1941–84) had read German literature at university for a while and was suggested to Märthesheimer by filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Weltwoche, 8 May 1974, WDR, 8581; Rheinische Post, 24 January 1974, WDR, 8579; Westfälische Rundschau, 8 March 1984. 190. Theatre poster for 1–2 December 1973, in Habel, Ekel Alfred, 7. 191. He was born in 1924. Menge, Käufer; Deutsche Zeitung, 26 July 1974. 192. Author’s interview with Menge. 193. Menge in New York Times, 23 April 1974, 41. 194. See chap. 7. 195. Correspondence in WDR, 8578. The letters, given to Anneliese de Haas (letter of 21 January 1974, WDR, 8578), are lost. 196. Hodenberg, ‘Mass Media’; Hodenberg, Konsens. 197. Twenty-four episodes were produced in all. Knilli, ‘Fernsehen in der BRD’, 19; Knilli, ‘Amerikanisches Fernsehen’, 13. 198. Preen had directed comedies at the Bremen and Bochum theatres. Rheinische Post, 24 January 1974, WDR, 8579. 199. Märthesheimer to Speight, 5 January 1974, WDR, 8574; Menge’s draft of article for New York Times, 8 May 1974, WDR, HF1, 5; see also author’s interview with Rohrbach. 200. Märthesheimer to Beryl Vertue (Speight’s agent), 15 January 1974, WDR, 8577. 201. See Menge’s extracts in the mislabelled file ‘Der tote Otto’, Deutsche Kinemathek (DK), 4.4.-199605, 4. The German team was unhappy with the 1974–75 scripts, saying that ‘Johnny Speight now really has dried up … we can only adapt very few passages – those few I have carefully copied down’. Märthesheimer to Rohrbach, 27 October 1975, WDR, 8575. 202. Rohrbach to Höfer, 22 February 1974, WDR, HF1; Märthesheimer to Beryl Vertue, 7 April 1972, WDR, 8574. 203. I/1, ‘Das Hähnchen’; I/3, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’. 204. Rohrbach to Hamann, 19 May 1972, WDR, 8574. 205. Märthesheimer to Menge, 6 June 1972, WDR, 8574. 206. Ibid.; notes WDR Ausstattung (props), 24 January 1973 and 7 March 1973, WDR, 447. 207. Production team correspondence of 1972–73 and 1974, WDR, 447, 448; WDR Ausstattung Reichelt to Märthesheimer, 20 March 1974, WDR, 448. 208. Stuttgarter Zeitung, 7 December 1973. 209. Calculation, 11 July 1972, WDR, 8574; authorisation forms, 3 August 1973 (WDR, 8577) and 16 July 1975 (WDR, 8575). 210. Evening entertainment shows with hosts Rudi Carrell and Ivan Rebroff cost 200,000 and 650,000 DM in 1976. Express, 4 July 1976; Rohrbach interview in Die Zeit, 1 November 1974, WDR, D1146. 211. Honoraraufstellung Folgen I–VIII, n.d., WDR, 448. 212. Rohrbach interview in Die Zeit, 1 November 1974, WDR, D1146. 213. The artists’ fees went up by 10 per cent for late 1973 and 1974 (Lehndorff to Märthesheimer, 15 May 1973, WDR, 8574). Author’s fees of 12,700 and 14,000 DM, respectively, per show were stated by Märthesheimer in letters from 3 August 1973 and 2 October 1973 (WDR, 8574) and 19 April 1974 (WDR, 8577).

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214. Rohrbach interview in Die Zeit, 1 November 1974, WDR, D1146. 215. One delay was recorded in a letter from Reichelt to Lehndorff, 20 March 1974, WDR, 448. 216. Schedules and lists from December 1972, WDR, 447. 217. Note by Lehndorff, 18 April 1973, WDR, 447. 218. Note by Head of Production Renner, 10 October 1973, WDR, 448. 219. Lehndorff to Schlegel, January 1974, WDR, 448. 220. Friesch, SDR-Fernsehen, to Hoff, WDR, 2 November 1973, WDR, 8574. 221. Rheinische Post, 24 January 1974. Another such group was the Fotogruppe Marienheide (Lehndorff to Rick, 7 December 1973, and Lehndorff to Sandmann, 1 April 1974, WDR, 8578). 222. Schroeter to Schlage, 8 March 1974, and final report 19–20 February 1974, WDR, 448; correspondence November–December 1972, WDR, 447; Rohrbach to cast, 18 November 1976, WDR, UF1. 223. Bismarck’s notes on the show, 29 May 1974, WDR, 12520. 224. See chap. 6. Schmid, ‘Intendant’. 225. 118th meeting of WDR Programmbeirat, 29 August 1974, WDR, 8577. 226. Lehndorff to Rohrbach, 9 July 1974, WDR, 8577.

3

The Era of Limited Choice For researchers investigating television’s impact on society, the 1960s and 1970s present an exceptional opportunity. Across much of the Western industrialised world, these decades saw a unique combination of wide television reach and scarce channels, resulting in an unusual degree of mass media uniformity. Early technical challenges had been met and TV sets had become mass-produced, affordable and reasonably easy to use. A rather modest number of channels competed for a mass public that had not yet split up into specialised target groups. This was the era of limited choice: an era during which mass audiences were able to select from a narrow range of programmes every evening but could neither outwit channel schedules nor tape or replay shows. The extraordinary dominance of TV during this period has been described by John Ellis as a ‘pervasive and everyday phenomenon’.1 Television was much more than just one of many choices to spend one’s spare time on. It was an experience underpinning sociability; it was the stuff of daily discussion at home, at school and at work. Therefore, paradoxically, the scarcity of offerings amplified the medium’s influence. The limited choice of viewers resulted in the proliferation of TV blockbusters and lengthened the duration of series’ peak periods. By definition, a show arrived at its peak once it had beaten off all competition, and stayed until it was no longer the unquestioned number one. During this time, not only audience ratings reached their highest point, but also press coverage and the intensity with which viewers incorporated the series into their everyday conversations. When Till Death Us Do Part was at its zenith – from December 1966 to February 1968 – ‘one suddenly became a social outcast if one did not know who Alf Garnett was’, wrote the Sunday Times.2 All in the Family was able to extend its peak period over more than five years, from summer 1971 to summer 1976. And the West German One Heart and

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One Soul hit its highest point from New Year’s Eve 1973 to November 1974, with the press dissecting ‘the Tetzlaff effect’ and christening the year 1974 ‘the Alfred year’.3 Today, we still have blockbusters, but they are rarer and their peaks much shorter. Television’s era of limited choice coincides with the sixties cultural revolution. Blockbuster programmes during their peak periods reached far into society and confronted viewers with new norms, including those viewers who had traditionally been slow to react to social change. TV was able to accelerate the spread of new values by connecting with these groups, and by igniting debate on contentious new norms across social strata and generations. To test these hypotheses, this chapter investigates a wealth of surviving data about the daily exposure to TV, the choice of shows and the behaviour of viewers. To which audience groups did the sitcoms get through? Did they appeal to housewives and children, the elderly, the rural, the poor, teenage and ethnic minority viewers – and did they instigate discussion among viewers? The uptake of a show depended on scheduling and marketing, too. Scheduling in particular could make or break a show. During the era of limited choice, viewers did not yet have the remote control at their service. They were assumed to stay with the channels they had chosen early on in the evening. Therefore, these years saw aggressive scheduling wars between competing broadcasters. Programme planners tried to use peak shows as lead-ins for their newly launched series or as weapons against the opponent’s most successful fare. The makeup of the series’ audience thus always needs to be interpreted in light of scheduling decisions. This holds true for repeats and reruns as well. Alf, Archie and Alfred saw the repetition of whole seasons, plenty of reruns in daytime and late-night slots, as well as ritualised repeats of ‘classical’ episodes on particular occasions. Such rescreenings consolidated long-term reception processes and tapped the potential of new audience groups.4 Even today, reruns of these sitcoms remain astonishingly popular. American viewers can choose each and every day from three episodes of All in the Family aired in the morning, midday or evening.5 German broadcasters were stunned when a prime-time rerun of One Heart and One Soul in 1997 drew 5.6 million viewers, beating the entire competition.6 There are several factors involved in the enduring popularity of these programmes: long peak periods, the sheer longevity of the series and their spin-offs, and last but not least the emotional attachment many viewers developed towards shows when they watched them in the company of family and friends during the era of limited choice. Much of what we know about the way in which audiences connected with programmes depends on ratings measured by broadcasters or independent firms and scholarly surveys about audience reaction. Both types of sources are imperfect. Ratings can be riddled with sampling errors

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and bias in the selection of tested households.7 Demographic characteristics of viewers began to be specified from the 1960s onwards, enabling broadcasters to target programmes to specific social groups.8 The surviving ratings reports are at times patchy; they need to be held against data generated by academic research. Spurred on by public debates about the perils of television’s power, scholars discovered the ‘effects of television’ as a subject and set out to measure statistically the responses of different audiences. Almost always such surveys sought ‘to isolate and measure’ direct effects of television in terms of immediate changes in individual attitudes, and almost always they came up ‘inconclusive’.9 The sitcoms analysed here drew an enormous amount of scholarly attention. Sociologists or mass communication scholars conducted at least twenty-eight empirical studies on the reaction to All in the Family,10 three on Ein Herz und eine Seele and one comprehensive study plus seventeen short reports on Till Death Us Do Part. Usually only the published or unpublished description and interpretation of the findings survive, though original data sets could be recovered in rare cases.11 As historical sources, these 1970s surveys are problematic. Often, questionnaires were devised and responses categorised in line with somewhat leading questions on individual attitude change. Because the research design assumed that short-term exposure to television messages would cause viewers’ conversion, only minimal evidence for media effects was found. ‘Set up in this way, the studies were almost guaranteed to produce “disappointing” findings.’12 Scholars neglected important aspects such as face-to-face communication about the programme with fellow viewers and long-term exposure. They did not ask how viewers’ initial readings were changed or reinforced by engaging with peer groups or other media. Few of the surveys employed a before and after setup, followed a longitudinal outline, involved control areas beyond the broadcaster’s reach or ethnographic fieldwork. Only one study, the BBC’s, compared viewers with matched nonviewers. The technology of the time (IBM punch cards or paper tapes) limited the possibilities of working with the data. In addition, a wider definition of ‘effects’ – encompassing slight shifts in attitude and the acceleration of ongoing changes – might have been useful. Nevertheless, the sources offer valuable insights into the reception process, in particular into the exposure of different types of viewers to the series, the setting in which they watched it and the extent to which they discussed it. But the studies need to be historicised by reconstructing the context in which they were carried out. For that purpose, I corresponded with those scholars who were still alive and used the papers others left, learning much about their preconceived notions at the start of the research, contacts with producers and funding organisations, and the sometimes rather selective interpretation of the raw data.13

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Britain From December 1966 to February 1968, the BBC’s Till Death Us Do Part was the most watched, and most loved, series on British television. Even private television’s biggest hit, the soap opera Coronation Street (ITV), was outshone by it. The sitcom reached its peak popularity during its second and third series. Back then, almost all households (93 per cent) had a TV set. For most viewers, only two channels – BBC-1 and the private Independent Television (ITV)14 – were on offer. A third channel, BBC-2, was available only to those 12 per cent of households with the expensive, most recent 625-line television sets.15 Viewers were also still restricted in regard to the hours broadcast. BBC-2 was only on during the evening hours. Between the three channels, a determined viewer could only have watched a possible eight hours and twenty minutes per day by 1972. Actual daily averages were much lower, of course: two hours and twenty-six minutes, of which ninetyfour minutes fell within the main viewing time between 7.30 and 11.00 P.M. Only ten to twelve minutes of this prime time were spent with BBC-2, with the rest rather evenly split between BBC-1 and ITV.16 While the BBC’s television monopoly had been broken, there was no advertising in BBC programmes and competition in the market was still limited. The director of BBC Television, Kenneth Adam, declared publicly that the BBC would not be ‘running after’ ratings and would ‘never’ make ‘any deliberate effort … to destroy ITV’.17 The BBC’s Light Entertainment Group did not ‘worry too much about ratings’, its head, Bill Cotton, stated: ‘By putting on … two feature films at strategic points during the week, I could always guarantee to get 50 per cent of the audience over the week… . It was much more the BBC wished to look competitive … it was very confined competition’.18 As ratings were not a high priority, there was no central, independent agency measuring take-up. Instead, there were two competing services (one for the BBC, the other one contracted by ITV) employing different methods. Neither of them detailed the demographic makeup of audiences, although ITV’s contractors – TAM until 1968, AGB thereafter – delivered separate figures for housewives (who were seen as prime targets of advertisers) and adult audiences. The ITV companies collected general data on TV households once annually and from there recruited a regionally balanced, random sample for both weekly viewing diaries and minute-by-minute, electronic metring of TV channels tuned to. Because ITV was a conglomerate of regionally organised broadcasters, their records came in the form of regional data for twelve different areas.19 By contrast, the BBC’s audience research department chose one or two shows a day, estimating the total U.K. viewership per channel by following a (daily changing) sample of one thousand to fifteen hundred people. Interviewers then visited about a quarter of the panel, asking how

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much they had enjoyed the programme and why; what they thought about script, cast and production; and how often they watched the series. The resulting reports were one to two pages in length, included many direct quotations by viewers and took four to six weeks to reach producers.20 Thus, while we do not have regular, nationwide rankings of British prime-time programmes, the feedback was more qualitative than in the American setting. With comedy series, the BBC’s audience research department tended to monitor the first and last episode of the season, as well as public holiday specials. The eighteen reports on Till Death Us Do Part confirm that the size of the audience was enormous (figure 3.1). In spring 1967, an episode reached 16.5 million viewers on average; a year later, this had risen to 17.4 million. Some 1968 instalments broke the 20 million mark, in a population of about 56 million. The autumn 1972 episodes still managed to average an audience of 17.5 million. This means that between 29.5 and 36 per cent of the entire population was watching; the 1966 Boxing Day show came close to 40 per cent. No other BBC programme matched these ratings. Other popular comedies, music shows and the most successful drama series (Softly Softly, Dixon of Dock Green) came in between 10 and 13 million. Current affairs and news broadcasts were lucky to pull in 8 million, and Saturday and Sunday evening feature films averaged 13 to 15 million viewers. Only special events such as Miss World and major sporting contests would draw bigger audiences (up to 23.5 million).21 The highest-ranked ITV programmes averaged 8 to 9 million ‘homes viewing’.22 Alf Garnett was so appealing because he was associated with a particular type of humour that was rare on television – called ‘vulgar’ and ‘crude’ by a ‘sizeable minority’, ‘down to earth’ or ‘delightfully vulgar’ by the majority.23 From 1966 to 1968, the lion’s share of viewers was reported to be ‘regretting very much’ the end of a current series and ‘eagerly welcoming’ the next.24 Again and again, the sitcom was called ‘screamingly funny’: ‘Alf and family reduce my family to tears of helpless laughter every week’.25 The audience researchers emphasised: ‘Above all … the series seems to have been welcomed by these viewers because it gave them a hearty laugh, the humour being of the “broad” kind they evidently like: “down-to-earth, good common humour”’.26 It took the sitcom only one season to beat ITV’s competition and reach its peak. This peak lasted from December 1966 to February 1968, judging by the size of the audience and the reaction index (fully 26 per cent of viewers rated the show with an ‘A+’). The show’s demise began with the fifth series in January 1974, with audiences as large as before but less satisfied with the programme, and accelerated during 1974 and 1975. With viewing figures half of what they were before, less than a tenth of the respondents now rated it ‘A+’. The reaction index average per series fell from 68 in 1966 and 1967 to 60 in 1974, and then to 54 and 57 for seasons six and seven in 1975.27 The reasons for the programme’s rise and fall were complex.

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Figure 3.1. Per cent of population tuning into Till Death Us Do Part on BBC-1 Source: BBC audience reports based on samples of 200 to 600 viewers. WAC VR/65/397, VR/66/412, VR/ 66/719, VR/67/82, VR/67/136, VR/67/207, VR/68/12, VR/72/532, VR/72/630, VR/72/754, VR/74/11, VR/74/146, VR/75/12, VR/75/41, VR/75/99, VR/75/633, VR/75/705.

Scheduling certainly played a role in making Till Death Us Do Part a smash hit. The show ran on Mondays at 7.30 P.M., opposite ITV’s soap opera Coronation Street, which regularly attracted twenty million viewers.28 BBC-1 controller Huw Wheldon saw Alf Garnett as a most valuable earlyevening bait. His strategy was to break ITV’s stranglehold on the early evening and ‘to claim half the audience available at 7.30’ by sending in ‘popular comedy shows’ against ITV’s Coronation Street and Emergency Ward 10. The idea was to attract ‘half the audience available for the whole range of programmes which followed’ until eleven o’clock at night.29 Wheldon’s calculations swiftly paid off. By early 1967, Till Death had dethroned Coronation Street. By 1968, the East End loudmouth was bait enough to make viewers get off the couch and switch the channel halfway through the evening. For even when it started at 8.20 P.M., the show drew 38 per cent of the population, compared to ITV’s 13.5 per cent (ITV

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countered it with game shows and Tarzan movies). When the BBC decided to withdraw the comedy in February 1968, it was by far the most popular BBC programme, bringing in 17.35 million viewers on average. At its eventual return in 1972, BBC executives decided to move the show to a post-9.00 P.M. start – where it still managed to score more than 30 per cent, outperforming the detective series and schmaltzy musical shows competing with it. Even when the series dropped to a 16 to 22 per cent rating during its last two seasons, it still ran neck and neck with ITV’s cops, crooners and comedians.30 Throughout, ITV’s strategy of ‘non-coterminous programming’, that is, of scheduling show times differently to BBC-1 in order to keep people from switching channels, failed.31 In general, the scheduling wizards tended to underestimate viewers. Close readings of ITV’s minute-for-minute ratings reveal that audiences were more obstinate than broadcasters assumed. Even without a remote control, large majorities would switch channels if something more entertaining was on offer elsewhere. One fairly typical example is audience behaviour in London on 6 February 1967, a foggy, mild winter Monday. Till Death scored a 52 per cent rating, against Coronation Street with 29 per cent and BBC-2 with zero. The majority of viewers deserted ITV the minute the Garnetts entered on BBC-1, stayed with them until the end of their half hour and then switched back to ITV almost immediately.32 If the Garnetts were followed by an educational programme like Panorama, BBC-1 dropped from a 52 to a 25 per cent rating within five minutes. With the news as follow-up, half to a third of viewers were lost during fifteen minutes.33 Until February 1968, Till Death was allocated prime-time slots: during early evenings, the peak viewing months of late September to February, and on public holidays such as Easter and Boxing Day.34 With the exception of the first one, all seven seasons were broadcast in winter. The sitcom was well publicised in advance, too. The BBC’s own Radio Times, one of the largestselling journals in the country, promoted the debut in 1966 with prominently placed articles. It did the same for the repeats – a full repeat of the first series was scheduled on Saturday prime time only eighteen days after the original had ended.35 In 1968, promotional trailers were broadcast on Sundays.36 And less than 1 per cent of viewers would be lured away by such mildly exciting BBC-2 programmes as The Thread of Life: An Introduction to Molecular Biology, Engineering Research: A Deeper Humber? or Chronicle: A Regular Programme about the Latest Happenings in Archaeology and History.37 The corporation thus carefully nurtured its hit. But it ran into a problem. To challenge Coronation Street, Till Death had to air in the core ‘family viewing time’, despite its potentially offensive language and content. The 1966 season and about half of its repeats showed before the ‘watershed’ of 9.00 P.M., after which children were presumed to be in bed.38 The next series again transmitted at 7.30 P.M. Unfortunately, the ‘very high incidence

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of viewing’ by children (41 per cent of all five- to fourteen-year-olds) between 6.00 and 9.00 P.M. was well-known.39 ‘The policy-made, earlyevening spot was an editorial decision at a higher level.’40 Greene, director general of the BBC, had told the Board of Management in January 1967 that Till Death’s early placement was legitimate, saying the watershed ‘should be regarded as a general principle rather than a rigid dividing line’. Incidentally, the sitcom had just been reported to have ‘replaced the Monday “Coronation Street” episode in popularity’.41 By June 1967, unhappy producer Main Wilson complained that BBC managers ‘want Till Death at 7.30 P.M. watered down for the kiddiewinkies – Speight on the other hand will oppose any rigorous dilution of his intent’.42 The 7.30 P.M. slot certainly got flak in the press, with headlines such as ‘TV Alf Shocks Early Viewers’, ‘Unfair to Parents’ and ‘Curfew May Fall on Alf Garnett’.43 But the papers were divided on the issue. While the Daily Express thought it ‘a pity to force the B.B.C.’ to choose a late-evening slot, the Evening News found it ‘common sense’ to shift the Garnetts ‘through the 9 P.M. juvenile bedtime curtain and lessen the national embarrassment’.44 In reaction to such public criticism, Speight’s season three, beginning in January 1968, was pushed back to around 8.20 to 8.50 P.M. The 1972, 1974 and 1975 series ran even later in the evening. Whether before or after the watershed, it is worth analysing what kind of audiences were reached. In October 1972, the BBC carried out a detailed survey on Till Death Us Do Part comparing regular, occasional and nonviewers. A ‘representative cross-section’ of 772 adults was interviewed in ten cities, although, oddly, nonwhites were ‘deliberately excluded’. In addition, true nonviewers were so rare that they had to be replaced with those ‘who had never liked it, or never been interested in it’.45 The pollsters found that Till Death appealed most to men, the young and the working classes. Sixty per cent of the regular and occasional viewers were men.46 This contributed to the sitcom’s high ratings, as in living rooms across the country, men commonly controlled programme choices.47 The show was most popular with those under twenty and least with those over fifty-four years.48 It also attracted working-class viewers more than the educated middle and upper classes. Forty-two per cent of regular viewers had left school at or before fifteen years of age and 55 per cent stated no qualifications, compared to 28 and 38 per cent of ‘nonviewers’. The regulars also worked more often in unskilled and semiskilled jobs (20 and 30 per cent) than the nonviewers (9 and 24 per cent). And while the 94 interviewees in managerial and professional positions split almost equally into frequent, occasional and nonviewers (32, 36 and 32 per cent, respectively), the pattern for the 114 unskilled respondents was 63, 25 and 12 per cent. This bias towards the working class was also obvious in the findings concerning political allegiance. Frequent viewers leaned more often to the Labour Party, nonviewers to the

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Conservative Party.49 Therefore, whereas people of all ages and classes watched the show, its most devoted viewers tended to be working-class males: unskilled, uneducated, Labour-leaning and not yet retired. This makeup of Alf Garnett’s audience challenges the view of sitcom as a predominantly female genre. Although women on average were heavier television users than men, it was the men who loved the series most.50 And housewives’ choices, closely monitored by independent broadcasters, did not differ significantly from overall adult viewing behaviour. When ITV scheduled Coronation Street and Mission Impossible against the East End comedy, both largely failed to attract London’s housewives.51 Till Death indeed had a wide reach into groups that had formerly been far from the epicentre of cultural change – housewives, the uneducated and unskilled, the elderly and villagers – to whom we now turn. Because ITV audience research was regionally organised, it is possible to compare rural and urban reception of the programme. In early 1967, when Till Death ran against Coronation Street in all twelve areas, it scored highest in densely populated regions (London, the Midlands) and lowest in less urbanised areas (northeast Scotland, Ulster and the southwest). One year later, after the Garnetts had moved to a post–Coronation Street slot, Speight’s sitcom won the largest audiences in the industrial north, London, the Midlands and across southern England. It dropped off slightly in the more rural areas such as the northeast, Wales and northeast Scotland. But even in the most remote regions, the Garnetts drew ratings of between 40 and 50 per cent.52 Living in a village obviously did not insulate viewers from ‘progressive’ television. Neither did old age. Although the elderly did not love the sitcom as much as younger viewers, they nevertheless tuned in. An impressive 44 per cent of the over-64-yearolds were frequent viewers, 27 per cent were occasional viewers and only 18 per cent disliked the series.53 All age groups were well acquainted with the Garnetts. Even children and teenagers followed the show in large numbers. They were generally heavy and ‘extremely televisually literate’ viewers who preferred ITV-type (i.e., more entertaining) programmes and tended to share the family viewing during the early evening. In 1966, the twelve- to fourteen-year-olds watched an average of sixteen hours of television after 6.00 P.M. each week (3.5 hours more than adults). Eight- to eleven-yearolds came in at 13.5 hours and five- to seven-year-olds still at 7.9 hours.54 In all likelihood, most children and teenagers who usually watched TV at 7.30 P.M. were allowed to see Till Death Us Do Part as well. Why else would schoolteachers and self-appointed moral guardians have reported children using the show’s catchphrases, swearwords and jokes in playgrounds across the country?55 If the show was much discussed on playgrounds, the same went for office corridors, pubs and living rooms. In 1972, ‘one-third of those questioned

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said they had often talked about the programmes afterwards with their families, friends and people at work, virtually all the rest saying they had done so occasionally’. Regular viewers were most likely to make the show a topic of conversation. But the so-called nonviewers did so as well, 11 per cent admitting to discussing it ‘often’ and a further 22 per cent ‘occasionally’.56 People chatted about Alf to such an extent that the president of the Royal Academy of Arts lamented the shrinking of audiences for art exhibitions with the words: ‘Have we reached the stage where it is more pressing to spend every lunch hour discussing things like Alf Garnett’s moronic vocabulary, rather than sparing just one lunch break to look at some of the finest examples of British art?’57 The television critics of the major dailies reported how their ‘friends are divided’ about the programme, or how their neighbours conferred with each other over the fence right after the broadcast.58 In 1968, ‘Friday night was Alf Garnett night’. And in the days after an episode screened, Johnny Speight’s character ‘became the major talking point’.59 Long after the peak period was over, Alf continued to enthral. His market appeal was exploited by advertisers, author Johnny Speight and actor Warren Mitchell alike. Johnny Speight published several mass-market paperbacks and illustrated volumes based on the character.60 In the four-year break between the third and fourth series, he made two movies out of the format.61 In 1977, he wrote a one-man theatre show, The Thoughts of Chairman Alf, with which Mitchell toured in London and throughout Australia until 1998. On TV, Speight resurrected the Garnetts with a short-lived series called Till Death… on commercial television in 1981 and with a more successful BBC sequel titled In Sickness and In Health (1985–92). It saw the retired Alf caring for his wheelchair-bound wife and then coping with life as a widower. These sequels continued to attract a sizeable following, even though they lost the parts of the young couple and then Else. In marketing Alf ’s charisma, the BBC toed a fine line. After 1968, it rarely repeated episodes. Many of the early instalments had been wiped for technical reasons, and the show’s controversial impact on racial relations meant it was treated with caution.62 The BBC refrained from selling memorabilia licences to private companies: Alf was not to appear on beer mugs and T-shirts.63 But a record company was allowed to make the sound tracks of the show into four LPs and one EP.64 Only after the BBC’s contract had expired did Alf Garnett commercials become a reality. A surviving Findus Fish Fingers TV spot from 1969 shows Alf shouting, though not swearing: a loveable troublemaker.65 The metamorphosis from antihero to folk hero was complete.

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United States At Archie Bunker’s debut in 1971, almost all American households owned a TV set. On average, it was turned on just under six hours a day.66 Daily usage climbed to six hours and twenty-six minutes in 1979, and that was well before the video recorder’s arrival.67 In theory, the Americans of the 1970s had a large choice of local channels in addition to the three networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) and the rather new option of public television. But in practice, the three networks dominated programme offerings. Their influence was growing – which is why politicians such as Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and later Vice President Spiro Agnew attacked the ‘concentration of power in the hands of the networks’.68 In 1964, the networks fully or partly owned the rights to 93 per cent of prime-time programmes, which they then sold to local stations for prime-time screenings and daytime reruns.69 Viewers’ choices were limited to at best ‘three national networks and a few independent stations in each market area’.70 Of 228 local television markets in 1972, 160 were served by three stations or fewer.71 During the seasons 1978–80, of all those watching prime time, 91 per cent were tuned to CBS, NBC or ABC.72 Asked in 1979, four out of five viewers did not even know what public television was.73 The networks closely monitored audience choices, and they did so via ratings delivered by the Nielsen company. Nielsen had reported channel ratings since 1950; then, it took six weeks to deliver a show’s results. This accelerated to nine days in 1967 and a week in 1973.74 By September 1973, Nielsen changed the way the industry was run by providing overnight ratings for prime-time programmes. These instantaneous pictures of television usage in twelve hundred homes did not account for who was watching and whether viewers liked what they saw.75 If the set was ‘blazing away, watched only by the cat and the cuckoo clock’, it counted nevertheless. Therefore, Nielsen added biweekly studies in which viewing diaries in twenty-three hundred households yielded information about the age, sex and location of audiences.76 All in the Family, from its first episode in January 1971, was available to more than 95 per cent of the 60.1 million television homes in the continental United States.77 It climbed the rankings slowly but steadily, placing fiftyfifth after the first week, forty-sixth by mid-March, fourteenth by April 1971. It began its second season ranked twelfth and took over first place by September 1971 – where it remained until the end of the 1975–76 season. In 1974, CBS official Barbara Rosenbloom estimated the average weekly audience to be twenty-one million households. The show regularly drew more than a 50 per cent share of the viewing audience; occasionally, it reached 60 per cent.78 In New York, where the show gained a share of close

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to 70 per cent in 1971–72, it was normal to invite guests round for Saturday dinner but to have All in the Family on between drinks and supper. Superstar Sammy Davis Jr. timed his Saturday performances in such a way that he could see the series in his dressing room between gigs. No wonder the New York Times assumed that anybody not knowing the Bunkers had probably ‘just escaped from a jungle in Guam’.79 The show’s peak period began in May 1971, when ‘the Nielsens for the 70 major-market cities’ confirmed it to be ‘out in front all alone’. Lear’s comedy swept the Emmy Awards the same month, winning ‘best new series’ and ‘best comedy series’.80 The mighty TV Guide, selling tens of millions of copies at fifteen cents apiece, put the Bunkers on its cover with the headline: ‘All in the Family: Good Fun or Bad Taste?’ Its usually scathing critic, Cleveland Amory, lauded the programme as ‘a landmark show – a complete breakthrough – one which opens up a whole new world for television’.81 From then on, the series kept ‘awe-inspiring’ shares of the network audience.82 With market shares from 47 to 54 per cent, it left other successful sitcoms such as M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore Show far behind (at 38–48 and 32–42 per cent, respectively).83 Between 1971 and 1975, All in the Family collected thirteen Emmy Awards and appeared five times on TV Guide’s cover.84 It was also by far the most expensive network programme for advertisers to buy time on.85 After five long years at the top, Lear’s series dropped to number eleven in 1976–77, joint fourth place in 1977–78 and tenth in its last season, 1978– 79. The ‘old ratings warhorse’ was still CBS’s top-placed show and it still had forty million viewers, but its heyday was over.86 The main reason for All in the Family’s fall was the networks’ counterprogramming war of the mid1970s. CBS executives used the Bunkers as a bait for the early evening audience, a valuable lead-in for the following shows and a ratings club against the rival networks’ promising newcomers. Because All in the Family proved one of the rare programmes to do well even in challenging time slots, it was moved around frequently from 1975 onwards. In the end, CBS broke its own hit by tampering with it – as an in-depth look at the show’s scheduling will confirm. When All in the Family piloted, with no big-name star on its cast, its placement was discouraging. It was a midseason substitution for the ratings failure The Governor and J.J., and on Tuesday at 9.30 P.M., it competed with two popular feature films on ABC and NBC. Moreover, it was led in by Hee Haw, a rustic comedy celebrating rural middle-American values that presumably attracted a different type of audience. Astonishingly, Archie Bunker overcame the odds. And he did so ‘practically unheralded’ (Lear), without advance publicity. As a CBS official recalled, ‘we weren’t sure how to promote it’.87 In its second season, after healthy summer reruns, CBS decided to make the show its ‘crown jewel’ with a last-minute switch to

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Saturday at eight o’clock.88 The new CBS Saturday night lineup, with Archie as lead-in for a roster of thriving comedies, became an institution until the autumn of 1975. For four full years, ‘Saturday night was locked in; there was no chance to challenge the CBS dominance with comedies from All in the Family through The Jeffersons, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett’. NBC contented itself with doing ‘tolerably well with the leftovers’.89 In despair, ABC counterprogrammed a Shakespeare drama, drawing the lowest rating of the season and a 6 per cent share against Lear’s 51 per cent.90 In their Saturday at 8.00 P.M. slot, the Bunkers destroyed anything scheduled against them.91 Moreover, as ‘the best lead-in in TV’, they helped CBS promote its new entries.92 All in the Family’s ratings dominance would likely have carried on beyond five years if CBS had not decided to split up its Saturday comedy block at the start of the 1975–76 season in order to conform to a ‘family hour’ between 8.00 and 9.00 P.M. in which all controversial material would be banned. Because the series frequently referred to sexual matters, it was moved to Monday at 9.00 P.M.93 Surprisingly, the rescheduled show was able to remain the Nielsen frontrunner for 1975–76, even though it faced the formidable competition of ABC’s football night. But a storm was brewing. CBS had always been the unrivalled leader among the three networks. Now, the early autumn 1975 ratings made CBS founder William S. Paley realise ‘that our status as number one was in real trouble’. Hectic rearrangements began. CBS churned out a new schedule midseason and once more managed to finish first for the year, an achievement it failed to repeat in 1976–77.94 When All in the Family slipped in the ratings that season, it did so because of ‘CBS’s desperate counterprogramming measures to blunt the ABC surge to No. 1’. The sitcom was moved twice during the season ‘to confront ever-more-powerful ABC shows’. CBS executive Steve Mills disclosed: ‘We threw it in against Baretta on Wednesday, just when it looked as if Baretta was going to run away with the night. What happened? All in the Family stayed at No. 6 to No. 11 and Baretta dropped off. Then, when Starsky & Hutch got very hot at 9 P.M. on Saturday, we sent in the Archie Bunker team to cool off that phenomenon’. As a result, Lear’s show suffered, but Starsky & Hutch suffered even more.95 The next year, though, ABC and NBC began to schedule ‘blockbuster specials’ such as The Godfather against the Bunkers. Even so, All in the Family managed to remain ‘almost always in the top ten’.96 All in the Family’s trajectory demonstrates the power of scheduling. The ‘family hour’ and CBS’s frantic attempts to stave off ABC’s competition ate away at the show’s ratings. Although it was able to stay in the top twelve, it was unable to transcend its time slot for more than one season (1975–76). Tellingly, contemporary critics did not suggest that Archie’s ratings had dipped because the vein was exhausted and viewers were bored. Rather, they agreed that the series was still going strong while rivals such as The Mary

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Tyler Moore Show had begun to flag. Some observers proposed that the programme’s demise was due to a change in ‘the mood of a country grown weary of conflict and confrontation’, noting that escapist comedies were back at the top.98 Television historian Josh Ozersky calls ‘the supplanting of All in the Family in the top Nielsen spot by the pointedly named Happy Days’ an ‘indicator of the shift’ in the zeitgeist. In the ‘broad retreat from controversy and “relevant” programming’, he detects symptoms of a conservative backlash in American culture.99 This goes too far. In the first place, it would be wrong to label All in the Family a predominantly abrasive, conflict-based show. Its popularity stemmed at least as much from its welldeveloped characters and viewers’ attachment to the ‘real-life’ problems of the Bunkers as from its acerbic commentary on controversial issues. Over time, the series had also softened. TV Guide complained that ‘now the crusty bigot is cooing at babies and siding with minority groups’, and executive producer Mort Lachman admitted that ‘of course Archie’s been toned down a bit’.100 In the second place, it is wrong to assume that ‘relevant’ comedies were doomed by 1977. The Bunkers stayed in the top ten from 1977 to 1979, and some of the fresher Lear comedies (The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time) continued to do well until the early 1980s. All in the Family’s peak ended because of CBS’s unfortunate scheduling policies, not in response to a cultural backlash. During the five-year rule of All in the Family, exposure to the show was phenomenally high. Surveys suggest that by summer 1972, 95 per cent of American adolescents and 99 per cent of Canadian adults knew the series.101 Ninety-eight per cent of Pittsburgh college students,102 97 per cent of high school students in rural New Jersey103 and 96 per cent of Illinois college students had seen the programme.104 And of course, people watched the show more than once. By 1974, 69 per cent of adults in Atlanta and Chicago were regular viewers.105 Among teenagers, 80 per cent were found to have an ‘almost every week viewing pattern’ during 1973–74.106 The surviving Nielsen data tell us more about the social background of viewers. A snapshot from 1973 shows Archie ranking first in white and third in nonwhite households.107 Audiences spanned all age groups, educational and socioeconomic levels. The most avid viewers were found in households that were headed by skilled blue-collar workers, had a head of family with between one and three years of high school education, and/or had a yearly income of under $5,000 (the average that year in the United States was $12,100).108 It seems that the show found its highest viewership among people who lived in similar circumstances to the fictional Bunkers, who were the white owners of a modest $15,000 row house in an ethnically mixed, firmly blue-collar neighbourhood of Queens, New York.109 This ties in with research confirming that ‘more highly educated persons were slightly

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less likely than respondents from middle and lower education levels to watch All in the Family’.110 In general, the networks were known to pull in different kinds of audiences. Whereas ABC audiences were younger and more urban, CBS’s were ‘disproportionately older and more rural because CBS signed up more affiliates first and has always had relatively more affiliates in the smaller markets’.111 This hurt CBS by the late 1960s, when advertisers began to seek out programmes that could deliver target groups with maximum spending power. The most coveted viewers were the 18- to 49-year-olds, women (who were making most household buying decisions) and urbanites. In contrast, the over-65-year-olds were deemed ‘least desirable’, as they had ‘less money to dispose of ’.112 It was All in the Family and another Saturday comedy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, that turned the corner for CBS. Programming chief Fred Silverman fondly recalled ‘the best demographics a network ever had. Just fabulous’.113 From 1972 to 1976, the Bunkers were the number one favourite among all women viewers, including the treasured 18- to 49-yearolds (figure 3.2). The advertisers took note and targeted female consumers: an autumn 1974 episode was flanked by ads for disposable diapers, lipsticks, medication and a pan cleaner.114 With men, All in the Family was the most popular programme from 1972 to 1975 before dropping to second place in 1976 (behind The Six Million Dollar Man) and fifth place in 1978 and 1979.115

Figure 3.2. All in the Family Nielsen ratings, 1971–79 (per cent) Source: Ranking of top 15 prime-time series in ‘Nielsen annual reports’ 1971 to 1980.

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Just as women were prized over men, urban viewers were valued over rural ones. About a third of the television market was in the rural and very rural ‘C’ and ‘D’ counties, about 40 per cent in metropolitan ‘A’ areas and the rest in ‘B’ markets characterised by midsized towns.116 Silverman rejoiced when the Bunkers captured the big cities: ‘I called the research department … what are the shares? And they said: New York 80, Los Angeles 68, Chicago 70 … it just exploded!’117 If All in the Family was doing exceptionally well in metropolitan areas,118 it could also excel in midsized towns and rural hamlets. Local programme performance varied considerably. Rural markets reported wildly divergent ratings of between 20 and 52 in November 1974, while highly urbanised markets ranged from a 27 to 44 rating (the U.S. average stood at 35).119 Sociologists reported that adolescents in a small Midwestern town and adults in a midsized Canadian town watched the programme regularly at 50 and 53 per cent, respectively, and occasionally at 46 and 46 per cent.120 After all, the series aired on Saturdays at 8.00 P.M., and in rural areas presumably less entertainment options competed with TV. Often, major regional differences in take-up may be traced back to the ethnic composition of the population. The show was astonishingly popular

Figure 3.3. Nielsen data for African American audiences in fourteen urban markets, 1977–79 Source: Nielsen, ‘Special Report on the Black Audience’, 1977, 1978 and 1979.

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with minorities. An early study by CBS’s in-house research department stated that ‘the blacks and minority group members exceed their [white] counterparts’ in embracing the programme.121 Although All in the Family ranked number one for whites and only number three for nonwhites,122 African Americans were consistently shown to spend more time with Archie Bunker than the average viewer (figure 3.3). This was partly due to African Americans being heavier watchers overall, and partly to the fact that they typically preferred shows featuring African American characters. Two such sitcoms, Lear’s creations Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons, had entered the picture in 1972 and 1975.123 Not all minority viewers liked All in the Family as much as African Americans. For Hispanic viewers in Los Angeles, Miami and New York, the sitcom’s ratings were fairly low. They ranged from nine to eighteen for a Sunday 8.00 or 9.00 P.M. show. Repeats on weekday afternoons only reached 3 to 6 per cent of all Spanish-speaking households. This was doubtless due to the language barrier, particularly as several Spanishlanguage channels broadcast in these areas. Still, the Bunkers were among the more popular English-language shows, right behind sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica and cartoons such as Mickey Mouse and Tom and Jerry.124 Whereas Nielsen had been slow to discover the market potential of Hispanic and African American audiences, it was quicker with juvenile viewers. Teens watched TV more than adults and had some money to spend (by 1972, a third of all Americans was under eighteen years of age).125 The sitcom’s viewership was heavy on teenagers and children. An average 8.00 P.M. show could expect a 10.6 per cent teenage rating; All in the Family drew between 15 and 22 per cent of all teenagers in TV households.126 Although no ABC-type ‘bubble-gum show’, the Bunkers were the second-most popular programme with teenagers by 1973.127 A September 1974 survey of 256 teenagers from an ethnically mixed state high school in Berlin, New Jersey, found that 43 per cent watched it ‘every week’ or ‘almost every week’ and 42 per cent ‘occasionally’.128 Archie also attracted the most children of any prime-time show: nine million. A 1973 study reported that 35 per cent of six- to ten-year-old children were regular viewers and another 50 per cent occasional viewers.129 For the autumn seasons of 1971 and 1972, Nielsen reported 23 per cent of all two- to eleven-year-olds watching; for 1973 and 1974, the average stood at 17 per cent.130 The large volume of viewers under eighteen shifted the demographics of the sitcom genre, much to CBS’s delight. Before Lear’s ‘relevant’ series, the genre had attracted the elderly, with the over-fifties the largest audience group (37 per cent). This now changed. By 1978, the coveted 18- to 49-yearolds constituted almost half of the total sitcom audience (45 per cent) and the over-fifties only a quarter. This does not mean that All in the Family had trouble connecting with viewers over fifty, however. On the contrary, it

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managed to hold on to older audiences while pulling in growing numbers of middle-aged and young viewers.131 One reason to assume the show was popular with the elderly is the wild success of CBS’s weekday afternoon reruns, which were offered from December 1975 to September 1979.132 Afterwards, the show was syndicated, meaning its prepackaged episodes were sold by the producer to eighty stations for reruns during all parts of the day.133 Luckily, for November 1979 a report on the audiences reached by these local reruns has survived. Sixtyone per cent of all American households could watch such repeat episodes, and on average, every tenth TV home tuned in. Among the fifty packaged sitcoms offered on local channels that month, the Bunkers scored fourth most popular. Each episode reached 12.5 million viewers on average. Of these, 42 per cent were women, 34 per cent men, 11 per cent teenagers and 14 per cent children. Moreover, because 44 per cent of viewers belonged to the prized 18- to 49-year-olds (whereas 32 per cent were fifty years old and over), the series was clearly a profitable buy for local stations. Overall, the show’s repeats were slightly more popular in metropolitan areas (connecting with 10 per cent of all TV households) than less urbanised regions (8 per cent).134 By 1983, then, All in the Family was known as ‘the biggest moneymaking comedy series in television history’135 and videotaped episodes were bestsellers advertised in the network evening news.136 These data confirm that the sitcom strongly connected with the lower classes, rural population, housewives, children and teenagers. Its audience clearly overrepresented women, lower educational levels, African Americans and the young. It also managed to retain elderly viewers, who had always been attracted to sitcoms. The surveys did not ask how often viewers discussed the broadcasts with others,137 but plenty of other sources suggest that the show incited much debate. The TV industry’s magazine Variety called All in the Family the ‘most talked about program on the tube’, and Norman Lear remembered ‘that people loved to talk about it afterwards’.138 Story editors Michael Ross and Bernie West recalled a flood of viewer letters: ‘We get mail on everything. Archie says let’s go on a walk, and people will write’.139 Many viewers remember to this day how they ‘constantly talked about it with my girlfriend’, with colleagues and ‘various friends … just as “water cooler” conversation’.140 Even the White House tapes recorded President Nixon discussing the programme with his advisers at considerable length.141 As the show courted controversy, it succeeded in involving a sizeable part of the audience beyond the mere act of watching.

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West Germany When Alfred was introduced to West Germans in January 1973, about 95 per cent of households owned a TV set, and the average daily exposure stood at just about two hours.142 The choice of channels and programmes was even more limited than in the British and American case, because commercial television was nonexistent. The two nationwide channels – Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen (ARD) and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) – stressed their public service ethos and educational mission, consequently offering little in terms of pure entertainment. Both broadcasters were mainly financed by licence fees, and there were no commercials during prime time.143 Viewers could also tune to regional third channels (Dritte Programme), which were delivered by the same regional broadcasters that jointly formed the ARD. These regional services were even more highbrow than their nationwide counterparts; they had been developed as providers of educational quality programming for minority audiences. Thus, while most West Germans could choose among three programmes (or four, if they picked up two regional broadcasters), they would often search in vain for light entertainment. A peculiarity of the German broadcasting landscape was the ideological competition between the television services of capitalist West Germany and socialist East Germany. On the one hand, West German broadcasts reached about 90 per cent of citizens of the German Democratic Republic. Scholars estimate that between a fifth and a quarter of East Germans watched Western channels on an average evening.144 On the other hand, the East German services were accessible to a minority of West Germans, mainly those living in the northern borderlands and Berlin. As audience research demonstrated over time, West Germans used Eastern offerings only occasionally and selectively. They rejected politically tainted programmes and actively sought out light entertainment shows or old feature films. Experts of the time termed the typical behaviour of viewers on both sides an ‘entertainment slalom’ intent on avoiding the ubiquitous educational and political fare.145 Ekel Alfred began life as an experimental offering for a regional audience in the west of the Federal Republic. The series transmitted on the third channel of North Rhine-Westphalian broadcaster WDR, which, with Latinised programme titles such as Extempore, Spektrum and Panoptikum, tended to prioritise the interests of the educated classes. Its (low) ratings were ‘totally neglected’ by audience researchers.146 And although colour had arrived five years earlier on the nationwide channels, WDR television still screened in black and white. WDR television reached about eighteen million people in the highly urbanised northwest of the republic.147 During the course of 1973, more regional channels

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subscribed to the series. By autumn 1973, it was available to a majority of the West German population through the third channels of HR, BR and SDR/SWF/SR – reaching approximately six, twelve and sixteen million people, respectively, in the south and southwest of the country. Viewers were only denied Alfred if they lived in northern Germany, Berlin and most of East Germany.148 Ein Herz und eine Seele conquered audiences by storm, although there had been no advance promotion. The widely read TV weekly Hör zu! gave little more than the programme’s title and the names and occasionally images of the (little-known) members of the cast. There was practically no press coverage prior to the on-screen debut. Nevertheless, the show managed to draw ‘about twenty times as many’ viewers as other programmes on the WDR149 and acquire a share of about 35 per cent in North Rhine-Westphalia by the autumn of 1973. Unexpectedly, the series ‘managed to rope in viewers with an atypical demographic profile for this channel’, widening access beyond the educated elite.150 Scriptwriter Wolfgang Menge recalled: ‘By this series, many were lured over to the third channels, normally only watched by minorities, for the first time. The ratings rose into spheres hitherto unimaginable for this service. With average ratings about 2 per cent … One Heart and One Soul pulled up to 39 per cent’.151 The surprise hit was moved over to the nationwide ARD channel, where it ran during 1974 and again in 1976, by now diligently monitored by audience researchers. The ratings technology employed in West Germany before 1975 was comparable to Britain’s. It combined the measurement of TV sets in use in 825 households (the ‘infratam’ ratings) with daily in-depth ‘infratest’ interviews with 300 viewers. After one or two weeks, producers and executives were presented with a set of continuous ratings for the two nationwide channels. For a few selected programmes, they also received an appreciation index and a demographic breakdown of audiences. In 1975, broadcasters moved to a new method called ‘teleskopie’, which delivered overnight quantitative ratings, with weekly follow-up reports breaking the data down demographically.152 Once the sitcom had made the transition to the first channel, it recorded ratings of 49 to 65 per cent during 1974 and 50 to 60 per cent during 1976. Now, a third to almost half of the entire population of the Federal Republic was reached: 21 to 28 million viewers in 1974 and 18.4 to 23.1 million in 1976.153 After five episodes had screened nationwide, 88 per cent of all households had watched Alfred more than once. The average West German had seen 2.8 of the 5 instalments.154 These were ‘ratings otherwise reserved at best to [star entertainer] Peter Alexander – for a tenth of the production costs’.155 They were even more impressive as West German viewers traditionally preferred other genres, namely, crime series and quiz shows.156

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The Tetzlaffs defied the odds: they succeeded despite their scheduling. First, unusually for a hit, the programme aired after 9.00 P.M.157 As almost half of all West Germans and 84 per cent of East Germans were normally in bed by 10.00 P.M., many viewers had to postpone bedtime for Ekel Alfred.158 In every sixth household, even children stayed up to watch the show.159 Second, the series ran on a Monday, while the highest audiences were typically registered on Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays, bringing in ‘Monday ratings unparalleled in the history of the ARD’.160 Third, ratings normally peaked during the winter months, but One Heart and One Soul was transmitted every four weeks throughout the entire year.161 Last, with the move to the first channel the comedy had to give up its convenient placement opposite documentaries and political magazines.162 In 1974, the Tetzlaff family competed with British, American, Japanese, Polish and Israeli feature films.163 ARD executives made no attempt to use the sitcom as a scheduling weapon against the ZDF. Judging by its ability to sustain ratings of over 50 per cent in a late evening slot, and by the intensity of media coverage, the sitcom’s peak period lasted from New Year’s Eve 1973 to late November 1974.164 When the programme was withdrawn that month, it was still at its peak. One would expect the high ratings to have been an incentive to hold on to the series. But West German broadcasters ‘rejected’ and ‘disrespected’ ratings, a pollster reported in 1976.165 Whereas there was some rivalry between the two nationwide services, the ARD refused to enter into a competition by numbers, purposefully omitting ratings for any of its successful shows in its yearbooks. Indeed, by 1969 the ZDF, slightly more open to entertainment, had overtaken the ARD in popularity. It was only in 1974 – the ‘Alfred year’ – that the ARD bounced back.166 During its peak, the series triggered an unusual amount of discussion in families and peer groups. Infratest data confirm that the average episode motivated 45 per cent of viewers to talk about it (other shows rated 34 per cent).167 Watching Ekel Alfred was largely a collective experience. More than half of respondents reported that their friends and peers reminded them to tune in. Thirty-eight per cent of viewers specifically met up with friends and colleagues to see the show. Another 50 per cent watched it together with their spouse and 17 per cent with their children. After the broadcast, 50 per cent confirmed they had ‘follow-up discussions to a considerable extent, for example at work’. Forty-four per cent were found to converse about the programme directly after the transmission, 50 per cent did so ‘in the days thereafter’ and 20 per cent even later. Only one in six did not chat about it at all. Every fourth viewer attested a clear dislike of the show but still watched it, ‘to be able to join the conversation’. Some confessed they simply wanted to be able to argue with their coworkers: ‘If my colleagues say, wow that was smashing, I’ll say, how can you find it smashing to have the chancellor

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insulted in such a way?’168 Between 10 and 15 per cent of viewers ‘opposed the series and still consistently kept tuning in’, probably because – as producer Märthesheimer assumed – they enjoyed venting their anger.169 But for most, the act of watching brought up positive feelings. When observed in front of the screen, eight out of ten subjects ‘spontaneously displayed positive attitudes to the programme … often attempting to contact the stranger sitting next to them in order to make sure they found it just as funny’.170 Ekel Alfred classified as Pflichtsehen (compulsory viewing); there was considerable social pressure not to be left out. Three women from Düsseldorf reported that ‘the day before the show, in our firm a circulation slip goes through all offices and departments, reminding us of the programme’.171 Letters to the broadcaster frequently came from entire peer groups or families. They were signed ‘on behalf of 43 colleagues’ or ‘in the name of the entire family’. ‘We – about 45 people – are enthralled’, they read. Or: ‘On Alfred Mondays, in our administrative office with 60 people, there is only one way to say good-bye. One says: “I urgently need to get home, Alfred is coming.”’172 When a shop selling electrical appliances screened a video recording of a recent episode, hundreds of people gathered on Cologne’s high street, laughing.173 While the show was viewed and discussed across all social groups, there were telling differences. Women talked about the sitcom more than men (47 to 42 per cent), the under-thirties more than the over-fifties (49 to 43 per cent) and skilled workers more than educated elites and the unskilled (53, 42 and 32 per cent, respectively).174 The makeup of the audience was broadly similar to the general population, with men and women splitting almost evenly. In terms of age cohorts, the young (under thirty) were slightly underrepresented, the old (fifty and older) clearly overrepresented. There was also a bias towards the uneducated and away from the educated elites. On some occasions, the show attracted an atypically structured audience: on New Year’s Eve, when young people were partying and the elderly dominated, and on Shrove Monday (25 February 1974), the day on which the Rhenish carnival culminated and the viewership was younger and more female. Clearly, the more audiences were skewed towards men and the over-fifties, the higher appreciation ratings rose (table 3.1). An April 1974 survey confirms that the sitcom appealed particularly to men, the elderly, the uneducated and the working class. Fifty-six per cent of men liked it ‘very well’ or ‘well’, compared to 48 per cent of women. Fiftyeight per cent of viewers aged 65 and above liked it, as opposed to 52 per cent of 16- to 29-year-olds. While 58 per cent of workers appreciated Ekel Alfred, the same was true for ‘only’ 45 per cent of white-collar employees and 46 per cent of housewives.175 The show scored the highest marks with those who had left school without any qualifications.176 Contemporary sociologists

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Table 3.1. WDR audience research data on Ein Herz und eine Seele Response Alfred episodes

Social breakdown

Educational breakdown

Rating Appreciation Discussed Men Women 14–29 30–49 50- Basic Vocational Index years years plus years 31.12.1973, 37 4,1 46 49 51 14 37 49 29 50 10.05 P.M. 28.1.1974, 63 3,8 40 50 50 23 32 45 24 59 9 P.M. 25.2.1974, 49 3,4 51 41 59 30 34 36 23 52 8.15 P.M. 18.3.1974, 61 3,6 33 23 36 41 24 54 9 P.M. 9.9.1974, 60 3,5 33 45 55 21 36 43 28 52 9.05 P.M. All ARD 34 47 53 28 35 37 24 53 broadcasts (average)

Higher 21 17 25 22 20 23

Note: The educational categories refer to ‘Elementary school (Volksschule) without vocational education or apprenticeship’, ‘Elementary school (Volksschule) with vocational education or apprenticeship’ and ‘Secondary school (Mittelschule) up to university’. Sources: Report by Klaus von Bismarck, 29 May 1974, 1; Magnus, ‘Kurzbericht Ein Herz und eine Seele’, 1 (both WDR HF1). Infratest/ infratam report, 9 September 1974, WDR 8581.

suggested that these differences were mainly due to the extent with which roughness and vulgarity were accepted in different social groups.177 One Heart and One Soul also reached children and villagers. The series was watched by about one-sixth of all children, despite its 9.00 P.M. placement.178 And whereas we do not have geographically refined data, we know that by the early 1970s television thoroughly permeated rural areas.179 If Ekel Alfred roused emotions during his prime, he lived on for decades afterwards. There were no spin-offs – it took West German broadcasters almost twenty years to come up with indigenous situation comedies and until 2001 to launch the first ‘ethnocomedy’ playing on racial relations.180 The WDR allowed very little marketing of the hit series and only offered reruns in the 1990s. A limited number of episodes were available as printed scripts or audio versions.181 In the meantime, ritualisation changed the ways in which viewers were using the show. The regional channels began to repeat a few selected episodes every year on public holidays. It was mainly the annual screening of the New Year’s Eve instalment (in which Alfred gets extremely drunk) through which the sitcom became a fixture in people’s diaries. Later, the carnival-themed episode began to be shown annually on Shrove Monday, and the day of German unity saw regular reruns of Alfred’s welcome to ‘visitors from the Eastern zone’.182 More than half of today’s fans were born after 1970 and consequently know the series mainly as a New

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Year’s Eve ritual. ‘Yesterday I saw the episode three times… . It’s a New Year’s Eve tradition for me’ (Sarah, born 1991). ‘Alfred has to be part of New Year’s Eve, otherwise the party won’t take off’ (‘Dusselige Kuh’, born 1978). ‘It is part of the standard routine on New Year’s Eve’ (Cordula, born 1968). ‘We know the entire text by heart. On New Year’s Eve, Alfred is compulsory’ (Charlotte, born 1947).183 In 1997, the Tetzlaffs experienced an unlikely comeback. A prime-time rerun of twenty-one episodes beat the entire commercial competition. ‘Super ratings for TV oldie! The myth lives!’ declared the tabloid Express. The Süddeutsche Zeitung spoke of an ‘Ekel Alfred renaissance’, the Neue Rhein-Zeitung of ‘a cult series’.184 The programme entered ‘an eternal loop of repeats on all third channels’, serving the public ‘addiction’ to the Tetzlaffs.185 Several spin-offs and copies were spawned during the 1990s, but none as successful as the original. The most remarkable one was Motzki (WDR/ NDR, 1993), again written by Wolfgang Menge. It transplanted the revolting philistine into postreunification Berlin. Lead character Friedhelm Motzki was a know-it-all ‘Wessi’ who despised and insulted the new Eastern citizens. Motzki sparked a lively controversy, and one of the Eastern broadcasters countered it with Trotzki (MDR, 1993), where an ‘Ossi’ mocked the ‘Wessis’.186 These spin-offs ensured that by the mid-1990s, Alfred was just as famous in the Eastern as in the Western part of the Federal Republic. Actress Wiedemann reported ‘still being greeted as Else Tetzlaff, by people well under 30’.187 The marketing of the series also intensified: DVDs and audio CDs entered the market and a book for fans was published. Theatres across Germany still stage plays based on the sitcom.188 Thirty years after he shot to stardom, Alfred more than ever enjoys the status of a national symbol.

Comparison The sitcoms with the racist antihero took full advantage of the conditions of the era of limited choice. Television saturated societies to a level of more than 93 per cent in all three countries, and channels provided catchall programming instead of targeting specific audiences. As shows designed for all of the family, the three series consistently achieved market shares between 50 and 70 per cent. They thus marked an all-time high of audiences reached. (Although hits during TV’s first decade occasionally recorded 80 or 90 per cent shares, they drew a smaller total audience, as fewer people owned sets.) With the series peaking over comparatively long periods – five years in the United States, one and a half years in Britain and one year in West Germany – its episodes became obligatory viewing if one wanted to share in everyday discussions. Virtually everyone, including children, knew the format. True

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nonviewers were hard to find, and even those who did not like it tuned in so as not to be marginalised. There was only one exception to the rule, and that was the Spanish-speaking audience in the United States, which was prevented by language barriers from joining in the craze. Both in Britain and West Germany, the programme was talked about to an unusual extent; for the American case, we have no firm data, but all indicators point in this direction. These ‘relevant’ sitcoms were popular across all social strata, including groups that historically had been slow to embrace social change, such as housewives, children and villagers. The international comparison shows some striking similarities. The programmes were most popular with the working classes and the unskilled, and least with the educated elites. They were avidly watched by both men and women – though the British and West German shows appealed more to men and the American ones more to women. Another slight difference appears in regard to age. Whereas the British and American audiences were particularly young, with high numbers of children and teenagers, the West German audience was comparatively old. This was entirely due to the German show being broadcast after 9.00 P.M. Scheduling certainly was a crucial ingredient in making a blockbuster. Still, the audience was more determined and more media-savvy than scheduling wizards thought. First, after viewers had become familiar with it, an exceptionally successful show could survive less promising placements for about a year. All in the Family held on to number one during 1975–76 in a 9.00 P.M. slot. Till Death Us Do Part did exceptionally well in 1972 between 9.00 and 10.00 P.M., and Ekel Alfred developed into a blockbuster despite being moved from 8.00 to 9.00 P.M. after going nationwide. Second, the British case demonstrates that viewers indeed switched channels, and did so very fast – even without a remote control. Third, West German audiences went to great lengths to outfox the entertainment-hostile broadcasting system of their country. They checked regional and East German offerings, sought out insider tips by word of mouth and managed to force broadcasters to eventually free One Heart and One Soul from the ghetto of the third channel. They even postponed bedtime if there was something to laugh about on television. Indeed, the German case demonstrates the peculiarities of a broadcasting system almost fully emancipated from the impact of ratings. Not surprisingly, ratings called the shots in the United States, were influential in the British dual system and were at best a decorative accessory in the West German industry. The three comedies became long-term successes. In Britain and West Germany, broadcasters revived the format after a few years and allowed sequels or prime-time repeats even after decades. In the United States, where spin-offs and sequels lasted until the mid-1980s, daytime reruns have proved enormously popular for thirty-five years now. The popularity

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of the sitcoms endured while the controversies they ignited died down. Today’s viewers would be surprised to learn that the series’ peak period was ended by broadcasters’ decisions to withdraw the show (Britain and West Germany) or shift it to a later evening time slot (United States). These interventions by broadcasting executives were responses to fierce public debates, led by the educated elites, about the programme’s impact on youth and other viewers deemed to be morally vulnerable. It is these debates to which I turn next.

Notes   1. The era of limited choice only partly overlaps with Ellis’s ‘era of scarcity’, which lasted from TV’s beginnings ‘for most countries until the late 1970s or early 1980s’, with ‘a few channels broadcasting for part of the day only’. Ellis, Seeing Things, 39, 46.  2. Sunday Times, 15 December 1968.  3. Weltwoche 19, 8 May 1974, WDR, 8581.   4. Repeats are often overlooked in media scholarship, but see Kompare, Rerun Nation.  5. The TV Guide for the fortnight 20 June–3 July 2011 lists fifty-eight episodes on the channel ‘TV land’.  6. Express 199, 28 August 1997.  7. TV Guide, 24 June 1978, 2–13; Beville, Audience; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, chap. 3.  8. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 53; Meehan, ‘Ratings’.  9. Ellis, Seeing Things, 49. 10. See chap. 7. 11. Such as the transcribed group discussions conducted for the West German survey by the Institut für Empirische Psychologie (WDR, 8580). 12. Pooley, ‘Fifteen Pages’, 143 (referring to Lazarsfeld and associates). 13. I used Milton Rokeach’s papers and corresponded with Howard F. Stein, John D. Leckenby, John C. Brigham, Timothy P. Meyer, Harold de Bock, G. Cleveland Wilhoit and Neil Vidmar. 14. ITV was made up of several franchise holders, such as Granada, Associated Television, ABC Television, Yorkshire Television and London Weekend Television. Crisell, Introductory History, 91, 130–31; see also Johnson and Turnock, ITV Cultures. 15. Numbers from 1966. BBC-2 was introduced in 1964, as was the 625-line standard. Crisell, Introductory History, 120; Silvey, Who’s Listening?, 187, 203. 16. Data for 1972 and 1966–72 in Silvey, Who’s Listening?, 207, 204. 17. In 1963, quoted in Briggs, Competition, 406–7. 18. Bill Cotton interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 25. 19. Goodhardt, Ehrenberg and Collins, Television Audience, 136–37; records at BFI, London. 20. See audience research reports for 1965–75 (WAC, VR series).

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21. In 1972, only the show Morecambe and Wise was on par with Till Death. See BBC Handbook, 1968, 44; 1969, 50–51; 1974, 51; 1973, 46. See also notes for production meeting, 28 November 1968, WAC, T12/1321/1. 22. Based on weekly AGB/JICTAR top twenty rankings from March 1973 to February 1975 in the British industry magazine Broadcast. The series Coronation Street usually pulled in around seven million. 23. WAC, VR66/412, VR65/397 (pilot episode). 24. WAC, VR66/719, VR66/412; see also VR72/532. 25. WAC, VR67/82. 26. WAC, VR66/412. 27. BBC audience reports, WAC, VR65/397, VR66/412, VR66/719, VR67/82, VR67/136, VR67/207, VR68/12, VR72/532, VR72/630, VR72/754, VR74/11, VR74/146, VR75/12, VR75/41, VR75/99, VR75/633, VR75/705. Viewers rated their pleasure in watching on a five-point scale from A+ to C– (or, from October 1972 to January 1974, from ‘very funny’ to ‘thoroughly unfunny’). 28. Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 81. 29. Quoted in Burns, BBC, 59. 30. See audience research reports WAC, VR66/412, VR67/136, VR68/12, VR72/532, VR72/754; cf. VR67/82; Daily Express, 14 January 1967. For 1967 ratings, see BBC Handbook, 1968, 44; 1969, 50–51. For ITV counterprogramming, see TAM records, BFI. 31. Goodhardt, Ehrenberg and Collins, Television Audience, 2. 32. TAM ratings, week ending 12 February 1967, BFI. 33. TAM ratings for twelve regions, 6 February 1967 and 5 January 1968, BFI. 34. People watched about 10 per cent more television in winter than in summer. See Mullan, Consuming Television, 14; BBC Handbook, 1966, 40; Goodhardt, Ehrenberg and Collins, Television Audience, 75. 35. Radio Times 171/2221, 2 June 1966, 21; 171/2224, 23 June 1966, 19; 172/2232, 18 August 1966, advertising the repeat of ‘the most explosive series of the year’. 36. Letter by J.S. Donaldson, February 1968, WAC, T12/1321/1. 37. Schedules in Radio Times and Times for 28 July 1966, 8 September 1966, 6 February 1967, 27 February 1967. 38. For the watershed, see BBC Handbook, 1962, 32; Mullan, Consuming Television, 154–55. Schedules in Radio Times 171/2221, 171/2224, 172/2227, 172/2229, 172/2232, 172/2233, 172/2236. 39. BBC Handbook, 1961, 133–34; see also 1966, 27–29, for ITV’s ‘very clear lead’ among children audiences. 40. BBC Uplands Management Conference, Syndicate A report, 9 June 1967, WAC, R123/25/1, 3. 41. Minutes, 16 January 1967, WAC, R2/20/1, 3–4. 42. Main Wilson to Head of Light Entertainment (Television), 19 June 1967, WAC, T12/1321/1. 43. Daily Mirror, 4 January 1967, 3; Daily Mail, 4 January 1967; Evening News, 3 January 1967, 6. 44. Evening News, 3 January 1967, 6; Daily Express, 14 January 1967.

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45. ‘Viewing Report VR/73/175 Till Death Us Do Part as Anti-Prejudice Propaganda’, March 1973 (hereafter cited as ‘BBC study’), WAC, R9/757/1, 2–4, 41. 46. Ibid., 42. 47. Morley, Family Television, 148–49; Mullan, Consuming Television, 17. 48. Its regular audience was made up of 17 per cent under-20-year-olds, 49 per cent 20- to 44-year olds, 13 per cent 45- to 54-year olds and 19 per cent over54-year-olds. Of the nonviewers, 24 per cent were over fifty-four and only 9 per cent under twenty years old. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 42. 49. Regular viewers split 42 per cent Labour, 38 per cent Conservatives and 9 per cent Liberals; nonviewers split 26, 43 and 11 per cent, respectively. Ibid. 50. Haralovich and Rabinovitz, ‘Introduction’, 4; BBC Handbook, 1966, 27–28. 51. TAM ratings for 6 February 1967 and 5 January 1968, London area, BFI. 52. TAM ratings for 6 February 1967 and 5 January 1968, BFI. 53. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 42. 54. BBC Handbook, 1966, 27–29; Mullan, Consuming Television, 156 (quotation), 167–68; Morley, Family Television. 55. See chaps. 4, 7. 56. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 4. 57. Sir Thomas Monnington, quoted in Guardian, 13 February 1969, 5. 58. Sunday Times, 15 January 1967; Morning Star, 9 July 1966. 59. Graham Stanford, quoted in WOW, 18 February 1968; Ken Johns, quoted in Photoplay, November 1968. 60. Speight published his Scripts with Pan paperbacks in 1969 and Woburn Press in 1973, his Thoughts of Chairman Alf with Robson in 1973 and Macmillan/Boxtree in 1998 and his Garnett Chronicles with Robson and Futura in 1986. 61. He started a trend of making successful sitcoms into films; see Mather, Tears, 76. 62. See chap. 7. 63. The Television Enterprises Department of the BBC, founded in 1960, had no such reservations about marketing another wildly popular series, Dr Who. BBC Handbook, 1966, 38–39. 64. Produced by Pye Records between 1967 and 1973, WAC, R125/36/1. 65. The tagline was ‘You can taste the trouble they take.’ See www.youtube.com/ watch?v=LBTipAqCMxI (accessed 20 October 2009). 66. Set ownership stood at 96 per cent in 1970 and 98 per cent in 1979. ‘Nielsen Annual Report’, 1971, 3, 5; 1980, 3. 67. ‘Nielsen Annual Report’, 1980, 6; see also TV Guide, 12 May 1979, 10; MacDonald, One Nation, 223. 68. Newton Minow quoted in MacDonald, One Nation, 158. 69. Ibid., 151, see also 200. 70. Huge cities such as Los Angeles and New York had up to seven outlets. MacDonald, Blacks, xviii. 71. ‘Nielsen Annual Report’, 1972, 4. 72. MacDonald, One Nation, 200.

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73. Twenty per cent lived outside the range of its signal, and 34 per cent had never watched it. Those watching PBS did so for an average of four hours weekly. TV Guide, 12 May 1979, 12. 74. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 47–48. 75. Instead of the sample families mailing a metre of tape to Nielsen headquarters each week, with 8 to 17 per cent failing to deliver readable tapes, now ‘audimeters’ in each of the twelve hundred homes electronically recorded channel hopping every thirty seconds. TV Guide, 16 June 1973, 6–10. 76. Metz, CBS, 323–24. 77. Klapper, ‘Paper Delivered’, 19; ‘Nielsen Annual Report’, 1971, 5. 78. New York Times, 25 May 1971, 79; Rosenbloom, quoted in Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 21–22; Adler, ‘Introduction’, xxvi–xxvii; see also MacDonald, Blacks, 187. 79. New York Times, 12 March 1972, SM32. 80. New York Times, 25 May 1971, 79; Wright, ‘Criticism’, 66. 81. TV Guide, 29 May 1971, cover, 28–34; TV Guide, 27 February 1971, 18, see also 1. 82. Washington Post, 7 May 1972, TC5; 8 June 1975, 189. 83. In 1973–74: McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 6–7. 84. Ibid., 357. 85. From 1972 to 1975, with prices going up from $82,400 to $119,400. TV Guide, 27 May 1978, 4. 86. See MacDonald, Blacks, 187; TV Guide, 24 June 1978, 13; quotation: TV Guide, 6 January 1979, 14, 16. 87. All times given are Eastern Standard Time (EST). Wright, ‘Criticism’, 54–5, 60 (quotation: 54); Lear, quoted in TV Guide, 29 May 1971, 30, cf. 28. 88. Fred Silverman, quoted in Washington Post, 19 December 1971, 193; Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 5–6. 89. New York Times, 7 September 1975, 232. 90. New York Times, 9 January 1975, 72. 91. In 1971, the predicted ‘sure winners’ Partners (NBC) and Getting Together (ABC) were cancelled. Washington Post, 19 December 1971, 193. 92. TV Guide, 25 September 1976, 8; 13 November 1976, A3; 18 December 1976, 16. 93. See chap. 5. Cf. Los Angeles Times, 5 June 1975, G1. 94. Paley, As It Happened, 267–68. 95. Steve Mills, program production vice president, quoted in TV Guide, 12 November 1977, 29–30. 96. Los Angeles Times, 16 November 1977, G1; see also TV Guide, 30 September 1978, 36. 97. TV Guide, 30 September 1978, 36. 98. Wall Street Journal, 18 February 1977, 8; Los Angeles Times, 16 November 1977, G1. 99. Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 107–9. 100. TV Guide, 12 November 1977, 28–29. 101. Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 40.

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102. In 1972: Stein, ‘Dynamics’, 89–90. 103. In 1974: Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 66. 104. Leckenby, ‘TV Characters’, 242. 105. Leckenby and Surlin, ‘Social Learning’, 487. 106. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 67. 107. Nielsen report for eight weeks ending 25 February 1973, quoted in ibid., 40. 108. CBS report from December 1973, quoted in ibid., 23, 66; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1976, xix. 109. Wright, ‘Criticism’, 71. 110. Wilhoit and de Bock, ‘“All in the Family”’, 79. 111. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 57. 112. Ibid., 59; see also Metz, CBS, 323. 113. Fred Silverman AATV interview, pt. 4. 114. Knilli, ‘Die Serie’, 154–57. 115. ‘Nielsen Annual Reports’, 1973–80. 116. For 1968–78: ‘Nielsen Annual Report’, 1979, 4. 117. Silverman AATV interview, pt. 4. 118. New York Times, 25 May 1971, 79; New York Times, 12 March 1972, SM32. 119. ‘Nielsen Annual Report’, 1975, 14–15. 120. In 1972: Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 39–40. 121. Klapper, ‘Paper Delivered’, 6. 122. In 1973: Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 40. 123. Leckenby and Surlin, ‘Social Learning’, 490; MacDonald, One Nation, 250– 51. 124. Data for fall 1977 and 1978 and January to March 1978 and 1979. Nielsen, ‘The Spanish American Market’. 125. MacDonald, One Nation, 170; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1973, xiii. 126. ‘Nielsen Annual Reports’, 1971–80; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 57–58; see also Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 66. 127. ‘Nielsen Annual Reports’, 1974, 18; cf. 1976, 18. 128. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 67. 129. Meyer, ‘Impact’, 23; cf. New York Times, 7 December 1975, 169. 130. ‘Nielsen Annual Reports’, 1972–75. 131. ‘Nielsen Annual Reports’, 1971–80, especially 1971, 14; 1979, 11. 132. Daily reruns at 3.00 P.M. EST on CBS were often number one in the 1977 daytime Nielsen ratings. TV Guide, 12 November 1977, 30. 133. TV Guide, 3 September 1983, 36. 134. On thirty channels, the show was placed in ‘prime access’ time (the half hour before prime time), and on another twenty-eight in weekday ‘early fringe’ slots after 5.00 P.M. Sometimes it transmitted on Sunday morning or early Saturday evenings. Nielsen, ‘Report on Syndicated Program Audiences’, 21, R54, 21–25. 135. TV Guide, 3 September 1983, 36. 136. CNN Evening News, 16 December 1995, 10 July 1996, 1 January 1997, 5 January 1998, Vanderbilt TV news archive.

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137. A third of Dutch viewers talked about All in the Family after screenings, with a quarter of these engaging in ‘serious discussion about some aspect of the show’. Wilhoit and de Bock, Archie Bunker, 19. 138. Quoted in TV Guide, 3 September 1983, 33–34; Norman Lear AATV interview, pt. 9. 139. Ross and West, Writing. 140. Author’s email survey (see chap. 5): E.L., Rhode Island (born 1949); H.E. (no personal details given). 141. See chap. 5. 142. One hour and fifty-three minutes by 1970, two hours and five minutes by 1974: Faulstich, ‘Fernsehgeschichte’, 235; Hickethier, ‘Einschalten’, 280, 268, 277–78. 143. The ZDF depended to a higher extent on advertising revenues than the ARD. There were commercials, but only for up to twenty-five minutes on weekdays between 6.00 and 8.00 P.M. See Erlinger and Foltin, Geschichte. 144. Meyen, Einschalten, 54, 115–16. 145. Hickethier, ‘Einschalten’, 272, 274. 146. Der Spiegel 30, 22 July 1974, WDR, 8581. 147. Katz et al., Am Puls, 46–47; Funk-Korrespondenz 45, 5 November 1970, 11a. 148. Folder ‘Programmaustausch’, WDR, 8574. 149. Märthesheimer, in de Haas et al. (dirs), Requiem für ein Ekel. 150. Survey for the WDR, conducted by Institut für Empirische Psychologie (IFEP), 30. 151. Draft for New York Times article (April 1974), WDR, 8578, 1. The 39 per cent rating is verified in a report by WDR’s CEO Bismarck, 29 May 1974, WDR, HF1, 5. 152. Der Spiegel 30, 22 July 1974, WDR, 8581; see also Faulstich, ‘Fernsehgeschichte’, 222. 153. Infratest ratings in WDR, 8579; WDR, 8577; WDR, HF1 (report by Bismarck, 29 May 1974, 1); WDR, UF1; WDR, UF2; see also WDR, 8575 (letter by Panzer, 27 October 1975); IFEP survey, 5; Weltwoche, 8 May 1974. Only on New Year’s Eve 1973 was take-up lower (37 per cent). 154. Thirty-four per cent of viewers already knew the comedy from the third channel. IFEP survey, 30–31. 155. Dpa (Deutsche Presseagentur) wire service report, 5 November 1974, WDR, 8581. 156. The quiz show Was bin ich? and the detective shows Der Kommissar and Tatort topped the list. Faulstich, ‘Fernsehgeschichte’, 226–28, 231. 157. Ibid., 223. For the watershed, see Head of Programmausschuss Hoyzer to board members, 5 December 1973, DRAP, PA1. 158. Hickethier, ‘Einschalten’, 278; Meyen, Einschalten, 63. 159. In 1974, 17.2 per cent of households, no age range given: IFEP survey, 38. 160. Weltwoche, 8 May 1974. 161. Faulstich, ‘Fernsehgeschichte’, 224–25. 162. It ran against Panorama, Report and Monitor on the ARD and science documentaries on the ZDF (Querschnitt, Aus Forschung und Technik, Gesundheitsmagazin Praxis). Hör zu!, 15 January 1973 to 31 December 1973.

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163. Hör zu!, 28 January 1974, 18 March 1974, 17 June 1974, 15 July 1974, 12 August 1974. Occasionally, a theatre play or opera was counterprogrammed (13 April 1974, 9 September 1974). 164. When the series was revived for four final episodes in July 1976, its average ratings were about 5 per cent lower than before and it was not discussed as widely. WDR, UF1. 165. Hansjörg Bessler, ‘Das Programm am Gängelband der Demoskopen?’, DRAP, PA3, 4. 166. Faulstich, ‘Fernsehgeschichte’, 217, 223. 167. Uwe Magnus, ‘Kurzbericht Ein Herz und eine Seele’, n.d. [April 1974], WDR, HF1, 1–3. 168. Only a sixth watched on their own. IFEP survey, 5, 36–39, 77. 169. Quoted in de Haas et al. (dirs), Requiem für ein Ekel. 170. Hammer, Vogt and Weh, Kommunikation, 93. 171. Weltwoche, 8 May 1974, WDR, 8581. 172. Märthesheimer to Heim, quoting from viewers’ letters, 29 March 1973, WDR, 8576. 173. Kölnische Rundschau, 30 January 1974, WDR, 8581. 174. Magnus, ‘Kurzbericht Ein Herz und eine Seele’, WDR, HF1, 4. 175. IFEP survey, 6, 41, 43, 45. 176. Those with basic education rated the show 4.1 on a 5-point scale, and those with higher education rated it 3.6 (overall average 3.7). Magnus, ‘Kurzbericht Ein Herz und eine Seele’, WDR, HF1, 4. 177. IFEP survey, 46. 178. Telequick, 5 July 1976, WDR, UF1: 16 per cent. 179. Hickethier, ‘Einschalten’, 253, 270. 180. Katz et al., Am Puls, 244; Holzer, Sitcom, 86; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 4 October 2002; Keding and Struppert, Ethno-Comedy, 11–14. 181. EMI Electrola sold one LP with several episodes (see Menge, Korrespondenz 1973– 74, DK, 4.3.-199605, 7; Funk-Korrespondenz, 2 October 1974). The publishers Lübbe, Suhrkamp and Rowohlt competed for the rights to the paperbacks; Rowohlt won (see Menge, Korrespondenz 1973–74, DK, 4.3.-199605, 7). In 1975 Menge also wrote a theatre play, Der tote Otto, which toured West Germany (DK, 4.4.-199605, 1, 8; Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 18 October 1975). 182. The New Year’s Eve programme drew 1.95 million viewers in 2003: Der Spiegel 2, 5 January 2004, 82. 183. Online fan forum at www.wunschliste.de/2329/forum/0/ (accessed 11 May 2009). Of the seventy fans giving birthdates and names, two-thirds were male; twelve referred to New Year’s Eve. 184. The episodes drew five to six million on Thursdays at 8.15 P.M. Express, 11 May 1997, 28 August 1997; Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 May 1997; see also Neue Rhein Zeitung, 22 February 1997; Aachener Zeitung, 19 December 1998; Die Welt, 13 May 1997. In 1991, there was a regional rerun on NDR: Die Tageszeitung, 16 March 1991. 185. Express, 12 March 1998. 186. Other spin-offs include Ekel Arnold and Familie Heinz Becker. Habel, Ekel Alfred, 182–89, 198–203.

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187. Express, 11 May 1997; see also Aachener Zeitung, 19 December 1998. 188. Habel, Ekel Alfred. DAV published CDs (2007) and DVDs (2005). Recent theatre adaptations in Münster (Boulevard-Theater, 2008, 2009), Essen (Theater im Rathaus, 2012), Düsseldorf (Komödie, 2012), Duisburg (Die Säule, 2011–12), Bremen (Theaterschiff, 2011), Wuppertal (Langerfelder inTakt, 2010), Ulm (Ulmer Theater, 2009) and Leer (Landesbühne Nord, 2011).

4

Alf Garnett and the British Lifestyle Revolution Television entertainment became a battleground in which boundaries were pushed, levels of acceptability tested and raging controversies fought. At the core of these battles were new attitudes towards gender, sexuality, class, religion, race and politics that were advancing throughout Western industrialised nations. This happened at the expense of traditional models of authority, family and community. As affluence, mass consumerism and secularisation1 progressed, lifestyles became more individual and more hedonistic, and popular culture confronted ‘highbrow’ elitism. In all three countries, the 1960s and 1970s saw the rapid advance of female emancipation and the sexual revolution, though some limitations remained and a backlash was gathering pace. The process of value change in Britain, North America and West Germany displays broad similarities but also considerable differences – which have to be kept in mind for our comparison of television’s social impact. The following three chapters explore how Alf, Archie and Alfred were involved in contentious debates about sexual mores, gender roles, religious values and the (class-related) issues of vulgarity and ‘bad language’. They employ the concepts of standing, framing and agenda setting, drawing on a wide array of sources. Parliamentary debates, the press and academic discourses were screened to determine the sitcoms’ standing – the extent to which contemporary opinion makers believed in the shows’ impact. A multitude of viewers’ responses2 was consulted to investigate how private and public speakers used the programme as a framing script, borrowing its topoi and narrative elements for their own interventions and thus saturating everyday language with expressions taken from television. Additionally,

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agenda setting asks about the extent to which the series was able to propel particular topics to the forefront of public and political discussion, and about the role of producers, censors and moral or religious associations in the process. I will investigate the sitcoms’ role in the development of social change country by country, starting with the British case of Till Death Us Do Part and ending with an international comparison in chapter 6.

Standing In Britain, within a year of its launch in 1966, the Alf Garnett comedy became widely understood as a symbol of the sixties conflicts. The show had such standing that celebrities queued up to watch the recordings3 and the newspapers were full of stories about its production and reception.4 Alf was a favourite of the cartoonists of the big tabloids Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and the Sun, and of the Sunday papers News of the World and Sunday Express.5 The series’ star, author and producer were showered with prizes and awards.6 Tony Booth, who played Mike, remembered: ‘Wherever any of the cast went, a crowd gathered. It was difficult for any of us even to walk down the road. People wanted to talk to us and have us sign old bus tickets and the backs of cigarette packets’. His screen partner, Una Stubbs, spoke of ‘a phenomenon … everybody saw it, absolutely everybody’. Businesses began to pay the actors for television advertising, cutting ribbons, presenting trophies and giving autographs. Booth appeared regularly in this way, for example, opening a new menswear section at a Leeds department store.7 The advertising industry signed Warren Mitchell for a £500,000 series of TV commercials for Findus Fish Fingers and for the Australian airline Qantas.8 ‘Alf ’ was also chosen by the tobacco lobby for the 1967 ‘Pipe Smoker of the Year’ award.9 Even politicians took to Garnett. Prime Minister Harold Wilson was happy to have Mitchell perform as Alf at his last big rally before the June 1970 general election.10 And in the stenographic record of the British Parliament, speakers invoked Alf Garnett no fewer than sixteen times between 1967 and 1969 and eight times between 1972 and 1976.11 In magazines and books, the usage of the term ‘Alf Garnett’ peaked between 1967 and 1970 and again in 1972 when the series returned to television. But even after the show’s demise, references to ‘Alf Garnett’ remained a staple of public discourse.12

Framing Journalists and politicians were not the only ones to use the comedy show as a framing script for their communications. Ordinary viewers, too, drew on

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the show’s characters, catchphrases and tropes in order to negotiate their identities with others. By far the most popular frame was Alf himself. Viewers liked to compare him to their own lives and families. A male viewer mused in January 1968: ‘I’d like the Alf in me was a little less crippled by a conventional upbringing … I have all sorts of strong feelings that I’d like on many occasions to get out with the same force as Alf gets his out … a lot of people are afraid of their Alfs’.13 Most commonly, it was not Alf Garnett within, but Alf Garnett projected onto family members. Husbands, fathers and uncles were ‘Garnettised’ if they embodied the authoritarian, shortfused patriarch. One housewife was reminded by the ‘rather uncouth’ Alf that ‘I had an uncle like him – and kept my distance’.14 Another woman confided that ‘my husband, a very mild man, did an Alf Garnett’ when awoken by a nightly telephone call.15 A show that revolved around diarrhoea had viewers remarking it ‘reflected life as it really was’, with ‘two or three who had themselves recently suffered from Alf ’s “bug” saying that they could well sympathise with him in his predicament’.16 Long-term fans reported that their children or daughters-in-law called them Alf,17 or how their parents acted out Garnett routines at home.18 The press also frequently pointed out how Johnny Speight likened Alf to his own father19 or how Warren Mitchell’s children saw Alf in their father.20 Although viewers knew that the Garnetts were television creatures, they seemed to inhabit a grey zone between fiction and reality. A survey conducted in October 1969 reported that a quarter of respondents believed Alf to be a living person.21 When a newspaper photographer took a picture of the house in East London’s Garnet Street that had served as a façade for the show, ‘a small gang of boys’ gathered and shouted, ‘That’s old Alf – that’s the Garnett house’.22 The fictional Rita and Else received ‘masses of sympathetic messages for living in that horrible Garnett household’.23 Viewers wondered why these ‘impossible’ men, Alf and Mike, ‘weren’t ditched by the women long ago’.24 ‘Furious mums phoned and wrote to the BBC’ after watching Alf take Rita’s baby to a football match and giving him whisky.25 Many enjoyed playing with the Garnetts’ reality status. Wapping residents in particular reported being compared to the TV family from their area.26 The blurring of fiction and reality was encouraged by tabloid headlines, which treated the antihero as a real person (‘Exclusive! Alf Holiday Snaps!’), and by the West Ham football club, which paraded ‘Alf Garnett’ round the ground, in the team colours, before their games.27 Ordinary people embraced Speight’s figure to such an extent that his speech and mannerisms became fashionable. By the third season, ‘Alf had … passed into the culture and the language’ of the land.28 His rambling cockney slang was fun to reenact and easily recognisable.29 Certain expressions became fashionable through the series, such as ‘yer’, ‘yer actual’, ‘yer bloody’ and ‘innit’. The derogatory ‘randy scouse git’ with which Alf belittled his

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Liverpudlian son-in-law was much parroted.30 These terms became popular patterns to weave into personal and press stories. Tabloid headlines about the show invariably threw in a ‘yer’ or ‘yer actual’.31 The programme’s most well-known catchphrase, however, was the insult ‘silly (old) moo’, which Alf used to silence Else. A reporter of the News of the World found ‘deafening proof of the show’s popularity’ when he accompanied the actors to Liverpool’s football grounds, where Mitchell and Booth were to be filmed watching the match against West Ham. When the actors ‘walked round the pitch a crowd of 48,000 cheered and yelled “Silly old moo”’.32 The catchword also conquered school playgrounds. ‘I know that children say “Silly Old Moo” at school’, said 30-year-old Margaret Nolte from Tunbridge Wells, mother to 10-year-old Caroline.33 Derek Belton, a 55-yearold bachelor and headmaster of Sopley Park School in Christchurch (Dorset), forbade pupils to watch Till Death because ‘boys copy what they hear on TV’.34 To this day, the catchphrase, its invention and exact wording remains eagerly debated by fans of the series.35 The ‘silly moo’ even made it into the House of Commons. In March 1968, the prime minister was confronted by feminist MPs who accused him of delaying the appointment of an antidiscrimination board. Referring to Rita and Else, Labour representative Joyce Butler asked Harold Wilson whether he was ‘aware that women are fed up with being exploited as pretty birds when they are young and as “silly moos” when they get older as a substitute for equal human rights now, and that there is need for a board of this kind to which cases of sex discrimination can be referred?’ The prime minister responded evasively that ‘she will know that Mr. Alf Garnett is not a fully paid-up member of the Labour Party’.36 Here, political disagreements over changing gender roles were couched in the language of television. Far from Westminster, too, references to Till Death Us Do Part served to signify the conflict between ‘progressives’ and ‘traditionalists’ during this time of accelerated social change. Divisions between old and young, country folk and urbanites were played out in this way. Consider the following events in the quiet market town of Sandy, Bedfordshire. In early 1967, the newsagent Val Glenn displayed protest posters in his shop, saying ‘We can put up with the antics of Till Death Us Do Part, but we don’t want them to live here’ and ‘What would those “dirty pigs” and “silly old moos” find to do in Sandy?’ With the typical insults that Else and Alf hurled at each other, Glenn campaigned against a plan to settle thousands of Londoners in Sandy. His signs infuriated some of the passersby, specifically younger residents who had recently moved to Sandy. London refugee Denise Lewis, twentythree years old, found the posters ‘disgusting’ and declared that ‘my husband does not call me a “silly old moo”’. In response to complaints, Glenn took down the placards and focussed on a petition instead.37 To the defenders of rural England, the Garnetts symbolised the capital’s assault on tradition,

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with its strife, vulgarity and secular permissiveness. Speight’s comedy embodied all that was wrong with what was called ‘swinging London’ – the trailblazing metropolis of the sixties. If Till Death was ‘a reflection of real life, there was nothing left but suicide’, publicist Malcolm Muggeridge exclaimed at the annual convention of Mary Whitehouse’s Clean Up TV campaign in 1967. He was seconded by Whitehouse herself, who announced ‘a growing revulsion among these [provincial] people, and a desire to disassociate themselves from swinging London’.38 Whitehouse’s organisation prided itself on its rural roots and counted among its most vocal supporters an archbishop, several bishops and many pastors, Conservative politicians and rurally based notables such as earls, lords, chief constables and the headmasters of private schools. Although the campaign purported to be a mass movement from below, in reality it had only seven thousand members by 1968, recruited mainly from ‘the older generation and the provinces’.39 These crusaders on behalf of a Christian Britain identified Speight’s irreverent comedy as a major target. To many urbanites, conversely, the Garnetts represented the enemies of progress. When student unrest flickered up in British cities during 1968 and 1969,40 commentators routinely contrasted the young protesters with ‘the Alf Garnetts’ who stubbornly rejected calls for change. In early 1969, the secretary of state for education, Edward Short, derided students who disrupted lectures as anarchist ‘thugs of the academic world’.41 Fellow MPs disapproved of his efforts ‘to earn the plaudits of the Alf Garnetts of this world by his rather extreme statements’,42 and the Times headline read ‘Pandering to Alf Garnett’.43 The student protesters themselves felt ‘goaded, attacked and persecuted by the so-called guardians of the law to the applause of the Alf Garnetts in the terraces’.44 In a more conciliatory tone, the Guardian argued both ‘the Alf Garnetts and Cohn-Bendits’ should be given opportunity ‘to preach their doctrines and air their prejudices’.45 In this way, television’s blockbuster show lent itself to framing the deep generational and social divisions scarring British society. But was the sitcom’s audience indeed neatly split up into progressive and traditionalist factions? A 1973 survey by the BBC, comparing matched viewers’ and nonviewers’ attitudes, confirmed deep generational rifts. Age was shown to be the most consistent factor in predicting responses, with ‘the elderly … far less likely to react favourably to the daughter and son-in-law than are the young’.46 Alf ’s statement that ‘there are too many long-haired layabouts in this country’ was endorsed by 81 per cent of those fifty-five and over, compared with only 36 per cent of those under thirty-five. His maxim ‘Children shouldn’t answer back’ was approved by 52 per cent of the elderly, versus 25 per cent of the young. ‘What children need most is strict discipline by their parents’ was backed by 96 per cent of those over fifty-five, but only 54 per cent of those under thirty-five. Therefore, generational differences regarding

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parental authority and youth subculture were marked. They were also strong in respect to the importance of religion in people’s lives, with commitment to churches gradually rising in accordance with age. The elderly rated Till Death Us Do Part ‘very vulgar’, ‘very unfunny’, ‘very harmful’, ‘embarrassing’, ‘very disturbing’ and ‘boring’ at least twice as often as the young. Still, a sizeable part of the older audience admitted that the series was ‘thought provoking’ (23 per cent responded yes, 58 per cent were undecided), indicating that their views were open to debate.47 The latter finding suggests that audience reaction was much more complex than expected. The BBC researchers sought to identify two groups in the viewership: the young progressives and the elderly, bigoted traditionalists. They pigeonholed respondents as ‘pro-Alf ’ if they agreed with a significant number of Alf ’s statements, and as ‘anti-Alf ’ if they disagreed. To their bewilderment, the comparison of the two factions did not reveal major differences in age, gender, educational or religious background.48 Moreover, the prediction ‘that those who find Alf reasonable would find the son-in-law unreasonable and vice versa … proved not to be so for most viewers’. More than 80 per cent of those surveyed displayed contradictory opinions by supporting both Alf and Mike. In the end, only 11 per cent clearly belonged to the ‘pro Garnett/anti son-in-law’ camp, and 7 per cent to the ‘anti Alf/pro son-in-law’ group.49 It was these small factions at the extremes of the spectrum that contemporary researchers concentrated their efforts on, as they hoped to prove television-induced shifts in attitude. Astonishingly, the responses by the overwhelming majority went overlooked. About eight out of ten viewers were neither young progressives open to all things modern, nor elderly bigots championing tradition. As they laughed at both Alf and Mike, and supported some progressive ideas while rejecting others, their questionnaires were full of contradictions and therefore largely ignored by audience researchers. But arguably, this middle-of-the-road group is key to investigating television’s contribution to social change. These fence-sitters were in some ways already touched by the sixties cultural revolution, but in other ways still opposed to it. With a large majority of viewers somewhere in the transition to modern attitudes and lifestyles, television could weigh in at a crucial moment. It could reinforce normative shifts that had already begun and buttress new social trends that were about to break through. The following analysis therefore pays particular attention to television’s ability to pioneer or sustain new trends, and to the reaction of the in-between majority to such agenda setting. The issues explored will be vulgarity in language and manners, sexual and gender norms, and secularisation.

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Agenda Setting: Vulgarity When Till Death Us Do Part first entered the scene, vulgarity (and not racism) was by far its most controversial aspect. The early reviews by television critics all pointed out the show’s shock value in this respect. The Sun likened the programme to an exploding ‘stink bomb … I counted my own guffaws. Eighteen’. The respectable Sunday Times found it ‘rougher and wilder than anything that has gone before’. The Morning Star’s critic reported the whole neighbourhood sitting ‘glued to BBC-1’ and greeting ‘all that bad language’ with ‘delighted awe rather than disgusted shock’.50 There was astonishment at the ‘surprising leniency’ of the BBC.51 While the early critics often compared Speight’s sitcom to the last BBC hit, Steptoe and Son,52 they found Till Death groundbreaking in its ‘shattering of taboos’.53 The programme was ‘a shock wave’: ‘no one is neutral’.54 As in the press, the discussion of vulgarity dominated all audience reports. Whereas a disapproving minority complained about the swearing and shouting, most viewers found particular joy precisely in this aspect. ‘Oh, how delightfully vulgar’, enthused an electrical engineer. Other viewers called the dialogue ‘refreshingly natural’, ‘full of rough life and conflict’ and ‘so true to much of ordinary Cockney working-class life’.55 In short, ‘the appeal of the series for its viewers was not that it was exceptionally funny – in that respect, several other comedy shows would top it – but that it was ‘true to life’ and ‘rather vulgar’.56 Audience reports typically contrasted minority criticism with ‘the greater part of the sample’, who clearly were ‘delighted, rather than offended, at the “knocking down” of hallowed institutions’.57 Till Death’s coarseness was widely understood as a stab at Britain’s rigid class hierarchies, at the stuffy establishment of the highborn and privately educated. Therefore, a minority of viewers who identified with the upper and middle classes interpreted the sitcom as an outrageous attack on the social order. They considered the comedy ‘distasteful’ and objected to ‘working-class “slanging matches”’.58 ‘To get a laugh from the riff-raff of the country, religion and royalty have to come into it’, disapproved a housewife.59 Respondents with the highest levels of education consistently judged Till Death to be more vulgar, offensive and harmful, and less funny, true to life and worthwhile to watch than less educated viewers.60 The class-specific nature of audience reaction becomes evident if we look at toilet humour and swearwords. On-screen on 27 February 1967, Alf Garnett was struck by a stomach bug, found his own outside loo blocked and had to sprint to the neighbour’s. In between frantic dashes to the toilet, Alf read and wordily admired Mary Whitehouse’s book, Cleaning Up TV. Clutching his abdomen, he launched into lengthy diatribes about ‘the bloody filth on the BBC’ and how Mary

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‘ought to go on and clean up all the country, get rid of all the dirty foreigners and their dirty diseases’. In the end, Alf ’s family burned the book to a chorus of ‘Unclean, unclean!’ as they feared it was contaminated by diarrhoea germs. Thus, the dialogue ridiculed the self-appointed moral guardian of the nation and her crusade against Till Death Us Do Part.61 This episode was one of the most successful the series ever had. With 37 per cent of the population watching and an all-time high appreciation index of seventy, 30 per cent of viewers rated the show ‘A+’ and a further 36 per cent rated it ‘A’ (on a fivepoint scale from ‘A+’ to ‘C–’). Only one in ten viewers disliked this ‘new low in entertainment’, whereas ‘the great majority responded with enthusiasm’. Viewers defended the episode for daring to mention the unmentionable, and in turn attacked the middle-class dissenters: ‘If the toffee-noses don’t like it, they need not watch’. A works manager stated that ‘the few who dislike it are snobs’.62 Most television critics agreed, speaking of ‘a high point in contemporary proletarian comedy’.63 The opponents of the show objected not only to lavatory humour but also to the swearing in its scripts. Mary Whitehouse worried that ‘bloodies could be picked by the bunch every Monday smack in the middle of Family Viewing Time, with a good chance of a “bitch”, a “dirty devil”, a “git” and a “coon” being thrown in for good measure’. She famously took to counting the number of ‘bloodies’ in each transmitted episode – arriving once at 103, another time at 121.64 In a letter of March 1968, she asked the director general of the BBC to step down because of Till Death Us Do Part: ‘As we hear the chorus of “bloodies” from the infant playground … I often ask myself, Sir Hugh, whether you would rank the establishment of the word “bloody” as common parlance in the English language your greatest single achievement during your period as Director-General?’65 Indeed, the Garnett family gorged on ‘bloodies’. Author Speight insisted on depicting the cockney working-class character as realistically as possible, ‘with warts and all’. This to him meant using bad language, because ‘life today would make a saint swear’.66 As producer Main Wilson explained, with some understatement, ‘all I ever allowed was the word bloody’ because it was ‘logical’ for Alf: ‘When a Cockney uses the word bloody, it usually means that a noun is about to arrive any moment now when he can think of it. It is … lack of being articulate’.67 Still, in late 1967, BBC’s head of comedy Michael Mills advised the producer that the thirty-six-page script of the current episode contained forty-three ‘bloodies’, ‘which I would have thought was a bit much’.68 Dennis Main Wilson and Johnny Speight disregarded this letter69 and also an order to avoid the term ‘crap’ in a June 1966 episode. It stayed in, provoking criticism in the tabloids and alerting BBC chairman Lord Normanbrook, director of television Kenneth Adam and the director general to the ‘disquieting’ fact that the producer had ignored ‘instructions from a superior’.70

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Alf ’s swearing resulted in continuous infighting at the BBC. Producer Main Wilson recalled how the head of the Light Entertainment Group, Tom Sloan, took issue with ‘this foul-mouthed swearing show’, its ‘libellous’ scenes and ‘rude scullery stuff’.71 Sloan saw Johnny Speight as ‘a primitive. He writes as he talks’. Therefore, Sloan admitted to making ‘a few cuts’ in every script because he was ‘very conscious of the borderline, the razor’s edge … that we tread with this programme’.72 Only the backing from above – from director general Hugh Greene and controller of programmes Huw Wheldon – kept the series going. Addressing the adversaries of Till Death and That Was the Week That Was in 1968, Hugh Greene castigated the ‘public upholders of virtue’ who ‘looked back to a largely imaginary golden age’. Greene propagated ‘freely and frankly’ debating conflict instead: the BBC should be ‘widening the limits of discussion and challenging old taboos’.73 To the same effect, Wheldon argued: ‘If swearing, bad taste, the sordid, sexuality … were truly the enemy, there would never have been any Steptoe, or Till Death … . These are our glories, not our Achilles heels’. Wheldon was the in-house censor, charged with keeping programme departments in line. But he was a liberal, striving to allow ‘many discordant voices in the country … to speak their part, in order that between us we can grope our way, which is a painful way, to new forms of belief and behaviour’.74 Thus, the BBC was in itself divided, but for now, the progressives carried the day. Behind these tedious battles to include a few swearwords was a vaguely political agenda: Speight and Main Wilson tested the boundaries of politeness to ridicule high society and snobbery. Dennis Main Wilson abhorred ‘the old fuddy duddy establishment … the wrong guys, running the country, in charge of government, establishment and the BBC … these hidden pseudo academics, pseudo sophisters who crawl up people’s asses and get themselves put in power’.75 Speight harshly criticised the BBC as ‘elitist’ and its programming as ‘a lot of rubbish, completely oblivious to the public … all true middle class’. In his eyes, the ‘class system’ was ‘one of the things which is really wrong with this country’.76 It has been suggested that Till Death Us Do Part was mainly motivated by Speight’s ‘desire to challenge “political correctness” and censorship’ and to make working-class voices ‘heard in corridors of power’.77 To this should be added the intention to attack highbrow culture and class society. Speight’s offensive against the establishment included constant jokes about the Whitehouse camp, royals and politicians. Alf famously maligned the Conservative leader Edward Heath as a ‘grammar school twit’ (furiously, the Conservative Party asked the BBC for the script but then decided against a formal protest).78 The sitcom also used ‘inter-cutting between the House of Garnett and the House of Windsor’, including a dream sequence in which Alf offered the Queen his organs for a transplant – with Whitehouse protesting this ‘insult to the

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Queen’.79 The BBC was much more likely to censor swearwords than such aggression against crowned heads, party bosses and moral absolutists. In contrast, Mary Whitehouse’s National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (NVALA) ‘only objected to the politically subversive use of bad language’, not to swearing as such. Whitehouse defined obscene terms on TV as ‘moral pollution’ and counted them alongside blasphemy and drugs as ‘weapons of revolution’. While Garnett became Whitehouse’s favourite target because he subverted ‘the discourse of the righteous … by the use of bad language’, other BBC sitcoms such as Steptoe and Son got away with even more, and more offensive terms. The key difference was that Steptoe’s swearing reinforced social prejudices and ‘the discourse of power’, whereas Till Death did the opposite. The authoritarian agenda behind the NVALA’s antiswearing crusade was sensed by many contemporaries, who, even if they criticised excessive swearing on TV, refused to associate themselves with the moral panic Whitehouse tried to stir.80 Did Alf Garnett pioneer a freer language, then? Speight argued that Alf ’s idiom simply reflected social reality. ‘It is the language of the street – of the school room – of the football crowd. In fact, by comparison, Garnett’s language is tame.’81 He had a point. By 1914, George Bernard Shaw estimated that the word ‘bloody’ was ‘in common use’ by ‘four-fifths of the English nation’. When BBC producer Olive Shapley interviewed Durham miners for a documentary in the 1930s, she found them ‘trying vainly to form some sort of sentence without resort to’ the terms ‘bloody’ and ‘bugger’. These were ‘not really swear words in the north east, but … woven into the fabric of everyday speech’. And a 1966 survey of working adolescents in London discovered even the girls were saying ‘bloody’ ‘most frequently’.82 Contemporary responses to Alf ’s swearing demonstrate that levels of acceptability were already in flux. Most newspapers justified the sitcom’s use of profanities. The show was ‘vulgar but alive’, mercifully ‘not coating the pill of life with too much TV sugar’.83 The Daily Mirror ridiculed those who rang the BBC to complain, and one headline was a stab at Whitehouse: ‘The silly old moos are on the warpath once again … Carry on Alf, let ’em moo!’84 Obviously, Till Death Us Do Part was not a trailblazer but rather a catalyst, accelerating ongoing changes. Indeed, broadcast, public language changed quickly during those years. What had appeared shockingly daring in 1968 raised hardly an eyebrow by 1975. Now the papers thought Alf had ‘lost most of his power to shock’. Audience research reported many viewers found his language no longer funny because it was ‘not so unusual now on British television’.85 By 1972, the BBC secretary thought the word ‘bloody’ had been ‘undergoing a process of social change, losing for a new generation much of the force’ that it still held for older people. The head of radio drama likewise contended that the term ‘had passed into normal speech’.86 Viewer complaints about Alf ’s speech were now answered with the dry comment

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that ‘language has on the whole become much freer’ – even the Duke of Edinburgh having recently uttered ‘bloody’ in a speech.87

Agenda Setting: Sexual and Gender Norms If language norms were changing rapidly, so were sexual norms. The mid- to late 1960s saw fierce conflicts over sexual morality and have been characterised as ‘the permissive moment’ of British society. Governments now began to deregulate personal lives, realising they were unable to impose a strict moral code.88 Under the progressive home secretary Roy Jenkins, theatre censorship was abolished, abortion and homosexuality decriminalised and divorce made easier. When Jenkins was replaced by the more conservative James Callaghan in November 1967, the opponents of sexual liberation renewed their hopes of turning back the tide. The conflicts were thrown into stark relief by the student protests of the year 1968. They seemed to present society with a choice between ‘a radical rupture or a deepening conservatism and a retreat to more authoritarian positions’.89 Johnny Speight again managed to navigate directly into the eye of the storm. During the show’s peak years, from 1966 to 1968, ‘dramatic shifts in behaviour and attitudes’ towards marriage, illegitimacy, female sexuality and homosexuality were on the horizon but had not yet materialised for the masses. The ‘chaos of unknowing’ persisted, with only one in ten boys and one in five girls having had ‘adequate’ sex education. Homosexuals still feared exposure, and they were widely regarded as ill and requiring medical treatment. Contraception only became available on the National Health Service by 1969. While some observers hysterically decried a ‘sexual crisis’, pointing to increases in illegitimate births and venereal diseases, most young people in fact remained ‘remarkably chaste’ and conformist.90 Any frank discussion of sexual norms on television was likely to stir a moral panic over sexual permissiveness. Of course, the Garnetts showed neither naked flesh nor sexual acts – in contrast to some hugely successful stage and film productions of the time, such as the musical Hair in 1968 and the erotic revue Oh Calcutta! in 1970.91 Mainly, the sitcom ridiculed Alf as the embodiment of square prudishness. It propagated a freer sexuality by inverting and mocking the righteous discourse of an upper-class establishment that allegedly used declarations of high morality in order to subjugate the masses. Thus, the show rushed headlong towards conflict with the Whitehouse camp. A January 1967 instalment on ‘Sex Before Marriage’ had Alf accuse the young couple of premarital sex, which the young ones deny. Once the others are out of earshot, both the old and the young couple admit to having done it. The outwardly prudish, inwardly lecherous Alf rages about a church publication entitled ‘Sex Before Marriage’ and two bishops he had seen ‘on the telly, bold as brass, talking about it … I

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mean, you go talking about things like that on the telly an’ you’re going to encourage it, ain’t yer?’ While the old ones called the young ones ‘randy’, ‘spoilt’ and without ‘shame’, these repaid the favour, calling the elders ‘oldfashioned’ and ‘miserable’.92 The episode drew a strong reaction. Mary Whitehouse immediately sent a protest telegram to the prime minister about the ‘dirty, blasphemous’ content.93 In Dorset, the Reverend Leslie Yorke seethed against ‘script writers who seem to be obsessed with sex, beds, bad language and lavatories’ and ‘bring into our homes the smell of the sewers’. He asked his congregation to write to the BBC, demanding that the show be moved to a late evening hour ‘when ordinary, uncomplicated people are in bed’.94 The area’s Conservative member of parliament, John Cordle, likewise denounced the episode as ‘vulgar, obscene’ and ‘depraved’ and threatened legal prosecution ‘if this sort of filth continues’.95 Actor Warren Mitchell countered in the yellow press, dryly stating it was time the ‘rather silly’ Cordle ‘grew up and faced facts’. He maintained that Speight was ‘a far more moral person than all the clergy who have been protesting so vigorously about the show’ and went on to criticise the British attitude to sex. ‘Sex is the most beautiful and marvellous experience in the world … there is this feeling that somehow sex is wrong and if you do wrong before you’re married you will be punished … there is only one life and you should enjoy it to the full.’96 He was seconded by Johnny Speight, who could not understand what one ‘should be so upset about’: ‘the big problem with most people is not sex before marriage, it is sex after marriage’.97 The Sunday tabloid News of the World was firmly behind Speight, declaring a ‘sex war on the screen’. ‘While upwards of 20,000,000 viewers roared with laughter, a minority fringe of frantic critics savagely attacked the BBC for daring to raise the subject during family viewing time.’98 Indeed, the opponents of the show concentrated on moving the show to a postwatershed slot to protect underage audiences.99 And the BBC took note. In the week that followed the transmission, its Board of Management, weekly programme review meeting and controllers’ meeting deliberated on the series. Director of television Kenneth Adam tried to ‘allay fears about its early placing’ and reported there had been about four hundred letters on ‘the subject matter’ of the episode, ‘including 34 appreciations’. Although Adam recognised ‘some signs of anxiety’ in the meetings, he argued for keeping the programme at 7.30 P.M. All of the BBC meetings criticised the show’s language more than its equally contentious references to sexuality. Adam assured the controllers that Speight’s ‘strong language’ would now be more ‘closely scrutinised’. But he did not warn the production team to stay away from sexual topics.100 Ten days later Johnny Speight confirmed that the BBC was more prepared to tackle sexual taboos than to condone swearing: they ‘never once said: Take that out – don’t talk about sex … the BBC stuck by … subjects which they’d never allow in a comedy show on ITV’.101

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This was only half the story. In reality, the head of Light Entertainment, Tom Sloan, had reprimanded Speight and Main Wilson the morning after the transmission.102 Sloan declared he would ‘never allow this show on the air’ again because ‘now I know what you’re up to … it’s disgusting, it’s evil, it’s nasty’. Later that day, Greene, the director general, sent a telegram (‘wonderful show, keep up the good work, I’m 100 percent behind you’) that stopped Sloan in his tracks. Afterwards, Speight found out ‘that when the show was going out, that Tom Sloan was in the middle of having a row with his daughter on the same subject. She had a boyfriend, and well, they were having sex and they weren’t married … it upset him personally’.103 How representative was Sloan’s reaction? How upsetting a topic was premarital sex for TV audiences at the time? The episode in question became unusually popular, issued as an audio LP (titled Sex and Other Thoughts – Alf Garnett and Family) in 1968 and again in 1973, and as part of a book in 1973.104 By then, sex before marriage was a fact of life. The illegitimacy rate in Britain rose from 5.8 per cent of live births in 1961 to 9 per cent in 1976, and by 1969–70 a third of teenage brides were pregnant.105 The 1973 survey of Till Death audiences corroborated that premarital sex was largely tolerated in society. Only a quarter of all respondents thought that ‘sexual relations between unmarried people should be illegal’, while two-thirds refuted the statement. There was a clear generational divide. More than half of those aged over fifty-four, but only 12 percent of those under thirty-five, condemned sex before marriage. Interestingly, the same respondents reacted somewhat differently when faced with Alf ’s maxim ‘People shouldn’t be allowed to live in sin’. It framed the issue as one of religious morals, not legality. The rates of agreement now sank considerably (to 38 per cent of the over fifty-five group), while the number of undecided shot up from 10 to 22 per cent overall (and 29 per cent of those fifty-five and older). It appears that attitudes to premarital sex were no longer firmly rooted in religious belief.106 Therefore, when Till Death Us Do Part broached the subject, it did not break new ground but rather fostered acceptance of a controversial but widespread social reality. When directing the episode, Main Wilson knew ‘we couldn’t get much of a laugh’ out of the young couple’s confession ‘because it is so normal … certainly my wife and I had sex before marriage’.107 Main Wilson quite enjoyed to ‘make the bloody public listen’ to ‘the sexual hang-ups’ of men ‘terrified of sex’ like Alf – ‘a bit strong for a family comedy show but whee!’108 Speight mused that ‘the people who complain are the ones who aren’t getting enough’ and constructed Alf Garnett as the epitome of the sex-hostile moral entrepreneur. ‘I don’t think he gets his share of sex at all … his wife has never seen him really naked, [they’re] the kind of people who have sex under bedclothes.’109 The idea was to promote the enjoyment of marital sex, including nakedness in intimate situations. Main

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Wilson remembered being ‘brought up this way … my mum always went upstairs to bed first, undressed, got into bed and turned the light off and … she would knock on the door and dad would come upstairs and undress in the dark and get into bed. Otherwise it was rude’.110 Alf Garnett, according to Speight, was meant to be a caricature of this generation, with its guilt complex and ‘all feel and touch, no looks’ sex.111 Speight’s desire to enlighten went beyond nudity: ‘Actually, I would love to be able to do a show with him in bed, having it away with his missus’.112 ‘There are people who still do not know how to copulate, what two things to put together’, he deplored at a 1976 obscenity trial against the porn star and author Linda Lovelace. As a defence witness, Speight argued that her erotic book could ‘help’ such people.113 In fact, historians have painted an ‘utterly desolate’ portrait of heterosexuality in England before the sexual revolution. The repression of women’s and – to a lesser extent – men’s sexuality, ubiquitous from the 1830s to the 1930s, had not been fully lifted by the 1960s. Lack of information, general prudishness and the association of genitals with dirt led to widespread ‘sexual misery’ and most women avoiding sex even with their husbands.114 The 1960s were a period of transition: while sexual liberation was much talked about, it was certainly not yet lived. The main changes to actual sexual behaviour were a more positive attitude towards sex within marriage and an increase in premarital sex, especially outside the middle classes – both furthered by new contraceptive methods.115 Till Death Us Do Part kept to these limitations. It propagated the joys of marital heterosexuality and played with the taboos of premarital sex and the pill. Yet promiscuity, same-sex love, transsexuality or swinging were not mentioned. Speight felt the format would not work ‘if we have a different boyfriend every week’.116 All aspects of female sexuality and bodies were bracketed out. The producer stressed that there was nothing funny ‘about ladies menstruating’117 and complied with an order to significantly shorten a shot of Rita breastfeeding.118 While the comedy celebrated the bodily nature of (male) human experience – warts, diarrhoea, nudity and all – and thus attacked the traditional primacy of reason and soul in accordance with the spirit of the sixties, its outlook remained gendered in an old-fashioned way. Even so, Till Death Us Do Part came up against Whitehouse’s viewer organisation, which denounced all ‘explicit sex and nudity’ on TV. Whitehouse condemned programmes that did not ‘give the idea that a happy home is the general and normal way of life’, but instead ‘suggest that living together, divorce, promiscuity are just as normal’. The association also demanded that television treat ‘chastity … as being normal’ and ‘sexual indulgence’ as abnormal.119 Of course, the Garnetts demonstrated that marriage was the path to misery and the home was an unhappy place. The show also stressed that nudity was normal, and that the sexually active were

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happier than their frustrated counterparts, in accordance with the thenpopular idea of good sex as a marriage-stabilising element.120 To that extent, the sitcom was agenda setting. But its agenda was restricted to heterosexual orthodoxy in several respects. Like most of his contemporaries, Johnny Speight was insensitive to the plight of homosexuals. Just like other mass media of the time, his show acted as ‘magnifier of deviance’ in the way it drew on the traditional vocabulary of homophobia and joked about sex change.121 Alf routinely abused effeminate and gay men. He insulted his son-in-law, with his flamboyant ruffled blouses and long blonde hair, as a ‘long-haired pansy’, a ‘hairy nellie’, ‘Goldilocks’, ‘Shirley Temple’ and a ‘peroxide blond’. In turn, Mike and Rita asked Alf mockingly whether he was undergoing a sex change. Garnett was horrified when Mike dared him to kiss him, and wordily objected to ‘seductive’ singers on the BBC’s Top of the Pops, these ‘evil painted youths dressed up like girls’.122 Whereas the first three seasons of the show could not have reflected the emergence of a gay liberation movement, as there was none in Britain before 1970,123 the later seasons (1972 to 1975) could have but did not. TV critic Stanley Reynolds noted in 1973 that while Archie Bunker had started ‘this new thing in American television. Homosexuals are being treated like human beings’, Alf Garnett and the rest of English comedy had kept to the ‘old silly jokes’ and ‘that old keystone, the traditional mincing, pansy figure of fun’.124 Speight criticised gay liberation efforts, saying he ‘would not be surprised … if homosexuality became compulsory soon’.125 He saw himself writing for the masses, not for deviant minorities: ordinary working people ‘watch television and they are not a bit interested … [in] all these left, intellectual bloody plays about AIDS and homosexuality and lesbianism and women’s feminism’.126 Even when Johnny Speight was free from the constraints of the BBC – he made the Garnetts into a feature film in 1968, and cinema censorship had already given way127 – he did not go beyond advocating nudity and good marital sex. The movie showed Rita in skirts barely covering her underpants and a naked Alf standing in the bathtub, plus sitting half-naked on the toilet. It also had Alf spying on the snogging Rita and Mike and wondering aloud what they did in the bedroom, with Alf ’s own marital advances being cruelly frustrated by Else.128 The accompanying film posters sparked controversy. For weeks in late 1968, the naked Alf, ‘with no protection but clasped hands and glasses’, appeared on London buses with the slogan ‘Yer never saw Alf like this before!’ The newspapers discussed whether taking nudity this casually was ‘healthy’ and ‘natural’, or rather ‘exhibitionism’ and ‘exploitation of the human body’. One columnist was inspired by Alf ’s nakedness to ask whether ‘mummies’ and ‘daddies’ should show their underwear and bodies to their children or not.129

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In the mass media, the controversies of the late 1960s made Alf Garnett into a well-known symbol of opposition to the sexual revolution. By the early 1970s, he was frequently invoked as the ultimate parody of prudes and puritans wanting to stem the tide. Women who had publicly opposed abortions for promiscuous females were labelled as ‘Garnett girls’ and ‘female Alf Garnetts’.130 Councils who refused to let their assembly hall to the Campaign for Homosexual Equality were accused of trying to ‘implement the prejudices of Alf Garnett’.131 Similarly, Alf became a stand-in for the opponents of female emancipation. He was cited as an antifeminist authority not only in parliamentary debates but also in popular psychology. When the Guardian invited its readers to ‘try the strength of your marriage’ by completing a self-test, one of the husband’s options for the question ‘Who do you most admire?’ was ‘Alf Garnett’, which gave a maximum of four marriage-destabilising points.132 Speight’s character became famous for his rants against women’s lib, but there were limits to the sitcom’s feminist message. Although the main focus was on unhappiness in marriage, the institution of matrimony was not challenged. Mike and Rita were married, and the old couple would never consider divorce (at the time, Britain’s divorce rates were multiplying fast).133 The show’s criticism of gender relations was mainly limited to the depiction of long-suffering wife Else and her periodic outbursts. Actress Dandy Nichols speculated that women viewers ‘relish the rare moments when Alf Garnett is deflated by his downtrodden wife’, and the Times darkly commented, ‘Lives like that are led; marriages as sour as that of Alf and Else exist’.134 Else threatened to dance with happiness at Alf ’s funeral. Daughter Rita, too, worried about her marriage becoming just like her parents’ – ‘perhaps that’s the way all marriages go’.135 In Rita, Speight wanted to depict young girls who ‘cheat themselves … they suddenly discover sex, and they find this bird and they marry and it’s still sex that’s occupying their minds for a long time. It’s a great satisfier, or comforter, like a baby’s dummy’.136 Only in autumn 1972, the sitcom embarked on a more obvious antipatriarchal agenda. Producer and author had collectively brainstormed earlier that year, coming up with a lot of ‘Women’s lib – “Women are better than men” material’. This included jokes about ‘God who did not make women equal because Eve came out of Adam’s rib’ and the Queen proving the superiority of the female gender.137 Speight now experimented with gender conflict. In the new episodes, an exhausted Rita screamed at Mike for dumping the baby on her and making her ‘a prisoner’ in the house. She accused him of looking ‘at women as second-grade people’138 and accosted her father for treating his wife like ‘an unpaid skivvy’. She declared ‘women weren’t born just to be drudges … a slave to some bloody man’. Else likewise announced she was ‘finished being your doormat’ and insisted her housework was ‘important’.139 The dailies pointed out ‘subtle changes’ in the show, a

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more active engagement of Rita and Else and ‘breathless declamation on Women’s Lib’.140 ‘Silly Moo Strikes Blow for Women’, headlined the Evening News. Else ‘became Wapping’s answer to Germaine Greer’ when she went on a three-day week and denied Alf dinner. ‘The “silly moo” should stand for Parliament’, the paper mused.141 Still, Speight’s scripts were hardly feminist. Else and Rita appeared as hysterical and selfish. They were never in control; divorce and paid employment were out of the question. When Else fought Alf, she did not aim at gender equality but at humiliating Alf and getting him to pay for her clothes.142 A 1972 episode introduced a couple living inverted gender roles – a male hotel owner doing all the chores and his overbearing wife. Again, the woman was portrayed most unappealingly as lazy, fat and sexually manipulative.143 Although the series’ focus on unhappy housewives and underpaid housework chimed with one of the pioneering manifestos of the women’s lib movement, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique of 1963, other feminist demands (formulated by such widely read feminists as Germaine Greer, Sheila Rowbotham and Shulamith Firestone) were not picked up by the TV show. Untouched remained the issues of female selfhate, media sexism, and freedom and choice in female sexuality.144 The British national women’s movement that emerged since 1968 had in 1970 formulated five major demands: equal pay for equal work, equal opportunities, free contraception, abortion and child care. None of these became a topic for the Garnetts. Television entertainment delivered a somewhat limited and toned-down message, having jumped on the bandwagon of a movement that had formed a few years earlier.145 Popular attitudes towards women’s liberation were in transition when the 1972 to 1975 series of Till Death Us Do Part aired. The 1973 audience survey confirmed both widespread ambivalence and a deep generational split on feminism. Alf Garnett’s statement, ‘A woman’s job is looking after the home’, won approval by 69 per cent of those over 55 but only 23 per cent of 20- to 34-year-olds (and 44 per cent of regular viewers but only 31 per cent of matched nonviewers). ‘Women’s Lib’s a load of rubbish’, another Garnett motto, was rejected by a quarter of over-55-year-olds but half of the 20- to 34-year-olds (and 34 per cent of regular viewers against 49 per cent of matched nonviewers). Beyond the generation divide, the findings indicate that a fairly large section held ambiguous feelings towards changing gender norms. A remarkable 27 per cent of the elderly were unsure what to think of women’s lib, and 22 per cent were undecided on whether ‘women live under unfair restrictions that ought to be done away with’. This underscores the opportunity of the moment: a show that championed female emancipation might have been able to win over the undecided segments of the audience. But as Speight’s programme mainly ridiculed feminism, it is unsurprising that its fans were consistently more likely to agree with Alf ’s antifeminism

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than those who disliked the show. Only 47 per cent of regular viewers agreed, against 61 per cent of matched nonviewers, that ‘women live under unfair restrictions’. Those who held opinions similar to Alf ’s might have been more likely to tune in, seeking to reinforce existing attitudes.146

Agenda Setting: Secularisation In many ways, the series’ agenda setting in regard to gender and sexual norms was linked to the ongoing process of secularisation in Britain. In fact, the peak of offence was reached whenever the programme tied these issues to religion. Johnny Speight did not care much for Christianity; he maintained that ‘the Pope could well be the head of the Mafia’ and equated the church’s ‘Jesus bit’ with ‘mental terror’.147 Consequently, Garnett was depicted as a dogmatic believer whose naïve worship was mocked by his atheist son-in-law. Religious dogma was a frequent topic on Till Death Us Do Part. Mike challenged Alf about God’s usefulness, about God being a capitalist, or the existence of heaven and hell.148 Whitehouse’s organisation regularly confronted the BBC in the press over these incidents.149 In 1968, matters came to a head when Speight constructed an entire episode around Alf reading the Bible. The BBC executives ‘became worried chiefly about the religious references’ and sent a motorbike courier to the rehearsal stage, demanding cuts.150 Speight exploded, declining to ‘rewrite some of it in a more Christian flavour’ and threatening to withdraw the script. Then the cast ‘refused to carry on working unless the script was reinstated, back to what it was’.151 A compromise was struck. A schoolgirl showing ‘her knickers for a bite of your toffee-apple’ was allowed to stay in, as was the ‘theme of the wife being a virgin prior to marriage’. Alf was not to read long passages from the Bible, though. Mike was not to argue that God was upper class (‘Ye’s your Lord God. Not Harry God. Or Fred God’). The two passages deemed most offensive were Mike saying about Alf ’s God: ‘That brimstone and fire monster … he sounds worse than bloody Hitler’, and an argument ‘about whether God was here now, and everywhere now’, with Mike upturning his glass, saying, ‘Got him’. Speight eventually conceded that ‘these two bits had to come out of the show’.152 When the amended programme was transmitted, there was none of the ‘considerable turmoil’ predicted. The BBC recorded ‘some calls’, and the Daily Telegraph found ‘nothing to which an intelligent viewer could take exception’.153 Tom Sloan, however, decided he had had enough and cancelled the entire series. Before the press, Sloan angrily refuted talk of ‘savage censorship’ as ‘absolute rubbish’. He admitted that ‘cuts were made … occasionally’, but only because Speight ‘went beyond the very broad tolerance given to a writer of his talents’.154 In return, Speight complained that ‘since Lord

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Hill’s arrival at the BBC’, he had been ‘choked’ with ‘constant irritating censorships’.155 When the Board of Management discussed the issue a few days later, it reported ‘a fair amount of comment’ in the press, most of it defending the show ‘vigorously’.156 At Till Death’s revival in 1972, Sloan was no longer in charge, but the BBC had changed. The Conservative politician Lord Hill’s appointment as chairman of the Board of Governors in 1967 and Greene’s departure as director general in 1969 had ushered in ‘a new, less liberal atmosphere’.157 Already the second episode of the new season tested the limits. In it, the Garnetts bickered about Mary’s virginity and Jesus being an only child, alleging that Mary was ‘on the pill’. To Mary Whitehouse, this was an ‘obscenely blasphemous … calculated offence to a great many viewers’.158 The BBC boards agreed, calling the passage ‘unfortunate’, ‘aggressively profane’ and ‘likely to cause deep offence’. Senior managers Huw Wheldon, David Attenborough, Bill Cotton and others disapproved, leading Lord Hill to reply to Whitehouse ‘that the decision to leave this particular reference in the programme was a mistake’.159 Whitehouse seized on what she saw as an apology, and the producer had to cut the controversial passage from the master tape, ensuring it would never be broadcast again.160 But while Whitehouse celebrated success, the public reaction showed how isolated she had become. The director of public prosecutions blocked the attempt to prosecute the BBC for blasphemy, since ‘over the years views have changed appreciably’ with regards to what constituted blasphemy.161 The Labour MP for Coventry South was asked by a constituent to ‘take rigorous action’ against the BBC ‘in protest at the ultimate in blasphemy permitted’. The MP wrote back that nobody else had written in to complain and he could see nothing to protest about.162 An audience report remarked on many viewers observing ‘that while it might offend some people, it made good entertainment for the “open-minded”’.163 Most of the viewers quoted in the press defended the programme, alleging that ‘only the narrow-minded could be offended’ (28-year-old bank clerk Monica Field from Twickenham). The few who criticised the show all took pains to stress they did not align themselves with Whitehouse.164 Humanists asked why the BBC should except ‘decaying’ Christian ‘myths and legends’ from ridicule.165 Even the church appeared divided, with a junior Anglican clergyman and other religious readers insisting ‘there are some of us who do have a sense of humour’ and accusing the ‘Christian propaganda’ of the show’s enemies of being ‘small-minded’ and ‘feeble’.166 The president of the National Secular Society insulted Whitehouse as a prudish ‘middle-aged woman’ preoccupied with ‘Christianity and sex’.167 To top it all, Warren Mitchell and Johnny Speight mocked her as ‘a bigot like Alf ’.168 Presumably, few in the audience fully supported Mary Whitehouse. Consistently, between 3 and 7 per cent rated the programme ‘C–’ or

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‘thoroughly unfunny’.169 Roughly a fifth of viewers rejected the show in some way. In 1968, twenty among a representative sample of one hundred people denied the series the right ‘to upset and occasionally offend the nation’.170 For the 1973 survey (which overrepresented nonviewers), a fifth of respondents classed the show as disturbing or potentially harmful to society. Those aged fifty-five and over with ‘firm religious convictions’ were the group most likely to do so. But secularisation was on the advance, as only a third of regular viewers found religion ‘very’ or ‘quite’ important to their present lives, compared to 48 per cent of nonviewers. The survey also demonstrated that the majority sat on the fences erected by the sixties cultural revolution. Fully 67 per cent of the audience were undecided on whether the programme was disturbing or not. Forty-one per cent could not make their mind up whether it was embarrassing, and 40 per cent were unsure of its harmfulness.171 During the long sixties, the long and slow process of secularisation in Britain experienced a powerful boost. The period ‘witnessed unprecedented rapidity in the fall of Christian religiosity’, with all indices – church membership, communicants, baptism and religious marriage – declining since 1956 and most entering ‘free fall’ from 1963.172 The defenders of organised religion struggled to preserve the ‘deeply old-fashioned’ culture of the 1950s, which in many respects harked back to late Victorian Britain. The 1950s had seen a temporary resurgence of Christianity and ‘a vigorous reassertion of traditional values: the role of women as wives and mothers, moral panic over deviancy and “delinquency”, and an economic and cultural austerity which applauded “respectability”, thrift and sexual restraint’.173 Alf Garnett embodied the Christian values of the 1950s when he raged against liberated females, promiscuity, consumerism and pop music; when he succumbed to moral panic about any type of deviancy; and when he cultivated a childish faith in heaven and hell. In bursting Alf ’s bubble, Speight ridiculed the Christian establishment and fuelled the flames of secularisation. This is what enraged the critics of the show. Their protests, incidentally, revived old hostilities between village and town, bourgeoisie and proletariat. Where the defenders of faith attacked the Garnetts as messengers of swinging London’s Gomorrah, they rehashed the myth of the unholy city, widespread in rural England since the late eighteenth century.174 And where they decried vulgarity, they targeted the lower classes’ refusal to follow the lead of those more reverent and affluent. After the Virgin Mary blunder, the BBC stepped up censorship. Before the fifth series went out in 1973, director general Charles Curran promised the Board of Governors ‘less swearing’ and to ‘cut down religion’. The show was now to be handled ‘on Boxing Day lines’,175 meaning it would be previewed by several top executives and discussed by the Board of Management before it was aired.176 Scripts were to be submitted in advance

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‘so we can spot any potential Board of Governors shattering boobs that Johnny Speight may cause’. This ‘tighter brief ’ was difficult for all involved, because Speight was unwilling to compromise.177 Nevertheless, after 1973 the series caused much less uproar in regard to religion and bad language. Two factors contributed to the increase in censorship. First, with its post– 8.00 P.M. placement, the sitcom was no longer a valuable scheduling weapon against ITV. Second, the personality of top executives mattered. By 1972, controller Huw Wheldon and director general Greene were no longer in place to protect the series. Greene’s philosophy had been ‘better to err on the side of freedom than of restriction’, squarely confronting Whitehouse’s demand to ‘err on the Christian side’.178 The only aspects ever censored were swearing and religion. During the show’s entire run, the production team was given free rein to satirise the country’s living room wars about sex, gender, class and politics. Speight’s comedy certainly propagated permissiveness in the sense of freeing people’s lives from traditional moral restrictions. The aim was ‘to lampoon that plodding Victorian liberalism which has held the country back for the last 70 years’ (in Main Wilson’s words).179 Till Death became the public counterweight to the Clean Up TV campaign, with Speight and Whitehouse trading insults: she successfully sued for libel when Speight called her ‘a fascist’ in 1967.180 It is revealing that the battle between Speight and Whitehouse saw the tabloids going over to Speight’s side, increasingly marginalising and ridiculing her. Speight’s show was part and parcel of a discursive deconstruction of Christian values that was gathering speed in the mass media of the 1960s and exploded during the 1970s. Nevertheless, the show was only partly in the service of the sixties cultural revolution. Its first three seasons, celebrating sex within and before marriage, contributed to the main thrust of the British sexual revolution – as the fastest actual change happened between 1965 and 1969, with a freer heterosexuality and increased incidence of premarital sex.181 But Till Death never explored female, promiscuous or same-sex sexuality. During 1972–75, the sitcom’s homophobic and ambiguously antifeminist outlook lagged behind the ‘revolution in consciousness’ that was characteristic of the 1970s,182 and was decidedly less daring than the new BBC series Monty Python’s Flying Circus.183 Moreover, Mike and Rita, embodying the younger generation, were portrayed rather unsympathetically as hedonistic layabouts. The series thus deradicalised ongoing value changes. This was due less to censorship or Mary Whitehouse than to the fact that Speight prioritised ‘proper’ working-class voices over the interests of women and sexual minorities.

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Notes   1. Secularisation is defined as the decline of organised religion and the rise of individualism and pluralism in religious activity (Morris, ‘Strange Death’; Gabriel, ‘Entkirchlichung’). In the United States, the conservative evangelical revival of the 1970s was one response to secularisation (Self, All in the Family, 340–49).  2. Besides audience research reports, I scrutinised 1970s talk shows, viewers’ letters in archives and the press, today’s online fan forums, blogs and photo albums. In addition, I devised an informal, snowballing email survey about people’s individual viewing experiences (for the United States only). It is used sparingly and in conjunction with other sources because of the decades-long delay between experiences and responses.  3. Booth, Stroll On, 157, 160.   4. See press clippings at BFI and WAC.  5. The British cartoon archive (University of Kent, www.cartoons.ac.uk/) catalogues thirty-six such cartoons between March 1967 and March 1992, eighteen of those from 1967–68 (accessed 8 July 2011).   6. Warren Mitchell was declared ‘BBC TV personality of 1967’ and ‘TV actor of the year’ for 1965. Main Wilson was named top light entertainment producer for 1968, and Speight received the Screen Writers Guild Award in 1966, 1967 and 1968. Speight also won the Writers Guild of Britain ‘best TV comedy script’ prize for 1968 and 1969. Guardian, 13 March 1968; Times, 6 March 1969, 10; www.bafta.org.  7. Booth, Stroll On, 160–63; Stubbs’s quote can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/ cult/ilove/years/1966/tvclip.shtml (accessed 4 December 2009).  8. Guardian, 5 March 1969, 11; Times, 28 March 1969, 2, 14; 25 June 1968.   9. Mitchell declined. Guardian, 13 January 1968, 16; see also Talkback 15, WAC, transcript, 5. 10. Guardian, 4 June 1970, 14. 11. Seven times in the 1980s, five times in the 1990s: Hansard stenographic record, http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/search/alf%20garnett (accessed 26 July 2011). 12. Statistics by Google Ngram Viewer, based on all Google-scanned English language publications, 1962–2008, http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Alf +Garnett&year_start=1962&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=0 (accessed 27 July 2011). 13. Talkback 15, WAC, transcript, 6. 14. WAC, VR66/719. 15. WAC, VR68/12. 16. WAC, VR67/136. 17. ‘eatmypies’, www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=pmhJwhDtacY, 2011 (accessed 4 June 2012). 18. Mr Robinson, South Wales, http://www.classictelly.com/programme. php?Programme=Till%20Death%20Us%20Do%20Part (accessed 6 November 2009). 19. Daily Mail, 15 January 1968.

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20. Talkback 15, WAC, transcript; Sunday Mirror, 21 January 1968; Sun, 6 November 1966. 21. Only one in eight thought James Bond was real. Sample of two thousand people interviewed by Mass-Observations Ltd, Times, 20 October 1969, 2. 22. Daily Mirror, 3 June 1968. 23. News of the World, 29 January 1967. 24. WAC, VR75/12. 25. People (London), 22 October 1972. 26. Daily Express, 10 October 1972; WAC, VR67/136. 27. Daily Mirror, 21 July 1972; Observer, 4 February 1968, 20. 28. Times, 3 January 1974, 9. 29. Times, 13 December 1967, 9. 30. In 1967, the American pop group the Monkees released the single ‘Randy Scouse Git’, which climbed to number two in the U.K. charts. Much later, when actor Booth became Prime Minister Tony Blair’s father-in-law, press articles kept invoking the ‘scouse git’. Sunday Mirror, 2 November 1997; Independent, 5 June 2007; News Letter (Belfast), 16 April 2002. 31. Daily Mirror, 6 January 1968, 3 June 1968, 21 July 1972, 16 December 1974; People (London), 22 October 1972; Guardian, 8 October 1972. 32. News of the World, 15 January 1967. 33. Daily Mirror, 1 January 1968; see also Daily Mail, 10 January 1967; News of the World, 15 January 1967. 34. Daily Sketch, 10 January 1967. 35. They discuss whether it was ‘cow’, ‘silly mare’ or ‘silly moo’ to start with, and who invented the phrase. Daily Telegraph, 12 February 1968. 36. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 7 March 1968, vol. 760, cols. 649–50; see also Times, 8 March 1968, 7. 37. Daily Mirror, 8 February 1967. 38. The campaign had been rechristened NVALA by then. Times, 22 May 1967. 39. Black, ‘There Was’, 188; see also Whitehouse to Lord Hill, 21 September 1972, letterhead, WAC, R78/2811/1. 40. Marwick, Sixties, 632–42; Neville Brown, ‘Student Protest’. 41. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 29 January 1969, vol. 776, cols. 1372–73. 42. MP Patrick Jenkin, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 10 February 1969, vol. 777, col. 857. 43. Times, 11 February 1969. 44. Stan Summers, Chorley, letter to the editor, Guardian, 27 November 1969, 12. 45. Guardian, 12 September 1969, 18. 46. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 13; see also 21. 47. Ibid., 34, 36, 30, 40; see also 42, 24–25. 48. Ibid., 9. 49. Ibid., 11, 9. 50. Sun, 14 June 1966; Sunday Times, 15 January 1967; Morning Star, 9 July 1966. 51. Observer, 25 February 1968. 52. Financial Times, 22 June 1966; Sunday Times, 15 January 1967; see also Sunday Telegraph, 12 June 1966; Sun, 14 June, 28 December 1966. 53. Guardian, 17 September 1973, 8.

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54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

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Guardian, 9 July 1971, 8; Sunday Times, 5 March 1967. WAC, VR65/397, VR66/412, VR67/136. BBC study, in WAC, R9/757/1, 5. WAC, VR66/719. WAC, VR65/397. WAC, VR66/719. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 24–25. Episode II/10, ‘Cleaning Up TV’ (lost); script in DK 4.4.-199605, 9. See also Daily Mail, 28 February 1967; Whitehouse, Woman, 59; Guardian, 28 February 1967; Evening Standard, 2 March 1967. 62. WAC, VR67/136. 63. Observer, 5 March 1967; Daily Mail, 28 February 1967. 64. Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 88; McEnery, Swearing, 115; Whitehouse, Woman, 58, 64. 65. Whitehouse, Woman, 61. 66. Speight, For Richer, 143; Main Wilson to Bill Cotton, quoting Speight, 26 September 1972, WAC, T12/1421/1. 67. Dennis Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 6–7. 68. Mills to Main Wilson, 24 November 1967, WAC, T12/1321/1. 69. Johnny Speight interview (BFI), tape 1, side 2. 70. Normanbrook to Adam, 22 June 1966; Adam to Normanbrook, 24 June 1966, with Normanbrook’s note from 29 June: ‘I have shown this to D.G.’, WAC, R78/2811/1. See also Daily Mail, 22 June 1966. 71. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 5–6; side 6, transcript 17–18. 72. Interview in Daily Mirror, 20 January 1968, 11; Talkback 15, WAC, transcript, 4, 8. 73. Greene, Third Floor, 135–37. 74. Quoted in Ferris, Sir Huge, 221, 241; Briggs, Competition, 968; see also Miall, Inside the BBC, 189–202. 75. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 2–3. 76. Speight interview (BFI), tape 2, side 1. 77. Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 475, 477. 78. Broadcast 6 June 1966: Daily Telegraph, 9 June 1966; Times, 25 July 1966; Daily Mirror, 10 September 1966. 79. ‘The Blood Donor’, 12 January 1968. In response to the NVALA’s protest, Greene told the Board of Management the sequence was ‘defensible as to subject matter, though over-long’ (meeting 15 January 1968, WAC, R78/2811/1); Main Wilson to head of comedy Gilbert, 23 November 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1; Sunday Mirror, 14 January 1968. 80. McEnery, Swearing, 108–15. 81. Main Wilson to Bill Cotton, quoting Speight, 26 September 1972, WAC, T12/1421/1. 82. Hendy, ‘Bad Language’, 84–86, 93. 83. Sunday Times, 1966 [n.d., BFI clippings]; Daily Express, 7 June 1966; see also Morning Star, 9 July 1966; Daily Mail, 28 March 1967, 10 January 1967; Sun, 14 June 1966.

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84. 85. 86. 87.

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Daily Mirror, 14 January 1968; see also Landy, Monty Python, 23–24. Daily Mail, 13 November 1975; WAC, VR75/12, VR75/633. Hendy, ‘Bad Language’, 87. BBC secretary, template for replies to viewers of Till Death, 2 October 1972, WAC, R78/2811/1. 88. Lewis, Women, 40–41. 89. Weeks, Sex, 276; see also Cook, Sexual Revolution, 290. 90. Weeks, World, 58–59; Weeks, Sex, 256 (numbers from 1973), 253–54, 265. 91. Aldgate, Censorship. 92. Speight, Till Death Us Do Part. 93. Daily Mirror, 3 January 1967; Daily Mail, 4 January 1967. 94. On 8 January 1967 in Christchurch: Daily Sketch, 9 January 1967. 95. Sun, 12 January 1967. 96. Ibid.; News of the World, 22 January 1967. 97. Late Night Line Up (DVD). 98. News of the World, 22 January 1967. 99. Daily Express, 14 January 1967, 4 January 1967; Evening News, 3 January 1967. 100. Extract from controllers’ meeting, 10 January 1967, WAC, T12/1321, 2; K. Haacke to secretary, 9 January 1967, WAC, R78/2811/1; Head of Secretariat to Adam, 9 January 1967, WAC, R78/2811/1. 101. News of the World, 22 January 1967. 102. Sloan was known for his old-school values, having censored ‘Presley-type “belly swinging”’ in 1958: Briggs, Competition, 201, 204–5. 103. Speight interview (BFI), tape 1, side 2. Main Wilson gave a similar account: Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 5–6. 104. Contract of 19 January 1968 (rereleased in 1973), WAC, R125/36/1; Speight, Till Death Us Do Part. 105. Lewis, Women, 44, see also 48. 106. The survey found no significant differences between ‘pro-Alfers’ and ‘antiAlfers’. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 31, 35. 107. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 6; see also Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 123. 108. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 2, side 4, transcript, 14, 18–19. 109. Late Night Line Up (DVD). 110. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 2, side 4, transcript, 19. 111. Late Night Line Up (DVD). 112. Ibid. 113. Lovelace had become a celebrity through her role in the pornographic film Deep Throat, which was rumoured to have advanced the liberation of female sexuality and the breakdown of taboos surrounding oral sex. Times, 27 January 1976, 4; see also Marwick, Sixties, 737–39. 114. Herzog, ‘Sexuality’, 147–48. 115. Cook, Sexual Revolution, 271–72. 116. Speight to Sloan, n.d. [July 1967], WAC, T12/1321/1. 117. Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 3. 118. Note by Head of Comedy to Main Wilson, n.d. [1972–73], WAC, T12/1421, 1.

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119. Campaign document quoted in Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 90; report on NVALA survey quoted at BBC Uplands Management Conference, June 1967, discussion paper for Session 19, WAC, R123/25/1. 120. Lewis, Women, 48. 121. Weeks, Coming Out, 162–63. 122. II/1, ‘Peace and Goodwill’; V/1, ‘TV Licence’; IV/4, ‘Dock Pilfering’, quoted in Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 29, 30, 74. 123. Timid reform movements were replaced by the politicised, aggressive, if small Gay Liberation Front by autumn 1970. There were gay pride weeks, marches and communes in London by 1972. Weeks, Coming Out, 185–206. 124. Times, 15 March 1973, 9. 125. Quoted in London Standard, 30 August 1985, 23. In the 1990s, the BBC cancelled the spin-off In Sickness and in Health because of its antilesbianism: Guardian, 6 July 1998. 126. Speight interview (BFI), tape 2, side 1. 127. Mathews, Censored, chaps 11–12. 128. Cohen (dir.), Till Death Us Do Part. 129. Guardian, 22 January 1969, 7. 130. Jim McCord, Lewisham, letter to the editor, Guardian, 3 April 1972, 8. 131. Letter of eighteen campaigners to Times, 10 August 1974. 132. Guardian, 3 February 1968, 5. 133. Stone, Road to Divorce, 409, 418; Chester, ‘England and Wales’, 76–82. 134. Daily Mirror, 6 January 1968, see also 7 January 1967; Times, 17 February 1968. 135. III/4, ‘The Funeral’, quoted in Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 95, 100. 136. Speight, quoted in Listener, 10 January 1974, 40, WDR, 8581. 137. Main Wilson to Speight, 10 February 1972, WAC, T12/1421/1; later used for IV/3, ‘Holiday in Bornemouth’, and ‘Royal Variety Performance 1972’. 138. IV/5, ‘Up the Hammers’; V/3, ‘Power Cuts (Strikes and Blackouts)’. 139. V/4, ‘Three Day Week’; IV/3, ‘Holiday in Bornemouth’, quoted in Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 108. 140. Morning Star, 26 January 1974. 141. Evening News, 31 July 1974. 142. V/4, ‘Three Day Week’. 143. IV/3, ‘Holiday in Bornemouth’, quoted in Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 117. 144. Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1971) sold over a million copies. Bouchier, Challenge, 93–100; Pugh, Women, 312–23. 145. Feminist groups, marches and publications had been spreading throughout Britain since at least 1970. Bouchier, Challenge, 93–95, 98–103. 146. Regular viewers also displayed less tolerance towards career women than nonviewers. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 34–35, 30–31, 21. 147. From a passage cut from the Till Death flyer for the Golden Rose of Montreux festival, 1967, WAC, T12/1321/1; Late Night Line Up (DVD). 148. III/2, ‘The Blood Donor’; IV/4, ‘Dock Pilfering’; II/1, ‘Peace and Goodwill’. 149. See Daily Mirror, 3 January 1967, 17 February 1968; Daily Express, 13 January 1968; Sun, 21 February 1968; Daily Telegraph, 19 February 1968; WOW, 18 February 1968.

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150. ‘Aunt Maud’, recorded 13 February 1968; letter by Mills to Head of Copyright and Legal Adviser, 9 February 1968, WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight, Copyright I. 151. Ibid.; Speight interview (BFI), tape 1, side 2. 152. Script with Mills’s annotations, WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight, Copyright I, 8, 16, 24–25, 27; Speight interview (BFI), tape 1, side 2. 153. Daily Telegraph, 17 February 1968; see also Daily Express, 17 February 1968. 154. Memo of 21 February 1968, WAC, R78/2811. 155. Sun, 16 February 1968; Daily Telegraph, 17 February 1968. 156. Minutes, 19 February 1968, WAC, R78/2811/1. 157. Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 468; see also Briggs, Competition, 594–615; Briggs, Governing, 120–29. 158. IV/2, ‘The Bird Fancier’; Whitehouse to Lord Hill, 21 September 1972, WAC, R78/2811/1. 159. Draft reply to Whitehouse, n.d. [before 2 October 1972], WAC, R78/2811/1; extracts from weekly programme review meeting, 27 September 1972, and Board of Management, 25 September 1972, WAC, R78/2811/1; see also Daily Telegraph, 6 October 1972. 160. D. Wood, Head of Comedy, to Main Wilson, 8 February 1973, WAC, T12/1421/1; Main Wilson to Head of Sales, Television Enterprises, 12 February 1973, WAC, T12/1421/1; see Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 28– 29. 161. Letter of 17 January 1972, quoted in Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 113. 162. Marwick, Sixties, 741–42. 163. WAC, VR72/754. 164. Evening News, 22 September 1972. 165. Guardian, 10 October 1972; Birmingham Post, 14 October 1972, quoted in Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 114. 166. Letters by Michael Chandler, Canterbury, and Waltraud Hargreaves, Purley, Guardian, 13 October 1972, 20. 167. Barbara Smoker, quoted in Guardian, 7 October 1972. 168. Mitchell in October 1972, quoted in Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 110, 113. 169. Regular audience reports, 1965–74; see chap. 3. 170. Sample audience in Talkback 15, WAC, transcript; Evening Standard, 21 February 1968. 171. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 24–25, 5–7, 40, 42. 172. Brown, Death, 188. 173. Ibid., 5–6. 174. Ibid., 18, 193. 175. Director of Programmes David Attenborough to Controller BBC-1, 15 November 1972, WAC, T41/505/1. 176. The Christmas 1972 edition had been run past the heads of Religious Programmes and Light Entertainment before transmission. Board of Management minutes, 18 December 1972, WAC, R78/2811/1. 177. Alasdair Milne to Managing Director Television, 10 January 1973, WAC, T41/505/1; Main Wilson to Director of Television, 5 December 1973, WAC,

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T41/505/1; Main Wilson to Jimmy Gilbert (Head of Comedy), 17 October 1973 and 23 November 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1. 178. Greene, Third Floor, 104; Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 163. 179. Main Wilson to Speight, 14 February 1972, WAC, T12/1421/1. 180. Times, 28 July 1967, 13; see also Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 110; Black, ‘There Was’, 186–88. 181. Cook, Sexual Revolution, 293–95. 182. Forster and Harper, ‘Introduction’, 5; Bradley, ‘“You Are Awful”’, 122–23; Forster, ‘Printing Liberation’. 183. This 1969–74 show also challenged Whitehouse and BBC censors with its focus on bodies, sexuality and strong language, but subverted homophobia and gender expectations to a greater extent than Till Death. Landy, Monty Python, 23–24, 28–29, 67, 70–79.

5

Archie Bunker and the American Lifestyle Revolution As in Britain, the American sitcom became an arena for the clash of societal values – though any comparison must start with pointing out the obvious differences. All in the Family was a hit on an even bigger scale than Till Death Us Do Part. Its peak period lasted longer, its reruns and copies were more widespread, and it pervaded public and private debates to an even greater extent. The Bunkers managed to stay everybody’s favourite neighbours throughout the 1970s. In addition, there was a five-year lag between the series’ start in the two countries. When Archie Bunker entered American living rooms in 1971, the sixties cultural revolution was already further developed, and so was the conservative backlash. From the mid-1970s, the sitcom became embroiled in ferocious clashes with the opponents of change that spilled over into politics and the legal system. These battles involved the Senate, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Writers Guild and the California courts, and left a major impact on the whole of the TV industry. Last, compared to Britain, the series sent slightly different messages. All in the Family was not so much the voice of popular discontent with religious and upper-class morality, but rather a showcase for the painful generational, racial, class and gender conflicts of 1970s America. It also engaged in conscious agenda setting, pushing new sexual norms and gender roles and raising awareness of various public health issues. From the start, Norman Lear wanted his show to tackle social conflicts head-on. He ‘was a problem-dealer’, steering episodes towards ‘a racial controversy or a sexual controversy, … subjects that other shows haven’t touched’, as his writers put it.1 The story editors were advised to ‘take the grit and grist of our own life and work with that’.2 Because the Bunkers clocked

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up 208 episodes, it was necessary to enliven storylines with a whole range of controversial issues. The sitcom tried to raise awareness about: homosexuality, miscarriage, premarital sex, unemployment and women’s place in marriage (season one); death, gun control, impotence and menopause (season two); tax evasion, chauvinism, interracial dating, swingers, ageing, rape, premenstrual syndrome and Jewish militants (season three); gambling addiction, pornography, breast cancer, mental disability and females taking the sexual initiative (season four); strikes, women in male jobs, infertility, rehabilitation of prisoners and divorce (season five); transvestites, organ donation, atheism, maternity protection laws and affirmative action (season six); adultery, suicide, health insurance, vasectomy and draft dodging (season seven); lesbianism, love in old age, rape, the Ku Klux Klan, hate crime and drug addiction (season eight); and extramarital affairs and assisted suicide (season nine). This list, by no means exhaustive, already gives a flavour of All in the Family’s comprehensive agenda-setting efforts.

Standing That the sitcom so frequently tried to raise public awareness was due to its extraordinary standing. Throughout its peak, from autumn 1971 to spring 1976, players in journalism, politics, the TV industry, museums, markets and academia were convinced of the series’ impact. The Wall Street Journal spoke of the programme as ‘a major national pastime’. The TV Guide called it ‘an American Institution’ and ‘the most influential television program of all time’.3 The nation’s favourite advice columnist, Abigail van Buren, aka ‘Dear Abby’, thought the show had ‘accomplished more about understanding America’ than any other TV production ever had.4 Lead actor Carroll O’Connor was the first white person to appear on the cover of the African American magazine Ebony, while producer Norman Lear graced the cover of People magazine and several pages in Playboy.5 Like journalists, politicians assumed the sitcom had wide-ranging influence. When a Senate subcommittee investigated the state of the First Amendment in light of ‘new fears about government control and regulation of the broadcast media’, it invited Lear to give testimony. In the hearing, chairman Senator Sam J. Ervin praised the producer for his ‘great public services’ to the American people in making TV tackle taboo subjects.6 In 1978, the Bunkers’ tattered living room chairs were enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution. At several receptions on Capitol Hill, a stream of senators and congressmen from both parties courted the producers and actors. President Carter declared that his only concern about signing the Camp David agreements was that the ceremony might interrupt All in the Family on TV.7 The Bunker chairs went on to be called ‘American legends’,

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‘part of the cultural legacy of our country’ and a ‘generation-gap totem’.8 According to the museum curators, they became one of the most popular exhibits at the Smithsonian. The text near the plastic showcase read: ‘Archie Bunker became identified with all that flawed the relationships of our multiethnic citizens. The interplay between Archie’s bigotry, Mike Stivic’s Polish American liberalism and Edith and Gloria’s searching for tolerance and acceptance reflected the nation’s social struggles, holding a dramatic mirror to America’s conscience’.9 It thus emphasised the sitcom’s status as a national symbol and its presumed impact on social change, highlighting in particular the battles over racism, liberalisation and feminism. Business was quick to cash in on the series’ success, too. By 1972–73, ‘Archie Bunker for President’ T-shirts, beer mugs, posters, buttons, bibs and bumper stickers were widely available. Cheap paperbacks, fan magazines (‘All You’d Like to Know About All in the Family’ for seventy-five cents) and LPs popularised Archie’s jokes and malapropisms. In 1972, an All in the Family board game was released in which players ‘try to match Archie’s opinions to various questions’.10 And of course, the television industry eagerly exploited the commercial potential of the programme with copies, spin-offs, recombinations and reruns. Network executives as well as independent producers were unanimous in claiming that the programme had ‘helped change American television’ and had had ‘the greatest single effect on the television industry than any other series since the inception of television’.11 It was no coincidence that All in the Family was the bone of contention during the networks’ tug-of-war over ‘family viewing time’ from 1975 onwards; that Lear’s production company was a plaintiff in the court case that sunk the family hour; and that the Writers Guild sought out Lear to represent its case both at the Senate subcommittee hearing in 1972 and the California courts in 1975–76.12 Archie’s appeal went even further, invading both ivory tower and Ivy League. Numerous scholars from the disciplines of mass communications, social psychology, sociology, psychohistory, literature, semiotics and linguistics published on the show’s message, meaning and reception. The literary theorist Paul de Man discussed Archie Bunker’s speech in the introductory chapter to his deconstructionist Allegories of Reading.13 The Institute of Human Relations held a conference on the programme in April 1972.14 An undergraduate seminar at Fairleigh Dickinson University entitled ‘All in the Family, Maude and Norman Lear’ explored ‘the capacity of commercial television to address contemporary issues’.15 By May 1975, the production firm’s office was in contact with researchers from ten different universities, all of them working on the Bunkers.16 If the sitcom left its imprint on academic culture, it did even more so on popular culture. It effected measurable changes in everyday language. The catchphrases used in the series – ‘dingbat’, ‘meathead’, ‘stifle yourself ’ – were

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parroted across the country. Archie’s characterisation of Edith as a ‘dingbat’ popularised a long forgotten term, so that the Oxford English Dictionary added it as one of five thousand new words in its twenty-volume edition of 1989.17 Statistics show the use of the terms ‘Archie Bunker’, ‘dingbat’ and ‘meathead’ soaring from 1971, the programme’s start, and holding out on a high level even after the series’ end in 1979 (figure 5.1). ‘Bunkerism’ was another new word coined in reaction to the series; in the mid- to late 1970s it was used to describe, variably, malapropisms, walled-in minds or bigotry.18

Figure 5.1. All in the Family catchwords in U.S. publications, 1969–2005 Source: Google ngram viewer, search in millions of books published in the U.S. between 1969 and 2005. No smoothing applied. http://books.google.com/ngrams/ graph?content=Archie+Bunker%2Cmeathead%2Cdingbat&year_start=1970&year_ end=2005&corpus=5&smoothing=0, accessed 9 May 2014.

Framing One of the reasons for the popularity of such expressions was that ordinary people drew on the television show as a framing script. Viewers employed the sitcom to negotiate social change in private settings, and did so in peculiar ways. In the Eccles family from Queens, New York, the patriarch saw eye to eye with Archie, while his children identified with Mike and Gloria. ‘I feel Archie does speak for people who have worked hard, tried to live right, to live by the rules’, opined Joseph Eccles Sr. His twenty-year-old student son, Joseph Jr., said that ‘sometimes when Dad and I argue … I think Dad is like Archie… Like Edith, … mom is the mediator between Dad and me’.19 Paul Rawald from Queens confided that ‘if my daughter brought home a lazy husband like that Mike who only went to school and didn’t work to support her, I’d throw the both of them out of the house’. Louie Pastega, a shopkeeper from Klamath Falls, Oregon, declared that Archie is ‘the boss – like me … they’re asking me

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to go along with all these new ways today, but I can’t see it. Me and Archie, it’s too late for us’. His bearded, long-haired 35-year-old son, Richard, who ran a leftist newspaper, observed that ‘the only difference between us and the Bunker family is we do a lot more screaming’. Housewife Jennie Pastega called her husband ‘Archie Bunker in the flesh’ and confirmed that the show accurately mirrored her family’s conflicts, ‘all the way from Richard, the radical, to his dad … and I’m caught in the middle’.20 This recognition effect was common and long-lasting.21 In an informal email survey in winter 2010–11, nine out of thirty-nine respondents compared the show to the conflicts rocking their own family at the time. Even more frequently, fathers, grandfathers and fathers-in-law were equated to Archie.22 ‘Archie’s gruffness (growl and criticalness) was similar to my dad’, wrote one; ‘My mother said Archie was like Grandpa’, said another.23 ‘Everyone knew an Archie and a Mike type’, wrote a then student. ‘I knew Archie types, but no one who was quite as in your face. I knew many Glorias, “Meatheads” and Ediths’, recalled a regular viewer in Massachusetts.24 A reporter who in May 1971 browsed through Tandem’s archive of viewer letters concluded that the most prominent thread running through them was ‘the recognition, in a comedy series, of life as it is really lived’. During the first season, the production firm received between one hundred and two hundred viewers’ letters a week, ‘eight out of nine of them notes of gratitude’. The most typical responses included viewers thrilled to see Edith examining the back of a greeting card to see whether it was a Hallmark (‘My mother always did that’) and satisfied that ‘the Bunker’s house looked like mine after 24 years – lived in’. The characters were experienced as ‘people who are all around you in real life’ – ‘we could see a couple of our relatives in it’ – ‘I live with such people’ – ‘You are embarrassed to hear yourself or someone you know in almost every line of dialogue’.25 Although viewers felt the show’s display of generational and political strife to be true to reality, they knew full well its characters were fictional. Treating the Bunkers as real was a game people liked to play. Carroll O’Connor reported on how Archie never left him in public – whether in Missouri, Montana, Texas or New York. People greeted him as Archie on the street, hissed at him in church and told him Polack jokes on airplanes.26 In the same vein, Jean Stapleton reported truck drivers shouting ‘Edith!’ when they spotted her on the street, and Rob Reiner (Mike) soon grew tired of being named ‘meathead’ wherever he went.27 Remarkably, the recognition pattern is visible even in sociological survey data. When a scholar canvassed more than six hundred seventh and eighth graders at a Texas middle school in 1979, 49 per cent of them confirmed they ‘knew an Archie’. Of these students, 26 per cent referred to their father, another 26 percent to another relative, 12 per cent to a friend, 8 per cent to a teacher and 15 per cent to someone else.28 A 1972 survey of Pittsburgh

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college students found 51 per cent saying they ‘saw one’s self in the show’. Twenty per cent found their ‘own family or friends’ mirrored in the characters.29 Two researchers conducting a series of interviews with parents (for an unrelated project on parent-child interaction) came across the effect as well: Many parents in our interviews report having compared a television character to a real-life person in the presence of their children. The television character cited most frequently in this respect is Archie Bunker. For example: ‘My son was watching Archie Bunker the other day and he said, mommy, do you know that Archie Bunker looks a lot like grandpa, and I said, yeah, and I guess he thinks a lot like grandpa too’. ‘I call her daddy Archie Bunker when he’s being particularly redneck in my opinion, and she will kid him to that effect, ay, you’re Archie Bunker! Well, he plays – and it’s obviously a play: don’t you call me Archie Bunker! Oh yes, you are, you are! No, I’m not, no, I’m not!’30

As the scholars commented, the ‘most obvious intended effect of such comparisons’ was ‘that of giving an inoffensive frame to criticism’.31 Comparing fathers and grandfathers to Archie meant to give an often painful conflict a funny twist. There were two groups engaging in such comparisons. The smaller one included those who indeed identified with Mike. Thus, an ‘unflinching fan’ of the series in New York called himself ‘a bleedin’ heart liberal whose father is a bigot’. Another young viewer stated: ‘Archie Bunker is related to the fathers of a lot of us … it is our love for our fathers and our hatred for what they were doing that today – with Attica and Vietnam … tears us open and makes us laugh’.32 A young elementary school teacher talked about how ‘Mike expressed my own worldview … we talked about Archie’s outrageous statements and cheered Mike’s challenges to those statements’.33 The other, larger group refused to fully identify with Mike but still used the Bunker frames to make fun of value conflicts. These viewers borrowed funny patterns from TV to mildly mock others perceived as traditionalist or bigoted. When the little girl cited above teased her father that he was Archie Bunker, she voiced disapproval in a ‘light’, humorous way. This method worked also with the other characters and the ‘dingbat’ and ‘meathead’ frames. A family from Eugene, Oregon, used to call out ‘Edith!’ to signal to the spouse, ‘You’re talking too much’.34 A fan named Rick always responded to his wife, ‘“That’s the whole pernt Edith”. And her name is not even Edith!’35 Likewise, calling one’s son or son-in-law a ‘meathead’ was a common way to gently criticise him. ‘Even though our daughter’s husband is a lawyer it doesn’t make him any less of a meathead’, a viewer wrote in 1971.36 An angry new bride complained to an advice columnist that her father kept referring to her husband as ‘my new Meathead’ at the wedding reception.37 Decades later, the habit persists in many American families. (We know

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about such habits because private details such as family photos and childhood reminiscences are increasingly posted on Internet sites or blogs.) Tracie Masek from Ohio reported her father calling her partner ‘“Meathead”, as in Archie Bunker’.38 A middle-aged father with two teenage sons subtitled a family photo: ‘All in the family. Meathead, Archie, Dingbat and well … the other meathead’.39 And it was not unusual to take pictures of sons and sonin-laws in front of the Bunkers’ chairs, lovingly captioned: ‘At Smithsonian (The Meathead at right)’.40 Behind glass in the Smithsonian Institution, Archie’s chair has become the backdrop for countless family photographs since the 1970s. Typically, fathers or sons would pose next to the famous item; occasionally, women or whole families would (figures 5.2 to 5.5).41 Of all the artefacts relating to the sitcom, Archie’s chair became by far the most popular. On a Web-based fan forum, the patriarch’s easy chair won hands down when fans were asked which item they would choose as a souvenir of the sitcom.42 The 2009 movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian used it as a central prop in its storyline. The peculiar appeal of Archie’s chair lay in the fact that it symbolised slightly faded patriarchal power. As a coal miner remarked, ‘What I like about Archie is that he has his own chair. And nobody can sit in it but him’.43 In the show, the working-class patriarch was enthroned in the centre of the living room. He ordered family members to fetch him drinks, controlled television choices and chased others out of his chair whenever they dared to sit in it. From 1978 on, when the Smithsonian enshrined the piece, many American families began to label one of their living room seats – usually a shabby but comfy armchair with a nostalgic feel – the ‘Archie chair’. In an era when patriarchy was much challenged, this funny pattern from television was used to negotiate the delicate balance of power in families. The owner of the ‘Archie chair’, usually a male family head or the mother in single-parent families, asserted the right to patriarchal control, but did so in a self-conscious way – stressing that while they might be blustery and controlling, they were ultimately caring and open to others poking fun at them. A viewer born in 1982 remembered how her mother had picked up a chair at the thrift store, christened it ‘the “Archie Bunker chair”’ and placed it ‘in the middle of the living room … it was my mom’s seat when we sat down to watch TV’.44 A single mother recounted how she won a long, upsetting argument with her teenage daughter: ‘She sat on the couch, and I sat in the Archie Bunker chair, and we talked for a good half hour’.45 Numerous other postings point to the existence of ‘Archie Bunker chairs’ in American living rooms.46 For private negotiations in the wake of the sixties cultural revolution, All in the Family functioned as a versatile framing script. Its characters, catchphrases, props, even the theme tune and malapropisms were used in this way. A YouTube search discovers several dozen Americans playing or

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Figures 5.2 to 5.5. Private snapshots with Archie Bunker’s chair in the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Reprinted by permission of Flickr users larryontheprairie, DianthusMoon, just_a_ride08 and Wes Daniel.

singing their version of the show’s opening theme, including church organists, bluegrass bands, male couples and small children.47 Long-term fans confessed to drawing on Archie’s trademark malapropisms ‘all the time’, ‘instinctively’ and ‘constantly’ in their everyday lives. This included expressions such as ‘earl filter’ (oil filter) or ‘groinacologist’ (gynaecologist) and mannerisms such as ‘Archie’s habit of shushing everyone after he was the only one raising his voice’ or ‘that “get on with it” winding motion he makes with his hand when he wants to hurry Edith along’. A college professor did Archie impressions at a family gathering and in front of students in his office hours.48 A small number of fans liked acting out Archie’s racist, homophobic and misogynist slurs.49 By quoting the sitcom hero, they could put a funny and ‘loveable’ face on abuse.

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Agenda Setting Thus, it was widespread practice to use the show’s frames to lighten up discordant conversations or an authoritarian demeanour. But to what extent were these recognition and framing effects in line with the producers’ intentions? Was the show able to put topics on the agenda, push shifts in attitude or even pioneer particular values? Norman Lear liked to compare his production team to ‘a handful of people standing around the perimeter of a lake, tossing pebbles into the center’ to make the water level rise ever so slightly. The effect would be almost imperceptible but undeniable, he maintained, which is why ‘we will continue … tossing our pebbles into the streams of social awareness’.50 Although the press, political debate and audience research of the time remained fixated on All in the Family’s impact on racial relations, the areas in which the show’s agenda setting was most tangible were public health, gender and sexuality. Because Lear wished to keep All in the Family up-to-date on current social movements, he tried to harness the creative energy of minority pressure groups, such as feminists and African Americans. But when it came to recruiting staff writers, Lear prioritised experience in comedy writing. This decision resulted in high levels of professionalism but low levels of diversity, with most of the team being white, middle-aged Jewish men. The producer tried to balance this by enlisting advisers with minority credentials. In the mid-1970s, for example, he hired an ‘in-house fascist’, the young Ben Stein, to help the ‘bleeding heart liberals’ writing his sitcoms understand the other side in the culture wars.51 Activists from the women’s movement gained considerable influence on the show through Norman Lear’s wife, the engaged feminist Frances Lear. ‘Between my wife and three daughters, and the newspapers, I woke up to the women’s movement every morning of my life’, said Lear. And in the evenings, Frances Lear frequently held dinner parties for women leaders and feminist activists.52 In 1973, Frances Lear’s friend Virginia Carter became Lear’s right-hand assistant, Tandem’s ‘director of creative affairs’. A feminist campaigner, lesbian and breast cancer survivor, Carter fit Lear’s criteria perfectly, as he was looking for someone who could ‘teach me and my company about the fledgling women’s movement’. Formerly, Carter had been a physicist and president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Los Angeles. Now she was in charge of preparing taboo issues for treatment in Lear’s sitcoms until the early 1980s.53 Carter called herself ‘an extreme activist’ who could give Lear ‘the entré that I had into the feminist community and their thinking’.54 With great success, Carter mined pressure groups for information, tried to prevent protests and win activists over to the show. Tandem was the first production company to develop a system for dealing with advocacy groups, because it knew that ‘controversy is our bread and

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butter’.55 Lear saw grassroots campaigners as ‘sensitizers’ who could help writers to ‘deepen the characterization’ in scripts.56 Under Virginia Carter’s guidance, Lear’s sitcoms integrated not only feminist topics but also a whole array of public health issues – mental health, cancer screening, drug abuse, ageism – into their narratives. Carter knew that ‘we had to offer real entertainment’ but believed, ‘once we got people watching, we could add the kind of content that would give substance to the plots’.57 It was her job to connect with sociologists and activists and to critically discuss storylines with Lear. Carter and Lear would then cajole the staff writers to include socially relevant material. ‘Norman would go over every script … it’s a very funny script, but we need some more of social consciousness, how the old people exist and the troubles they have’, All in the Family story editor Bernie West remembered.58 Carter would even arrange advance screenings of some episodes for campaigners, who were then invited to discuss their impressions with the writers.59 When the team planned for Gloria to become pregnant, for example, Carter contacted the Los Angeles chapter of the American Society for Psychoprophylaxis in Obstetrics to find out about natural childbirth. She set up a meeting of the story editors with a midwife who taught the Lamaze method. The aim was, according to producer Hal Kanter, ‘to be of great service to a lot of people, in clearing up mysteries and explaining what this method has to offer’ to expectant mothers, fearful fathers and reluctant hospital doctors. In season six, then, Mike and Gloria would demonstrate Lamaze breathing exercises and try to convince the horrified Archie of ‘prepared’ childbirth, defending the father’s active role as a ‘coach’ in the delivery room.60 Later, Carter would liaise between the writers and the Hollywood chapter of the Population Institute for an episode about Mike’s vasectomy, and again when the writers considered letting the vasectomy fail and Gloria having a second child (a plan they abandoned after talking to doctors).61 While Norman Lear doubted that ‘one little situation comedy’ would change society, he was convinced that addressing specific issues could produce real impact. ‘There have been some specific results, results that were measurable. This usually occurred when we did a show on such a subject as clear and specific as health.’62 After Edith Bunker was afraid she had breast cancer, local chapters of the American Cancer Society recorded thousands of calls by concerned women.63 After Archie Bunker decided to donate blood, Red Cross clinics across the country reported increased donations. After the father in Lear’s black sitcom Good Times was diagnosed with hypertension, ‘there was a significant rise in the number of voluntary requests for blood pressure checks in black neighborhood clinics’.64 By the mid-1970s, Lear’s offices were under veritable siege by citizen lobbyists, health organisations and pressure groups.65 Virginia Carter was serving as a gatekeeper to Lear’s kingdom, sorting the worthwhile issues from the ‘zanies’: people with bombs

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in their briefcases, Hare Krishnas, the ‘animal-spaying platform’.66 Some topics were particularly close to Lear’s and Carter’s hearts. Carter embraced the Grey Panther’s drive ‘to do shows on the concerns of the aged’ and to lead television out of the ghetto of the under-thirties.67 Lear, whose wife suffered from bipolar disorder, put Archie’s counterpart Maude on lithium and sent her to the psychotherapist.68 ‘We put a tag line at the end of the show on manic depression, telling people where to get help’, recalled Carter.69 Among other issues, she remembers drawn-out ‘Donnybrook discussions’ with Lear about the treatment of alcoholism.70 Tandem’s staff thought its sitcoms were ‘especially effective’ at dealing with drug abuse, because they featured well-known, trusted characters.71 Not only was Maude’s husband shown battling alcoholism, Archie Bunker overdosed on amphetamine pills – an episode that psychiatrist William C. Rader cowrote in 1977.72 When, in season eight, Archie bought the neighbourhood bar, the story editors wanted Archie and Edith to get into a conflict over drinking. They contacted scholars for advice, only to drop the storyline after actress Jean Stapleton left.73 For their agenda setting, Lear’s programmes raked in plenty of awards. In 1974, All in the Family received a citation from the President’s Committee for Mental Retardation for an instalment that saw Gloria befriend a boy with learning difficulties. The same year, it got an award from the American Cancer Society ‘for the fear-reducing message put across in a recent episode’. Forty million people watched Edith worrying about mastectomy and her neighbour Irene confessing to having had one: ‘it hasn’t made one bit of difference in our marriage’.74 In 1975, the series earned an award for its contribution to population control. This was after Tandem had consulted the Population Institute (of which Carter was an engaged member) about scripts that portrayed Mike and Gloria’s problems as new parents.75 In 1977, All in the Family and its stablemates Maude and Good Times were commended by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for the realism with which they treated such issues as venereal disease, hypertension, breast cancer, menopause, ageing, alcoholism and mental health.76 In all these instances, Lear’s sitcoms would only pick up topics once they had become established in subcultural groups or particular milieus. New norms that urban elites or students had experimented with for several years now became the stuff of television comedy. The Lamaze technique of prepared childbirth had been developed during the 1940s and had become more popular since 1959. The taboo of breast cancer, too, had been tackled in the early 1970s (with the women’s health movement, and patients speaking out) and thus before the series made it a storyline in December 1973. Hence, All in the Family did not initiate debates but rather jumped on the bandwagon of ongoing movements – such as in the case of the women’s movement.

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Feminism The second wave of the feminist movement gathered momentum throughout the 1970s, with the NOW spreading its chapters throughout the United States, forcefully but ultimately unsuccessfully pushing for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution. There was also ongoing public discussion about the plight of frustrated housewives, sparked by Betty Friedan’s 1963 bestseller The Feminine Mystique. With couples everywhere arguing over whose career came first and who was to do the washing up, the sitcom weighed in by depicting two subservient housewives, Edith and Gloria, who slowly began to assert their interests, challenge male dominance and take up paid work. Well beyond Virginia Carter, many of the show’s producers and actors publicly supported feminism. After Edith’s television death during the 1980 season, the production firm donated $500,000 to the NOW’s Legal Defense and Education Fund to establish an ‘Edith Bunker Memorial Fund for the ERA and Women’s Rights’. This was at that point the largest corporate gift in the history of the women’s movement.77 Norman Lear himself received several awards from women’s organisations for his services to feminist causes.78 Jean Stapleton became more and more involved through Frances Lear ‘in this nest of activist stuff, in L.A., and began to get a little educated about things, and became somewhat of an activist’. She appeared ‘at rallies here and there’ and in 1977 addressed twenty thousand women at the National Women’s Conference in Houston in support of the ERA.79 From 1972 through 1975, Stapleton acted variously as a coordinator, communications officer and vice president for the Los Angeles chapter of the NOW. She was involved in a task force on the image of women in the media, particularly television, and tabled motions against sexist language and for a seminar on divorce. To promote the ERA, she took part in a radio debate and visited hesitant California legislators.80 Stapleton closely guarded her character, ‘never’ accepting the many invitations ‘to do Edith in the kitchen’ for commercials. She gave permission, however, to use Edith’s image in feminist magazine ads about women as second-class citizens.81 Tandem’s success in recruiting women writers was limited, however. In 1977, the All in the Family team counted twenty-one men and only two women.82 The TV industry of the 1970s was still a male world in which female careers were rare.83 But the few women writers who worked for Lear reportedly spoke ‘with beatific smiles of their safety scripting women as people, not as stereotypes’. Irma Kalish, who cowrote the breast cancer episode, thought female writers added ‘a basic honesty’ to the scripts. Her colleague Charlotte Brown was often asked in story conferences ‘how a woman would feel in a certain situation. What would she do’.84

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If the sitcom was to promote feminist ideas, it had to begin with the character of Edith Bunker. Originally, she was conceived as little more than a comic foil to Archie, a dim-witted ‘dingbat’ who ‘doesn’t have that much to say’.85 Edith was to iron Archie’s shirts, fetch him drinks and prepare his dinner for six o’clock sharp, and to do so with naïve devotion. She was continuously sending physical signals of subservience, shuffling around in frumpy housedresses, speaking with a nasal voice, always worrying about not upsetting Archie. ‘The abusive demands on Bunker’s part pushed Edith into a run’, recalled actress Jean Stapleton: her ‘little run’ to get things on the table became an enduring part of the role.86 Even if Edith occasionally deflated her husband’s bubble, she did so unintentionally, without a spark of rebelliousness. She was to be ‘the fool of God who meets everything with a simple and uncomplicated and unthinking act of love’, as viewer Duane Bradley Sanborne put it in a letter.87 Early press articles about Mrs Bunker labelled her ‘America’s most famous housewife’ and ‘the antithesis of women’s liberation’.88 While the rich media coverage overwhelmingly focussed on Archie and racism, the fascination of audiences with Edith and feminism went almost unnoticed. Contemporary audience surveys, fixated on respondents’ attitudes towards Archie, Mike and race, accidentally confirmed that Edith was the character viewers most liked and most agreed with.89 This was particularly true for females. Among teenagers in rural New Jersey, 39 per cent of the girls chose Edith as the character they liked most (Archie followed with 25 per cent). Boys’ preferences differed starkly. They liked Archie best (57 per cent), followed by Edith (18 per cent). Asked which character they agreed with most, the girls chose Gloria (39 per cent), though only very few found Edith disagreeable (2 per cent). Therefore, young female viewers sympathised with Edith even if they identified more with her young, modern daughter.90 Across all generations, women viewers reacted with outrage at how Archie treated Edith; to them, this was often more relevant than his racism. Asked about whether they remember having any ‘strong opinions’ about the show at the time, a majority of the female respondents to my informal survey recalled irritation at ‘poor Edith being degraded by Archie’.91 Archie was hated for being ‘a bully to his wife’,92 and viewers desperately ‘wanted Edith to speak up!’93 An administrator ‘used to discuss the program with friends all the time. About how badly Edith was treated (of course, because she let him!!)’. She saw ‘the new woman’ in Gloria and ‘the last generation woman’ in Edith.94 The juxtaposition of Gloria and Edith as modern and traditional was a common pattern of interpretation in the press, too.95 Indeed, the producers went to great lengths to portray Mrs Bunker as yesterday’s woman. The costume designer, Rita Riggs, worked hard to find, ‘in the age of polyester, real cotton that would wrinkle on Jeanie Stapleton’,

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and took inspiration from her mother and grandmother. Edith wore ‘my grandmother’s funny old apron pattern’ and very little jewellery, only rarely ‘the little graduated pearls … that my mother always wore’. Like ‘everybody’s mother and their modesty’, Edith ‘always had to pull her dress over her knees’. All this was in stark contrast to Gloria, who ‘always wore young things’, ‘cute short skirts’ and ‘fashionable little shirts and tops’, plus platforms to emphasise her openness to modern trends. Only towards the end of the decade, the designer sometimes ‘did her [Edith] fashionably’.96 This latter change reflected an evolution of Edith’s character, which, remarkably, was a response to audience reaction. For it quickly became apparent to the producers that audiences took intense interest in Edith’s plight. Story editors were surprised by a flood of letters from female viewers, objecting to Edith’s characterisation. Producerwriter Bernie West said in 1974, ‘There have been a lot of statements saying, as a woman, who is she? what is she? She’s too naïve, too dumb, too obedient and subservient to Archie’. Even ‘a group of nuns wrote a letter, their big complaint was they don’t like the way Archie treats Edith’. According to West, writers eventually reacted with ‘several episodes where Edith has stood up to Archie’. His colleague Michael Ross recalled ‘lots of letters’ in 1973 complaining about Gloria sitting ‘around the house all day’, and how, ‘in response to a lot of women lib type letters … we sat down and said, “They are absolutely right.”’ It was resolved to send Gloria ‘working at Kressler’s department store, at the cosmetic counter’.97 Jean Stapleton, likewise, received many letters criticising her role on feminist grounds, while Bea Arthur, who played the feisty female lead in Lear’s sitcom Maude, reportedly had thousands of letters by ‘frustrated housewives’ and ‘feminist groups’.98 Such letters carried considerable weight, as adult women were the most important target group for advertisers and All in the Family’s most faithful fans. The programme was number one among the coveted group of 18- to 49-year-old females from 1972 to 1976, and it is logical that story editors took heed and let the female characters ‘grow a great deal’.99 Slowly, the comedy began to show Edith and Gloria venturing out of traditional gender roles. In 1977, Stapleton claimed, ‘my character, Edith, has changed … she’s smarter and more aware of women’s rights, and she even stands up to Archie now’.100 During the 1973–74 season, she confronted Archie three times in twenty-four episodes, even slapping him once. Still, viewers had ‘to see all of them [shows] to see where and how she does it’ and to become aware of Edith’s emancipation.101 By the 1975–76 season, Edith’s transformation could no longer be overlooked, as she took up a volunteer job that developed into paid employment. In the sitcom’s last season, writer Larry Rhine recalled, ‘you could really see women’s lib taking over’. Archie had bought a neighbourhood bar, forging Edith’s signature to access her

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assets. In response, Edith claimed co-ownership and an active role in business decisions: ‘So this is Edith rising. No longer the dingbat’.102 Lear maintained that over the course of the 1970s, ‘you could probably trace the whole women’s movement just following Edith Bunker… . She was dominated by Archie at first, but she slowly, gradually, became undominated’.103 While the early years of the series, according to him, were about ‘stridency – Nixon, the Vietnam War protests, the generational conflict and student alienation’, by 1977, Archie Bunker was more preoccupied with ‘the growing independence of women’.104 The evolution of All in the Family’s women was typical for television in that period. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a slow but steady move to stronger, more independent women on prime time.105 Scholars have interpreted this slight shift to feminism in different ways. They either assume television merely reflected the changes U.S. society underwent in the feminist decade,106 or they argue that television commented on the changes triggered by the feminist movement, and in doing so, privileged dominant interpretations of reality.107 This study argues that television played an even more active role. Successful shows such as All in the Family were a player in their own right, advancing a specific agenda that included some of the changes feminists were pushing for while ignoring or denigrating others. Television entertainment helped to accelerate value change by translating elite discussions for the masses, but toned it down in the process. Television and society interacted in specific ways: programmes inspired actions and reactions by viewers, minority groups and institutions, and vice versa. The liberation of the ‘dingbat’ was not just followed by millions of ordinary viewers week after week. It was also a potent symbol of the contemporary controversy about stereotypical depictions of women on television.108 Edith’s fate concerned the NOW and even the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In a 1977 report on women and minorities in television, the commission remarked that ‘the women in situation comedies still tend to be subordinate to the men in their lives… . Edith scoots into the kitchen to fetch Archie a beer and rarely fails to have dinner on the table by 6 P.M.’. While the commission acknowledged that Gloria and Edith ‘have grown stronger over the years’, they were adamant that ‘the pattern of male dominance lingers’.109 The report triggered a public debate about Edith’s little beer runs. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) objected to the report’s recommendation that it regulate gender stereotyping on TV shows, saying it would constitute censorship if it tried to ‘judge role models’ and ‘oversee the day-to-day content of entertainment programs’. The Commission on Civil Rights dug in its heels, calling the ‘stereotyped portrayal of women … endemic of television institutionally’ and urging the FCC to embark on a general enquiry and ‘rulemaking’.110 But its recommendations found little favour in the press. Local newspapers ridiculed

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the Commission on Civil Rights for wanting ‘Edith portrayed in a positive light (as an atomic scientist perhaps)’. If TV’s top series showed females as subordinate, unemployed and ‘family-bound’, it was simply ‘showing life more or less as it is, not as the commission would like it to be’.111 Others called the report ‘unintentionally hilarious’, ‘querulous’ and ‘extremism in the pursuit of fairness’. The Emporia Gazette joked incredulously that ‘maybe, next year, Archie could fetch his own beer’.112 Producer Norman Lear then waded in, saying getting a beer did not make Edith ‘a stereotypical subordinate female’ but was rather ‘absolutely reflexive’ behaviour: ‘Getting Archie a beer when he wants it is not a top priority for her, it is just something she does’.113 In fact, by the time this argument played out, Edith had already refused to fetch a beer. In a November 1975 episode, Archie ordered his wife to stop volunteering at the Sunshine Home for the Elderly. In response, Edith told Archie ‘I ain’t taking no orders’ when he wanted dinner; she told him ‘then go for it’ when he wanted a beer, and she slammed the door in his face. The show ended with victory for Edith, who announced that the care home now paid her two dollars an hour. As this instalment introduced dramatic changes to the Bunker marriage, the story editors had taken great care to work out every detail, trying to anticipate audience reaction.114 Writers were most intent on showing the void in Edith’s life now that Gloria and Mike had moved out, and on making clear her desire to be useful instead of wasting her life during long days at home with nothing to do but household chores. It is worthwhile quoting at length from the transcript of the story conference. The writers involved were Norman Lear, Hal Kanter, Lou Derman, Bill Davenport and Mel Tolkin. LD: Edith is very busy doing things and neglecting Archie, this is what the audience sees … HK: They may [have] sympathy for Archie at first, but I’ll tell you that every woman in that audience and many men are going to have equal sympathy for Edith … NL: Now she says and no more volunteering they are gonna pay me two dollars an hour … she says case closed. You can just get to a beautiful ending on case closed. LD: Is there a lack of sympathy now if she does this to a man who … Let me be devil’s advocate now … NL: They’ll cheer her … LD: If she wasn’t taking away from Archie the time she is giving there I think there would be more sympathy … HK: I think that 90 per cent of the people that watch that will be so much in Edith’s corner, they’ll say, yeah, you’re right, the abuse that he has heaped on her over the years, it’s time she struck back …

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NL: I love the two dollars an hour because she is not gonna continue indefinitely doing volunteer work which is a drag to women everywhere … HK: She’s gonna work in the office. BD: No keep doing what she’s doing, she’s bringing happiness to these people … LD: Why is he making such a heavy pitch, when he is losing just 10 minutes a day of her. BD: That’s Archie Bunker. LD: She’s become a person rather than a housewife. MT: Competition. HK: It’s also the fact that she’s got a life of her own. NL: He’s jealous of it … and Mike says, you know your problem Archie, she’s a person now… . [H]e could be doing the women’s lib thing … a woman who isn’t satisfied being home all day waiting for you to come in the door … LD: She now has an existence between getting your breakfast and getting your dinner. NL: That’s great stuff.115

Story editors here chose to transport some ideas of the women’s movement – linking personhood with employment, and volunteering with exploitation – while taking pains not to go too far in empowering Edith. There was considerable concern about alienating male and conservative viewers (Derman’s ‘devil’s advocate’ anticipated their reaction) whose sympathy would lie with Archie. Therefore, the producers decided to cut certain lines from the finished version. Edith was not to complain about chores (‘I can’t spend the whole day just dusting and mopping and cooking’). She was not to tell Archie, ‘The ring’s on my finger not on my nose … I’m a human being, not an animal’.116 The writers tried to soften the blow on Archie in several ways. They snubbed Lear’s idea of Edith telling Archie ‘case closed’ at the end. They added sentimental scenes in which the two read old love letters and confessed their love to each other over dinner in their favourite restaurant. Edith’s life had to keep revolving around the private sphere and the nurturing of others: she was not to do office work, and neither would she ‘go to Kelsey’s’ bar when falling out with Archie.117 Direct references to women’s liberation were considered but ultimately discarded. Norman Lear had turned the team’s attention to the raging debate about negligent mothers being the root cause of crime. But while the draft had Archie saying, ‘I only read yesterday in the paper where Police chief Davis from LA says them Women Lippers are causing kids to go wrong cause they ain’t home’, this was cut in the final version.118 Even in its domesticated version, this episode made a big stir. The studio audience met Edith’s moves against Archie with huge cheers, whistles and claps, a pattern that was repeated at subsequent tapings.119 And five years

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later, the fashion magazine Vogue highlighted this particular programme in its obituary for Edith: ‘perhaps our attachment to Edith grew in those episodes when she tried to defend herself against him’, such as in the sequence where Archie tried to keep Edith from ‘being a Sunshine Lady, a volunteer worker with the ill and elderly’.120 Like Mrs Bunker, Vogue was not known for radical feminism, but rather for cautiously embracing a slow evolution. All in the Family strengthened moderate, liberal feminists when it highlighted the frustration of married housewives and the perils of traditional submissiveness. While doing so, it rejected the agenda of radical feminism. Edith did not complain about household chores and abuse; she never threatened divorce; she did not demand equal power or equal pay. So when Lear’s assistant Virginia Carter elatedly announced to the press that Edith was ‘now a Sunshine Lady for pay instead of a volunteer’, earning just under the minimum wage, which stood at $2.10 that year, the TV Guide called this ‘not exactly radical feminism’ but nevertheless ‘one small step for womankind’.121 On several occasions, the sitcom openly campaigned for legal reforms championed by liberal feminists. A March 1973 episode repeatedly hammered the point home that in rape trials, while the victim had to appear as witness before the jury, the defendant did not have to. An October 1975 episode saw the pregnant Gloria being fired from her job as sales girl, then reinstated after she confronted the store manager and organised a boycott that developed into a ‘prego power’ demonstration against sex discrimination.122 Staff writer Larry Rhine called this storyline ‘a crusade against an inequity’, and producer Hal Kanter informed his colleagues that Virginia Carter was ‘very excited about the whole notion’ and had provided extensive information about the legal situation.123 All in the Family backed the liberal women’s movement not only by airing shows but also by issuing self-help manuals. The production firm teamed up with a Los Angeles pastor to distribute a cheap eighty-two-page book named ‘Edith the Good’ that encouraged ordinary women to explore their emancipatory options. Lavishly illustrated with stills from the show, with a preface by actress Jean Stapleton and short chapters written in plain English, the slim volume pursued a clear line: women’s liberation was ‘not a battle of the sexes’, but a movement striving for the personal fulfilment of individuals of both genders. Author Spencer Marsh, a cleric and ‘former male chauvinist’, argued that women had to liberate themselves from the stifling expectations and gendered stereotypes of society, if only to avoid depression or alcoholism.124 As a pastor-counselor, I have seen many women who are victimized by their families and society in the same way that Edith Bunker often is… . [S]he is disabled by two words bellowed by her husband and pressed upon her by much of society: Stifle yourself! … As a counselor who has talked with many

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women who in one way or another identify with Edith, I am convinced that she also suffers great periods of anguish.125

The booklet encouraged women to accompany Edith on a ‘destifilization process’. Housewifery could be ‘a dead-end’, with ‘meaningless’ household tasks leaving women to ‘vegetate’ and feel old and ‘useless’ after the children had left the house.126 The solution proposed for ‘a person like Edith’, a person ‘past forty’, was to explore one’s ‘options for growth’. Edith was to write down a list of personal assets that could be developed further, and if her family was not supportive, she was to ‘find a group with whom she can meet regularly’. The author helpfully suggested piano lessons and assertiveness training for Edith, but added travel, education, career and creativity as generally available options. In this way, taking up the piano became a service to women’s liberation. ‘We are in the middle of a revolution that is slowly bringing about equal rights and equal opportunity for women … and when one woman acts on her option [for growth], the revolution benefits because that one encourages the many.’127 Edith thus came to define to many viewers what it meant to be a liberated woman – in a distinctly deradicalised way. While Lear maintained that ‘Edith’s life was enriched by women’s struggle for equality’,128 actress Jean Stapleton cautioned that her character’s ‘gradual and honest growth … didn’t get that far’ and that she would not have understood or supported the Equal Rights Amendment.129 The series presented Edith’s plight as typical for older housewives and identified society as the root cause of her problems, thus going beyond what Bonnie J. Dow termed just ‘raising complex feminist issues only to dissolve them into the personal psychology of individual characters, thereby suppressing their larger political meaning’. With Archie, All in the Family showcased the demise of the authoritarian patriarch. With Edith’s evolution, it promoted the aims of liberal, individualist feminism: Edith was to grow and overcome ‘personal barriers’. This moderate type of self-help feminism latched on readily to basic American ideals such as individualism and equal opportunities. It was embraced also by other prime-time shows of the 1970s (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, One Day at a Time). ‘Popular culture’s featuring of therapeutic feminism in the mid- to late 1970s was not a case of creating a new feminism out of whole cloth; rather it was a selection of a particular variation of feminism from the available options.’130 If the show at all mentioned radical feminist demands of sisterhood and collective action to overturn patriarchal structures, it ridiculed them. A ‘female fairy’ organising a ‘female fair exhibition’ was lampooned in a 1972 episode. In a 1971 sequence, Gloria, having devoured three books on women’s lib, announced women would be rising up against men – because she wanted to defend Edith’s right to express herself by making bacon soufflé instead of the usual breakfast.131 The most radical variants of American feminism – Marxist, antipornography and

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lesbian feminist groups and those who wanted women to fight men – did not feature at all in the series.132 All in the Family’s agenda – favouring liberal, legal, self-help feminism at the expense of collective action and radical feminism – was set by elites but then pushed forward by the audiences themselves. Certainly liberal producers and feminist activists – Norman Lear, Frances Lear, Jean Stapleton, Virginia Carter, Pastor Spencer Marsh and many story editors133 – left an imprint on the series. But without the engaged letters written by hundreds of viewers, Edith and Gloria would not have grown over time. Producers and writers took these letters seriously because they came from the 18- to 49-year-old women who were the network’s prime target group. Therefore, All in the Family did more than mirror or comment on the feminist movement; it was a major public forum in which changes to gender roles were negotiated and advanced. As the NOW’s press secretary Nancy Thompson said in 1980, many moderate ‘feminists first opposed [the] show’ but changed their minds thereafter.134 As viewers watched Edith’s slow liberation, they might also have picked up on the sitcom’s treatment of ‘how to do post-patriarchal marriage’.135 Marriage was the bedrock of the show; divorce was not an option for either couple. (That was even though divorce rates in the United States more than doubled from 1963 to 1975, with the model of no-fault divorce advancing across the federal states.136) Still, All in the Family included rich commentary on different marriage models. It contrasted the traditional union of Archie and Edith – the patriarch in charge, the asexual housewife, the bond ‘for better or for worse’ – with Mike and Gloria’s ‘battles with modern marriage’.137 The series performed a delicate balancing act, propagating egalitarianism and partnership while holding on to the traditional marriage with its absolute commitment. Gloria told her mother that ‘he [Archie] has turned you into a doormat … Marriage is supposed to be a partnership’.138 In a palpably didactic episode, Gloria and Michael taught Edith the technique of ‘fair fighting’. Psychologists, they argued, recommended ‘to get things out into the open’. Bottling anger up was unhealthy. Instead, real partners should schedule fights and keep to the rules: no hitting below the belt, no calling names, no ‘gunnysacking’.139 By 1973, the Bunkers were supplied with neighbours living a sex-role switch (Frank cooked, sang and whined; Irene was the feminist, dominant Mrs Fix-It) in a happy marriage of equals. While Archie lambasted Irene as ‘the queen of women’s lubrication’ and Frank as ‘the prince of pepperoni’, the other members of the Bunker household regularly frequented Irene to be dispensed the wisdoms of modern marriage, liberalism and feminism.140 In Tandem’s self-help manuals, the patriarchal ‘captain-deckhand relationship’ was similarly denounced as ‘degrading’ and ‘offensive’ to women. Instead, the booklets emphasised that marriage was a ‘partnership’ of two independent but committed individuals that allowed each other to grow: ‘Archie is cheating himself. When he stifles

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Edith, he stifles the quality of their marriage’. The ‘leftover caveman concepts of masculinity’ had to be overcome.141 The programme advocated partnership but also portrayed the young couple’s struggle with the pitfalls of modern matrimony. Mike wanted to grant Gloria ‘total equality’ but resented her ‘big mouth around the house’.142 Gloria could not resist rubbing it in that it was she who brought home the paycheck.143 Both frequently battled jealousy, the temptation of adultery and frustration whenever their expectations of consistently marvellous marital sex were thwarted.144 In line with the recognition effect described previously, many ordinary viewers identified their parents’, their in-laws’ or even their own marriages with the Bunkers.145 A viewer from Cleveland remembered how his then girlfriend’s parents disapproved of me very similar to the clash between Archie and Mike… . Almost every older male member of my family and the community where I came from were like Archie, blue-collar, working-class and very bigoted… . Some even wore “I am Archie Bunker” buttons… . All of the older women in my family and community were like Edith, subservient to their husbands.146

Often, couples compared themselves to the Bunkers, such as these two white middle-aged couples taped for a documentary in 1991: Wife: I love Edith because she is so innocent … wise, too. And she puts up with that beast, Archie, and I know what that’s like. (husband laughs, embarrassed) Husband: Edith goes right back to the basics of marriage. She knows that her place is in the house (wife sighs audibly), and Archie knows that her place is there, and – mm – (wife elbows him) … See, she doesn’t agree with me, but tomorrow is our 47th wedding anniversary. Wife: It used to get on my nerves, the put-down all the time with Edith and Archie, and I felt like saying, get up and get your own beer, or get up and clear up the table. Husband: That’s what she tells me, get off your butt and do it yourself. (laughs)147

In July 1974, 278 people in Atlanta, Georgia, were asked whether Archie and Edith, or Mike and Gloria, presented ‘a proper example for the way a husband and wife should treat each other’. The Mike-Gloria relationship was favoured most by middle-class respondents, while the patriarchal roles depicted by Archie and Edith were most popular with ‘lower-class’ interviewees, particularly if they were African American.148 A few months later, the same questions were given to 225 Chicago residents. Again, results confirmed that those with the lowest income and status were most likely to

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defend the traditional pattern. Overall, respondents in both cities rejected the Archie-Edith model: it scored 3.6 on a five-level ‘strongly agree’ (1) to ‘strongly disagree’ (5) Likert scale. The Gloria-Mike ‘low authoritarian’ marriage was cautiously embraced, scoring 2.8 overall. Remarkably, the figures confirm that neither of the two models yet managed to dominate; majority attitudes were in transition. Whether the scholars sorted the data by region, race or social class, the agreement with Mike and Gloria’s modern marriage hovered only between 2.7 and 2.8, while disagreement with the patriarchal standard was more pronounced (between 3.4 and 3.8).149

Sexuality If the idea of marital partnership was on the advance throughout the United States, so was what contemporaries called ‘the sexual revolution’. Naturally, a postpatriarchal relationship raised questions of sexual mutuality and woman’s sexual self-determination. It is thus not surprising that All in the Family spent much airtime dealing with issues such as sexual fulfilment in marriage, female sexuality, rape and extramarital attraction. Contemporaries disagreed about the sitcom’s role in the sexual revolution. On the one hand, the CBS censors decried lots of ‘explicit sex’ in the show,150 concurring with a grassroots anti-TV movement that since late 1974 had been pushing for more regulation of the networks. The California judge who ended the ‘family viewing policy’ (which obliged the networks to step up censorship during prime-time hours) in 1976 singled out All in the Family as the ‘shorthand for sex and violence’ on television.151 On the other hand, TV Guide reminded its over forty million readers that ‘the “sexual revolution” of the 60’s in its most overt form has not been given houseroom by the networks’. Compared to movies and magazines, prime-time TV challenged traditional sexual morals only in an ‘extremely limited’ way. ‘Despite all the furore suggesting the contrary, the Norman Lear shows are bastions of traditional sexual morality … monogamous to the hilt.’152 Whom are we to believe? Where is All in the Family’s place in the sexual revolution? Scholars have described the sexual revolution as a long, not always linear process across the twentieth century that turned the meaning of sex ‘away from reproduction and the family and toward individual gratification and fulfillment’. The key elements were the separation of sex and reproduction, the separation of sex and marriage, and a shift in power between men and women. The 1960s and 1970s stood out because multiple social movements (of women, gays, lesbians, youth, hippies and African Americans) converged with new possibilities of contraception and major legal changes (which facilitated divorce, abortion and the marketing of pornography). Together,

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these forces weakened the link between sexuality and reproduction, but they also advanced the commercialisation of sexuality.153 As it became possible to talk about sex in new ways and a porn wave swept the markets, changes in actual sexual behaviour also accelerated. But which factors drove the sexual revolution? Besides laws, scientific advances and social movements, the mass media and particularly TV have been suggested as key players in forming a new sexual culture – both through the uncovering of scandals and entertainment storytelling.154 Network television, according to a recent study by Elana Levine, broadened the sexual revolution while moderating and commercialising it. During the mid-1970s, prime-time TV moved from the earnest discussion of sexual issues to silly giggles and increasingly commercialised sex. From 1970–71 onwards, the industry introduced sitcoms built on sexual humour: alongside All in the Family, mainly M*A*S*H* and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. By 1976, ABC developed the brand of ‘jiggle TV’, featuring series with big-bosomed babes in bikinis (starting with Charlie’s Angels). NBC answered with ‘kiddie porn’, programmes ‘that make kids squeal and close their eyes’, and ‘adult porn’, sensationalist made-for-TV movies about the dangers of prostitution, rape or other anxieties raised by the sexual revolution. Their heyday was from 1976 to 1979.155 While All in the Family did not include explicit sex acts, ‘jiggle’ or graphic language, it contained titillating jokes, talk about sexual mores and plots about sexual hang-ups and sexual violence. The series quickly became a widely recognised forum in which new attitudes towards the body, the pursuit of sexual pleasure and power relations in sexuality were publicly negotiated. By 1978, Lear was ‘generally regarded as the most influential person in breaking down barriers that led to thoughtful treatment of certain sexual matters’.156 This began with bringing ‘unmentionable bodily functions to television. The Bunkers went to the bathroom and did more than sleep in bed. They were constipated, temporarily impotent, worried about menopause and beset by diarrhea’.157 Archie belched, audibly flushed the toilet and blew raspberries.158 Beyond that, the show did much to make female bodies more mentionable. A full 1973 episode dealt with Gloria menstruating, having headaches and being irritable. It mocked the use of euphemisms such as ‘blessing’ or ‘a visit from … Mother Nature’. Gloria’s period was explicitly linked to Germaine Greer’s thesis that women had been ‘mentally castrated’ and taught to repress their bodily needs.159 This episode generated the most mail in the 1972–73 season. ‘People wrote in saying things like, how can you mention “menstruation”?’160 An Emmy-winning episode on Edith’s menopause made an even bigger splash. Actress Jean Stapleton said, ‘We got so many letters on that one… . One woman said, “My husband watched the show, and now he knows what I’m going through.” Another woman wrote, “It was just like you were following me around the house.”’161 It was the first

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time the subject had been broached on entertainment TV, complete with a list of symptoms, ‘groinacologist’ input and emphatic endorsement of hormone replacement therapy. Head writer Don Nicholls treated the subject with particular caution, saying it would have been wholly impossible to deal with on TV five years earlier.162 Edith Bunker’s ‘change of life’ left a lasting impression on viewers.163 But audiences were impressed not only by ‘serious’ body topics such as menopause, miscarriage and breast cancer, but also by the lightheartedness with which bodily sounds and functions were portrayed. A male viewer who was twelve at the time recalled ‘feeling quite shocked by the open discussion of burping and farting in the show’.164 A mother in New York reported that her nine- and ten-year-old sons were ‘extremely grateful and relieved’ about an instalment in which Archie battled diarrhoea.165 All in the Family explored bodily as well as sexual ‘unmentionables’ – such as nudity, pornography and the worries of marital sex. The second season saw Mike getting nervous about Gloria posing in the nude for a male artist friend.166 In the 1975–76 season, the series dared to defy the network censors’ paradigm of allowing ‘no nudity, frontal, backal or sidal’.167 Archie diapered his grandson, giving a split second’s view of the infant’s male genitalia.168 ‘The networks wanted him to be a girl … and they asked us to please diaper him on his belly … we placed the camera where we wanted it’, Lear recalled.169 Archie’s grandson Joey Stivic thus became famous for the first instance of ‘frontal nudity’ on television, a fact capitalised upon by Tandem by marketing the first anatomically correct male baby doll in the United States.170 The sitcom also commented on the commercialisation of sex. A June 1973 sequence in which Archie ranted about pornography was sparked by a Supreme Court ruling on the sale of hard-core pornography.171 The production team was cautious: Archie was not to receive indecent mailings or attend a porn movie; instead, Gloria brought home a sculpture of two nude lovers kissing.172 Nevertheless, a minority of viewers felt the show was ‘force-feeding … pornographic smut to American children’, and we need to look at the televised content to understand why.173 The above episode, for example, hinted explicitly at using hands during intercourse and had Gloria try on see-through lingerie (naturally offscreen). Several shows ended with either the young or the old couple going upstairs to have sex.174 Both frequently talked about sex, sometimes in the marital bed.175 Entire instalments saw the Bunkers confronted with swingers, well-endowed blondes or unmarried hippie couples wanting to spend the night. Archie, Edith, Mike and Gloria were all tempted with extramarital affairs. Even if such offers were invariably declined, this happened only after wordy conversation.176

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The contrast between the sexually active, adventurous and extroverted young couple and the prudish old couple was played up throughout the series’ run. The hedonistic and consumerist Gloria, the epitome of the modern girl with whom television had experimented since the 1960s, was intent on individual sexual fulfilment.177 She ridiculed her father and the older generation as ‘narrow-minded’, ‘puritanical’ and ‘uptight’.178 Her parents squirmed when they had to speak about ‘you know what married people do – sometimes’ (Edith). Archie could ‘only talk about it in very special places … like a saloon’ and ‘in a whisper’.179 Indeed, it was a key intention to make audiences ‘see his sexual hangups’.180 The sitcom went further by encouraging viewers to talk to their partners and take pleasure in sexuality. In a February 1977 episode, the couple talked about their sex life after Archie found Edith reading a sex manual.181 The Tandem-sponsored booklet Edith the Good advised women to embrace sex as natural and enjoyable and overcome their inhibitions. It exhorted them to ‘educate yourself sexually’ by taking classes and reading books.182 In line with the sexual revolution, the series emphasised that sex was primarily about individual enjoyment, not duty or reproduction. But in contrast to other outlets, prime-time TV firmly stayed within the boundaries of heterosexuality and marriage. Good sex meant trying new things, but it had to take place within wedlock.183 But even if it banned pre- and extramarital sex, All in the Family took on some controversial issues. It propagated mutuality and equal partnership in the bedroom, defended women’s right to make the first move and encouraged experimentation with wigs and dress. It discussed male insecurity caused by assertive, sexually aggressive women. Gloria accused Mike of ‘typical male superiority garbage’, mentioned ‘double standards’ in the bedroom, emphasised her sex drive was ‘just as strong’ as his, refused to ‘turn myself into a sex object’ if she did not want to and was outraged at married men groping women (Archie: ‘it’s tradition’; Gloria: ‘it’s molesting’).184 The young couple’s diminishing sex life before and after baby Joey’s birth was discussed, as were vasectomy, false pregnancy alarm and impotence.185 Such topics triggered clashes with the network. President of CBS television Robert D. Wood himself flew to California to persuade Norman Lear to postpone an episode on temporary impotence; Lear won the argument after a three-hour conversation.186 The conflict with the network censors was constant. As CBS head of programming Fred Silverman recalled, ‘the guy in charge … turned grey in a year, having to deal with Norman Lear every week’.187 From the start, sexual topics caused the most trouble. One week before the pilot screened, the producer and CBS fought over what they called ‘the ground floor’ – a line ‘just a notch below the maximum we will allow’, established in the first episode.188 Though the network had already bought thirteen instalments,

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CBS’s Department of Program Practices now wanted to delete all references to ‘explicit sex’. It also requested to start out with the second, less objectionable programme. Lear strenuously refused to agree to either, and the network gave in only the day before the broadcast.189 The producer maintained that CBS eventually ‘agreed to air the first show with no deletions’. Still, a comparison between the pilot tape and the first episode reveals crucial differences. In the broadcast version, the young couple was surprised by the parents’ return before and not during intercourse. Gone were the scenes where Mike embraced Gloria from behind when she bent over and chased her up the stairs, and where on the way back down the stairs, Gloria tucked in her blouse and Mike zipped up his fly.190 The line established here would be kept throughout: Gloria and Mike would be shown kissing, hugging and going upstairs, but no more than that. Therefore, All in the Family toed a fine line, resisting blatant network censorship but often bowing to expected pressure. Story editor Don Nicholls in 1973 spoke of ‘a great deal of [self-]censorship of taste’.191 Many potential storylines were discarded as too explicit. Archie could not go to a porn movie, and Mike could not moonlight by conducting a sex survey. A February 1975 story conference decided to pass on the latter plot.192 Lear also rejected a script by Larry Rhine in which Mike jobbed for a blacklisted magazine and Gloria sat for nude photos.193 Jokes about promiscuity were deleted,194 as was Edith’s assertion that Gloria was a surprise (as Archie ‘wanted a Volkswagen’ instead) and Archie’s clumsy attempt to avoid the word ‘breast’ while discussing breastfeeding.195 The production team knew it was walking a tightrope. A sketch that story editors Larry Rhine and Mel Tolkin wrote for a private function listed everything forbidden on prime time before 9.00 P.M. In this ironic ‘1975 version’ of the show’s theme tune, the Bunkers ridiculed network censorship: Television’s grown up now / no one needs a marriage vow / folks go to the toilet now / These are the days. / Single girls can take the pill / Robert can propose to Bill / and we can all say prune juice and toosh and potty out loud / These are the days. / (Gloria) We can show my pregnancy / (Mike) And John Boy can have VD / (Archie) plus a quick vasectomy / (all in chorus) after 9 o’clock! / These are the days.196

The taboos mentioned here were toilet humour, unmarried sex, homosexual love, venereal disease and contraception – and the sitcom was moved to a late-evening slot in 1975 because it was considered in breach of the guidelines. All in the Family was one of the biggest bones of contention in the protracted struggle over ‘family viewing time’ on the networks during 1975–76. The show came to symbolise the very public conflict about restricting the early evening hours to programming that was suitable for parent and child viewing. Norman Lear’s production firm appeared as the

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only joint plaintiff to seek damages in the lawsuit that the Writers Guild filed against the FCC and the networks in October 1975.197 All in the Family’s producers maintained that the family hour had stepped up censorship, and that CBS had moved the number one show to a post-primetime slot because of its references to sexuality and thus caused a significant decline of the series’ long-term syndication value.198 Because the sitcom would be offered to syndicated stations for prime-time summer reruns and beyond, CBS’s Department of Program Practices had tried to talk the production team out of themes that were considered unsuitable for parent and child viewing (for example, Mike suggesting he did not want children).199 According to Lear, two out of twenty-four taped programmes for the 1975– 76 season were deemed unacceptable by CBS, and twenty-one required modifications to be broadcast during prime time.200 What the networks perceived as shocking was not necessarily experienced as such by audiences. Viewers widely agreed that the show broached taboo topics, but many found merit precisely in this aspect. As an elderly southern lady reported: ‘We were not used to hearing the word sex … it wasn’t talked about in my family’. A man in his twenties testified that ‘for me it was such a relief, in my own family, that subjects that we didn’t talk about were talked about on that show’.201 A female manager who regularly tuned in for first runs and reruns found the show ‘liberating to me personally’ as ‘it created a forum’ for the discussion of ‘unmentionables’.202 Many viewers argued that sex on TV was admissible the way All in the Family treated it – as a serious subject – but not in its titillating version. Karen Knapp from Macomb, Illinois, expressed a ‘need for programming that deals with sex honestly and maturely’ but was ‘tired of … childish locker-room humor’. ‘Our entire family enjoys Norman Lear’s shows, but raw sex’ should be avoided, wrote Mrs Ronnie Myers from Denver. She castigated those who saw sex as ‘sinful’ and wanted to keep it ‘hidden’. At the same time, she objected to ‘rape, homosexuality, sex changes, etc.’ on television.203 It appears sexuality on-screen became a problem for many viewers only where the limits of heterosexuality were breached or violence came in. A national poll in October 1975 found that 80 per cent supported ‘family viewing time’, but most viewers objected more to violent than sexual content. Particularly the young (under twenty-nine years of age), the college-educated and the more affluent held violence to be more harmful than sexuality. Conversely, women, the over-fifties and those with at most eighth-grade education were most worried about sex on TV.204 Fully 72 per cent of viewers stated that they had never been offended in any way by a programme.205 Judging from All in the Family’s ratings and viewer comments, only a small minority opposed the treatment of sexual matters as a matter of principle. The most common reaction seems to have been one of slight embarrassment mixed with enjoyment – as long as the show kept away from

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sexual violence and nonheterosexual topics. A survey investigating audience fun corroborated that Archie’s jokes on sexual liberation were experienced to be the most hilarious, beating racist gags and hostile humour at the expense of Edith and Mike. Out of six types of Archie’s jokes rated by respondents, his lament on ‘what you call this new mortality – skirts up to here, hot pants to even further, see-through blouses, movies with people in bed’ – scored highest, while jokes about homosexuals scored second to last.206 These findings tie in with surveys by advertising agencies that found ‘that the general public was particularly uncomfortable with “ideas and behaviors which seem to threaten their existing concepts of family institution”, such as homosexuality and “mate swapping”’.207 One of the few sex-themed episodes that truly shocked audiences was a 1977 plot in which Edith escaped a rapist by the skin of her teeth. The sitcom showed rape as an act of violence, not sex, done to a woman who was neither young nor beautiful. For once, television treated rape seriously, instead of using it ‘to exploit and titillate’.208 The studio audience was ‘gasping and shouting’ during the taping, and TV critics assessed the sequence as ‘one of the most harrowing scenes of this or any season’.209 Viewers reported being overcome by strong emotions: ‘I about cried when I saw that happen’ – ‘that was tough’ – ‘watching what happened to Edith is like watching it happen to your mother’.210 Fans often mentioned this show as the most controversial episode ever, and many avoiding rewatching it, as it ‘disturbed the willies out of me’; it was ‘traumatic’, ‘utterly uncomfortable to watch’ and ‘a very scary thing to see’.211 When the studio audience bombarded the writers with questions after the taping, about ‘what happened between Edith and Archie after the rape’, producer Mort Lachman ‘realised there was more to the show than we had done’ and added another episode dealing with the fallout.212 The production team had certainly been out to shock. ‘We didn’t merely want to entertain — we wanted to make things happen’, issues consultant Virginia Carter proudly stated. Together with ‘the Rape Crisis Centre in LA’, she had worked on the script, but also on manuals and study guides with discussion questions. These materials were then distributed to police stations and rape treatment centres all over the country.213 The episodes themselves were screened at many rape crisis centres and during the New York Police Department’s detective training classes.214 All in the Family’s treatment of rape was so disturbing to audiences because it presented rape in an emotionally challenging way, dedicating much time to Edith’s anguish and the traumatic aftermath of the attack. The 1977 episode sought to give a voice to the antirape movement that had been gathering steam throughout the decade: there had been rape ‘speak-outs’, a NOW National Task Force on Rape and a Feminist Alliance Against Rape from 1971 to 1974. A 1975 bestseller by Susan Brownmiller argued that

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rape was at the core of patriarchy and a male plot to intimidate women. The number of reported rapes tripled between 1967 and 1980, as women now were more willing to come forward.215 When Lear’s team took up the topic, scriptwriters Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf extensively researched the subject and consulted with the founder of the Santa Monica rape treatment center, Gail Abarbanell. The storyline was in the works for over a year.216 As a result, the plot made it impossible to blame the victim and defend the attacker and emphasised that rape had nothing to do with passion, that the justice system failed women and that the experience traumatised the victim. It also encouraged women to press charges.217 The sitcom was not a trailblazer – throughout the 1970s, network news programmes, magazines and newspapers had devoted more and more space to the subject of rape.218 Daytime soap operas had discovered sexual assault, too, slowly moving from ‘old-fashioned’ interpretations that saw rape as ‘a romantic, if misguided, act of passion’ to new ones that emphasised that it was an act of violence. But often, the lines between passion and violence remained blurred, for example, by the victim falling in love with the rapist.219 In 1977, All in the Family acted as a catalyst, accelerating the demise of traditional myths about rape (such as it being motivated by sexual desire and the woman being to blame). It helped transport a new discussion topic from a minority group, the antirape activists, into the mainstream of popular culture. However, the series also deradicalised the message, as it did not present rape as an expression of patriarchy or discuss marital rape. Much the same mechanism was at work when the series commented on homosexuality. The number one show again functioned as a catalyst that both popularised and deradicalised value change. It voiced, and sanitised, ideas that had originated during the 1960s in San Francisco and New York, even before the Stonewall riots of 1969. Homosexual subcultures had become more visible and the advent of gay liberation had encouraged more gays to ‘come out’ or organise themselves politically. But on television, Lear’s comedy was seen as pioneering. Its February 1971 episode about homosexuality ‘was a groundbreaker for everybody’ and ‘allowed other people to explore that subject’ (so TV producer Richard Levinson said).220 The instalment taught audiences about the dangers of stereotyping by contrasting an effeminate but straight visitor with a virile but gay friend of Archie’s.221 It elicited a strong reaction, at least if we judge from President Nixon’s description of it on the White House tapes. I was trying to tune into the damn baseball game … and CBS came on with … the damnedest thing I ever heard … they were glorifying homosexuality… . Arch is sitting here with his sloppy clothes, and here’s this hippie son-in-law who’s married to a screwball looking daughter … the son-in-law obviously, apparently goes both ways, likes the daughter and all

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the rest. So the [visiting] guy comes in the door, but he comes in and he’s obviously queer—he wears an ascot and so forth and he uses the language… . then Arch goes down to the local bar … and his best friend, Archie’s best friend … God, he’s handsome, virile, strong … he says … ‘It’s true Arch, it’s true. How long have you known me? Have you ever seen me with a girl?’ … I turned the goddamned thing off… . Goddamn, I do not think that you glorify on public television homosexuality… . What do you think that does to eleven- and twelve-year-old boys when they see that? Why is it that the Scouts … we constantly had to clean up the staffs to keep the goddamned fags out of it … it outrages me because I don’t want to see this country go that way … you know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them… . You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags … the popes from the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That’s what’s happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France. And let’s look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root ’em out… . You see, homosexuality, dope, immorality, in general, these are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the communists and left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they’re trying to destroy us.222

Nixon’s response was not unusual among conservatives in 1971. At its core were deep-seated popular myths: homosexuality was contagious and a threat to vulnerable male teens; with homosexuality came cultural decadence; it weakened grown men’s virility; every man was innately bisexual (as Kinsey had argued).223 To this, Nixon added Cold War fears of socialists trying to undermine the United States’ strength by destabilising heterosexuality. All in the Family took a stance against these myths and advocated the tolerance of homosexuality. Whenever Archie scorned ‘fags’ and ‘fairies’, Mike sent him up. The show tried to allay widespread fears by making Archie’s gay friend especially masculine and respectable, with not even a hint of camp or promiscuity. It treated the subject in a didactic fashion, preaching tolerance, but did not allow homosexuality to invade the heterosexual bulwark on which the series was built. Up to 1971, gays and lesbians had been hardly visible on prime time; if they appeared, it was as laughingstock. Homosexuals were among the ‘licensed targets’ for condescending jokes.224 Television authors reported that sympathetic portrayals of gays were unwelcome to the networks. In 1972, ABC forced producers to change plots in order to defuse ‘latent homosexual viewers’, and NBC turned down a programme about a gay politician ‘because … he was portrayed as neither nancy nor psychopath’.225 By the mid-1970s, though, the tide was turning. Gayness ‘began to stand in for the new sexual culture’ in television comedy, and the TV Guide exclaimed that ‘homosexuals are this season’s big laugh-getters’.226 The head of the Gay Media Task Force, Newt Deiter, in 1977 spoke of ‘perhaps thirty projects – movies, pilots and series episodes – involving gay characters’.227 But the wave

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broke when a divisive public fight over gay rights began. Singer Anita Bryant’s homophobic campaign Save Our Children scored a huge success in Florida’s Dade County, repealing a pro-gay, antidiscrimination ordinance in June 1977. Bryant then took her crusade across the United States. Matters came to a head in California, where the Briggs ballot initiative – which would have mandated state schools to fire openly gay teachers and administrators – was eventually defeated in November 1978. Now, a backlash against sexual permissiveness formed in earnest, and the division over gay rights became deadly. In summer 1977, a gay man was stabbed in San Francisco (where more than one hundred thousand gay people had settled during the 1970s) and a crowd of two hundred thousand turned out to protest the killing. A year later, San Francisco’s mayor, George Moscone, and a member of the Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk, were murdered at city hall.228 By 1981, televangelist Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority – a nationwide organisation of the religious right – had gathered several million followers, mostly evangelical Christians. It lobbied politicians and broadcasters to uphold traditional morals and reject gay rights and the ERA. All in the Family’s commentary on homosexuality played out on this stage. Indeed, Norman Lear soon defined his production empire as the liberal counterpart of the Moral Majority. To defy Jerry Falwell, Lear founded the progressive movement People for the American Way in 1981. It propagated gay rights, gender equality and the separation of church and state. Lear’s sitcoms had begun to give a greater voice to gay and lesbian interests already in 1975. First, Tandem had worked together with National Gay Task Force activists in developing its ill-fated comedy series Hot L Baltimore (ABC, 1975), which included a gay couple among the main characters.229 When Hot L Baltimore was cancelled, the top-rated All in the Family – which had left homosexuality aside for four years – returned to the subject. It introduced a camp but not necessarily gay transvestite named Beverly Lassalle, who would teach the audience lessons about gender identity and hate crime. The storyline was bold because it involved Archie giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Beverly, making fun of the taboo of males kissing. It became even bolder when, in December 1977, Edith mourned Beverly, who had been murdered for being in drag.230 Having a drag queen enter the Bunker household was a pedagogical move that followed contacts between Virginia Carter and the Gay Media Task Force. Its head, psychologist Newt Deiter, counselled the production team on ‘the development of the character of Beverly’. He advised writers to give Beverly more ‘roundness as a character’, to inject that ‘being a transvestite doesn’t mean that he is gay’ and that performing in drag was ‘a significant art form’. Furthermore, Beverly could be presented as married.231 Deiter’s comments reflected the desire to disentangle gay identity from effeminacy or gender transgression, and while the producers followed the first two suggestions, they

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held off on the last two. Beverly was depicted as fundamentally nonthreatening; he had no family, did not seduce men and did not appear to be promiscuous. Although some of the scriptwriters were worried about the ‘rather heavyhanded’ narrative, they went ahead because ‘we wanted to make that … salient point’ that ‘gays are being killed because they are gay’.232 Just as openly, an Emmy-winning episode about two lesbian teachers intervened in the struggle over gay rights. By the time the programme aired, the Save Our Children campaign had succeeded in banning further gay rights ordinances in Saint Paul, Wichita and Eugene, and national polls showed three-quarters of respondents convinced that homosexual teachers or youth leaders were a danger to children.233 Edith and Archie, attending cousin Liz’s funeral, slowly realise that Liz’s roommate Veronica had been her lover. The show portrayed Veronica as feminine, soft-spoken and conventionally beautiful, and stressed that the two teachers had been monogamous for twenty-five years and always in fear of losing their jobs. While Edith overcame her initial shock and gave the valuable silver tea set she would have inherited to Veronica (‘you’re really her next of kin’), Archie was mocked for his greed and ignorance.234 Audiences reacted to these episodes in different though generally mediasavvy ways. The obvious didacticism was registered either positively or negatively. Liberal viewers appreciated how ‘the show used Archie to show the fear and ignorance Americans have around … homophobia’.235 Nonstraight viewers typically reacted favourably, too. For a lesbian blogger, ‘Cousin Liz’ was an eye-opener: ‘That was when I realized that love really has nothing to do with body parts, but with how people feel about each other’.236 A gay viewer felt the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation ‘very funny, to this day … I will be sure to get a copy to show on the “big screen” in my home during parties’.237 On a gay Web forum, the 1971 episode on Archie’s virile friend was embraced as ‘cutting edge’, ‘one of my favorite shows of all time’, ‘amazing’ and ‘forward thinking’.238 The instalment with Beverly’s murder was called ‘heart wrenching’ and ‘groundbreaking’.239 The response of mainstream audiences was remarkably divided. In particular, viewers disagreed about Beverly’s character, at times revealing deep-seated prejudices.240 The subject still instigates heated discussions on fan websites, which regularly develop into a debate about Christian values. Fans get locked in animated exchanges over whether Beverly was God’s child (as Edith had stated), whether the Bible forbids cross-dressing, whether Edith was right to question God for what had happened to Beverly, whether Archie would have supported his grandson if he turned out gay and whether Archie and Edith would burn in hell.241 For most viewers, religion and gay rights were closely interconnected.

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Secularisation With its gay-themed episodes, All in the Family became a key symbol in the political battles of the late 1970s. Lear’s sitcoms had become a major target for religious traditionalists earlier on, starting with the intense campaigns for and against the 1972 Maude episode on abortion242 and continuing with the 1975–76 struggle over ‘family viewing time’. These battles had bruised Lear but largely allowed him to prevail. From 1977 onwards, the fight took on a different quality because both camps solidified, became highly organised and enlisted allies in politics. By the close of the 1970s, the battle lines were drawn: Lear had become ‘the Antichrist of the fundamentalist right’, while his People for the American Way in turn attacked the ‘intolerant’ and ‘antidemocratic actions of Moral Majoritarians’.243 Initially, the well-publicised fight against permissiveness in Lear’s sitcoms was conducted by what actor Carroll O’Connor called ‘little pressure groups here and there in the bible belt’.244 Examples for these small groups were the Reverend Donald Wildmon’s National Federation for Decency, the Virginiabased Stop Immorality in TV and an organisation named Morality in Media.245 By 1975, CBS executives were aware that certain station owners objected to All in the Family, for example, in San Antonio, where citizen groups and churchgoers had complained about ‘goddamnits’ and homosexuality on the show.246 But during the years 1977 to 1981, the Christian campaign against permissive television grew into a strong nationwide movement with million-dollar funding and a computerised mass mailing system. After Jerry Falwell and Donald Wildmon joined forces in 1981, their Coalition for Better Television threatened advertisers with sponsor boycotts, to great effect. Now, religious groups had learned to aim at advertisers instead of networks, just as networks and producers had learned to use advocacy groups as a feedback mechanism and early warning system.247 Norman Lear had little sympathy for institutionalised religion. On the walls of his rooftop office hung framed certificates ‘that Lear and his dog Minsky are bona fide ministers of the mail order Universal Life Church’.248 But since the exhausting fight over Maude’s abortion, Tandem producers had trodden more carefully in matters of religion. If they were to pick fights with the Christian lobby, they were cautious to do so only where they were considered worthwhile.249 Whereas the network censors failed to stifle All in the Family on religious issues, the production team itself took care not to offend believers needlessly. The pilot already saw CBS censors intervening on religious grounds. It featured a discussion about Gloria’s and Mike’s atheism, which stayed in, and Gloria accusing Archie of being ‘hypocritical’ as he did not attend church regularly, which was cut. Also cut was Archie’s frequent use of the

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word ‘goddamn’, saying it came ‘right out of the holy book’, and his comparing God to the American president.250 There was a consistent pattern of self-imposed cuts where religious feelings could be hurt. At a taping in 1971, Lear decided to change a joke (about a Christmas card showing ‘the Christ child driving a blue convertible’) after a discussion with the studio audience. Although the majority voted to keep the joke, Lear was impressed by the minority voices ‘so deep-seated in their concern’ that he ‘figured, why upset 70 million viewers?’251 Similarly taken out were Archie’s remarks about ‘Chicanos’ being ‘a bunch of bead fumblers’, ‘I’ll believe that when hell freezes under!’ and ‘She expects me to act like Moses just split the raging sea!’252 The following dialogue was excised as well: ‘(Gloria) It serves you right, Daddy! That is God’s way of telling you you’re a lousy citizen. (Archie) You’re takin’ the Lord’s name in vain, little girl! God don’t get mixed up in dirty things like politics’.253 Where they were not essential to the storyline, the producers were thus willing to suppress religious references. But Lear successfully defended entire plots that, CBS feared, would rub the Christian community the wrong way. Thus, the atheist Mike kept mocking Archie for his belief in miracles.254 The comedy ran long dialogues about whether God was merciless, whether hell existed and whether God really was everywhere. It made an episode out of Mike and Gloria’s decision not to baptise their baby, and another one of Archie’s covert christening of it.255 While the continuously high ratings indicated that the overwhelming majority of All in the Family’s viewers were not offended, a minority of evangelical Christians certainly were. In 1977, the Church of God, with one million members, polled over five thousand families as to what were the most offensive shows on TV. The Bunkers placed third, right behind Maude and Soap (there had been church campaigns against the latter two shows in 1972 and 1977). Reverend Carl Richardson explained that these series ‘pander[ed] to perversion’, depicting ‘unnatural family relationships as normal’.256 Representatives of other churches disagreed. Archie or Edith occasionally featured as a topic of Sunday sermons during the show’s peak years.257 Minister Kermit Long of the First United Methodist Church of North Hollywood lectured his congregation on ‘Jesus Christ and Archie Bunkerism’, arguing that ‘there is more Christian gospel preached from the “All in the Family” television show than from many churches and temples’.258 And Pastor Spencer Marsh at Brentwood Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles celebrated the sitcom as a model for believers in his popular booklet God, Man and Archie Bunker. If clergymen disagreed about All in the Family’s impact on values, so did presumably the millions of people that joined Falwell’s Moral Majority and Lear’s People for the American Way. The sitcom had become a prime signifier of the 1970s conflicts over feminism, sexual liberalisation, religion and the family. In many ways, it touched private lives across the country.

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Its recognition value was enormous, its catchwords, frames and props were woven into private negotiations, and it achieved enormous standing in public debates. The production team received hundreds of viewer letters every week, and to some of these it responded by adapting the show’s content. A survey from 1975 proved that viewers experienced All in the Family as unusually ‘emotionally and intellectually arousing’ when compared with other entertainment programmes.259 Indeed, the series followed a conscious strategy of agenda setting in the realm of gender roles, sexual norms and public health. Tandem hired staff and courted advocacy groups in order to scout new issues suitable for treatment. It regularly took up controversial themes until the end of its run, disproving claims that the programme became just another ‘father knows best’ sitcom after a while, or that its ‘relevancy’ was only a superficial patina of politicism.260 All in the Family doubtlessly accelerated the sixties cultural revolution with its critique of traditional gender roles and sexual mores. It even dared to touch issues clearly unpopular with majority audiences – namely, sexual violence and homosexuality – which was comparatively rare on 1970s TV.261 Typically, the show would not act as a pioneer but as a catalyst of value change, taking inspiration from fringe groups and carrying selected issues into the mainstream public. While the mission to change minds did not supersede business considerations (according to Lear, ‘the prime obligation was to make an audience laugh’262), the particular demographics of target audiences – valuing the urban, under-fifties and females most – allowed Tandem to push the envelope. Still, the message was slightly watered down to make it palatable to mass audiences. Feminism was reduced to its moderate, legal, self-help version. The show defined the sexual revolution as a heterosexual movement within marriage. The episodes on rape and gay rights sought out relatively safe territory. Sexual violence was not linked to patriarchy or marriage, and the gays on the show were incidental, respectable and nonthreatening characters. They were nonpromiscuous, did not appear as couples and did not display physical affection. Even so, these instalments tackled widespread myths and impressed viewers – judging from the contentious discussions they incited then and now. In American audiences, the same pattern was at work as in the British case: whereas a few viewers fully identified with Mike’s progressivism, and even fewer with Archie’s traditionalism, most fluctuated between camps and were able to relate to both Archie and Mike. An early survey conducted by CBS found 20 per cent of respondents sympathising with Mike, 19 per cent with Archie and 61 per cent refusing to take sides.263 Contemporary viewer letters and the informal email survey also find a large fence-sitting majority between the two polarised camps. The study gauging the acceptance levels for Archie’s and Mike’s marriage models additionally corroborates that

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majority attitudes were in transition, with most respondents cautiously embracing new norms while not entirely opposing traditional ones. Precisely because attitudes towards new lifestyles were in flux, All in the Family, with its framing of contentious new norms in accessible, moderate and funny language, had considerable impact.

Notes   1. Larry Rhine AATV interview, pt. 7; Bernie West, quoted in Ross and West, Writing.   2. Norman Lear AATV interview, pt. 6.  3. Wall Street Journal, 18 February 1977, 8; TV Guide, 6 January 1979, 14, 3 September 1983, 32.   4. ‘Dear Abby’ was syndicated all over the country. Los Angeles Times, 6 March 1978, E1.  5. Ebony, June 1972; Playboy, March 1976; People Magazine, 17 February 1975.   6. U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, ‘Freedom of the Press’, 1972, 92; U.S. Congress, sessions 1–2, 8 February 1972, 537–38.  7. Los Angeles Times, 21 September 1978, OC E8; ABC Evening News, 19 September 1978, Vanderbilt TV news archive, no. 55754.   8. Quotations by TV Guide writer John Weisman, House Majority Whip John Brademas (D-Ind.) and Norman Lear: TV Guide, 10 February 1979, 36–37.   9. Quoted in Los Angeles Times, 21 September 1978, OC E8; New York Times, 29 January 1987, C1. 10. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 26–27. The Milton Bradley board game went through several editions. Merchandise from the 1970s stills sells on eBay; reprints are still available today: www.cafepress.co.uk/+archie_for_president_ bib,185019447 (accessed 1 March 2010). 11. In 1979: Gene Jankowski (CBS) and Lee Rich, quoted in Adler, All in the Family, 260–61, 271, 258. 12. Ferguson, ‘Memorandum Opinion’; Cowan, See No Evil. 13. De Man, Allegories, 9–10. 14. Stein, ‘Mirror’, 279. 15. Quoted in Cowan, See No Evil, 34. 16. List in letter by V. Carter (Tandem) to M. Rokeach, 22 May 1975, Rokeach papers, Archives of the History of American Psychology (AHAP). 17. This 1989 second edition, which replaced the 1928 first edition, traced the term back to 1911 but credited the TV show for its newfound popularity. U.S. News & World Report 106 (12), 27 March 1989, 7. 18. Google Ngram Viewer for the word in American English between 1969 and 2000, http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bunkerism&year_start= 1969&year_end=2000&corpus=5&smoothing=0 (accessed 9 May 2014). 19. Newsweek, 29 November 1971, in Adler, All in the Family, 234–35. 20. TV Guide, 30 August 1975, and Life, 13 December 1971, both in ibid., 250, 235–38.

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21. See the 388 viewer comments reacting to Jean Stapleton’s obituary, New York Times, 1–3 June 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/arts/television/ jean-stapleton-who-played-archies-better-angel-dies-at-90.html?pagewanted= 3&_r=1& (accessed 4 June 2013). 22. The survey was sent out to acquaintances and the mailing list of one retiree organisation on the East Coast, snowballing from there. The questions asked were: ‘1. About when did you watch All in the Family for the first time? Was there a time in your life when you watched it regularly? 2. At the time, did you have any strong opinions about things said on the show, or about any of the characters (Archie, Edith, Mike, Gloria)? If so, what were they? 3. Did you talk about the program with others? About which issues specifically? 4. Did you ever compare the show’s characters (Archie, Edith, Mike, Gloria) to anybody you know? 5. In your opinion, did the show have any impact on your personal life, or the public debate at the time?’ About half of the respondents live on the East Coast, with the rest spread throughout the country. All replies were anonymised and the birth year and former location given, if available. 23. Viewers U.F., Providence, R.I. (born 1953); S.U., San Francisco, Calif. (born 1982). 24. Viewers S.I., Madison, Wis. (born 1949); U.T., Franklin, Mass. (born 1951). 25. TV Guide, 29 May 1971, 30–31. CBS reported that phone calls ran two to one in favour of the show in the initial phase. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 21. 26. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 13; Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6; TV Guide, 3 September 1983, 30. 27. Jean Stapleton AATV interview, pt. 3; Los Angeles Times, 6 March 1978, E1. 28. Mills, ‘Adolescents’, 69–72. 29. Stein, ‘Dynamics’, 89. 30. Messaris and Sarett, ‘Consequences’, 232. 31. Ibid. 32. Joseph Mancini and Muriel Rukeyser, quoted in New York Times, 3 October 1971, D17. 33. H.E., author’s email survey (born before 1950; location unknown). 34. ‘That’s from Archie Bunker’s famous phrase, “Stifle yourself, Edith.”’ Dear Abby, Los Angeles Times, 22 July 1986, OC D6. 35. ‘Pernt’ meaning ‘point’. Posted on fan forum on 5 August 2005. See http:// forum.allinthefamilysit.com/read.php?1,5145,page=2 (accessed 23 July 2012). 36. Quoted in TV Guide, 29 May 1971, 30–31. 37. From 1971–72. Quoted in TV Guide, 3 September 1983, 34. 38. See www.flickr.com/photos/emotionaltoothpaste/83922968/ (accessed 22 October 2011). 39. From Willis, Floyd County, June 2007. www.flickr.com/photos/ sutfun/1075198729/ (accessed 22 October 2011). 40. See www.flickr.com/photos/larryontheprairie/3691744316/in/photostream/ (accessed 3 November 2011). 41. A search for ‘Archie Bunker chair’ on the photo-sharing website Flickr turned up sixty-one such pictures by 3 November 2011. 42. Thread of 8 October 2004, http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/read. php?1,3274,page=1 (accessed 3 November 2011).

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43. Quoted in McCrohan, Archie and Edith, 195. 44. S.U., San Francisco, Calif. (born 1982). 45. Posted on 27 August 2008, www.flickr.com/photos/kitykity/2804211925/ (accessed 1 March 2010). 46. See (all from www.flickr.com) /photos/kmemav8r/1349857594/, /photos/103 55893@N06/2174020502/, /photos/panash/2831297209/, /photos/leaflove/ 616088358/, /photos/kirstenl4w/203455946/, /photos/paintedbull/32656794 74/, /photos/72122092@N00/1821288628/ and /photos/joy_disaster/2165 228678/ (accessed 3 November 2011). 47. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GY72AqOXK4&feature=related, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn2U7mu2SQw, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxoI0l08lOs&feature=related,www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Qch2PEVUo, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=xL1PBdFl-ywI, www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkvfJPsM8x8, www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yLGg1ni70A&feature=related and www.youtube.com/watch?v =kj9bC3QADus&feature=related (accessed 3 November 2011). 48. ‘WP’ and ‘GordieLloyd’, 16 July 2005, and ‘WP’, 22 November 2005, all at http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/read.php?1,5145 (accessed 3 November 2011). 49. See http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/read.php?1,5145 (accessed 3 November 2011). 50. Lear, quoted in Los Angeles Times, 21 September 1978, OC E8. 51. Bob Schiller AATV interview, pt. 7. Stein, born in 1944, became a well-known conservative columnist and TV host. 52. Lear AATV interview, pt. 4, 6; New York Times, 11 April 1980, A16. 53. Dyer, ‘Aerospace’; see also Montgomery, Target, 42–43. 54. Quoted in Alley and Brown, Women, 81. 55. Montgomery, Target, 71–72. 56. Quoted in Times (London), 30 August 1978, 2. 57. Dyer, ‘Aerospace’. 58. ‘An Evening with Norman Lear: The Museum of Television and Radio’s 11th Annual Television Festival in Los Angeles’, 19 March 1994, PCM, T:32206. 59. Newsweek, 2 June 1975, 78–79. 60. Correspondence about and transcript of meeting with midwife Elise Diusse, 20 June 1975, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5, 1–2. 61. Montgomery, Target, 174–75, 177–79. 62. Lear in 1983, quoted in Taylor, Prime-Time Families, 57. 63. Lear, quoted in Adler, All in the Family, 256. 64. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Window Dressing, 23; New York Times, 4 November 1976, 7. 65. Newsweek, 2 June 1975, 78–79. 66. Esquire, August 1981. 67. New York Times, 24 July 1977, D21. 68. Esquire, August 1981. 69. Dyer, ‘Aerospace’. 70. Transcript from July 1975, in Alley and Brown, Women, 82–86. 71. Alan Horn, president of Tandem-T.A.T., quoted in New York Times, 24 April 1981, C12.

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72. Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6; episodes VIII/10, VIII/11. Rader was Sally Struther’s husband. 73. Breed and DeFoe, ‘Effecting Media Change’, 93–94. 74. Letter by Jean Stapleton, TV Guide, 4 May 1974, A5; episode IV/15, ‘Edith’s Christmas Story’. 75. Los Angeles Times, 5 June 1975, G1; see also U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Window Dressing, 23. 76. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Window Dressing, 19–20. 77. NOW press release, n.d. [1980], X, subseries A, Nancy Thompson, 87.8, NOW records, Schlesinger library (SL); see also New York Times, 11 April 1980, A16. 78. Among these were the Women in Film Lucy Award and the Los Angeles Advertising Women Outstanding Communicator Award. See www. normanlear.com and http://wif.org/past-recipients (accessed 8 November 2011). 79. Stapleton AATV interview, pt. 3; see also San Francisco Bay Guardian, 8 December 1977, 8. 80. Meeting minutes from June 1972, March 1973, October 1974, February 1975, March 1975 and December 1975, XIV, subseries B, 169.36, NOW records, SL. For her visit to a senator, see report by Charlene Suneson, Los Angeles chapter, on efforts on behalf of the ERA in 1971–72, n.d., XIV, subseries B, 169.37, NOW records, SL, 4. 81. Stapleton AATV interview, pt. 3, 2; ‘Edith’ also became honorary membership chairman for the National Parent Teacher Association for 1974–75. Sun Reporter (San Francisco), 5 October 1974. 82. Marsh, Edith the Good, list on frontispiece. 83. Women represented only 4 percent of the directors’ guild members on the West Coast in 1980 (New York Times, 20 June 1980, C31) and filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against twenty production companies, including Lear’s T.A.T. Communications, in 1981 (New York Times, 25 February 1981). See also Virginia Carter, quoted in Los Angeles Times, 21 June 1977, OC A1. For numbers, see U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Window Dressing; Taylor, Prime-Time Families, 85. 84. All in TV Guide, 17 September 1977, 16–18. 85. Carroll O’Connor, quoted in Chicago Tribune, 13 June 1971, H68. 86. Stapleton AATV interview, pt. 2. 87. Letter to Lear, quoted in Washington Post, 7 May 1972, TC5. 88. New York Times, 17 May 1972. 89. Tate and Surlin, ‘Cross-Cultural Comparison’, table 1. 90. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 218; see also 204–6, 232. 91. E.T., Petersham, Mass. (born 1937). 92. H.E., no birth date and place. Very similar responses were given by: M.F., Cambridge, Mass. (born 1919); S.U., San Francisco (born 1982); Q.M, Chicago (born 1981); U.F., Providence, R.I. (born 1953). 93. C.I., Cambridge, Mass. (born 1942). 94. E.D., Flushing, New York (born 1944). 95. Edith’s ‘obituary’ in New York Times, 11 May 1980, WC18, is a prime example.

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96. Rita Riggs AATV interview, pt. 3, 4. 97. Ross and West, Writing. Ross and West were the show’s head writers, together with Don Nicholls, since 1972. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 87, 90. 98. Washington Post, 30 September 1973, K1; TV Guide, 24 April 1976, 21. 99. Ross and West, Writing. For ratings, see chap. 3. 100. Quoted in TV Guide, 12 November 1977, 29; see also Stapleton AATV interview, pt. 3. 101. Ross, quoted in McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 100; see also Stapleton, quoted in Los Angeles Times, 31 March 1974, N23. 102. Rhine AATV interview, pt. 7, 6. 103. Milwaukee Journal, 28 August 1977, 6. 104. Quoted in TV Guide, 12 November 1977, 29. 105. Dow, Prime-Time Feminism, 83; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 215; Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 15–16, 84–89; Los Angeles Times, 5 August 1984. 106. Bathrick, ‘Mary Tyler Moore’, 100, 118; Spangler, Television Women, 103– 20. 107. Dow, Prime-Time Feminism, xv–xvi; Taylor, Prime-Time Families, 1, 3, 16. 108. The debate had been stoked by a lawsuit that the NOW had brought against the network ABC and the FCC in 1976. The NOW asked the FCC to deny licence renewals to channels whose programming consistently presented women as ‘serving their husbands and children’ and as ‘incompetent, dependent, overemotional and irresponsible’. The judges decided for the FCC in April 1977. NOW et al. v. FCC, 555 F.2d 1002, Sl. O74-1853 (D.C. Cir. 11 April 1977), 31. 109. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Window Dressing, 23 (based on 1974 data). 110. Comments by the FCC, 16 May 1977, and response by Commission on Civil Rights, in ibid., 172. 111. Nashua Telegraph (New Hampshire), 16 December 1977, 4. 112. Gazette (Emporia, Kansas), 9 July 1977; Milwaukee Journal, 28 August 1977, 6. 113. Quoted in Milwaukee Journal, 28 August 1977, 6. 114. VI/4, ‘Edith Breaks Out’; transcripts of story conferences, 4 August and 8 August 1975, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. 115. Transcript of story conference, 4 August 1975, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. A Tandem typist transcribed the recorded conversations and sent copies to all involved. Misspellings corrected by the author. 116. Story conference, 4 August 1975, 2; story conference, 8 August 1975, 6, both WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. 117. Story conference, 4 August 1975, 6; story conference, 8 August 1975, 1, both WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. 118. Research sheet, 12 August 1975, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5, 2; story conference, 8 August 1975, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5, 2. 119. VI/4, ‘Edith Breaks Out’; see also V/19, ‘All’s Fair’; VI/24, ‘Edith’s Night Out’; VIII/6, ‘Unequal Partners’ (see also Lear, quoted in Milwaukee Journal, 28 August 1977, 6); VIII/2, ‘Archie Gets the Business’. 120. Vogue, July 1980, 36.

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121. TV Guide, 17 September 1977, 18. Carter had long taken a public stand against volunteerism, as it ‘keeps a woman in a second-class position’. Quoted in Los Angeles Times, 15 March 1972, SG8. 122. III/23, ‘Gloria the Victim’; VI/7, ‘Mike Faces Life’. 123. Story conference, 13 August 1975, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5, 2–3. 124. Marsh was pastor at the liberal Brentwood Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. After he gave a sermon on Archie, Jean Stapleton and Norman Lear invited him to a taping in 1974. Tandem then commissioned him to write God, Man and Archie Bunker in 1975 and Edith the Good in 1977. The first, 104-page book cost $2.95 and went through at least two hardcover editions and a softcover edition in 1975. The second book was issued both in hardcover and softcover (no circulation figures). Sarasota Journal, 20 June 1975, 4B; Gazette (Montreal), 8 May 1976, 12. Quotation: Edith the Good, vii (Jean Stapleton’s foreword), xi. God, Man and Archie Bunker also advocated feminism (23–29). 125. Marsh, Edith the Good, xi, 1, 3; see also 4, 67. 126. Ibid., 5, 27, 29, 31–32. 127. Ibid., 65, 68–70; see also 61. 128. NOW press release about Edith Bunker Fund, n.d. [1980], X, subseries A, Nancy Thompson, 87.8, NOW records, SL. 129. Quoted in Washington Times clipping, n.d., and Los Angeles Times, 10 April 1980, X, subseries A, Nancy Thompson, 87.8, NOW records, SL. 130. Dow, Prime-Time Feminism, 82–83. 131. Ibid., 80. III/4, ‘Gloria’s Riddle’; I/11, ‘Gloria Discovers Women’s Lib’. 132. For example, see Cell 16, Valerie Solanas’s 1967 ‘SCUM Manifesto’ or Redstockings, all discussed in Faderman, Odd Girls, 204–14. 133. For the writers’ liberal outlook, see Stein, View. 134. Thompson’s notes for press conference given in April 1980, X, subseries A, Nancy Thompson, 87.8, NOW records, SL. 135. Herzog, ‘Sexuality’, 163. 136. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, 2. In the ninth season (1978–79), Gloria and Mike separated after she had an affair, but there was no divorce. 137. New York Times, 11 May 1980, WC18. 138. III/24, ‘The Battle of the Month’. 139. V/18, ‘All’s Fair’. 140. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 91; episode IV/4, ‘Archie and the Kiss’. 141. Marsh, Edith the Good, 17–19, 24–25; Marsh, God, Man and Archie Bunker, 29. 142. I/11, ‘Gloria Discovers Women’s Lib’. 143. III/24, ‘Battle of the Month’; V/18, ‘All’s Fair’. 144. See VI/23, ‘Love by Appointment’; II/2, ‘Gloria Poses in the Nude’; II/9, ‘Mike’s Problem’. 145. Dozens of examples in the 388 comments left by readers of the New York Times obituary for Jean Stapleton, 1–3 June 2013, http://www.nytimes. com/2013/06/02/arts/television/jean-stapleton-who-played-archies-betterangel-dies-at-90.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1& (accessed 4 June 2013).

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146. Author’s email survey, B.V., Cleveland, Ohio (born 1949). 147. All in the Family Twentieth Anniversary Special. 148. Surlin, ‘“All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son”’, 5–6, 8, tables 5–6. 149. Leckenby and Surlin, ‘Race’, 6–7, 9–10. 150. U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, ‘Freedom of the Press’, 1972, 535–36. 151. Ferguson, ‘Memorandum Opinion’, 87, 111. 152. TV Guide, 16 October 1975, 6; 25 October 1975, 27. 153. Levine, Wallowing, 9–10; Weeks, World, 57–63; Herzog, ‘Sexuality’. 154. Herzog, ‘Sexuality’, 166–69; Herzog, Sex after Fascism; Levine, Wallowing, 4–10. 155. Levine, Wallowing, 4–7, 13, 22, 34–43, 170, 177, 186; see also Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 118; Sprafkin and Silverman, ‘Update’. 156. New York Times, 20 March 1978, C15. 157. TV Guide, 6 May 1978, 7. 158. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 286, 293–94. 159. III/24, ‘The Battle of the Month’. 160. Michael Ross, quoted in New York Times, 24 February 1974, 109. 161. Quoted in New York Times, 17 May 1972, 36. 162. II/15, ‘Edith’s Problem’; McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 98, 87–88. 163. See viewers quoted in All in the Family Twentieth Anniversary Special and on the online forums http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread. php?t=256015 and www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=220712 (accessed 24 January 2012). A 1992 Newsweek feature on menopause began with Edith; see www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1992/05/24/menopause. html (accessed 13 January 2012). 164. Q.C., Phoenix, Ariz. (born 1963). 165. Aljean Harmetz, quoted in New York Times, 10 December 1972, D3. 166. II/2, ‘Gloria Poses in the Nude’. 167. NBC censor Herminio Traviesas, quoted in TV Guide, 18 October 1975, 6. 168. New York Times, 31 October 1975, 67. 169. VI/17, ‘Archie the Babysitter’. For syndicated reruns, the incriminating seconds were cut. Lear, quoted in ‘An Evening with Norman Lear: The Museum of Television and Radio’s 11th Annual Television Festival in Los Angeles’, 19 March 1994, PCM, T:32206. 170. The fourteen-inch Joey Stivic doll (complete with two nappies and bottle, wetting itself after feedings) was marketed by the Ideal Toy Company; see www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0925/ (accessed 24 January 2012). 171. IV/4, ‘Archie and the Kiss’. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). 172. Washington Post, 30 September 1973, K1–3. 173. Ida Long from Annandale, Va., quoted in New York Times, 23 November 1976, 25. 174. IV/4, ‘Archie and the Kiss’; VI/9, ‘Grandpa Blues’; IV/11, ‘Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Wig’; IV/16, ‘Mike and Gloria Mix It Up’; IV/12, ‘Second Honeymoon’. 175. III/24, ‘Battle of the Month’; IV/11, ‘Black Is the Color’. 176. III/6, ‘The Bunkers and the Swingers’; III/4, ‘The Threat’; VII/1, ‘Archie’s Brief Encounter’; I/7, ‘Mike’s Hippie Friends Come to Visit’; V/22, ‘Edith’s Friend’; VI/10, ‘Gloria Suspects Mike’; IX/12, ‘California Here We Are’.

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177. Radner, ‘Introduction’; Luckett, ‘Sensuous Women’. 178. For instance, in I/7, ‘Mike’s Hippie Friends Come to Visit’; IV/4, ‘Archie and the Kiss’; III/24, ‘The Battle of the Month’. 179. He hinted at experiences in brothels during the Second World War. IV/11, ‘Black Is the Color’; VI/23, ‘Love by Appointment’. 180. Lear, quoted in New York Times, 12 March 1972, SM32. 181. VII/20, ‘The Joys of Sex’; see also IV/12, ‘Second Honeymoon’. 182. Readers were referred to the sexologists William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson. Marsh, Edith the Good, 47; see also 43–49. 183. Ibid., 45, 49. 184. All quotations are from IV/11, ‘Black Is the Color’, and IV/16, ‘Mike and Gloria Mix It Up’. 185. VI/23, ‘Love by Appointment’; VI/2, ‘Gloria Suspects Mike’; VII/12, ‘Gloria’s False Alarm’. 186. Cowan, See No Evil, 29–30; II/9, ‘Mike’s Problem’. 187. Fred Silverman AATV interview, pt. 4. 188. CBS censors, quoted in TV Guide, 10 December 1977, 8. 189. U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, ‘Freedom of the Press’, 1972, 535–36; see also Lear AATV interview, pt. 6; Rich, Warm Up, 4–5. 190. Pilot ‘Justice for All’ (Norman Lear Collection, Special Features); I/1, ‘Meet the Bunkers’. Lear, quoted in U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, ‘Freedom of the Press’, 1972, 536; see also Metz, CBS, 332–33. 191. Quoted in McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 87. 192. Storyline conference transcript, 2 June 1975 (‘Gloria Falls in Love’), WHS, Hal Kanter papers, Box 39, folder 5. 193. Rhine AATV interview, pt. 1. 194. A joke about Gloria keeping her pregnancy a secret because she did not know who the father was went missing from the final draft of ‘Gloria Is Pregnant’ (taped 26 January 1971, aired 16 February 1971), Writers Guild Foundation Shavelson-Webb Library (WGF). 195. Third draft, 25, and first draft, 26, in WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folders 6–8. 196. Rhine AATV interview, pt. 5; ‘The All in the Family Cast Salutes the Family Viewing Hour, 1975’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvrIltxWnS0 (accessed 8 September 2010). 197. Cowan, See No Evil; New York Times, 31 October 1975, 67. 198. The district court in California ruled in 1976 that the family viewing policy had attached ‘a stigma’ to All in the Family that resulted in ‘a reduction of earning potential and fair market value’, entitling Tandem to reclaim an unspecified amount of damages. Tandem demanded $10 million. But compensation was never paid, because both parties appealed and the ensuing 1979 ruling by the court of appeals referred the matter back to the FCC, which in 1983 decided its former chairman ‘had not acted improperly’. Writers Guild of America West Inc v. American Broadcasting Co. (et al.), 609 F2d 355 (9th Cir. 14 November 1979); Writers Guild of America West Inc v. FCC, 423 F. Supp. 1064, 1161 (C.D. Cal. 1976). See correspondence from 1981 to 1984 on the reopening of the case, U.S. National Archives Record Center (NARC),

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Pacific Region (Perris), location number 21041174, box 150, 154. Quotation: defendants’ memorandum, 24 January 1984, NARC (Perris), location number 21041174, box 150. See also Ferguson, ‘Memorandum Opinion’, 110–13, 171–72, 209–10; defendants’ posttrial brief, 30 June 1976, appendix, 3–5, NARC (Perris), location number 21041174, box 150; Los Angeles Times, 5 November 1976, A1. 199. In April 1975: Cowan, See No Evil, 129. 200. New York Times, 31 October 1975, 67. 201. All in the Family Twentieth Anniversary Special. 202. Author’s email survey, U.T., Franklin, Mass. (born 1951). Similar: D.A., Boston, Mass. (born 1947). 203. Letters to the editor, TV Guide, 22 November 1975, A6. 204. While 54 per cent felt there was ‘too much emphasis on sex in television’, 41 per cent disagreed. TV Guide, 6 December 1975, 4–8. Similar results for 1979 in TV Guide, 12 May 1979, 6–12. 205. TV Guide, 12 May 1979, 12. 206. Surlin and Tate, ‘“All in the Family”’, 62–64. 207. Levine, Wallowing, 197. 208. TV Guide, 6 May 1978, 9. 209. Los Angeles Times, 13 October 1977, H1. 210. Quoted at www.tv.com/shows/all-in-the-family/forums/most-controversialepisode-306-237150/ (accessed 30 January 2012). 211. Quoted at http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/read.php?1,7225 (accessed 30 January 2012). See also TV Guide, 3 September 1983, 35; viewer comments on Jean Stapleton’s obituary, New York Times, http://www.nytimes. com/2013/06/02/arts/television/jean-stapleton-who-played-archies-betterangel-dies-at-90.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1& (accessed 4 June 2013). 212. Mort Lachman AATV interview, pt. 5. 213. Dyer, ‘Aerospace’; Montgomery, Target, 238. 214. McCrohan, Archie and Edith, 75. 215. Levine, Wallowing, 210–11. 216. Los Angeles Times, 18 October 1981, E1; Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf AATV interview, pt. 7. 217. VIII/3–4, ‘Edith’s 50th Birthday’. 218. Levine, Wallowing, 210. 219. Ibid., 14, 213, 219–21. 220. Quoted by Norman Lear in New York Times, 10 December 1972, D3; see Bronski, A Queer History, 215, 237. 221. I/4, ‘Judging Books by Covers’. 222. Nixon in conversation with John Ehrlichman and Bob Haldeman, 13 May 1971, Oval Office, National Archives, audio file 498-005; see also Chicago Tribune, 7 November 1999. Lear appeared on Nixon’s second ‘enemy list’ from 1972 in position 325. 223. Herzog, ‘Sexuality’, 151. 224. Clive Irving, 1971, quoted in McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 74. 225. Ibid., 411; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 260; scriptwriter Robert Collins, quoted in U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, ‘Freedom of the Press’, 1972, 519.

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226. ABC’s 1977 sitcom Soap symbolised this change. Levine, Wallowing, 14, 187– 90; TV Guide, 18 December 1976, 16. 227. Four years later, Deiter only knew of five such projects. Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 260–63. 228. Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 319, 332. 229. Newsweek, 2 June 1975, 79. 230. VI/4, ‘Archie the Hero’ (29 September 1975); VII/8, ‘Beverly Rides Again’ (6 November 1976); VIII/13, ‘Edith’s Crisis of Faith, Part 1’ (18 December 1977). 231. Carter to Lear, 14 July 1975, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5; see also Montgomery, Target, 85–94. 232. Rhine AATV interview, pt. 7. 233. October 1977. Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 327, 325. 234. VIII/2, ‘Cousin Liz’. 235. Author’s email survey, U.P., heterosexual female, Kensington, Calif. (born mid-1960s). 236. Roger Sinasohn, ‘I Am a Lesbian and It’s Archie Bunker’s Fault’, 1 June 2007, http://today.aol.hk/bloggers/roger-sinasohn/page/107/ (accessed 6 February 2012). 237. RussJFK, user review, 30 May 2006, www.imdb.com/title/tt0509816/ (accessed 2 February 2012). 238. See www.realjock.com/gayforums/1097094/ (accessed 6 February 2012). 239. July 2011 thread on www.realjock.com/gayforums/1662104/ (accessed 6 February 2012). 240. See http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/read.php?1,565,page=1 (accessed 7 February 2012); see also www.tv.com/shows/all-in-the-family/forums/mostcontroversial-episode-306-237150/ and www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/46223/allin-the-family-season-8/ (accessed 8 February 2012). 241. See http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/read.php?1,565,page=1 to page=6 (accessed 7 February 2012). 242. This fight, before the 1973 Roe v. Wade landmark judgment, galvanised fronts on both sides. Montgomery, Target, 27–50. 243. Ibid., 167; Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 213. 244. New York Times, 8 July 1979, BR3. 245. Montgomery, Target, 39, 105; TV Guide, 17 March 1979, 8–13. 246. Cowan, See No Evil, 109, 112. 247. Montgomery, Target, 154–64, 216. 248. Washington Post, 30 September 1973, K1. 249. See Montgomery, Target, 238, on why later Maude shows avoided the subject of abortion. 250. Pilot ‘Justice for All’ (Norman Lear Collection, Special Features), compared to I/1, ‘Meet the Bunkers’. Lear, quoted in U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, ‘Freedom of the Press’, 1972, 536. In 1973, Lear used the full ‘goddamnit’ dialogue, though the network objected once again (IV/1, ‘We’re Having a Heat Wave’). McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 270–71. 251. Metz, CBS, 335; I/12, ‘Success Story’. 252. ‘Gloria Is Pregnant’, first and final draft (aired 16 February 1971), WGF.

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253. McMillan, ‘Television Comedy’, 273–74. 254. In April 1975: Cowan, See No Evil, 129. 255. VI/11, ‘The Little Atheist’, story conference transcript, WHS, Hal Kanter papers, box 39, folder 5. 256. Danville Register, 18 November 1977, 11. 257. Anonymous viewer, 29 November 2003, http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/ read.php?1,565,1741,quote=1 (accessed 7 February 2012). 258. On 22 October 1972, inserted into the Congressional Record, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., 19 April 1973, vol. 119, pt. 11, 13451–53. 259. Unpublished study by David Loye, involving 260 Los Angeles couples watching and rating a variety of prime-time shows. Adler, ‘Introduction’, xxxii. 260. Ozersky, Archie Bunker’s America, 46, 54–55, 62–80, 133; see also Attalah, ‘Unworthy Discourse’; Jones, Honey, 203, 212; Hamamoto, Nervous Laughter; Marc, Comic Visions. 261. Sprafkin and Silverman, ‘Update’, 36. 262. ‘Those Were the Days: Norman Lear Looks Back at All in the Family’, The Museum of Television and Radio Seminar Series, 14 October 1998, PCM, T:27578. 263. Klapper, ‘Paper Delivered’, 9.

6

Alfred Tetzlaff and the West German Lifestyle Revolution Societal reactions to the West German series fundamentally differed from the British and American cases, for two reasons: the Federal Republic was a postfascist country, and its broadcasting system was devoid of commercial competition. The show’s producers, broadcasting executives, journalists and politicians saw One Heart and One Soul’s surprisingly high ratings as a cause for concern, not celebration. Would Ekel Alfred reinforce antidemocratic attitudes in the German audience? Did Alfred even provide an outlet for the voice of former Nazis – a voice that West German broadcasters had banned almost completely for decades? In light of such fears, the entertainment value of the series received little consideration. Not even its producers dared to prioritise entertainment as they followed a political and ideological agenda oscillating between social democracy and a revolutionary socialism flavoured by the 68er protest movement.1 But unforeseen to producers, in 1974 – about a year into the programme’s run – a political backlash struck West Germany. Suddenly, a TV show conceived as a parody of extreme conservatism seemed to present a grave danger to the Social Democrat (SPD) coalition government. Alfred’s popularity appeared to feed an antidemocratic groundswell in what was still a fledgling democracy. Genuinely worried, WDR executives forked out more than 50,000 DM for a survey of audience responses.2 As we shall see, their worries were misplaced: the sitcom’s success with ordinary viewers had little to do with political attitudes, instead springing from different sources. This chapter looks at standing and framing before turning to how audiences received Alfred’s messages on vulgarity, family and gender roles, sexual morals, and politics. I will conclude with a comparison of the three national cases.

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Standing and Framing The considerable standing of the West German series reached far into the political and academic world. During the year 1974, ‘disgusting Alfred’ became a national symbol. He was not only more recognisable than the major politicians of the time, with 77 per cent of all West Germans knowing this caricature of the Teutons.3 He also graced the covers of some of the biggest-selling West German weeklies, such as Hör zu!, Bunte, Gong and Der Spiegel. The headlines declared Alfred to be ‘the television hero of the nation’, ‘the darling of the nation’ or the prototype of ‘the ugly German’.4 Author Wolfgang Menge was showered with awards such as the Deutscher Fernsehpreis in 1973 and the Adolf Grimme Preis, the DAG Fernsehpreis and the Bambi in 1974.5 Six publishers jockeyed to acquire the rights to the scripts; they appeared in three books in the summer of 1974 with sales of ‘not below 50,000’.6 Because of his unrelenting, boisterous criticism of the governing Social Democrat–Liberal coalition, TV’s best-known grouser was widely seen as Chancellor Willy Brandt’s nemesis. The press labelled Alfred Tetzlaff ‘the figurehead of the second Willy era’.7 This referred to Chancellor Brandt’s second term of office, from late 1972 to May 1974. After the reformist euphoria of his first term (1969–72), in which the country’s Eastern policy was turned around and Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize, his next term was blighted by the oil crisis, public service strikes, terrorist attacks and scandals involving East German spies. In April 1974, shortly before his resignation, Brandt himself mused: ‘Sometimes I want to believe that the people would prefer Alfred as chancellor. At least he knows how to bang his fist on the table’.8 Around the same time, the cover page of the extreme right-wing newspaper National-Zeitung headlined, hopefully: ‘Will Brandt Be Toppled by Alfred?’9 The sitcom’s growing standing in politics now alerted researchers at several universities. Producer Peter Märthesheimer reported that ‘in fact numerous students and occasionally whole classes are studying Ein Herz und eine Seele’.10 Undergraduate seminars were running at the Universities of Hamburg and Aachen, advanced seminars were held at Münster University, Free University Berlin and the Munich University of Television and Film, and a master’s thesis in Münster and a Ph.D. dissertation at the Technical University Berlin were defended.11 Märthesheimer collaborated with Anneliese de Haas, a Munich scholar whose class aimed at creating a programme critically reflecting on the show’s impact, and with a mass communications research team in Münster, which set out to monitor audience reactions.12 All surveys found that the show generated an unusual amount of discussion. It triggered an exceptionally ‘high level of eagerness to

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communicate’ with family, friends and colleagues, and it facilitated contact between people of different opinions.13 When during the series’ early, regionalised run, the presenter once asked viewers to write in, the echo was overwhelming. By March 1973, almost six hundred enthusiastic letters had been received against only two ‘lonely voices’ of disapproval. By December 1973, the producer spoke of 1,679 appreciations and three objections. Typical quotations were that Ekel Alfred was ‘just the right programme after a hard day’s work’, and that ‘the whole family watches and laughs out loud’.14 When a radio weekly polled readers in May 1974, 85 per cent were in favour of and 15 per cent against the sitcom.15 The survey commissioned by the WDR found 54 per cent approving versus 23 per cent rejecting the show.16 By mid-1974, the incoming mail was more critical. The WDR received ‘about 30 to 50 letters per broadcast’, which split into ‘three roughly samesized groups’: a first one where the writers criticised Alfred’s vulgar speech and ill manners, and a second one where writers expressed delight and egged the producers on. The third group made political points, with one subgroup defending Chancellor Brandt and his government against Alfred, and another attacking the show as a ‘defamation of all Conservatives’ or applauding Alfred’s reactionary views.17 Viewers’ letters printed in the press – 250 in total – break down into 102 attacking vulgarity, 106 defending the series as fun and only 31 letters debating politics.18 The original mail must have been even more slanted towards the apolitical, because these letters had to pass a gatekeeper, the editor, who would have been likely to select material on the programme’s political impact for print. If we take a closer look at those thirty-one political letters, fifteen were written by followers of the left and only ten by right-wingers.19 Only six were of the type so many contemporary observers worried about: potential former Nazis applauding Alfred for telling the truth.20 Clearly, the group of antidemocrats who welcomed Tetzlaff at face value was very small. Much more frequent patterns in the mail were suggestions that ‘there is a little bit of Alfred and his family in all of us’21 and projections onto family members. Wives complained that their husband ‘swears like Alfred’ or ‘hangs around at home almost like Alfred, feet on the table’.22 ‘This crank is awfully similar to my own father’, wrote Norbert V. from Stade. Mia Muehlmann also felt he ‘reminded us of our fathers’.23 Moreover, viewers reported how ‘after the broadcast, we poke fun at each other with some of these expressions’ (Marga Friedag from Münster). Several women complained about schoolchildren picking up Alfred’s language.24 A married couple from Lübeck began calling each other ‘Alfred’ and ‘Else’ whenever they argued.25 An unfortunate Frankfurt citizen by the name of Alfred Tetzlaff was teased and bullied by anonymous callers and writers to the point that he threatened a lawsuit against the WDR.26

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To a majority of viewers, Alfred was the walking contradiction to the rest of the West German TV schedule. When the Westdeutscher Rundfunk installed a Meckerecke (grousers’ corner) in December 1974, encouraging viewers to phone in their criticisms, ‘a constantly recurring request’ was ‘I want to see Ekel Alfred again’. Up to a quarter of the first one thousand calls demanded more Alfred and less politics.27 The reason was that One Heart and One Soul was the first German sitcom, and as such stood out from the rest of the schedule. ‘Alfred is an oddball on German television – he is fun’, declared Der Spiegel.28 ‘There was no environment of similar shows, as in Britain or the U.S. where a half dozen other comedy shows exist and reinforce each other.’29 True to their educational mission, West German broadcasters looked down at comedies. The first channel tried to enforce a general rule not to schedule two Spielprogramme (fictional or entertaining shows) in succession in prime time.30 Several weekday evenings were entertainment-free zones. On Monday 26 November 1973, a fairly typical day, German audiences were offered the shows listed in table 6.1; the regional third channels given here are examples for Hesse and northern Germany. Table 6.1. Evening television schedules for Monday, 26 November 1973 Channel One (ARD)

Channel Two (ZDF)

Regional (HR)

Regional (NDR)

[6.00-8.00 P.M. regional broadcasts]

7.00 News

7.10 School Television

7.00 Eating Right

7.30 Day Trip: Peasants Visit an Assembly Line [documentary]

7.30 Instructing the Instructors [vocational education]

8.00 News

8.00 News

8.00 News

8.15 Panorama [political analysis]

8.15 Health in Practice. Today: Medical Malpractice

8.15 Joan Baez in Concert

8.15 Race against Chaos: Anti-Famine Planning

9.00 And We Sing With the Wind [international songwriters]

9.00 News

9.05 News in Brief

9.05 News in Brief

9.15 Get in and Die [docudrama on 1920s criminal case]

9.10 Viewpoint Society [town planning for the aged]

9.15 Music of the Bourgeois Revolution 1830 and 1848/49

9.45 Adolf Hitler, a Portrait: by Joachim Fest 10.55 News

9.55 Self-Help Manual: Technology 10.45 News

11.15 Hans am Samstag [feature film] 12.05 A.M. News

Source: Hör zu!, 26 November 1973.

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No wonder viewers were delighted to discover Alfred. The widespread excitement about the show was not least due to a lack of alternatives. When the WDR team looked through the first batch of viewers’ letters, they noted how many expressed gratitude or pointed out the freshness of the genre. ‘Finally something to laugh at’, ‘I have never watched anything so magnificent on television before’, wrote two viewers.31 ‘A once in a century programme’, ‘an oasis in the television desert’, enthused others.32 In May and June 1974, the Institut für empirische Psychologie (Institute for Empirical Psychology, IFEP) that had been commissioned by the WDR to survey a representative sample of twelve hundred West Germans, held three preparatory group discussions with thirty-eight subjects in Cologne.33 In the lively two to two-and-a-half hour discussions, transcripts of which survived, the researchers learned that ‘all participants had trouble categorising’ the show and most viewers emphasised how novel it was. Viewers were delighted at standard slapstick elements: Alfred throwing a piece of meat out of the window, followed by the sound of a car crash; Alfred slamming the door on Michael’s back and vice versa. ‘Alfred’s appearance and outfit alone’ were often enough to provoke laughter.34 The pollsters summarised: ‘The novelty of the show is seen mainly in … its unusual language (addle-brained cow, etc.), the strong realism of vocabulary and setting, … its commentary on current events (oil crisis, New Year’s Eve, carnival, inflation) and its slapstick humour’.35

Vulgarity If Alfred’s language underpinned his success, it did so because it was full of insults and expletives. The radio and TV weekly Hör zu! counted ‘shit’ twenty-one times, ‘stupid pig’ seventeen times and ‘asshole’ fifteen times in four episodes.36 In the first nationwide broadcast, Alfred introduced himself with the words, ‘Watch out, you asshole!’ Such language was unheard-of on West German TV. Indeed, the WDR’s director of television, Werner Höfer, had intervened at the last minute but failed to persuade the producer to reserve such ‘strong expressions’ until the plot was ‘further along’.37 From the day the series moved from the regional to the national channel, it took continuous flak from the broadcasters’ committees. The Programmbeirat (programme council) of the first television channel, an advisory body made up of representatives of parties, churches, unions and other associations, harshly attacked the sitcom’s vulgarity at almost every meeting. In its April 1974 session, it denounced ‘trivialities’, in May ‘rude language’, in June ‘faecal idiom’, in July ‘lack of subtlety’ and ‘obnoxious gags’, and in November ‘nauseatingly dirty jokes’ and ‘the crudest titillation’. The committee even objected to the studio audience because its laughter at uncouth gags was

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‘disturbing’. After the return of the series in 1976, the council condemned the show’s ‘feculent primitivism’ (July) and ‘embarrassing’ moments (October), while ‘resolutely rejecting’ the ‘argument of high ratings’.38 When television director Höfer had to defend the series at such a meeting, he promised that the WDR ‘will strive to defaecalise the show’s language’.39 What the council representatives abhorred seemed to enthuse a large part of the audience.40 Alfred’s violations of bourgeois manners and high culture provided such enjoyment that the series became widely known as Ekel Alfred (Disgusting Alfred) – a successful rechristening from below that surprised the producers.41 For viewers, this new and unusual programme simply was less a satire of family values (as the actual title emphasised) than a celebration of vulgarity.42 The sitcom’s two most popular moments were Alfred trimming his toenails at the dining table and Alfred washing his feet in a serving dish while the others were still eating.43 In the group discussions, viewers recalled the strong emotions of disgust and joyful taboo breaking aroused by these scenes. ‘Where he cut his toenails at the table … well I found that dreadful.’ ‘Did you laugh or not?’ ‘Sure, one has to laugh.’ ‘My mother-in-law, she thought it so revolting, she turned it off there and then.’ ‘Yes, I thought it completely awful at that moment, but the children were laughing so much, and then … all of us had to laugh.’44 The pollsters analysing the transcripts stressed that ‘while the larger group of discussants had to laugh even when recalling these scenes from memory, some – mainly female – viewers found them so repugnant that they left the room or turned off the TV’.45 The most avid fans of the series came from groups most likely to stomach vulgarity: men, the uneducated and the working classes.46 The show’s coarseness was reflected not only in four-letter words and Alfred’s breaking of bourgeois etiquette, but also in storylines on bodily waste. One episode saw Alfred collecting the family’s excrement as fertiliser for his vegetable patch in the back garden. Another one revolved around Alfred being mistaken for a flasher when he urinated in a public park.47 When Alfred and his son-in-law argued about the codetermination laws drafted by the SPD government (intended to share power between management and employees of large firms), Alfred delivered a lengthy diatribe about how the Ruhr basin would become ‘one huge toilet’, with all workers insisting on using ‘the director’s loo’.48 On other occasions, he worried about toilet doors not locking or an elderly guest’s incontinence.49 A theatre play that Alfred and his family toured with in autumn 1975 took a blocked toilet as its running gag.50 Scriptwriter Wolfgang Menge justified this strategy: What do people laugh about? … Like zoo visitors in front of the ape cage, they don’t laugh because they identify with the apes. They probably laugh because the apes are similar to humans. Observing the apes reminds the observers, possibly unconsciously, of their own past and their civilising effort

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to become humans. Alfred has something of the ape about him, particularly as a caricature of impropriety. An ape scratches his bum and then puts his hand in his mouth. Alfred would do the same.

Menge thus asserted that rude scenes taught viewers about their own humanity and helped refresh their civilising effort.51 The writer also argued that the more ill-mannered Alfred appeared, the more likely he was to remain a negative role model: ‘If I took out the expletives [Primitivausdrücke], I would create a new national hero with whom viewers would identify’.52 And last, Menge hinted at anal fixations in the collective psychology of the Germans. He had ‘thought it unimaginable that such a figure could provoke anything other than horror or disgust’, but realised that ‘evidently many viewers repress more than we thought possible. That is particularly clear regarding Alfred’s statements about sexual or anal matters’.53 We will return later to this telling reference to repression and the anal stage of psychosexual development. While viewers were in stitches, the broadcasters’ programme councils tried every avenue to ‘put the brakes on Menge’. The WDR’s department head, Günter Rohrbach, asked to rein in Alfred’s ‘little profanities [kleine Schweinereien]’, defended the writer: the sitcom had to stoop to ‘a low level’ because it wanted ‘to analyse and attack’ this very level. The committees were but an elitist refuge of the ‘educated middle classes’ trying to fight off popular culture. ‘While 50 or 60 per cent are in hysterics about Alfred, the others denounce him as a gutter clown, a faecal comedian.’54 Indeed, the reception often split along class lines. Highly educated committee members and journalists worried that ‘a general Alfredisation of language’ might infect other television genres and sweep away ‘sophisticated parlance’ for good.55 But the paper of the Social Democratic Party, loyal to the working-class milieu, celebrated ‘the free and taboo-breaking language yet unheard on television’.56 In the broadcasting committees, the representatives of the SPD and the unions were often lone voices in favour of the sitcom. They maintained that the controversial ‘rough language’ was ‘very widespread today’, even ‘folksy’.57 Viewers tended to agree. A 69-year-old pensioner pointed out that ‘it’s the language of the people. Even as high school pupils we used that slang’. A viewer originating from rural Sauerland held that the ‘rude idiom’ was ‘true to life’: ‘We were raised in a coarse and earthy way!’58 Foul-mouthed Alfred, son of a worker, prided himself on having risen through the ranks of the working class into the ‘propertied classes’ because he owned a row house and had two coworkers below him.59 Wolfgang Menge insisted that Alfred did ‘not belong to any class’; at most he was a ‘petty bourgeois’, not a worker.60 The production team, true to the antibourgeois thrust of the 68ers, strove to make Alfred into the caricature of a bourgeois square. But the sitcom’s kitchen-sink realism belied such protestations. The Tetzlaff microcosm accurately reflected contemporary

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working-class life. As a warehouse keeper for a factory, Alfred earned 1,425 DM a month before taxes, well below the average West German income, which stood at 2,241 DM a month in 1974.61 Like almost every West German worker at the time, he owned a TV set (85 per cent of all households in 1970) and a fridge (93 per cent in 1973). But he could not afford a car, like about half of household heads. The family had no phone, although they acquired one in a 1976 episode (phone ownership in West Germany jumped from 20 per cent in 1970 to 86 per cent in 1980). And when the Tetzlaffs nervously prepared to go on their first holiday abroad, they reflected the experience of West German workers in the 1970s.62 Moreover, the show’s first, tentative title, So ist das Leben (Such Is Life), its filmed credits (showing Alfred walking the streets of working-class, brick-terraced neighbourhoods) and the easy-listening German Schlager music firmly placed the family in the lower social strata.63 Unsurprisingly, the viewers in the Cologne group discussions ‘thought of Alfred as a worker’, or at most as ‘a low-level civil servant or white collar employee’.64

Family and Gender Norms If Alfred was a caricature of the proletarian, the Tetzlaff clan was a parody of traditional concepts of family. Thus, the eventual series title, One Heart and One Soul, and the colour version of the opening credits – pages of a family photo album turning65 – emphasised the German family as a haven of harmony and patriarchal order. A preamble to the first episode, read out by actress Elisabeth Wiedemann, explained: Just a few years ago a family was the unquestioned basis of an orderly society… . Unfortunately, the general tide of disintegration has not spared even this smallest cell of the nation… . Family needs to go back to earlier times … when everybody: father, mother, son or daughter, took the place allotted to them by nature. They need to face life’s struggle not alone, on their own, but as a harmonious entity. They have to be what our title says: one heart and one soul.66

This satirical invocation of patriarchal order was strewn with national socialist terms (allgemeine Auflösungserscheinungen, Lebenskampf, Gemeinschaft), and of course it was held up to ridicule by what followed. Even if Else and Alfred both repeatedly insisted that their household represented ‘a peaceful, honest, harmonious German family’,67 the Tetzlaffs were anything but harmonious. Alfred was a tyrant who demanded unquestioning obedience, full control of the family finances, dinner on the table in good time and the right to criticise all family members for their looks, everyday decisions and political opinions. He insulted and lectured everybody, refused to help with chores

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and ordered wife and daughter to fetch his slippers.68 In contrast, son-in-law Michael (here not unemployed but a precision mechanic working reduced hours69) helped with the spring cleaning and the dishes, laid the table, took his wife and mother-in-law to the café and bought a present for Alfred and Else’s silver wedding anniversary. Michael treated his wife rather lovingly, whereas Alfred continuously commandeered Else around.70 He also insulted her as dusselige Kuh, blöde Gans and Schlampe (addle-brained cow, silly goose, slut). He made her cry when he called her ‘old’ and ‘scrawny’, kicked her in the behind when she helped him take off his boots, and boasted: ‘If I find dust on something, I could slap her in the face, but I don’t. I’m chivalrous’.71 While Alfred often declared his marriage to have been a catastrophic mistake, he never considered divorce. He upheld patriarchal marriage as an absolute value and therefore rejected the 1976 reform of the West German marriage law – which made it possible to choose the wife’s name as the last name and abandoned the housewife and male breadwinner model.72 To him, Chancellor Willy Brandt was utterly impossible because he was born out of wedlock and ‘thrice married’.73 There was no further engagement with the acrimonious debate about no-fault divorce, which peaked between 1969 and 1976.74 Else was characterised as dim-witted and submissive, obeying the patriarch’s orders with the occasional grumble. Though she was supposed to have been ‘fat and ugly’, the actress did not quite fit the bill.75 As juxtaposition to Else, the scriptwriter occasionally wheeled in next-door neighbour Frau Fechner. A combative women’s lib type, Frau Fechner ruined Alfred’s men’s night out bowling by insisting on taking part.76 When he insulted her, she challenged Alfred as an ‘old braggart’ having ‘not much in your underpants’.77 Frau Fechner was somewhat older but more emancipated than daughter Rita. A caricature of the modern sixties girl, Rita embraced consumerism and hedonism. Her progressiveness amounted to little more than wearing sexy outfits and working as a beautician selling lipstick and nail polish. She parroted her husband’s opinions and waited on her father, embodying, according to Märthesheimer, a Pipimädchen: matured sexually but not otherwise.78 The sitcom’s female characters were supposed to incite viewers to action. The series wanted to ‘contribute to the emancipatory process’ and ‘impact on women in particular, so that they rise up against male domination’, actress Wiedemann maintained.79 Else was the ‘distorting mirror’ in which German women were to recognise their mothers, strengthening their resolve to become ‘different’.80 Still, the series’ treatment of women’s liberation had obvious limits. The core topics of the West German women’s movement (whose breakthrough had happened in 1971 and 1972) were hardly touched upon: above all abortion, female sexual liberation, rape, the problems of working mothers and the boundaries between political

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and private spheres.81 Abortion was a taboo topic that the series hardly dared to mention. Once, Alfred protested television programmes featuring ‘class-conscious lazybones, gays and whores, abortionists and foetus suctioners’, but the reference to abortion and suction was cut from the scripts when they were sold as mass-market paperbacks.82 And although the format could easily have accommodated attempts by Else and Rita at emancipation, the West German variant made little use of such possibilities. The storylines the producer suggested to the writer kept firmly to housewifery: ‘Else bakes an awful lot of cake. Else is making preserves… . Alfred gives Else electrical rollers’.83 Emancipation remained on the sidelines, in spite of journalists and viewers encouraging producers to include feminist topics. The biggest-selling West German paper, the radio and TV weekly Hör zu!, advised Else in a public letter: ‘Don’t be the patient sheep … Kick up your heels … Get a divorce … Bang your fist on the table!’84 The competitor Funk-Uhr published interviews with female readers who compared their husbands to Alfred, using the headline, ‘Is the German Male Disgusting?’ Another radio weekly, Schalt ein-Telestar, ran a ‘readers’ forum’ about whether Alfred had made ‘domestic tyrants’ once again acceptable.85 The WDR producers replied to the Hör zu! letter that Else could possibly speak up a little more ‘if things get extremely bad’. But for a divorce, the unskilled and inarticulate Else was not ‘modern’ enough.86 Department head Rohrbach opined that the sitcom denounced ‘antifeminist’ views and ‘the old concept of women’, because even conservative viewers would find Alfred calling Else a ‘stupid cow’ ‘improper’ and ‘too much’. But while the message was ‘emancipatory … from an ironical distance’, it was ‘definitely not feminist-inspired’ as such.87 Author Wolfgang Menge agreed. He and producer Märthesheimer thought feminism ‘not that important’, not least because Märthesheimer was just going through a rough breakup with his wife Helga, one of the WDR’s foremost feminist activist-journalists. Nobody in the production team ‘gave a damn for what these [feminists] were doing at WDR’.88 Still, public pressure resulted in some changes when the sitcom was revived after a nineteen-month hiatus in May 1976. Now, Frau Tetzlaff was snippier and more irreverent.89 This modification might have been due to the publication of the first comprehensive report of women on West German TV in 1975. The so-called Küchenhoff-Studie concluded that television underrepresented women, depicted them as apolitical and inactive, avoided feminist topics and conveyed two main images: the traditional housewife and the young, attractive sixties girl who was ‘seemingly independent’ but sought marriage in the end.90 Of course, these patterns fit the two female leads of One Heart and One Soul exactly. The study incited much controversy within the broadcasting industry. It was debated by the main board of the ARD (Hauptversammlung) in

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December 1975 and by the programme board (Programmausschuss) of the regional station Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) in April 1976.91 During the International Year of the Woman in 1975, women’s groups had come forward to demand more representation on TV and women’s programmes in prime time. Even federal president Walter Scheel had asked the mass media to treat ‘the women’s question’ in an appropriate manner.92 Thus, by the time Ekel Alfred resumed, experimentation with female television roles was publicly encouraged. Even if WDR producers belatedly reacted to the rising tide of feminism, they omitted a wide range of controversial topics the women’s movement and the reform of marriage and divorce law had raised during the first half of the 1970s. Far from pioneering new values, television entertainment lagged several years behind. Between 1965 and 1975, West German society had experienced massive changes in gender relations. Birth rates fell dramatically, from 2.51 to 1.45 children per woman. The divorce rate skyrocketed from about 100 to 175 per 100,000 inhabitants.93 The number of girls taking A-level examinations rose from 36 per cent in 1965 to 46 per cent in 1975.94 In 1971, a third of women with children under fifteen worked – a 65 per cent rise over 1961.95 Women’s employment was about to become the new norm.96 Despite these new realities, the series did not deal with topics such as childlessness, divorce, women in higher education, female employment or the double burden. Nevertheless, Else Tetzlaff left a strong impact on viewers. In the 1974 IFEP survey Else was named as the second most popular character of the series, after Michael. Viewers liked Else considerably more than they did Alfred. Females in particular took to her while rejecting Alfred more clearly than men,97 and they more often reported finding the programme ‘irritating’.98 Housewives were particularly prone to criticise the show.99 Many participants in the group discussions were enraged by Else’s suffering at Alfred’s hands: ‘What annoys me most is his attitude towards women’ – ‘a normal woman could not bear it’ – ‘If I were married to him, I would be in the slammer by now’ – ‘he is a harsh tyrant’ – ‘this man is the bane of her life’ – ‘maybe things would be different if Else took up a job’.100 Some viewers fantasised: ‘What if his wife, Else, lost it, and … would slap him?’ – ‘A short circuit … she could coincidentally have a bottle in her hand’. But others responded right away, ‘No, I don’t think so’ – ‘Else is not that kind of woman’ – ‘It’s too late now, she should have started earlier’ – ‘I [sic] can’t change him anymore’.101 In the IFEP survey, researchers also investigated the gender stereotypes held by audiences. They asked viewers to respond to statements taken from the sitcom, and also to rate how the fictional Alfred would score, on a scale of 7 (wholly agree) to 1 (wholly disagree). They then compared responses by

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Table 6.2. Gender stereotypes among Ekel Alfred’s viewers Viewers rate Alfred

Viewers’ opinion (total)

Up to 29 years of age

65 years and older

Like very much

Do not like at all

‘A good wife has to be home when her husband returns from work.’

6.4

3.6

2.5

5.0

4.2

2.8

‘A decent husband will be bothered by his wife dressing sexily.’

6.1

2.9

2.0

4.2

3.0

2.7

‘Politics is a male affair.’

6.4

2.6

1.8

4.0

3.2

2.7

‘A husband is entitled to be waited upon by his wife.’

6.3

2.3

1.7

3.4

2.8

1.8

‘It is just not right that so many women and girls wear trousers.’

5.6

1.9

1.4

2.9

2.0

1.4

‘A woman should do the spring cleaning when her husband is away.’

6.4

4.5

3.4

5.7

5.1

3.1

Source: IFEP survey, 115, 117, 42.

the young and the old, and those 15 per cent of viewers who ‘very much’ and the 8.5 per cent who ‘not at all’ liked the series (table 6.2). Alfred, it appears, was a good deal more prejudiced than real viewers. Still, some stereotypes were widespread. Whereas the majority embraced women’s right to engage in politics and dress how they pleased, a majority also felt that cleaning was a female task and only narrowly rejected the statement that wives should stay at home. Strong differences between age groups emerged. The elderly harmonised with Alfred on most counts, though their attitudes were less extreme than his. The young, by contrast, clearly rejected the model of the subordinate housewife. The audience researchers concluded that ‘evidently major value change was under way’ within the postwar generation, both male and female. ‘The gender-specific variances in the general population are smaller than those between age groups’, they found: the age more than the sex of the respondent determined gender attitudes.102 Additional data confirm that the biggest fans were somewhat closer to Alfred’s traditional gender attitudes than nonfans and average viewers (table 6.2). Thus, either those viewers who championed traditional gender roles specifically sought out the programme (a mechanism known as selective exposure), or it served to reaffirm traditional attitudes in parts of the audience. The most likely result is a combination of the two. This is further corroborated if we turn to the depiction of generational strife. The conflict between young and old rocking the television family was eagerly followed by young audiences. Between 21 and 30 per cent of the show’s audience belonged to the 14- to 29-year-old group. Despite its 9.00

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P.M. slot, the series also pulled in a sixth of all children viewers.103 The programme polarised young viewers slightly more than other age groups.104 Schoolteachers were quick to capitalise on the way it engaged pupils. HansHerrmann Fischer, tutor at a Bielefeld vocational college, requested materials from the broadcaster because ‘I noticed strong interest in the Tetzlaff series among my students in political lessons’.105 Scriptwriter Menge received letters from high school students who were reading Alfred in class, and a German textbook already used excerpts from the series in 1973.106 The publishing house Hübner used the British and West German sitcom for a lesson in its beginners’ textbook Lebendiges Englisch 1. Journals targeting the teenage market, such as MAD and Poster-Press, zeroed in on the Tetzlaffs as well,107 as did regional youth programmes on television.108 In the Cologne group discussions, parents reported that teenagers and older children ‘were in stitches’ over Alfred. Many viewers related the show to their personal experience. ‘What would Alfred say to me, with my long hair?’ – ‘Just like our Manfred, he has this long hair, too, I’m always getting at him: will you go to the barber … certainly he [Alfred] would say the same.’ Quite a few young viewers indicated that watching Michael take abuse made them feel rebellious: ‘I would have moved out, into the basement, long ago’ – ‘I would have kicked Alfred in the shins’ – ‘At our house, it wasn’t [peaceful] coexistence either’.109 When the IFEP asked twelve hundred viewers to rate themselves and Alfred in regard to authoritarian education, the age gap was even more pronounced and the most avid fans edged even closer to Alfred than in regard to gender attitudes. The preference for authoritarian parenting rose consistently with age, confirming that the generation gap depicted in the sitcom existed in society. Figure 6.1 shows a clear age progression of values across all prejudices associated with gender roles, education and social minorities. It finds a small core group of mostly elderly, male fans applauding Alfred. But remarkably, it also confirms that the majority of viewers inhabited middle ground. The 30- to 64-year-olds, and those who were neither diehard fans nor opponents of the series (fully 76.5 per cent of the audience), were unlikely to identify with Alfred’s stereotypical views. The only value to stand out from the rest was parental authoritarianism, which scored particularly highly. Only in regard to authoritarian education was there a marked difference between those viewers who particularly loved the series and the other groups, indicating that a minority of viewers selectively exposed themselves to the show in order to reinforce their existing high authoritarianism.110 There is a background story to this.

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Figure 6.1. Traditionalist stereotypes among Ekel Alfred’s viewers Note: ‘Social minorities’ refers to attitudes regarding youth, the longhaired, unemployed and criminals. ‘Emancipation of women’ refers to data in table 6.2. Parental authoritarianism was measured with statements such as, ‘the key to education is that children must learn obedience’. Source: IFEP survey, 42, 115–22, 124–27.

One of the most prominent projects of the 68er movement in West Germany was to overcome educational traditions and raise children in an antiauthoritarian manner. On a quest to break the vicious cycle of the ‘authoritarian character’ – which allegedly was to blame for the Holocaust – the 68ers experimented with antiauthoritarian nurseries (Kinderläden) and communes in order to break the hold of the ‘bourgeois’ family over children. Their approach was informed by Theodor Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality111 and by the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Reich’s writings from the 1930s identified the bourgeois patriarchal family, with its authoritarian parenting and repression of sexuality, as the root cause of fascism. The student movement had rediscovered Reich with gusto, jumping at the chance to charge the liberalisation of sexuality with antifascist zeal.112 Since the late 1960s, the controversial Kinderladen movement set out to liberate children from bourgeois authoritarianism. In practice, this meant encouraging autonomy and rebelliousness and making parents into partners, going by first names rather than ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’. But there was also a

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fixation on toilet training and early sexuality. The 68ers went so far as to urge toddlers to satisfy anal fantasies and ‘genital needs’ with peers and even adults.113 These experiments had been widely publicised by West German illustrated weeklies and a television documentary by 1969.114 The respondents in the IFEP survey, on balance, displayed a good deal of parental authoritarianism. But some may have only rejected antiauthoritarianism because they equated it with the excesses of Kinderladen activists.115 The 68ers’ agenda exactly matched the intention behind ‘disgusting Alfred’. Peter Märthesheimer flatly stated: ‘Alfred is the prototype of what social psychologists call the “authoritarian character”. His traits are limited, his prejudices and attitudes … can be enumerated as in a catalogue’.116 He was to appear aggressive, emotionally inhibited, sexually uptight, antidemocratic and patriarchal, kowtowing to superiors while tormenting inferiors. Wolfgang Menge added: ‘He is a combination of almost all the psychological deformities to be found in our society … an artificial concentrate’.117 But when it came to storylines about antiauthoritarian parenting, Menge hesitated. Märthesheimer unsuccessfully suggested episodes in which ‘a student from the Ruhr University comes by’ with ‘brochures advertising antiauthoritarian child raising’, or in which ‘a youthful gang haunts the neighbourhood, breaking into vending machines’.118 The writer only used the theme more extensively in the very last episode, when the sitcom’s cancellation had already been decided. Here, it was explained that Alfred was born in 1924, raised ‘strictly’ by his violent but emotionally distant alcoholic father, beaten at school and conditioned by the Nazi army. He was militarist and nationalist, championing the values of ‘chastity, propriety, decency, duty, order and cleanliness’. It was even alleged that Tetzlaff was ‘no different from the mass of Germans of this generation’. And Alfred criticised today’s children for ‘loitering, raping nurses, smoking opium’ and today’s ‘kindergartens that teach masturbation’.119 Never had the series been as open about its ideological subtext.

Sexuality To highlight Alfred’s ‘authoritarian personality’, the production team prominently showcased his sexual hang-ups. ‘Sexuality is extremely important’, Märthesheimer explained to undergraduates.120 Alfred Tetzlaff was to be the walking, talking embodiment of Wilhelm Reich’s thesis: the authoritarian character, conditioned to repress his sexual drive since childhood, would develop neuroses and impotence. He would channel his frustration into aggression against inferiors and minorities.121 Several episodes hammered these points home.

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The show never tired of stressing the manifest contrast between the young and the old couple. Rita and Michael were described as sexually active and tolerant, Else and Alfred as inactive, moralising and prudish. They detested nudity and were unable to talk about genitalia or sex. If one of them hinted at either, he would be called a ‘pig’ or ‘pervert’ by the other.122 Alfred told off his daughter for wearing short skirts and sexy outfits and loathed Frau Fechner, who sunbathed topless and went to a mixed-sex sauna.123 The antihero spoke about sex in a roundabout way, often abusing foreign terms (‘dolce far niente’, ‘coram forum’, ‘nymphomaniac’), a technique used to remind viewers that they, too, ‘had had to acquire knowledge in secret, reading under the bed covers’.124 The younger couple, on the contrary, forthrightly used words such as bumsen (shagging) and stated that ‘making children is not the intention’. On a daily basis, they disturbed the peace and quiet with their noisy intercourse.125 Rita and Michael appeared as relatively happy examples of mutual satisfaction – although the series hinted at their marriage possibly going sour in the future.126 Alfred flew into a rage when he suspected the young ones of having sex upstairs: ‘We are in a civilised house, not in a brothel in Uganda-Burundi!’ He lamented that whereas for his generation, love had been about ‘flowers … affection … courting the other’, for Rita’s generation, ‘group sex’ was ‘like brushing one’s teeth’.127 Attacking those who had sex ‘just for fun’, Alfred zeroed in on sex education in schools as an incitement to underage intercourse.128 Here, he waded into a fight that had been raging in West Germany since 1968. Following a ministerial decree, almost all schools had taken up sex education as a subject during the early 1970s. But the move remained controversial and was successfully challenged in the courts in 1977. Central to Alfred’s views on sexuality was the double standard he applied. While he attacked others for being randy, he salivated with pleasure at the sight of naked flesh, be it the female neighbour’s or on television.129 Whenever he met women who complimented him on his manliness, he could barely contain his lechery.130 He trumpeted marital fidelity as an absolute value but was keen to get it on with an unsuspecting girl and a masseuse he mistook for a prostitute.131 To top it all, Alfred was described as impotent in order to highlight his authoritarian personality. The show often hinted at Else’s sexual frustration and Alfred’s incapability. Author Menge explained he hid ‘such intimate things’ in the scripts ‘like Easter eggs’, to be discovered with delight by viewers.132 Thus, Else repeatedly insinuated that her husband had ‘forgotten how it works’, had not slept with her since their daughter was conceived or might be gay. In response, Rita and Michael suggested she take a lover.133 Rita was convinced her father had ‘a sexual neurosis’.134 Both youngsters kept challenging Alfred’s masculinity. They played on Alfred’s castration anxiety (‘Are you afraid of it being cut off? It wouldn’t take much, in your case’)135 and ridiculed him because of how

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short he was. Michael alleged his father-in-law repressed his drives and then vented his anger at home: Rita:

But here at home, you shouldn’t come down on us, as if all of us were your subjects. Michael: See, at his job, he is not allowed to. There, he doesn’t even dare to go to the loo during working hours. Alfred: Someone who knows what duty is does not have the urge during working hours. [Starts to cut his toenails at the dinner table] … Michael (to Else): Somewhere he has to let off steam. Alfred: Let off steam? From what? Michael: Your work probably. The whole long day one has to be submissive, with nobody to bully. And of course then one lets it all out somewhere else.136

Thus, two sources had made Alfred into a petty tyrant: the pent-up aggression of the exploited proletarian and the suppression of anal needs. For the scriptwriter, Alfred’s anal blockades, just like his castration anxiety and his impotence, illustrated the fear of emasculation in a world where patriarchal authority was collapsing. ‘He is mainly afraid … like a beaten dog, he bites everybody. He flees … into the past because he believes the world was still in order back then’, Menge explained.137 The team hoped to get at ‘repressed or rationalised’ dispositions of viewers. The ‘hysterically tinged laughter’ Märthesheimer heard from the studio audience was meant to be a ‘detabooising laugh’. And it worked, ‘particularly clearly in the anal area’.138 While the sitcom discussed psychological defects and sexual neuroses, crudely borrowing from Freud and Reich, its treatment of sexuality had its limits. The Tetzlaffs discussed marital duties, extramarital relations, homosexuality, swinging and flashing, but they were silent about premarital sex, transsexuality, rape and female initiative.139 Gays, rapists, swingers or promiscuous hippies never appeared as incidental characters. One Heart and One Soul omitted anything to do with female bodies, although the contemporary women’s movement strongly focussed on the liberation of women’s bodies from male domination. When Märthesheimer suggested a storyline about Rita visiting a gynaecologist, Menge snubbed the idea.140 This was in stark contrast to All in the Family’s episodes on menopause, premenstrual syndrome, miscarriage, breast cancer and modelling in the nude. The same limitations held true regarding homosexuality. Alfred displayed his inhibitions by pointing the finger at ‘homos’ and schwule Heinis (fags). He insinuated that homosexuality was hereditary and that actors, dancers, diplomats and all Englishmen were ‘faggots’ bred in boarding schools. Michael and Rita argued against him, pointing out that it was acceptable for same-sex couples to live together, and many priests were gay.141 But the series

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did not comment on the limits of reform in West Germany. Male homosexuality had been decriminalised in 1969, but only for those twentyone years and over (lowered to eighteen years in 1973). Anxiety about teens being seduced into homosexuality was still rife, as was fear of homosexuality destabilising the family.142 The show’s creators had no contacts with the gay movement, which had emerged in Frankfurt and Berlin and at the Universities of Bochum and Münster during the years 1971–72. Gay issues ‘did not really interest us’, the author recalled.143 Märthesheimer’s and Menge’s distance to the topic is ironic, given that their line manager, Günter Rohrbach, had been responsible for Rosa von Praunheim’s controversial 1971 television film, which had been a catalyst for the founding of several gay liberation groups.144 The sitcom’s relative silence on homosexuality, combined with its obsession with emasculation and castration, underscores the particular value West German society placed on a remasculinisation of its men after war and fascism.145 Therefore, the WDR series was far from pioneering the sexual revolution. Its commentary on sexuality lagged behind contemporary events. By 1971, sexologists had found that the sexual behaviour of German youth had ‘changed as never before in this century’ in the four to six years before, with the age at first coitus dropping rapidly.146 West German markets had been swept by a porn wave from 1966 onwards; it peaked in the early 1970s.147 When Alfred ranted about sex education in schools, the argument had already been raging a full five years. The miniskirt had long had its breakthrough by the time Ekel Alfred chastised his daughter for wearing it.148 And where the show took up the sexual revolution, it did so only from a male and heterosexual perspective. Its silence about the gay movement and the sexual self-determination of women is conspicuous, since both topics were much discussed in public since at least 1971. With the faithful Michael and his cosmetician wife Rita, the show also projected a sanitised image of the young progressives. In West Germany’s alternative community of the early 1970s, young couples avoided marriage, many preferred promiscuity and women abhorred cosmetics.149 As watered-down as the sitcom’s treatment of sexuality was, television audiences still eagerly latched on to the topic. In one of the group discussions, the participants began to deliberate at length why Alfred was impotent, and what his position on abortion would be. Viewers correctly recalled Alfred’s views on hot pants and indecency, his contempt for women and his lechery. Many had picked up on Else’s hints about his impaired virility and speculated about the reasons: possibly an ‘inferiority complex’, or ‘that for years, his relationship with his wife … lacked tenderness’. Viewers also wondered how long Tetzlaff had been ‘off all fleshly pleasures’, and whether Rita might not have been his daughter but ‘the paramour’s’. There followed a heated debate about abortion in which

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most discussants eventually agreed that Alfred would push his wife to have an abortion, all the while ‘blaming the woman for it’. But in his ‘virility craze’, he would publicly oppose any law giving women more control over their bodies.150 It is telling that viewers were keen to link Alfred to the contemporary conflict about women’s bodies and abortion, even though the broadcasts hardly touched the topic. Whereas the antihero’s impotence figured prominently in the discussion, the key message tied to it – on how an authoritarian upbringing caused impotence, aggression and a fascist disposition – did not reach audiences.

Political Agenda Setting There was another area of the programmes that many viewers showed little interest in: politics. Alfred’s long tirades against youthful protesters, the SPD government and communist conspiracies were only attractive to a minority in the audience. In the discussions, participants stated: ‘for example about Brandt … I don’t really know what that’s about’ – ‘whenever they mix in politics … it simply doesn’t interest me’ – ‘it doesn’t belong there’ – ‘they kept having politics in between, that … was horrible’.151 The producer received many suggestions for new storylines, but none of them were about politics. Typically, viewers would propose an argument over the rubbish bin or the laundry, or slapstick gags while Alfred hangs wallpaper.152 An evening special on the defunct series, put together by the WDR’s Department of Culture in December 1974, was totally rejected by audiences because it privileged the show’s political aspects, framing learned debates among leftist intellectuals with socialist singer-songwriters’ performances. The press condemned the feature as ‘over the top, desperately unfunny … pseudointellectual morass’. The WDR noted 125 phone calls from viewers, ‘almost all’ of which found the broadcast ‘unbearable’ and ‘obtrusively political’.153 On this occasion, the 68ers behind Ekel Alfred were confronted with the truth: their intention of politically educating the masses was as unpopular as it was ineffective. The German series gave much more room to the political issues of the day than its Anglo-Saxon counterparts, and it caused partisan battles unimaginable elsewhere. While the series’ makers all tended to the left, their political allegiances varied. Wolfgang Menge, an unconventional leftist, had always been fascinated by the East-West German conflict.154 Peter Märthesheimer was more concerned with creating a new society and overcoming capitalism, so he pushed for the radicalisation of the SPD’s reform agenda. Günter Rohrbach was a Social Democrat and a Brandt supporter,155 and while critical of Marxism, he ‘respected’ the neo-Marxists in his team.156 Rohrbach, Menge and Märthesheimer were all dependent on

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the WDR’s CEO, Klaus von Bismarck. Bismarck did not belong to any party but was widely seen as leaning towards the SPD. Rohrbach characterised him as ‘an enormously liberal chairman … who always let us do our thing, and … whenever we got into trouble, he stood firm’. A former farmer from Pomerania, Bismarck’s motto was ‘cold blood and warm underpants’ – keep calm and weather the storm.157 And stormy it would become, once Ekel Alfred went nationwide. Now the press and politicians became acutely aware of the show’s broadsides against the Social Democrat–led governments under Willy Brandt (1969– 74) and Helmut Schmidt (from 16 May 1974 onwards). ‘Alfred has been hyped by the press’, with its ‘dominant underlying warning’ that ‘“Alfred” will finish off Willy Brandt’, Bismarck stated grimly. But ‘as long as the series ran on the third channel, almost no journalist looked at it, even when it already drew a 39 per cent rating’.158 Between early 1973, when the series had started on a regional channel, and the spring of 1974, the political climate had changed beyond recognition. The oil crisis in October 1973 had hit West Germany hard. While unemployment skyrocketed and firms went bust, Brandt appeared indecisive and depressed. The Eastern policy stalled and the first terror attacks struck. Suddenly, nasty jokes about the formerly idolised chancellor proliferated and the SPD began to lose regional elections. The press diagnosed ‘cracks in the chancellor’s pedestal’ and christened the turn ‘the Tetzlaff effect’.159 Writer Menge refuted the charge that ‘the change of the political mood has been accelerated, at least supported, or possibly created by Alfred Tetzlaff… . Doubtless Chancellor Brandt is in a political crisis’, but to Menge, it was too easy to blame the sitcom.160 And yet, throughout early 1974, TV’s biggest hit was mocking ‘slum kid’ Brandt and key figures of the SPD government such as ‘subversive snottynosed brat’ Horst Ehmke and ‘hook-nosed’ Egon Bahr (who was halfJewish). Alfred commented on current affairs – demanding that the army shoot striking workers, or arguing that the chancellor was giving away the pre-1945 Eastern territories to foreign countries in exchange for stately dinners and red carpets. He attacked Brandt for being lazy, for vacationing, for travelling and for spying for East Germany. He admired Franz Josef Strauss, the authoritarian strongman of the CSU (the Bavarian sister party of the conservative CDU) and one of Brandt’s fiercest critics. His most absurd rants were reserved for core governmental projects such as the Eastern policy and the codetermination laws.161 The official weekly paper of the West German parliament stated that One Heart and One Soul was ‘measured by its impact, the first extreme right-wing entertainment series in German television history’.162 When in late April 1974 a close aide to Brandt named Günter Guillaume was unmasked as an Eastern agent and the affair led to Brandt’s resignation

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two weeks later, Alfred Tetzlaff’s caustic tirades seemed not quite as unfounded any more. The mass media hyperventilated with excitement. On television and in print, experts of all shades weighed in.163 Was it possible that the WDR’s leftist producers had spectacularly miscalculated? Had their antihero backfired and become an involuntary ‘campaign aide for the CDU’?164 Now the show’s creators began to have second thoughts. Menge and Märthesheimer resolved to make Alfred even more obnoxious, to depoliticise some of his jokes and to move the SPD government out of the crosshairs. In the episode screened on 17 June 1974, Alfred was originally meant to fume that ‘a bastard as chancellor’ was unsuitable as ‘role model for the youth of our nation’, and that Brandt being ‘several times divorced and married to a foreigner’ was an encouragement to ‘all criminals’ and rapists. Menge cut these taunts from the final version.165 CEO Bismarck also advised sparing Brandt for the time being: ‘don’t kick somebody when he is down’. As the ‘alarming political impact’ of the programme was not yet proven but very possible, Bismarck decided that ‘premature nervousness should not lead us to abort this series yet’. But once the results of the IFEP study were in, a cancellation was in the cards. Märthesheimer affirmed he would stop the sitcom right away if the pollsters found that Tetzlaff ‘failed’ to realise his ‘enlightening function’.166 After the IFEP’s audience report was released in June, Märthesheimer carried on with the project – although some of the findings could not have been to his liking. First, the programme was ‘primarily’ experienced as ‘entertainment and a family show’. Only a fifth of viewers classified it as ‘a political broadcast’.167 This dovetailed with two independent surveys. One reckoned that the series was misunderstood ‘as a funny or humorous family piece’.168 The other related that most viewers experienced it as ‘entertainment’ or ‘a true-to-life family story of the common people’, while a mere 11 per cent identified the comedy as ‘a sly shot at the vilification of national and conservative thought’.169 The producers’ intentions to transport social and political criticism seemed to go up in smoke. Audiences chose to define the broadcast not as political education, but as light entertainment. Second, the study undertaken by the IFEP evidenced that the better viewers liked the Tetzlaff series (and the older they were), the more likely they were to approve of authoritarian styles of political leadership, to espouse nationalism and to disapprove of the Old and New Left. Even more revealing, the only opinion in which many viewers rated themselves fairly close to Alfred was ‘A chancellor needs to clamp down with an iron fist’ – and the survey had been conducted at the height of Brandt’s crisis. If there was anything audiences agreed on with Alfred, it was his criticism of Willy Brandt. Additionally, the keenest fans of the sitcom appeared to be those least enamoured of the politics of the left (figure 6.2).

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Figure 6.2. Antidemocratic and nationalist attitudes among Ekel Alfred’s viewers Note: The ‘iron fist’ question reads in the original ‘muss vor allem straff durchgreifen können’. ‘Strong leadership’ refers to responses indicating a yearning for the days of Adenauer and Hitler and the loyalty of German civil servants. ‘Nationalism’ refers to questions about the alleged superiority of German civil servants, German families and a longing for the national anthem being played more often. ‘Old and New Left’ refers to attitudes regarding the SPD, the Jusos (SPD youth organisation) and codetermination. Source: IFEP survey, 115–27.

In the group discussions in Cologne, it was agreed that Alfred hated Brandt as a traitor to the nation. Viewers speculated at length what kind of spiteful comments Alfred would deliver on the Guillaume affair (Menge never touched the topic).170 The extent to which respondents associated Alfred with Willy Brandt’s fate also became evident when they were asked what kind of fancy dress Alfred would put on for carnival. ‘Franz Josef Strauss’ – Brandt’s conservative archenemy and champion of authoritarianism – was among the costumes named most often, together with Hitler and Goebbels.171 Indeed, Wolfgang Menge had taken inspiration from Strauss: ‘of all German politicians, Franz Josef Strauss is the one who comes closest to stating things the way Alfred does’. By ridiculing Strauss and his views, Alfred was to serve ‘like a vaccine against smallpox or cholera’, Menge maintained.172 While the show was hardly able to inoculate audiences against authoritarian politicians, it appears that almost everybody understood its

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ironic inversion of politics. Even the most highly prejudiced viewers recognised the satiric intent behind Alfred’s tirades (in three out of four cases) and perceived him as a negative role model, not a hero (in thirteen out of fourteen cases).173 The IFEP study similarly concluded that Alfred was ‘a negative model’. The huge disparity between how viewers rated the television figure’s political stance and their own ‘excluded’ the possibility that Alfred would cause his fans to move to the political right. The researchers argued that the latter possibility was just ‘hyped up by opinion leaders and atypically reacting viewers’ (namely, intellectuals), who believed the show was a danger not to them but to the ignorant masses. In particular, audiences identified Alfred as a supporter of dictatorship, while even the most conservative respondents wanted a pluralistic democracy but with a tough leader.174 The Cologne discussion participants guessed that Alfred would vote either for the neo-Nazi party NPD or ‘a strong CDU man with a heavy drift to the right’. He was always to choose ‘the most authoritarian’ politician on offer, and would be ‘a friend of Dregger’.175 This referred to Alfred Dregger, one of the Christian Democrats’ rising stars who shared not only the TV character’s first name but also some of his national conservative views. As the CDU’s front-runner in the October 1974 Hessian election campaign, Dregger had to endure many unflattering comparisons. Not only did the SPD use Tetzlaff’s picture in adverts against him, a move openly supported by actor Heinz Schubert and author Wolfgang Menge;176 Dregger was also found less ‘endearing’ than Tetzlaff in a parliamentary debate.177 Stunned by the overreaction to their fictional creature, Menge and Märthesheimer went easy on the SPD after Brandt’s fall. But they managed to cause another storm with an episode that fell on the contested Day of German Unity, 17 June, which was the anniversary of the East German uprising of 1953. On this day, West German television channels typically scheduled predictable anticommunist fare. Some papers and radio stations had begun to perforate the antitotalitarian consensus since the early 1960s with programmes criticising the illusionary reunification policies of the Federal Republic’s governments instead of decrying communist atrocities.178 But on TV, a critical dramatisation of the East-West conflict was still highly controversial. Wolfgang Menge decided that Alfred would receive ‘visitors from the Eastern zone’, namely, Michael’s parents, on the day. The plot saw Alfred insulting them as ‘no longer being Germans’, alleging they were starving or eating nothing but cabbage, and claiming Luther and Goethe as exclusively part of West Germany’s heritage. To top it all, Alfred and Michael’s father drunkenly wallowed in war stories.179 The broadcasting committees were appalled. As soon as they noticed what was planned for 17 June, the supervisory board (Rundfunkrat) of the broadcaster SFB tried to intervene both at the level of the ARD directors and via the advisory council (Programmbeirat). The move to change the

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programme’s placement failed, with several broadcasting executives pointing out ‘that this holiday really is not uncontested’. But the SFB chairman, Fritz Barsig, eventually secured the right to preinspect the finished tape. He then allowed it to be screened in Berlin – a contested move, because the SFB’s audience included huge numbers of East Germans.180 Two days afterwards, the ARD’s advisory council debated the episode for two full hours. It objected against how Menge had made the holiday into ‘a day of alienation’ between Easterners and Westerners, against how ‘booze and wartime experience were shown to be the only common denominators’, and against inviting audiences to laugh at such serious matters. To this, the WDR’s TV director, Höfer, responded that – echoing a slogan of Brandt’s Eastern policy – ‘politicians want change through rapprochement; why can’t we provide change through laughter?’181 Both Bismarck and Höfer went on to defend the sitcom at the ARD’s general meeting in July.182 The prolonged argument confirms that Menge’s critical version of the East-West conflict preached to the converted. Among West German television executives, a majority refused to go along with conservative demands to enshrine anticommunism as the Federal Republic’s guiding principle. Ekel Alfred did not pioneer the antianticommunist swing, however: television lagged years behind other mass media and the 68er protest movement. This also explains why the 17 June episode incited so much protest in broadcasting committees but hardly any recorded reactions by viewers.183 The series seemed to lurch from scandal to scandal and eventually was cancelled after its September 1974 instalment.184 This was due to a change of climate within the broadcaster. Under Bismarck’s liberal guidance, during the 1960s the WDR had become a haven for a large number of young 68ers. Since 1971, some of these pushed for a voice in internal affairs. A drawn-out struggle resulted in Bismarck granting a modest ‘participatory regime’ (Beteiligungsordnung) by 1973 but not the far-reaching Redakteursstatut editors had wished for. Bismarck also faced mounting opposition from the WDR boards and a campaign by CDU politicians against the ‘red radio station’. The increasingly biased reporting of some left-leaning WDR journalists, particularly in the Department of Culture (Kulturredaktion), enraged Conservatives. It did not help that Ulrike Meinhof, founding member of the terrorist group Red Army Faction, had been a writer of WDR features before she went underground in 1970, and some editors were accused of staying in contact with her. By spring 1974, Bismarck had tired of the ideological fervour of radical producers. He publicly declared that ‘extremist leftist forces’ in the broadcasting agencies had to be contained. By 1975, facing a tight reelection, he stepped down and was replaced by the Social Democrat Friedrich Wilhelm von Sell.185 According to Rohrbach, the new chairman was ‘more cautious’, ‘a lot touchier, also more anxious’ and ‘evidently had problems with’ One Heart and One Soul.186 The radicals in the

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broadcaster were now sailing against the wind. Censorship intensified, and eventually the Department of Culture was broken up. Both Märthesheimer and Rohrbach had left the WDR by 1979.187 In the eyes of conservative campaigners, Alfred was ‘reddish rubbish’.188 Nevertheless, the series was briefly revived in 1976. But by then, the backlash against socially critical, ‘enlightening’ programmes was in full swing. Within the ARD, it was now consensus that the WDR’s primary focus on experimentation and agitation had led into a ‘blind alley’, alienating mass audiences with didactic programmes on Mao’s women’s battalions and workplace realities.189 Additionally, the looming federal election, pitting the SPD’s Helmut Schmidt against the CDU’s Helmut Kohl, made it difficult to include political gags in the sitcom. Menge complained, ‘I feel castrated … Schmidt is taboo, Kohl is taboo, the whole election campaign is taboo … it is a dance on eggshells’.190 The production team decided to step up the slapstick elements and to exchange two of the actors, the mother and the son-in-law. After devastating critiques, it was quickly decided to bury the series for good. Rohrbach felt the series was ‘tired’.191 However, Peter Märthesheimer blamed the change of political climate: ‘A conservative figure no longer appears funny, but boring in a climate which itself has become conservative… . What kind of jokes is Alfred supposed to make about conformist students, intimidated pupils, unemployed guest workers, reticent socialists?’192 Märthesheimer cited economic stagnation, unemployment, limited perspectives for young people and a loss of idealism as reasons for society’s disappointing turn away from utopian socialism. Disgusting Alfred, God bless his soul, was conceived as a comical figure contradicting existing conditions. At the time he mainly lived off the fact that he ranted against a basic current that sympathised with trends of progressive societal problem solving. The audience had to laugh at him because his attitudes – conformist or reactionary throughout – appeared funny against the background of this consensus… . Today the gap between Tetzlaff and reality has shrunk or even vanished in many areas.193

The backlash that came with the end of economic growth and terrorism reached far into broadcasting, too, as Günter Rohrbach opined. ‘The cultural revolutionary movement of the late 60s and early 70s’ lost its influence in radio and TV, and the cultural revolutionaries gave in and became conformist. The parties … brought those broadcasters which had been most strongly identified with the cultural revolution under their political control by shuffling the top brass and reorganising… . Campaigns were staged and those television editors who did not want to conform to the changed climate were subjected to coordinated attacks.194

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Disillusioned after the Alfred experience, Märthesheimer held that TV’s ‘insurmountable dependence on the market’ made it a medium that could ‘at most … behave pro-cyclically vis-à-vis societal currents’. It required progressive ‘tendencies to be already there’ in order to drive society ‘forwards, beyond the existing conditions’. Once society’s progressive moment had passed, television would not be able to counteract the trend.195 He had a point. One Heart and One Soul had never been a forerunner of the sixties cultural revolution, but rather served to spread and accelerate its thrust. When the series criticised sexual morals, patriarchal family structures and the anticommunist consensus in West German politics, it lagged behind the realities. Sexual behaviour had changed years before Alfred ranted against permissiveness. The SPD government had worked on a reform of marriage and divorce law beginning in 1970. Other mass media, intellectuals and protest movements had chipped away at anticommunist dogma since the early 1960s. And for decades, bad language had been scarce on TV but commonplace in everyday communication. In regard to female emancipation and sexual liberation, the series was even less of a trailblazer – in accordance with the male-dominated, heterosexual mainstream of the West German student movement. It is surprising how closely the sitcom followed the ideological thrust of the 68ers, right down to Theodor Adorno’s authoritarian personality theory, Wilhelm Reich’s writings and the most common misunderstandings of the 68ers: that the stuffiness of the 1950s was fascist in nature (it was in fact a reaction to fascism, harking back to pre-1933 values)196 and that by the 1970s, dictatorship was around the corner. Some in the production team practiced the ‘long march through the institutions’ that West German SDS leader Rudi Dutschke had demanded of activists. Alfred, as the prototype of the authoritarian character and alienated worker, was supposed to enlighten the masses and break through their false consciousness. Because ratings carried little weight and the restrictions of the genre were unknown, the German producers took the liberty of making substantial changes to the format in the interest of ideology. Therefore, the German Michael went to work in a factory instead of being lazy, and the team saw no problem in exchanging the actors representing two family members midstream. Alfred was also much more repulsive than his American or British counterparts – kicking his wife in the behind and washing himself only once a week.197 That the series was still a sensational success is only due to German viewers’ lack of choice and previous genre experience. To the astonishment of the WDR team, mass audiences were much more independent than they and everyone else assumed. Most executives, journalists and politicians feared that the majority would take Alfred at face value and be influenced in its voting behaviour by television. (This is why there were no spin-offs and no attempts at musealisation until the 1990s.)

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But audience research demonstrated that the satire was commonly understood and that the group of reactionary or antidemocratic viewers seeking reinforcement from the programme was small. Though authoritarian attitudes were widespread, the strong generational divide helped to balance this out, as the young were fairly progressive. Most of the time, viewers were uninterested in Alfred’s political messages anyway. For them, the show was simply shorthand for TV comedy. It was popular because of its vulgarity and working-class setting, and because it played with new social values. The one exception to this rule was Chancellor Willy Brandt’s political crisis in April and May 1974. At this point, real scandal and television fiction meshed to such an extent that audiences applauded Alfred’s vicious anti-Brandt outbursts. The show thus contributed to the wave of public criticism that accelerated Brandt’s demise. In general, though, the majority in the audience rejected partisan points and the 68er-inspired political agenda. Viewers did not pick up on the linkage of repressed sexuality and fascism in the ‘authoritarian personality’. They were mostly bored by references to elections and current affairs. What electrified them was not the treatment of the political revolution but that of the lifestyle revolution. Here, at last, was a programme that made fun of the ubiquitous everyday conflicts over long hair, short skirts, authoritarian parenting and the sex life of young people. Finally, television poked fun at bourgeois morals and challenged elitist high culture with rude words, crude manners and kitchen-sink realism. To most viewers the series meant the softening up of authoritarianism, traditional gender roles and restrictive sexual morals in favour of more individualism and hedonism. This is why the ideological title One Heart and One Soul was rejected by the masses and substituted with the label Ekel Alfred (Disgusting Alfred). And because the older, conservative and working-class viewers were the most avid fans, the sitcom was able to confront them on a regular basis with its critique of patriarchy, traditional sexual mores and anticommunism – arguably accelerating a shift in values among these groups.

Comparison How do Alf, Archie and Alfred compare in terms of their societal impact? The three national cases show similarities as well as dissimilarities in the timing, content and eventual success of the sixties cultural revolution. Any comparison must also keep in mind that there was a significant difference in the number of episodes produced (55 in Britain, 208 in the United States and 25 in West Germany) and that the British programme began its run five to seven years earlier than its successors. But there was a time (1973–74) in which the three series coincided.

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Even during this period of overlap, Alf, Archie and Alfred sent slightly different messages. The German version was the least ambivalent of all, presenting the bigot as more repulsive to turn off reactionary viewers. The American series was carefully balanced to keep the format attractive to both progressive and conservative audiences. The British comedy was most hesitant in its support of new values, because it understood the young generation as consumerist slackers (by contrast, the American Mike was a student and the German a skilled worker, and the daughter worked in both cases). Speight’s sitcom was also the most critical of the women’s movement: it ridiculed any experimentation with gender roles and depicted women as mostly lazy and immature. The West German show criticised patriarchal gender roles more forthrightly but bypassed the main topics of the ongoing feminist movement. Only the U.S. programme reacted in any real measure to the feminist wave, developing the female characters in response to viewers’ reactions and issuing manuals advocating moderate, liberal feminism. All three series enshrined marriage as an absolute value, ignoring the rocketing divorce rates and promiscuous countercultures of the time – but they more or less explicitly propagated postpatriarchal, egalitarian partnerships. Despite their emphasis on marriage and their rejection of promiscuity, Alf & Co. propelled the (hetero)sexual revolution of the sixties. When the format originated, in Britain’s mid-1960s, its talk about premarital sex, nudity and the pill was scandalous enough to outrage moralists.198 The Garnetts also chipped away at the taboos surrounding bodily functions, a move copied by the Bunkers and the Tetzlaffs. Tellingly, the British and West German variants only focussed on liberated male bodies, while the American one, catering to female target audiences, also did much to make female bodies, female sexuality and rape more mentionable. Norman Lear’s version was also the only one to cover gay, lesbian and transgender issues.199 It appears that whereas television’s sexual revolution in Britain and West Germany acceded to repulsion and fear of homosexuality, this was less so in the American case, particularly towards the end of the 1970s.200 These differences are partly due to the time lag: All in the Family broadcast until the end of the 1970s, longer than its European counterparts. But they are also rooted in different production conditions and strategies. The American team was most intent on responding to the wishes of commercially valuable target audiences. It consciously adapted the shows’ content in reaction to viewers’ letters and advocacy groups and even hired staff to harness the creative energy of activists and bohemians. Because it relied on a large team of external and internal writers, it could more easily keep up with the momentum of social change than the British and West German series, both of which depended on a single, middle-aged writer.

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As these shows broached controversial topics, they became a metaphor and framing script for the sixties cultural revolution. During their peak, they saturated everyday language and negotiations about value change, right down to living room furniture, photo albums and the way spouses addressed each other. In the public arena, journalists, politicians and moral entrepreneurs – from Mary Whitehouse to the Moral Majority and the West German advisory councils – seized on the series because of their enormous standing. To a certain extent, the widespread expectation of huge impact became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The sitcoms were in fact able to accelerate value change. They did so mainly by encouraging controversial discussion among viewers and tackling taboos (such as premarital sex, menstruation or breast cancer). The programmes’ impact on society was boosted precisely by the framing of new norms in a popular and moderate language. The shows were popular in nature because their success with mass audiences built on the appeal of working-class realism and ordinary (‘bad’) language and manners, both of which were still rare on television. Everywhere, viewers reported a strong recognition effect, comparing the programme to their own household and family members. The series became icons of popular culture challenging elitist high culture. In each national case, though, ‘class’ and ‘elites’ carried different meanings. In Britain, a nonideological understanding of class dominated: class division was a fundamental, inescapable fact of the bleak life characters were trapped in.201 The show rallied against an establishment defined by Victorian values, church adherence, rural or suburban background and upper or middle income levels – personified by Mary Whitehouse. In the United States, class was overshadowed by race (as we will see in the next chapter). Being working class, like Archie, mainly meant being stuck with no prospects of realising the American dream of moving up. In West Germany, the producers followed an antibourgeois, neo-Marxist concept of class, with a generous helping of the 68er favourites Theodor Adorno and Wilhelm Reich. The other reason for the runaway success of these sitcoms was that they took up ongoing conflicts but deployed a strategic moderation of contested values. The largest part of the audience, still warming up to the lifestyle revolution, enjoyed playing with contention but rejected radical taboo breaking and the preaching of ideology. Therefore, TV stripped the sixties of radicalism (though the West German sitcom retained some of the ideological flavour of ‘1968’). Everywhere, patriarchy was attacked but marriage reaffirmed. If feminism was supported, that was only in its watered-down form. Sexual liberation was propagated mainly for married heterosexual couples. Divisive issues of the sixties were left out altogether, such as divorce and promiscuity, drugs and dropouts, and the romanticising of political

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violence in the United States and the Federal Republic. On the one hand, this process of toning down stifled alternative voices and censored the available options. On the other hand, it denied mass exposure to those who advocated exclusion, hate, violence or the overthrow of democracy.202 Television’s strategic moderation was not primarily linked to commercialisation. The American show, produced in the most commercialised broadcasting system, engaged most in taboo breaking, as with the episodes on rape, homosexuality and gender identity. Agenda setting could measurably impact viewer behaviour, but only over short periods and with specific topics. The realm of public health is particularly suited to this effect, as demonstrated by the American example, where producers worked together with advocacy groups and local authorities such as the police and treatment centres. Short-term agenda setting also worked in politics, as Alfred’s role in West German chancellor Willy Brandt’s fall from grace illustrates. Whatever TV’s agenda setting aimed at, the medium was not a trailblazer but a catalyst. Mass entertainment commonly took inspiration from fringe groups or countercultures that were already challenging the societal consensus. While the British series took some cues from swinging London’s youth cultures of the mid-1960s, its American sibling perfected the strategy as the 1970s progressed. It institutionalised mechanisms to exploit the creative potential of activists who experimented with new values. In the West German case, the producer and director themselves embodied the 68er vanguard. Typically, the thrust of ‘relevant’ programming was directed at values that were already softened up. Not coincidentally, Alf, Archie and Alfred represented the working man of a bygone era – the 1930s to 1950s – whose values were fading fast. The patriarchal marriage model attacked on TV was already rejected by a majority of (American) viewers. Likewise, premarital sex was accepted by a majority of (British) viewers, who were no longer willing to go along with what the churches taught on ‘living in sin’. If we consider the timing of the sexual revolution, television’s late coming is exposed particularly clearly: everywhere, the spread of premarital sex, the (limited) liberalisation of laws regulating sexuality, the porn wave and explicit magazines and movies preceded prime-time entertainment’s floating of liberalised norms. TV sought out fights half-won, and joined the fray. It could do so because audiences that were in transition – somewhere on the way to individualised lifestyles – were easier to sway. In all three countries observed, a majority of viewers displayed contradictory, fluctuating attitudes. The format invented by Johnny Speight, based on a generational and social battle of warring factions, was inherently ambivalent: it counted on attracting both progressives and conservatives. Audience research

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confirmed a deep generational gap in regard to issues such as changing gender roles, parenting styles, authoritarianism and sex before marriage.203 But it also revealed that besides the two target groups (those who laughed with the bigot, and those who laughed at him), there was a third, much larger faction that shifted back and forth. The studies suggest that about 60 (United States) to 75 (West Germany) or 80 per cent (Britain) of viewers inhabited the middle ground. In the phase of value transition, the opportune moment was there – and television seized it.

Notes   1. See chap. 2.   2. The exact cost of the IFEP study was 51,060 DM, according to a note of 13 May 1974, WDR, HF1.   3. Allensbach poll 33/1974, WDR, 12273.  4. Der Spiegel 12, 18 March 1974; Hör zu! 9, 1974; Express 1, 2 January 1974; Bunte 10, 28 February 1974; Gong 33, 1974.   5. See correspondence about awards in Bunte 10, 28 February 1974.   6. Published by Rowohlt, in Hamburg. Der Stern 8, 14 February 1974; see also Menge, Korrespondenz 1973–74, DK, 4.3.-199605, 7.  7. Rheinischer Merkur, 11 January 1974, WDR, 8579.   8. Quoted in Aachener Volkszeitung, 20 April 1974, WDR, Printarchiv.  9. National-Zeitung, 29 March 1974, WDR, 8581. 10. Märthesheimer to Elisabeth Püttmann, 12 August 1974, WDR, 8578. 11. See WDR, 8578. For Free University Berlin, see letter by Professor F. Eberhard, 19 July 1974, WDR, 12520. 12. De Haas, of the Munich University of Television and Film (Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film [HFF] Munich), had consistently advocated more socially critical, progressive forms of programming as a TV critic for Der Spiegel and Die Welt. See HFF Munich, Pressearchiv, ‘Haas’. See WDR, 8578, for correspondence from de Haas to Märthesheimer, 21 January 1974, and between Professor Winfried Lerg and Märthesheimer, 16 and 19 April 1974. See also Hammer, Vogt and Wehmeier, Kommunikation. 13. IFEP survey, 38–39. 14. Märthesheimer to Heim, 29 March 1973, WDR, 8576; Der Spiegel, 31 December 1973. 15. Schalt ein-Telestar, 18 May 1974, WDR, 8579. 16. IFEP survey, 42. 17. Bismarck report, draft, 29 May 1974, WDR, 12520, 4. 18. Eleven letters could not be classified (all press clippings in WDR, 8575, 8579, 8581, UF1, HF1). 19. Six were voices of expellees who felt insulted by a particular 1976 episode (see chap. 7). Märthesheimer stated that about a quarter of writers were ‘Willy voters’ defending the chancellor against Alfred. Düsseldorfer Nachrichten, 26 January 1974, WDR, 8579.

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20. A. Beckmann, Castrop-Rauxel, and R. Lunke, Witten, in Ruhrnachrichten, 14 May 1975; H. Groene, Bremen, in Hör zu!, 2 February 1974; three voices quoted in Der Spiegel, 18 March 1974, 65. 21. Hör zu!, 2 February 1974; Bild und Funk, 16 February 1974. 22. Funk-Uhr, 13 April 1974. 23. TV Hören und Sehen, 23 February 1974; Ruhrnachrichten, 14 April 1974. 24. Ruhrnachrichten, 14 April 1974; TV Hören und Sehen, 23 February 1974. 25. F.B. (Potsdam), communication with the author. 26. Weltwoche, 8 May 1974. 27. Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 28 December 1974; list of Meckerecke calls, 20 January 1975, WDR, 8581. 28. Der Spiegel 53, 31 December 1973, 74. 29. Märthesheimer, quoted in WDR information, 11 November 1976, WDR, 8575. 30. Rohrbach to Höfer, 22 February 1974, WDR, HF1. 31. Märthesheimer to Heim, 29 March 1973, WDR, 8576. 32. Quoted in Schalt ein-Telestar, 18 May 1974. 33. The subjects were selected so as to achieve ‘a wide range of sociodemographic traits’. Short report on group discussions, n.d., WDR, 8580, 2, 8; see also IFEP survey, 108. 34. Short report on group discussions, n.d., WDR, 8580, 9, 16. 35. Ibid., 9. 36. Hör zu!, 6 April 1974. 37. Höfer to Rohrbach, 28 December 1973, WDR, HF1; see also Die Zeit, 28 December 1973. 38. Programmbeirat für das Deutsche Fernsehen, meetings 174–76 and 179, Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv Frankfurt (DRAF), A07/24; meetings 195 and 197, DRAF, A07/25. 39. Programmbeirat, meeting 173, 9–10 April 1974, DRAF, A07/24. 40. Allensbach poll 33/1974, WDR, 12273. 41. Author’s interview with Rohrbach. 42. Audiences might have associated the 1939 movie Das Ekel starring Hans Moser. 43. Menge borrowed the idea of nail clipping from Speight (‘Till Death Fragmente’, DK, 4.4.-199605, 8) and used it in I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’; I/12, ‘Selbstbedienung’, and II/3, ‘Modell Tetzlaff’. The footbath appears in I/12, ‘Silvesterpunsch’, and I/1, ‘Das Hähnchen’. See fan forum at www.wdr.de/ comedy/sendungen/ekelalfred.phtml (accessed 14 May 2008). 44. IFEP group discussions, I, 3, 10–11, 14; II, 1, 5 (quotation), 7, WDR, 8580. 45. Short report on group discussions, n.d., WDR, 8580, 17. 46. See chap. 3. 47. I/9, ‘Erntedankfest’; I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’. 48. I/12, ‘Selbstbedienung’. 49. I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’; I/4, ‘Die Beerdigung’. 50. ‘Der tote Otto’, script by Menge, DK, 4.4.-199605 1, 8; see also Kölner StadtAnzeiger, 18 October 1975. 51. Draft for New York Times article (April 1974), WDR, 8578, 8.

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52. Quoted in Fernseh-Woche, 29 May 1976. 53. Menge, Frühjahrsputz, preface, n.p. 54. Rohrbach to CEO Sell, 26 August 1976, WDR, 8575; Rohrbach to HansOtto Grünefeldt, 21 July 1976, WDR, 8575. 55. Express, 2 February 1974. 56. Vorwärts, 7 February 1974. 57. Programmbeirat, meeting 174, 21–22 May 1974, DRAF, A07/24; see also minutes of joint meeting of Ständige Fernsehprogrammkonferenz and Programmbeirat, 19 June 1974, WDR, HF1. 58. August Einecke, Duisburg, Rheinische Post, 16 January 1974; T. Köster, Mönchengladbach, TV Hören und Sehen, 25 September 1976. 59. I/12, ‘Silvesterpunsch’; II/4, ‘Schlusswort’. 60. Draft for New York Times article, WDR, HF1, 9; preface to Menge, Silvesterpunsch, n.p. 61. I/16, ‘Selbstbedienung’; Göseke, Bedau and Klatt, Verbrauchsschichtung, 62, 72. 62. All numbers: Schildt, Sozialgeschichte, 61–62, 44, 46, 50. 63. Music: I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’; credits: II/2, ‘Massage’; I/9, ‘Erntedankfest’. See list of royalty payments for music, 28 February 1974, and plans for opening credits, September 1973, WDR, 448. 64. Short report on group discussions, n.d., WDR, 8580, 15. 65. Used from New Year’s Eve 1973 onwards. 66. I/1, ‘Das Hähnchen’. 67. Menge, Silvesterpunsch, 15, 26; Menge, Frühjahrsputz, 87. 68. I/15, ‘Frühjahrsputz’; I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’. 69. I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’. 70. I/15, ‘Frühjahrsputz’; I/12, ‘Silvesterpunsch’; I/16, ‘Selbstbedienung’; I/7, ‘Silberne Hochzeit’; I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’. 71. I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’; I/15, ‘Frühjahrsputz’; I/5, ‘Die Bombe’. 72. II/3, ‘Modell Tetzlaff’; Menge, Silvesterpunsch, 22. 73. I/3, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’; I/8, ‘Urlaubsvorbereitungen’. Brandt had married twice by 1974. 74. Contemporary sociologists diagnosed a ‘crisis of the family’. Künzel, ‘Federal Republic’, 181–92; Thome and Birkel, Sozialer Wandel, 365. 75. Wiedemann to Märthesheimer, 9 December 1972, WDR, 8574. 76. I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’. 77. I/8, ‘Urlaubsvorbereitungen’; I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’. 78. Märthesheimer, quoted in Brockes et al., ‘Zwischenprüfungsarbeit’, 16, WDR, 8578; I/16, ‘Selbstbedienung’. 79. National-Zeitung, 29 March 1974. Similar: Menge, quoted in Esprit 3, March 1974. 80. Wiedemann, quoted in Hör zu!, 5 October 1974. 81. Schulz, Atem; Etzemüller, 1968, 175–89; Lenz, ‘Das Private’, 377–81. 82. I/15, ‘Frühjahrsputz’; Menge, Frühjahrsputz, 32. I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’, also briefly mentions abortion. 83. Märthesheimer to Menge, 24 August 1972, WDR, 8574. 84. Hör zu!, 6 April 1974, WDR, 8579.

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85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

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Schalt ein-Telestar, 18 May 1974; Funk-Uhr, 13 April 1974. Draft of the response, n.d., WDR, 8577; Hör zu!, 20 April 1974, WDR, 8579. Author’s interview with Rohrbach. Author’s interview with Menge. The four 1976 episodes starred a different actress, Helga Feddersen, and were overwhelmingly rejected by critics and viewers; see WDR, UF1. 90. The study (quotation: 7) can be found in DRAP, PA3; see also Küchenhoff, Darstellung. 91. epd Kirche und Rundfunk, 10 January 1976; protocol of meeting of 21 April 1976, DRAP, PA2. 92. Correspondence between SFB-Rundfunkrat, Fraueninitiative Berlin and Frauenforum e.V. (Munich), January to February 1975, DRAP, RF3. 93. Thome and Birkel, Sozialer Wandel, 357, 365; see Schwartz, ‘Frauen’, 202. 94. Mattes, ‘Ambivalente Aufbrüche’, 219. 95. Ibid., 223. 96. Joas, Lehrbuch, 301, 320; Schwartz, ‘Frauen’, 198; Oertzen, Teilzeitarbeit. 97. IFEP survey, 70, 72, 41–42. 98. Short report on group discussions, n.d., WDR, 8580, 10, 17. 99. IFEP survey, 45–46. 100. Group discussion I, 4–6, 14, 21–22, 44–45; II, 2, WDR, 8580. 101. Group discussion I, 48, WDR, 8580. 102. IFEP survey, 100–1; see also 125. 103. See chap. 3. 104. IFEP survey, 43–44. 105. Letter of 15 July 1974, WDR, 8578. 106. Frank Heuer to Menge, 3 January 1974, and Verlag Fritz Molden to Menge about ‘Lesebuch bei Schöningh’, 11 September 1973, both in Menge, Korrespondenz 1973–74, DK, 4.3.-199605, 7). 107. Hübner to WDR, 5 July 1976, WDR, 8575; for MAD, see letter of 26 June 1974, WDR, 8578; Poster-Press, 20 April 1974. 108. The Hessischer Rundfunk series Diskuss featured twenty teenagers debating Alfred in autumn 1974. Vogel to Menge, 14 August 1974, Menge, Korrespondenz 1973–74, DK, 4.3.-199605, 7). 109. Short report on group discussions, n.d., WDR, 8580, 11; group discussion II, 3; I, 44, 34, WDR, 8580. 110. The results complement other studies about changes in educational values since the mid-1960s: Thome, ‘Value Change’, 295–99. 111. Adorno, Authoritarian Personality. 112. Herzog, Sex after Fascism, 158–60. 113. See Heide Berndt and Regine Dermitzel in Kursbuch 17, June 1969; Herzog, Sex after Fascism, 169, cf. 151–74. 114. Herzog, Sex after Fascism, 162–65. 115. A contemporary poll showed only eight of one hundred West Germans in favour of antiauthoritarian child raising. Esprit 3, March 1974, 30. 116. WDR information, 11 November 1976, WDR, 8575. 117. Draft for New York Times article, WDR, 8578, 6. 118. Märthesheimer to Menge, 24 August 1972, WDR, 8574.

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119. II/4, ‘Schlußwort’. 120. Brockes et al., ‘Zwischenprüfungsarbeit’, 26, WDR, 8578. 121. Reich, Massenpsychologie, 20–25, 44–51, 70–73. 122. I/17, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’; I/19, ‘Tapetenwechsel’; I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’. 123. I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’; I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’. 124. Märthesheimer, quoted in Brockes et al., ‘Zwischenprüfungsarbeit’, 34–35, cf. 30, WDR, 8578. 125. I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’; I/4, ‘Die Beerdigung’; I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’; I/17, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’. 126. In I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’, their fidelity is challenged. In I/4, ‘Die Beerdigung’, Rita asks Michael ‘whether we will end up like them’ (her parents). 127. I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’. 128. II/4, ‘Schlusswort’; I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’. 129. I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’; I/17, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’; I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’. 130. I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’; I/9, ‘Erntedankfest’. 131. I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’; II/2, ‘Massage’. 132. Die Zeit, 28 December 1973, WDR, 8579. 133. I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’; see also I/17, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’; I/15, ‘Frühjahrsputz’; I/19, ‘Tapetenwechsel’; II/4, ‘Schlusswort’. 134. I/10, ‘Eine schwere Erkrankung’. 135. I/18, ‘Urlaubsvorbereitungen’; I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’; II/4, ‘Schlusswort’. 136. Menge, Frühjahrsputz, 73–74. 137. Draft for New York Times article, WDR, HF1, 9. 138. Menge and Märthesheimer, in Mikado, 25 April 1974. 139. Swinging: I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’; flashing: I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’. 140. Märthesheimer to Menge, 24 August 1972, WDR, 8574. 141. I/10, ‘Eine schwere Erkrankung’; II/2, ‘Massage’. 142. Moeller, ‘“The Homosexual Man”’, 427; Moeller, ‘Private Acts’, 541–44. 143. Author’s interview with Menge. 144. Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 23 May 1971. 145. Moeller, ‘Private Acts’, 543; Moeller, ‘Remasculinization’, 104–5; Fehrenbach, ‘Rehabilitating’; Rahden, ‘Demokratie’. 146. Herzog, Sex after Fascism, 147. 147. Ibid., 141–45; Heineman, Porn, 13–16, 101, 129–31. 148. Seesslen, Der Tag, 121. 149. Reichardt, ‘“Beziehungskisten”’, 267–80; Poiger, ‘Das Schöne’, 222–24. 150. Group discussion I, 30–34, 49–50, 24, WDR, 8580. 151. Group discussion II, 3, 6, WDR, 8580. 152. Abendpost, night edition, 11 May 1974. 153. Requiem für ein Ekel, aired on WDR-3 on 27 December 1974. Tagesspiegel, 29 December 1974, and daily report on callers, WDR, 12273. 154. He had written several TV plays about East-West encounters. Wesseln, ‘Weitsicht’. 155. Author’s interview with Rohrbach. 156. Author’s interview with Menge. 157. Author’s interview with Rohrbach.

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158. Draft report by Bismarck, 29 May 1974, WDR, 12520, 5. 159. Weltwoche, 8 May 1974; Neue Zürcher Zeitung, n.d. (‘Der Tetzlaff-Effekt’), WDR, 8581. 160. Die Zeit, 10 May 1974. 161. I/12, ‘Silvesterpunsch’; I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’; I/15, ‘Frühjahrsputz’; I/16, ‘Selbstbedienung’. Menge had promoted the codetermination model in the 1970 TV drama Sessel zwischen Stühlen: Zimmermann, ‘Arbeiterfilme’, 39–40. 162. Das Parlament, 30 March 1974, WDR, 8581. 163. Mikado, 25 April 1974; see Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 5 May 1974. 164. Mass communications professor Winfried B. Lerg in Frankfurter Allgemeine, 7 May 1974. Similar: parlamentarian Karl Fuchs in Das Parlament, 11 May 1974. Cf. Weltwoche, 8 May 1974; Esprit 3, March 1974. 165. Draft script of ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’, DK, 4.4.-199605, 4. 166. Report by Bismarck, 29 May 1974, WDR, HF1, 6–8; Märthesheimer and Menge, quoted in Weltwoche, 8 May 1974. 167. IFEP survey, 5, 36. 168. Hammer, Vogt and Wehmeier, Kommunikation, 10. 169. Allensbach poll 1974/33, WDR, 12273, 7. 170. Group discussion I, 23–27, WDR, 8580. 171. Without prompting (IFEP survey, 67). When this finding was reported in the press, Conservatives protested: Frankfurter Allgemeine, 15 August 1974, and letter to the editor by WDR’s Uwe Magnus, 16 August 1974, WDR, 8580. 172. Draft for New York Times article, WDR, HF1, 10–11. 173. Hammer, Vogt and Wehmeier, Kommunikation, 90–91, 110, 69–71. This study was based on interviews with the most and the least prejudiced out of 530 respondents in Münster. 174. IFEP survey, 6, 8–10. 175. Group discussion I, 23–27, WDR, 8580. 176. Advertisement for SWI (Social Democratic voter initiative), WDR, 8581; see also WDR, 8578. 177. By postal minister Horst Ehmke: Deutscher Bundestag, 7th Wahlperiode, 80th Sitzung, 15 February 1974, 5140. 178. See Hodenberg, ‘Journalismus’, 94–96; Wolfrum, Geschichtspolitik, 76–123. 179. I/17, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’, transmitted 17 June 1974. 180. Der Spiegel, 24 June 1974, and Barsig to CEO Bismarck, 13 June 1974, both in WDR, 12520; Irma Wenke, Programmbeirat, to ARD-Programmdirektor Abich, 22 May 1974, WDR, HF1; Response by Abich, 27 May 1974, WDR, HF1; quotation: Dieter Ertel, Radio Bremen telex to WDR, 30 May 1974, WDR, HF1. 181. Minutes of meeting between Ständige Fernsehprogrammkonferenz ARD and Programmbeirat, 19 June 1974, WDR, HF1. 182. Minutes of ARD-Hauptversammlung, 3 July 1974, WDR, HF2, 12–14; see also DRAF, A07/24. 183. The IFEP survey and group discussions, carried out before June, never refer to East Germany; the letters in the press hardly do either. 184. See also chap. 2. 185. Sell took over on 1 April 1976. Schmid, ‘Intendant’, 349, 366–80.

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186. Author’s interview with Rohrbach. 187. Katz et al., Am Puls, 208–9, 230, 189. 188. Der Spiegel 18, 28 April 1975, 60. 189. From the papers of an internal conference of ARD light entertainment heads on 21 May 1974 (quotation: Hans-Otto Grünefeldt of Hessischer Rundfunk, 4–7), DRAP, PA1. 190. Quoted in Die Welt, 27 September 1976; see also Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 31 May 1976. 191. Rohrbach to Grünefeldt, 21 July 1976, WDR, 8575. 192. The original uses ‘restaurativ’ for conservative. WDR Information, 11 November 1976, WDR, 8575. 193. Märthesheimer, ‘Woher denn’, 26–27. 194. ‘Papier für den medienpolitischen Kongreß der SPD’, epd Kirche und Rundfunk 26, 4 April 1984, WDR, D1446, 16–17. 195. Märthesheimer, ‘Woher denn’, 26. 196. Herbert, ‘Liberalisierung’, 38–48; Herzog, Sex after Fascism; Heineman, Porn, 9–11. 197. I/5, ‘Die Bombe’; I/16, ‘Selbstbedienung’. 198. In the mid-1970s, both the West German and American series referred to the pill without evoking protest. 199. While heterosexuality remained the benchmark, there was a true effort to integrate ‘respectable’ gays. I rate prime-time television’s openness towards homosexuality higher than Elana Levine (Wallowing, 186, 196, 256). 200. Moeller, ‘Private Acts’, 544. 201. Wickham, ‘Suet Puddings’, 22–32. 202. This includes the small Marxist or men-hating groups within American feminism and those West German 68ers who advocated a socialist revolution overthrowing liberal democracy. 203. The British and West German surveys prove the generational divergence of social values more clearly than the American research, which focussed exclusively on racial attitudes.

7

Comedy against Racism The 1960s and 1970s were a time of heightened race conflict. While American society was challenged by race riots and a militant black power movement, Western European societies struggled to adapt to rising numbers of migrants from faraway places. Politics in all three countries came to be increasingly racialised, although public communication often censored the racial subtext.1 Therefore, everywhere the TV format with the racist antihero was broadcast, it triggered extensive public discussion of racism and of television’s responsibilities. Producers sold the shows as a tool to undermine prejudice. But many observers were sceptical; they worried about inflammatory effects and viewers taking the satire at face value. This chapter looks both at the sitcoms’ messages and audience responses. Next to modern terms denoting origin, such as African American or Afro-Caribbean, I generally use the terms ‘nonwhite’ and ‘black’ to refer to historical settings in which nonwhites were perceived to be culturally homogenous entities. I define ‘racism’ in a wide sense, encompassing different forms of prejudices, stereotyping and discrimination against any group understood as an ‘other’ because of perceived biological, national, cultural or religious difference.2

Britain Till Death Us Do Part was screened from 1965 to early 1968 and from 1972 to 1975, thus ‘during pivotal moments of British race and immigration history’.3 During the decade, about seventy thousand immigrants from recently decolonised countries came to the U.K., and Parliament kept debating new legal restrictions on entry to the country. The immigration of ‘coloureds’ was doubtless the ‘hottest potato in politics’. The Labour Party

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feared losing substantial numbers of working-class voters, especially in the Midlands and the southeast, if it were to openly support ongoing immigration.4 The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act had introduced some restrictions primarily for nonwhites. The Immigration White Paper of 1965, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1968 and the Immigration Act of 1971 followed suit. The heated public and political debate about these laws always heavily concentrated on ‘colour’, meaning the salient issue was race, not immigration as such (as the majority of immigrants still came from Ireland and ‘white’ Commonwealth countries).5 It appeared that Britain, formerly a colonial superpower, had internalised notions of racial superiority. To many, British national identity felt under threat were it no longer white. By 1966, only 1.2 per cent of the country’s population was nonwhite. By 1976, it was 3 per cent.6 Nevertheless, ‘casual racism was present at all levels of British society… . In poll after poll conducted between 1964 and 1974 at least eight out of ten people thought that too many blacks were entering Britain’.7 In 1958, white working-class crowds had attacked blacks in Nottingham and Notting Hill. By the mid-1960s, more race riots had erupted in other British towns. White residents had organised themselves against Asian neighbours in Southall and Birmingham, and the Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths had won a parliamentary seat with a racist campaign (‘Vote Labour for More Nigger-Type Neighbours’).8 But popular fear and resentment were given no expression in politics. ‘Public pronouncements by leaders of all political parties, local government authorities, the churches, the press and voluntary organisations were unanimous in speaking out against discrimination.’9 The dam broke on 20 April 1968. That day, Conservative shadow minister Enoch Powell called for a halt on immigration in his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. A wave of working-class anti-immigrant feeling surfaced in response. Powell allegedly received 105,000 letters of congratulation, and in a Gallup poll taken immediately afterwards, three-quarters registered agreement with Powell’s speech. On 23 April, 1,000 London dockers marched through Westminster in support of Powell. They subsequently collected 800,000 signatures against immigration. The Smithfield meat porters, too, went on strike, demanding the deportation of nonwhites. Hundreds of them signed a petition on Powell’s behalf and staged a demonstration under the name of the Immigration Control Association in July.10 Contemporaries were quick to point out the connections between Till Death Us Do Part and Powellism. Although the first three seasons of the hit comedy had wrapped up two months before the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, the parallels were striking. Alf Garnett was from East London’s working classes, like the marching dockers and meat porters. His racist tirades had sounded just like the speech the leader of the Smithfield meat

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porters gave (‘full of authentic Alf Garnett alliteration’).11 Both Alf Garnett and Enoch Powell were seized upon as ‘liberators’ of the working people’s repressed truths about ‘alien’ nonwhite cultures threatening the ‘British way of life’.12 Powell himself was immediately dubbed ‘the Right Hon. Alf Garnett’,13 and so were his few supporters in Parliament.14 Alf had been Enoch Powell’s harbinger, many suspected: the show had been the relief valve for the same bottled-up anti-immigrant feeling that bubbled up now. The Observer’s TV critic felt ‘ashamed to be British’ after watching coverage of the Powell aftershock. ‘All week the nasty or pathetic faces came and went, rationalising their prejudices… . Here was a public, who had laughed week after week at Alf Garnett, saying things just as absurd with completely straight faces.’15 A closer look at the debate about immigration policies in that year, 1968, illustrates both the extent to which Powell and Garnett were associated with each other and the extent to which frames from the television programme saturated the public discussion of race. The Powellist earthquake had left many wondering whether Britain was a racist society, or, as the chairman of the Race Relations Board put it, ‘a nation of Alf Garnetts’.16 Labour politician Merlyn Rees reassured Parliament that ‘this country is not made up of millions of Alf Garnetts’.17 But Labour MP John Lee believed ‘Alf Garnett … much more representative than some people imagine’.18 When the restrictive Commonwealth Immigrants Acts had been deliberated in the Commons two months before Powell’s speech, some Labour MPs had castigated the draft as an ‘Alf Garnett Appeasement Bill’,19 while the Labour government had defended it as ‘an attempt to improve race relations’ given the ‘millions of Alf Garnetts in Britain’.20 Politicians simply were uncertain over how widespread racism was. When the second Race Relations Act, halfheartedly tackling ubiquitous racial discrimination,21 came to Parliament in the summer of 1968, the government feared ‘imaginary legions of Alf Garnetts on every doorstep’.22 After fortyfour Conservative MPs voted against the act, the Tories were accused of ‘playing for the Alf Garnett vote’.23 But the Labour Party also appeared deeply split over the issue. While Ray Gunter led the faction that opposed pro-immigration policies (in order not to lose working-class voters to the Conservatives), Liverpool MP Eric Heffer warned the party not to develop ‘its own form of Alf Garnettism’.24 The press diagnosed a ‘crisis in the Labour movement’ and demanded Labour politicians should take the initiative – ‘address factory, dock or bus garage meetings on racial equality’ – instead of leaving it to ‘the Garnetts … to exploit fear and ignorance among working people’.25

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Figure 7.1. Cartoon by David Myers, Evening Standard, 23 April 1968. British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent. Reprinted by permission of Solo Syndication.

Figure 7.2. Cartoon by William Papas, Guardian, 26 April 1968. British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent. Reprinted by permission of Guardian News and Media Ltd.

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In the public debate of the year 1968, then, Enoch Powell and Alf Garnett (as the personified voice of the people) became almost inextricably linked to each other. Cartoons in the dailies depicted Enoch impersonating Alf, Alf in bed with Enoch, Alf crawling out of Enoch’s head, Alf and Enoch demonstrating together against ‘wogs’, and Alf joining Enoch’s ‘bigots’ brigade’ (figures 7.1 and 7.2).26 But was there any interaction between the hugely successful TV show and Powellism? Had Till Death Us Do Part fostered racism and emboldened bigots to come out of their shell, even before the dam broke? Several British media scholars have suggested this, labelling Speight’s character ‘the Enoch Powell of the sitcom’ (Andy Medhurst), Powell’s ‘fictional disciple’ (Steven Bourne) or his ‘alter-ego’ (Jim Pines).27 Sarita Malik maintains that the sensational success of the series depended at least partly on the pleasure mass audiences drew from watching racism being openly expressed. ‘Alf emulated some of Powell’s “real-life” panic’, with many viewers taking ‘Alf’s diatribes at face-value’.28 To what extent could the messages of the sitcom be read as confirmation of racist attitudes, then? By its author, the series had been conceived not as a race comedy, but as a ‘generational and social battlefield’.29 While antiracism might have been on Speight’s agenda, it certainly did not top it. The comedian hoped that Alf would help ‘to laugh some of the hate away’ and make ‘people respect the black man’, but he also wanted him to ‘infuriate the lily white liberals’ and ‘expose them for the hypocrites that they are’.30 Like many socialists at the time, Speight conflated racism and class prejudice. For him, ‘the coloured people are being exploited in the same way the working class used to be’.31 He held that black immigration benefitted the middle classes, while workers paid the price: ‘it is easy to love people if they don’t live next door’. Speight’s main concern was to defend the working classes against liberal elites who imposed not only immigration policies but also language rules on society.32 With Alf, Speight wanted to portray what he believed to be the raw, uncensored attitudes of the common people regarding race, but also religion, gender and sex. Speight singled out ‘the woolly headed liberals’ (alongside those who ‘believed devoutly’ and ‘the feminist movement’) as the enemies whom ‘one would wish to offend’ with this show. ‘I don’t think the public was ever shocked by Alf… . It was yer liberals who were shocked, yer head in the sand people.’33 He wrote for working-class viewers who ‘worry about food’ much more than about ‘left, intellectual’ issues.34 Speight’s antiliberal, anticensorship agenda was augmented by his insensitivity to racial discrimination. Underestimating the virulence of racism, Speight opined that ‘deep down’, ‘the Garnetts of this world are basically nice, warm-hearted people – but badly informed, as I was. They get prejudices, but not nasty ones’.35 His comedy never strayed from a white viewpoint, was produced by an exclusively white team and featured no regular nonwhite characters. Although black actors briefly appeared in a few

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1966 and 1967 episodes, their roles were insignificant and their lines did not challenge Alf ’s racism. Guyanese actor Thomas Baptiste was unhappy with his engagement: ‘I felt people were going to laugh with this bigoted man, instead of at him … I was proved right’.36 In February 1974, Speight even went so far as to use a blacked-up white actor playing Alf ’s new neighbour, Paki-Paddy, a technique from The Black and White Minstrel Show that had already been criticised as racially insensitive as it ridiculed nonwhite skin and privileged the white perspective: nonwhites remained the unseen, threatening other. Paki-Paddy was an abusive, blatant welfare scrounger. He obtained free housing from the council, refused work and boasted, ‘I just sign once a week – collect social security – claim money … why should I go down bloody mines?’ He peddled forged watches, threatened to hit ‘bloody white wog’ Alf on his ‘Jewish conk’ and only waited for Enoch Powell to give him two thousand pounds to ‘go home’, where he would ‘buy a big bomb’.37 Speight had introduced Paki-Paddy already in his 1969 comedy Curry and Chips on private television. That show centred on an Irish-Pakistani character, racist Liverpudlians and a black man with anti-Asian prejudices. It was so offensive that it was cancelled after six episodes, despite high ratings. Even contemporaries felt it invited ‘laughter at immigrants and Pakistani culture’ and ‘represented a remarkable disregard for the coloured audience’.38 Today, most scholars label Till Death racist. Karen Ross speaks of ‘serious racist undertones’, Gavin Schaffer of a ‘fundamental ambivalence about race, Britishness and belonging’.39 Jim Pines describes Garnett’s racism as ‘a liberating force for certain sections of the white working class’. Angela Barry states that ‘the public airing of Alf Garnett’s prejudices gave them a real legitimacy’. Andy Medhurst agrees, stressing the eloquence, novelty and exceptional forcefulness of Alf ’s repertoire of abuse.40 The main reason for the sitcom’s ambivalence was that Alf eclipsed the other characters. Over time the programme developed into a kind of oneman show.41 The audience reports regularly quoted viewers wishing the young couple or Else would be ‘given more to do’.42 Press critics and viewers criticised Alf ’s ‘overplaying’ and his ‘increasing tendency to “out-shout” and “up-stage” the rest of the excellent cast’.43 Whereas the white hero’s contempt of coloured people was given ample room, the rebuttals by his adversaries Mike and Rita were irregular and often unconvincing. ‘A lazy, long-haired layabout with half-baked socialist opinions’, Mike was just as illogical and selfish as Alf – making it hard for viewers to identify with him.44 This contrasted with the American and West German series, both of which painted Mike more as an intellectual or student. When Alf spouted racist stereotypes, such as foreigners spreading diseases, Mike and Rita would nod in disbelief and laugh instead of offering effective refutations.45 While the show paraded popular anti-immigrant arguments, it never mentioned contrary facts (for example, that emigration from Britain exceeded

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immigration, or that immigrants demanded less from the social services than others).46 Alf ’s racist ideas – nonwhites were biologically inferior, primitive and dirty; they could not control their sex drive, ate dog food, cannibalised others, were crooks and exploited health and unemployment benefits – often went unchecked.47 Nobody countered his drunken lecture about how the British empire generously exported ‘our coons’ to America: ‘We had a surplus of coons sitting about in our Africa doing nothing … swinging in the bleedin’ trees … you wouldn’t mind shipping ’em all back again now … we don’t want ’em … They invented that pill too late you know … we ought to feed ’em on it now. Ram it down their bleedin’ throats – or bung ’em all out to Ireland – that’d shut the Micks up’.48 When he suggested to ‘stick yer coons in the pits’ and paint their faces white so they would not ‘bash into each other in the dark’, he went unanswered. Incidental black characters would often rebut Alf ’s tirades with reverse racism. A Pakistani whom Alf insulted in a train compartment as ‘sambo’ returned the favour by calling Alf a ‘bloody white wog’. Garnett’s most inflammatory lines were not responded to at all: ‘Old Enoch’s right. There’ll be a black and white war in 1978. Eh?’49 Alf ’s persona was complicated by the fact that actor Warren Mitchell was Jewish and Johnny Speight played with this fact throughout. The racist and anti-Semitic Alf was frequently alleged to be a Jew and insulted for his ‘Jewish’ nose and fishmonger grandfather, Solly Diamond.50 In this way, both Speight’s scripts and Mitchell’s performance subtly undermined Garnett’s anti-Semitic tirades. But again, the satire was implicit and based on reverse racism, whereas explicit and effective rebuttals of racist arguments were rare. Johnny Speight neglected to balance his scripts because he did not cultivate much of an ironic distance from his character. He admitted, ‘I ended up almost liking the bastard. He started out evil and turned out human’.51 Alf was stupid but endearing. The lovability of the bigot raised concerns with critical viewers, such as Enid Hutchinson from Richmond, who in January 1968 wrote to the BBC, ‘we see too much of the lost, little man in him [Alf ] and this rouses dangerous sympathies’.52 ‘Alf Garnett was conceived as a monster but the nation took him to its heart’, the press concluded.53 Such views added to the skepticism that was growing in some quarters of the BBC. In public, of course, the head of Light Entertainment defended the show, saying that through ‘the mouthpiece of this despicable man … prejudices can be dispersed’.54 But other BBC executives wondered whether Speight’s comedy could really be labelled ‘anti-prejudice propaganda’.55 To placate criticism, the summer 1966 schedule ‘balanced’ Speight’s controversial show with a BBC-2 six-part series Minorities in Britain, narrated by Stuart Hall. It documented the life of Britain’s Polish, West Indian, Indian, Pakistani and Cypriot community, with viewing figures

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well below 5 per cent.56 Still, director general Hugh Greene remained worried about the possible damage inflicted on racial relations, having received some ‘rather depressing’ viewer letters. For advice, Greene wrote to Jim Rose, the director of the Survey of Race Relations in Britain. Rose reassuringly answered that ‘ventilating commonly held fallacies and prejudices through the mouth of Alf Garnett must on balance do good, though … many people … seem to misunderstand the writer’s purpose’.57 The key question that contemporaries were only guessing at was how many in the audience saw Alf as a welcome confirmation of their own racism. Did the majority apply a bigoted, ‘dominant reading of the text’?58 Early on, Johnny Speight learned that a sizeable part of the audience loved the show ‘for all the wrong reasons’. He nevertheless continued writing it,59 in spite of the many letters telling him to ‘keep it up … the frightening thing is a lot of people believe he’s right in all he says, especially about coons and that’.60 ‘There was something about the occasional mail one received and the way the studio audience laughed at certain lines’ that made producer Dennis Main Wilson think that ‘a large proportion of the twenty million people who watched the show did so for the wrong reasons’.61 Our intention quite clearly was to put Alf Garnett in the public stocks … and say to the British nation … there is something of this guy in all of you… It went wrong, I cast it too well … and rather than the nation … laughing at Alf Garnett, they took him to their hearts, sort of they identified with him, and laughed with him, so we became an enormous success but for the wrong reason.62

Actor Tony Booth similarly remembered becoming uneasy about the message, saying ‘Johnny has no sympathy for the young or for women. At first I thought the show was attacking the bigoted ideas of Alf Garnett, but now it’s become a vehicle for expressing those ideas’.63 Further evidence points to a large part of the viewership enjoying Alf ’s ethnocentric rants. Cinemagoers who paid for watching the Till Death Us Do Part film in 1969 ‘consistently laughed with Alf rather than at him’.64 The Evening Standard’s reviewer whetted appetites by calling the movie ‘even better value than on TV’, as it contained ‘three times the amount of bigoted invective’.65 The film broke box office records – ‘queues are being turned away from suburban cinemas on Monday nights, and it has unprecedently gone on the London circuits twice in four weeks’. But it failed to attract ‘five coloured faces’ a week even in ethnically diverse Tooting and Brixton.66 Many viewers made no secret of their sympathy for Alf: ‘Alf is an insensitive, uncouth bloke, but expresses much of what is feared by many of us’.67 A City gent in a bowler, asked in the street whether Alf Garnett was ‘an awful bigot’, replied: ‘Maybe he is. But I’d rather be a bigot than a turncoat’.68 A tutor, Mr Holmes, commented in 1968 ‘that some of the even more

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irrational fears that Garnett expresses come out quite spontaneously in discussions I had with students’.69 In late 1960s Essex, Alf was seen ‘as a man who dared to say on TV what everybody we knew said in the privacy of their own homes’.70 If Alf ’s popularity had not been a positive one for a large part of the viewership, the advertising industry would not have embraced the character. In TV ads, Alf Garnett the loveable loudmouth extolled the virtues of Findus Fish Fingers and Australian airline Qantas.71 Though some contemporaries felt nervous about televised abuse, they were isolated. Within the BBC and the Clean Up TV campaign, Till Death had many critics – but they typically attacked the show’s transgressions of religious and sexual, not racial, norms.72 Letters to the broadcaster usually protested how God and the Queen were dealt with, mentioning immigrants only rarely.73 The BBC’s General Advisory Council on balance defended the show, not overly worried by the fact ‘that good jokes were usually at someone’s expense’.74 The show’s popularity largely insulated it from investigations into its impact on race relations. But by 1972, even the General Advisory Council had realised that ‘with Alf Garnett the BBC seemed to have saddled itself with a folk hero who was producing reactions which had not been envisaged at the start of the programme’.75 Thus, the BBC commissioned an in-depth survey ‘on whether the series Till Death Us Do Part had tended to modify or reinforce viewers’ prejudices’.76 While the fifth season of the series broadcast in October 1972, a total of 772 people in ten urban areas were interviewed. Viewers were compared with occasional and nonviewers, though the two latter groups ‘proved scarcer than had been expected’. While the comparison between viewers and nonviewers was an effective means of testing the show’s impact, the sample was problematic, as it was entirely white and urban, and the supposed nonviewers ‘were virtually all people who had never liked it’ as opposed to those who had never seen it.77 When the 772 respondents were ‘given the opportunity to comment on the series in their own words’, the most common pattern of praise was to commend it ‘for the opportunity it gave “to laugh at prejudice”’.78 This echoed earlier audience reports, where ‘viewers often described the series as quite brilliant in its exposure of ignorance and bigotry’ and were ‘most amused’ when Alf ‘found new targets for his prejudice and ignorance’.79 It is unlikely that these viewers actually welcomed the chance to be educated about racism. Generally, audience research confirmed that ‘many viewers regarded the issue of race and “colour” as “tedious or unpleasant”’ and tended to avoid documentaries on the subject.80 Not the confrontation with prejudice but the amusement at racist remarks provided the enjoyment. How else can we explain that one of the most problematic sequences, the blacked-up Paki-Paddy as stereotypical welfare cheat, drew particular applause? Audience researchers reported two in five viewers ‘thoroughly

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enjoyed’ this episode, ‘particularly the “confrontation” between Alf and … Paki-Paddy’. Some even asked whether ‘this character might be retained for any further series’.81 That racially charged humour was so popular is unsurprising, given the findings of the first surveys on racial relations in Britain. The Rose report, from 1966–67, held that three-quarters of the population wildly exaggerated the dimension of migration. More than 60 per cent felt ‘superior’ compared to people from Africa and Asia, and believed that immigrants took ‘more out of the country than they put into it’. Racism was most intense among the lower middle class, skilled workers, conservatives, authoritarians, the poorly educated and those with little contact with immigrants.82 A 1966 study based on hundreds of situation tests – involving landlords, employers and mortgage providers – consistently diagnosed ‘racial discrimination varying in extent from the massive to the substantial’ and left ‘no doubt that the major component in the discrimination is colour’.83 On a prejudice vs. tolerance scale, the Rose report classified 10 per cent of respondents as highly prejudiced and a further 17 per cent as prejudice-inclined. This was criticised by other scholars as ‘seriously underestimat[ing] the true extent of white hostility’.84 The BBC audience research in 1972 again confirmed that a large majority held reservations about immigrants, and that colour was key. Seventy-six per cent of subjects agreed that ‘the laws on immigration should be much stricter’, and 43 per cent agreed that ‘bloody foreigners come over here and sponge off us’. Twenty-six per cent deemed that Asians ‘bring diseases into the country’, and 32 per cent admitted they ‘wouldn’t like it if a black moved in next door’. Consistently, those categorised as working class and those over fifty-five years of age outdid others in xenophobia, while the young and those labelled upper class were somewhat more tolerant (or more adept at feigning tolerance).85 For the 30 per cent of respondents who had ever been in contact with blacks, with a clear majority conceding the experience had been ‘favourable’, the report weighed the impact of watching Till Death Us Do Part on attitudes towards foreigners. It found that the correlation between viewing the show and attitudes was almost ten times as weak as the correlation between people’s real-life ‘experience of coloured people’ and their views.86 The sociologists did not repeat their analysis for the 70 per cent who had had no contact with nonwhites. This is unfortunate, as it can be assumed that television’s influence was indeed greater where real-life experience was lacking. We know that the less personal contact people had with immigrants, the more they relied on the mass media as information sources. Television in particular was ‘almost universally regarded as a trustworthy source’ on immigration (much more so than newspapers).87 Because most of the interviews for the BBC study took place in cities with ‘a fairly heavy concentration of coloured immigrants’,88 we can assume that

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in Britain as a whole, well over 70 per cent must have had little or no exposure to immigrants – thus depending even more on the mass media. A more comprehensive study of television’s role in fostering racism in Britain was carried out by Hartmann and Husband. They interviewed 563 children and 317 parents in areas with no, low and high immigrant settlement. The result was an overall ‘preference of predictable and stereotyped television’, namely, avoidance of documentaries and seeking out of entertainment programmes, ‘to go together with more hostile attitudes to coloured people’.89 While the study could not prove that watching TV shaped attitudes, it argued ‘that the media serve to define for people what the dimensions of the situation are’ and ‘supply the range of problem definitions from which to select’. It then provided ample evidence that television coverage typically associated immigration with ‘colour’, presented it as a national ‘problem’, associated blacks with trouble, and privileged a ‘white man’s view of the world’. The mass media drew attention to both discrimination against nonwhites and nonwhites instigating ‘trouble’, but failed to include facts and voices that contradicted the ‘habitual perception of coloured immigrants as a problem’.90 Johnny Speight’s sitcom could easily have challenged such ingrained perceptions. Instead, the show helped consolidate the view of immigration as a problem and nonwhites as aliens. This was unfortunate, because a considerable part of the audience appeared unsure in its attitudes and possibly open to persuasion. About a third of viewers were undecided on whether Asians ‘bring diseases into the country’ and whether ‘immigrants contribute a lot to our society’. About a quarter were uncertain whether they would like a black neighbour or whether all Pakistanis were lazy and dirty, all Irishmen lazy and all foreigners freeloaders.91 But instead of nudging the noncommitted viewers towards tolerance, Till Death Us Do Part seems to have consolidated intolerant views. The BBC survey produced a consistent pattern of regular viewers outdoing nonviewers in xenophobia. Table 7.1 suggests that ‘the series may have reinforced existing illiberal … attitudes’ and may even have ‘produced changes in attitude … in the direction of agreement with Alf Garnett’.92 Regular viewers were consistently more ‘anti-foreigner’, less ‘liberal’ and more likely to agree with Alf than matched nonviewers. While the final report of the BBC survey acknowledged ‘that there has indeed been some slight change as a result of viewing’, it played down the significance of this finding. It argued that there was no ‘hard evidence of actual change of attitude directly attributable to the short Till Death series’, and that most viewers saw Alf as a ‘harmless buffoon’. Most probably, the show had ‘reinforced but not materially changed’ attitudes held by two opposing groups, those regarding Alf as ‘on the whole reasonable most of the time’, and those disagreeing with Alf.93 A thorough reader of the survey and its data appendix will be puzzled at this judgment, which is a half truth at best. The differences between viewers and matched nonviewers, called ‘marginal’ and ‘slight’ by the BBC report, were in fact marked and unfailingly consistent.

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Table 7.1. Racial prejudice among Till Death Us Do Part viewers Agreement with…

Regular viewers

Nonviewers

Matched non-viewers

‘The laws on immigration should be much stricter’

80

74

69

‘Bloody foreigners come over here and sponge off us’

54

38

34

‘All these immigrants shouldn’t have been let in in the first place’

49

41

37

‘I wouldn’t like it if a black moved in next door’

40

24

24

‘A lot of the Asians who come over here bring diseases into the country’

30

26

24

‘Mixed marriages shouldn’t be allowed’

22

15

11

‘Immigrants should be segregated from the rest of the community’

17

11

10

‘Coloured people are innately inferior to white people’

13

8

8

‘Pakistanis and Indians are all lazy and dirty’

17

7

7

Note: Viewers were ‘matched’ with non-viewers regarding sex, occupation, education, trade union membership and political affiliation. Source: BBC study in WAC R9/757/1, 21–22, 26, 32–33, 36–37.

Clearly, the series generated a slight swing of audiences towards racism – or at least enabled racist attitudes to be more readily discussed. At the BBC’s General Advisory Council, it was pointed out that this ‘anti-prejudice’ programme ‘had in fact had the reverse effect of increasing prejudice’. Director general Charles Curran remarked that the report had ‘diminished his confidence in the argument that it was possible to make anti-prejudicial comedy’.94 But the survey had been meant to enable the corporation to hold on to its winning format, not to damage it further. Revealingly, the BBC chose not to publish the findings ‘on the grounds that the Report was vulnerable to attacks from experts in the field of sociological research’.95 Given the show’s racist undertones and the finding that it increased prejudice in regular viewers, one would expect minority viewers to be offended by the programme – and their complaints to be judged insignificant by the public. Both appear to be the case. In January 1968, the BBC invited one hundred viewers (representatively selected by age, class, sex and earning power) to a studio to record a debate about Till Death Us Do Part. The handful of nonwhites clearly voiced their outrage, remarking ‘We will never trust the white man any more’, and ‘May God help Britain if this is really an example of the British home’. A Mr El-Droubie predicted that ‘this type of comedies will make relations worse and worse between the immigrants, the colours in general, and the British people’. An unnamed immigrant invoked children saying, ‘Look Daddy, they are laughing at us’. In broken English, he referred to the episode ‘about Pakistanis and Indians, which they carry diseases … how could you expect from such things that we immigrants, we have to tolerate the

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British while we are serving them’.96 Nevertheless, 90 per cent of the studio audience voted that the series did not increase ‘colour prejudice’, and the television critic Stanley Reynolds opined that ‘the coloured people who were complaining … did not understand the western humour’.97 Though the press delighted in exhibiting the few blacks who were prepared to endorse Till Death Us Do Part,98 plenty of sources indicate that minority viewers took offence. Community relations officers from areas of immigrant settlement ‘commented upon its deleterious effect’.99 The black power activist Darcus Howe reported, ‘My wife would … hurl abuse at Alf. She’d throw boots at the television’.100 A letter to the BBC from ‘a coloured fellow humanbeing’ protested ‘the disgusting behaviour and comments by Garnett at the Blood Donor session’: ‘even the children are now using some of the filthy expressions used’.101 Indeed, nonwhite school children often associated the show with their first experiences of racism. ‘I used to dread watching it because I hated going to school the day after … Alf Garnett taught them a whole new language of what to call us.’102 ‘I was a kid when Speight’s horrendous creation rose from the pit and can well remember the people’s joy at the discovery of a whole “new language” plus permission to use it. Boy, did the bastards grind me down.’103 Ten-year-old Steven Bourne felt ‘racism hit me … with anger and frustration’ when ‘Garnett spouted racist abuse in British homes up and down the country’.104 A ‘coloured girl’ told a Times reporter in 1971 that she ‘took it personally’ and felt people were not laughing at Alf but also ‘sometimes at me’.105 ‘As a teenager recently arrived from Bermuda, I had sat watching … Alf Garnett calling people like me “wogs” and “coons”. I had shed a few silent tears … I could not have shared my experience of hurt with my school-mates. After all, Till Death Us Do Part was universally acclaimed as one of the funniest things on television.’106 A few years later, the pattern of responses to Speight’s sitcom repeated itself to a certain extent with ITV’s popular, race-themed series Love Thy Neighbour (1972–76). High overall ratings were accompanied by an increase in racist name-calling in schools and elsewhere, reported by the black community, teachers and parents. But viewers’ letters mainly protested at bad language, not at racist insults. Interviews with twenty-one black viewers revealed that racist ‘banter’ was so ubiquitous at workplaces and on the streets of 1970s London that the sitcom’s taunts appeared harmless and indeed normal.107 As time went on, both Love Thy Neighbour and Till Death became ever more identified with racism in the public mind. During the 1980s and beyond, with sensitivity for racial abuse on the increase,108 the BBC – having wiped many of Speight’s early programmes – mostly avoided repeats.109 ‘The full panoply of “coon” and “sambo” references … kept Alf largely buried in the archives.’ Reruns in the mid-1990s were edited, cutting out ‘especially racist insults’.110 In parliamentary politics, a long-lived pattern developed, with politicians accused of Alf Garnettism for xenophobic remarks of any kind.

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Margaret Thatcher was attacked for stirring up ‘the muddy waters of racial prejudice’ to grab ‘the Alf Garnett vote’ in 1976.111 London mayor Ken Livingstone was said to be doing an ‘Alf Garnett at the city hall’ in 2006.112 Young Britons today equate Alf Garnett with racial prejudice, having watched few if any of the programmes. In contrast, their parents and grandparents are likely to remember the series well, and to see it more as a ‘true-to-life’ reflection of the working class asserting itself against religious conservatives and liberal elites. To them, Alf’s racism was not the main part of the story – and at the time, often not experienced as offensive. Taken together, Till Death Us Do Part failed as antiprejudice propaganda; it even effected a slight swing of its white audience towards racism. Before and after Powell’s infamous speech, the series was part of a climate of widespread ignorance about the realities of immigration and hostility to anything challenging the idea of white superiority. In a country where the media fed a growing hysteria about ‘coloureds’ threatening the British way of life, and where most people lacked actual experience of nonwhites, the idea of antiprejudice comedy on television backfired.

United States Were we to judge from its mass media coverage only, All in the Family would appear to be first and foremost about race, specifically tensions between whites and blacks. Yet in most of its 208 episodes, racial issues play only an insignificant role. Moreover, Archie Bunker ranted just as much about Jewish, Polish, Irish, Hispanic or Chinese Americans as about African Americans. Archie’s numerous ‘dumb Polack’ jokes – attacking his son-inlaw, Polish American Michael Stivic – did not overly concern anyone, least of all in Polish and Slovak communities.113 But the slurs about ‘coons’ and ‘spades’ worried many public commentators intensely. This was due to the centuries-long history of slavery and Civil War, but also to the situation of the early 1970s. By the late 1960s, the momentum of the civil rights movement had stalled, and disillusionment had spread among young blacks. Violent upheavals of militant African Americans rocked the inner cities. Struggles over school desegregation and bussing turned violent, the Black Panthers were hunted down by police and the FBI, and prison revolts (such as Attica in 1971) ended in frightful bloodshed.114 With the ghettoes burning, the sitcom was perceived to be playing with fire. This is why many academics and journalists closely monitored the response of both black and white viewers to the programme, trying to gauge whether it might reinforce white racism or black radicalism. Let us look first at how racial issues were portrayed in the series, and then at the viewing experiences of white and black audiences.

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Upon closer examination, we find that the programme gave little airtime to black performers and rarely commented directly on race policies. Rather, its approach was to explore the racist attitudes lingering in the white working classes, and to do so by caricaturing a bigoted hard hat. The media furore focussed almost exclusively on the character of Archie, and on the way he abused and stereotyped minorities. The press quickly coded the programme as being a little bit about class and generational conflict, but a whole lot about race. In this way, the media perception of the programme was reductionist from the start. Writer-producer Larry Rhine stated: ‘I’ve read almost all of the reviews on All in the Family. And every one of them took on the bigotry … and ignored … the most important parts of the show’. ‘Show after show’ dealt with topics that had ‘nothing to do with bigotry’, such as pregnancy, drug abuse and breast cancer.115 Story editor Bernie West concurred, saying that if the series was about bigotry at all, the term should extend beyond race. ‘A bigot is someone who is intolerant. It can be a driver in a car, intolerant of all other drivers … a man intolerant of women … an older generation intolerant of the younger generation. A closed mind to other things.’116 In this wider sense, bigotry pointed to hostility to anyone of differing creed or affiliation – be it sex, race, religion or sexual orientation. Since Archie Bunker was meant to be everyone’s uncle and a bigot at the same time, it was imperative that ‘there was no anger in his bigotry’. His racism had to stem from fear, stupidity and convoluted logic alone.117 Producers and writers constantly engaged in a balancing act, trying to raise sympathies for the show’s star but not for his bigotry. Bernie West commented: ‘We don’t make the bigot tolerable, we show him up for the ridiculous fellow he is’. His colleague Michael Ross was prepared to be ‘preachy’ to make the message crystal clear: ‘When Archie makes a racial slur, he is always answered, and he is always put down… . If it is didactic, so be it’.118 ‘Mike always took him on’, Rhine recalled.119 As most of the humour stemmed from Archie’s lines, and an episode could contain as much as twenty racial insults, this balancing act was never easy.120 At times, the sitcom also used stereotypical ethnic caricatures – such as Jewish lawyers and black burglars – to set up Archie’s racist remarks.121 That so many of All in the Family’s writers were Jewish – Lear, Ross, West, Rhine, Lachman, Tolkin, Schiller, Josefsberg and possibly others – impacted on storylines. The desire to combat anti-Semitism inspired several episodes: Archie sought out a Jewish lawyer, found a swastika painted on his door and was visited by a member of the militant Jewish Defense Organization.122 Many story editors were particularly sensitive to ethnic prejudice (Rhine: ‘what we call bigotry is everywhere’) or defined themselves as ‘a very Jew, Jew, Jewish type of fellow’ (Ross). Lear described himself ‘as a Jewish kid who suffered some anti-Semitism … [and] knew far earlier than America

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seemed to acknowledge … the Holocaust’. These writers would often disagree with Carroll O’Connor’s take on their script, leading to ‘the most heated argument’ with the ‘adamant’ (Ross) or ‘arrogant’ (Bob Weiskopf ) lead actor. According to Larry Rhine, O’Connor would mock him: ‘Oh there’s Larry, always trying to protect the Jews. You wouldn’t do it for the Swedes. And I said, the Swedes never had six million lost in ovens’.123 Carroll O’Connor felt that the Jewish writers misjudged Archie’s character, and that he as a Catholic knew better: ‘One thing to know about a New York Jewish guy is, he doesn’t know much about the goyim… . So here were all these Jewish writers, they’re trying to write a script for a typical New York goy, an arch-goy by the name of Archie. They didn’t know that character… . I sure understood Christian bias, and I understood how it came out … across the Christian dining table’. In the actor’s eyes, the Jewish writers were excellent at writing ‘Jewish shows, set-up and gag’, but failed at converting their jokes into ‘a much more ambitious plot’, something he thought was left to him, as the Christian expert on Christian bias.124 But usually Lear and the story editors would prevail. Anti-Semitism, racial slurs and the question of the bigot’s lovability dominated the controversial public discussion from the start. The early reviews in the press, from January and February 1971, were divided down the middle. The influential TV Guide and Variety raved about the show, as did the four critics of the major Chicago papers.125 Life magazine’s critic John Leonard was disgusted by this ‘wretched program’ and the way it asserted that ‘workingmen are mindless buffoons’.126 The New York Times ran one review in favour and two against, its critics disagreeing mainly on the programme’s vulgarity and use of racist terms. The most devastating critiques came from minority authors. The Chicagobased Jewish Sentinel found the sitcom a dangerous incitement to antiSemitism: [T]hink back to the hardhats in New York who a few months ago attacked women and young people with clubs for being against the war … most Americans are not sophisticated enough to get the subtle sarcasm All in the Family aims to present. Many people … very likely share Archie’s views. They constitute the “silent majority” that gave 15 percent of the vote to George Wallace and still applauds the venom of Spiro Agnew.128

These concerns were echoed by Whitney Young Jr., one of the leaders of the civil rights movement and president of the National Urban League: ‘It is irresponsible to air a show like this at a time when our nation is polarized and torn by racism… . While the show tries to satirize bigotry, it only succeeds in spreading the poison’.129 Then, in September 1971, novelist Laura Z. Hobson mounted a major attack on Lear, accusing him of deodorising racism. Archie, the ‘friendly neighborhood bigot’, was too loveable. Instead of ‘using the real words that real bigots always use’, namely,

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nigger, kike and sheeny, Archie wisecracked about ‘chosen people’, ‘jungle bunnies’ and ‘black beauties’. The series purged the hatred and nastiness from bigotry, making it ‘more acceptable’.130 Hobson’s intervention stirred up a defence by Norman Lear – who insisted that bigots used all kinds of words, were ‘not motivated by hatred but by fear’ and could be loveable – and a lively debate in the pages of the New York Times.131 Though tempers at times ran high, almost nobody doubted that Norman Lear was a well-meaning liberal with an antiracist agenda. Lear emphasised the ‘social conscience’ guiding his production team: ‘[Our] first mission was, you better damn well be funny, but the second was, we were not seeking to push the position of a bigot into America for bad reasons’.132 Once All in the Family had taken off, Lear’s firm quickly established a reputation for reaching out to black scriptwriters,133 black pressure groups and black viewers. From 1972 onwards, Lear tried his hand at comedies that depicted ‘the reality of black life in America which is not at all pleasant’.134 He did so although he knew how ‘white America is uncomfortable with victimization, or however you want to term the black experience. That what makes you feel guilty, makes you feel uncomfortable’.135 Lear’s hit Sanford and Son (NBC, 1972– 77) starred a black junkyard dealer who was just as bigoted as Archie Bunker. Critics judged it to be much more ‘reflective of African-American experiences and African-American humor’ than All in the Family.136 Another successful black-themed series in Lear’s stable was Good Times (CBS, 1974–79). It was the first of the so-called ghetto sitcoms of the mid-1970s, revolving around the worries of a poor black family from Chicago’s South Side. Any doubts about the honesty of Lear’s intentions were muted after he single-handedly cancelled a programme about a black congressman, Mr. Dugan, only days before its debut, taking a loss of more than three-quarters of a million dollars. His change of mind came after he screened the pilot before twelve members of the Congressional Black Caucus and witnessed how deeply these politicians were offended by the way ‘the lead actor played it like a buffoon’.137 As Mr. Dugan illustrated, Lear’s two main aims – to make successful comedy and to tackle bigotry – could clash and result in the general ambiguity of the product. At times, the racial question was presented in such softened, watered-down forms that it invited misreadings. Indeed, All in the Family was both daring to comment on contemporary racial tensions and limiting in the way it deradicalised the issue. The show did not depict the poverty and despair in the black inner cities; the Bunkers’ African American neighbours were middle class and aspiring to higher things.138 The most divisive questions of the decade were not touched upon. School desegregation, bussing, the Black Panthers, prison riots, George Wallace (the Alabama governor who ran for president on a segregationist agenda) and Nixon’s strategy of ‘benign neglect’ of an increasingly hopeless black

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underclass hardly got a mention. The racial issues the programme dealt with were whites and nonwhites competing for jobs and housing, or bigoted whites having to accept black superiority (Archie meeting a nonwhite judge, bank clerk or doctor). In two bold instalments, the series also took on the taboos of interracial dating and kissing. But the producers knew they had to proceed with caution. They consciously modelled the key African American character in the show – young Lionel Jefferson – in the most reassuring way possible. Director John Rich insisted we cast an actor who came across as completely nonthreatening, to convincingly present a black man teasing Archie Bunker and getting away with it. I felt that America in 1971 would already have to make a huge leap to accept some of the bigoted language that would be flying around. Adding any hint of fear to such a delicate equation could doom the production instantly.139

By this Rich meant that any confrontation of Archie with a young African American might conjure up frightening images of violence and black rage. While in reality many young African American men had turned to radical leaders who argued that the alliance with liberal whites had failed to deliver racial justice, All in the Family presented a sweet-natured kid who turned the other cheek. Many minority viewers found this unconvincing. The actor himself, Mike Evans, thought his character had ‘an unbelievability’ about him because he ‘can put up with all the stuff Lionel takes’.140 Black Harvard professor Alvin Poussaint found the show ‘unreal’ in ‘its depiction of just how much insult black people today will tolerate’.141 Black Methodist minister Kermit L. Long agreed: ‘Do you think that Lionel … would really put up with what he has been through at the hands of Archie Bunker for a year and a half? … [T]he young blacks today … are not sweet and polite and kind like Lionel. They might throw a bomb in the house and carry a knife on their body’.142 The inherent contradictions in Lionel’s persona resulted in him fading into the background after the first two seasons. Thus, All in the Family sanitised racial conflict to a large extent – and still, it was seen as sitcom’s ‘giant step into reality’.143 Early prime-time shows had degraded blacks as clowns, crooks and servants (Amos’n’Andy, Beulah) or had evaded the reality of racial tensions altogether. From the mid-1960s onwards, black stars such as Sammy Davis Jr., Bill Cosby and Diahann Carroll had been successful with shows such as I Spy and Julia. They depicted African Americans as fully assimilated to a white middleclass lifestyle, with no mention of discrimination, and have been criticised as examples of ‘new minstrelsy’ and tokenism.144 All in the Family departed from this formula in several respects. First, it made discrimination against blacks part of its main story, even if it was told from a white perspective. Second, it often brought in African American characters who were intelligent and morally or socially superior to Archie.145 Third, it dared to

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show whites and blacks touching, dating and kissing. By doing so, it violated a taboo that the television industry upheld well into the 1970s. The networks were known to routinely censor scenes depicting interracial socialising or physical contact.146 Any such sight elicited strong reactions from some viewers: in 1971, a postcard writer called actress Sally Struthers a ‘nigger’ because her character had touched Lionel’s arm on-screen.147 An October 1972 episode in which Lionel went out for a dance with Archie’s visiting niece had Archie in fits, just as it enraged part of the audience. Story editors Bernie West and Michael Ross reported ‘a lot of hate mail on that – hate hate hate hate – but there was a lot of good, too’.148 The most well-known such incident on All in the Family was when guest star Sammy Davis Jr. planted a kiss on the cheek of the mortified bigot in February 1972. Davis’s innocent smooch was not television’s first interracial kiss – that honour went to Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura in a 1968 Star Trek episode – but it ‘instantly became the stuff of television legend … making lists of top TV moments ever since’.149 While the network censors strenuously objected to interracial physical contact on-screen, they did not mind jokes at the expense of minorities. There is no known instance in which CBS executives objected to the use of ethnic epithets and antiminority remarks in the sitcom. During the 1975– 76 controversy over ‘family viewing time’, the show ran into much trouble because of its references to sex, while racism was not even mentioned. When Laura Z. Hobson asked CBS top brass in 1971 whether there was a ‘little list of Forbidden Words’ for Lear’s show, there seemed to be none. The omission of the worst epithets can be traced back to producers and writers, not to network censors. Lear admitted there were some words he ‘would not use … for fear of offending too many people’. Archie would not say ‘nigger, kike and sheeny’, as these connoted ‘real hatred’ instead of fear and ignorance. Lear also found it too objectionable to call Latinos ‘greasers’.150 Indeed, the team had more difficulty in getting ‘goddamn’ past the censors than any of the racial slurs.151 An incident during the taping of a show about death – where Archie had to arrange the funeral of a disliked relative – reveals the different attitudes of network and production staff. Archie, trying to cut the cost of the burial plot, drew a ‘huge laugh’ from the studio audience when he said to the undertaker: ‘If it’s cheaper, you can slip him in between a couple o’ coons’. CBS television president Robert D. Wood congratulated Lear on how funny this line was, but was indifferent to the way the story tackled the funeral industry and the taboo of death. In response, producer and director decided to cut the joke, because ‘it was overpowering the rest of the episode’. After the programme aired, they were told by a disappointed Wood ‘he had waited “all night” for his favorite line’.152 Thus, all indications are that the limits were set solely by producers and writers; the broadcasters tolerated ‘ethnic humor’ in its demeaning forms. Mort Lachman, the series’

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story editor in 1977, summed it up: ‘Network thinks ethnic is poisonous except when it’s treated in caricature’.153 Whereas the three networks were mostly concerned with market share and cared little about improving racial relations, journalists and scholars were genuinely worried. They sought to find out how All in the Family’s treatment of racial matters impacted audiences. Did the series reinforce racist attitudes in a minority or even majority of white viewers? Or, as Norman Lear claimed, could satire serve to undermine bigotry? A second issue was whether minority viewers were offended or even radicalised by the Archie Bunker portrait of ‘white America’. To answer these questions, we can draw on a wide array of evidence. Next to the demographically refined Nielsen ratings and many reports about individual viewer reactions, twentyfour empirical studies on audience response to the show or the character of Archie survive. These surveys, conducted between 1971 and 1979, all investigated whether Archie’s racism reinforced bigotry in viewers.154 But the samples, methods and findings varied considerably. In all cases, the raw data – on questionnaires and punch cards – were destroyed. But I was able to recover early drafts of published papers, correspondence between academics, producers and funding bodies, and details about the process of data collection and interpretation from the surviving scholars.155 Audience research began with an in-house study by broadcaster CBS only four weeks into the programme. CBS’s Office of Social Research conducted a survey ‘as rapidly as possible, to determine whether the American viewing public was accepting a program which dealt so bluntly with these [taboo] issues’. Interviews with 1,019 viewers nationwide led the office to conclude that minority groups liked the programme even more than whites, and that only 3 to 5 per cent of all viewers rejected it outright. It then identified only between 2.5 and 6.9 per cent of viewers as bigots who cheered Archie’s ethnocentric rants on.156 While CBS’s study was never printed, it found its way into the hands of renowned social psychologist Milton Rokeach. He and Neil Vidmar in 1974 went on to publish the pioneering scholarly analysis of the Bunker audience that defined the terms of almost all later research on All in the Family. It concentrated the focus on ‘selective exposure’ and ‘selective perception’ – asking whether ‘high dogmatic’ viewers exposed themselves more to the series than ‘low dogmatics’, and whether the two groups responded differently to its racial content. The assumption was that viewers would try to reinforce existing attitudes by seeking out matching content on TV. Fifteen studies followed in these footsteps. Nine of those compared white and black viewers,157 while Jewish and Chicano viewers were taken into account by one survey each.158 The geographical spread was wide, covering all areas of the United States, some of Canada and a nationwide sample in the Netherlands. Most studies relied on midsized samples between two

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hundred and five hundred respondents, and while about half focussed on adults, teenagers159 and children160 were targeted just as often because they were easily accessible in schools or entry-level university courses. Only two surveys were based on large nationwide samples with longitudinal followup, but their value is limited because one was CBS’s own, and the other was about Dutch audiences.161 In Vidmar and Rokeach’s view, the show was ‘more likely reinforcing prejudice and racism than combating it’. This was because ‘high prejudiced persons’ watched it more often than low prejudiced ones, identified more often with Archie Bunker and saw him winning in the end more often. Indeed, Rokeach seemed to have anticipated finding some such ‘harmful effects’, as he had turned down financial support from CBS and instead sought grants from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress.162 When the survey was eventually carried out, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and a Canada Council Grant,163 the investigators ran into difficulties with their data. The first problem was that the relationship between high prejudice and selective exposure or selective perception did not hold true for one of the two samples used, namely, the 133 Canadian adults. It worked only for the 237 Illinois high school students. The second problem was that the latter sample was all white and two-thirds male, and thus recruited from groups known to be more bigoted on average. The third discovery should have rung alarm bells. Neil Vidmar recalled how at one point I flew out to Spokane to consult with him [Milton Rokeach] about that article… . As part of the Archie Bunker study we had also simultaneously collected data using Rokeach’s Value Survey. My own analysis had shown that the values were not correlated with our main variables and I had decided to just drop the data because of that… . Milt was incredulous that they didn’t correlate, however. I had brought a printout of the data and Milt had a grad student rerun my analyses. And of course I was correct!

Although Vidmar dismissed the incongruence as ‘more of a technical problem’, hypothesising that respondents had lost patience and concentration by the time they got from the All in the Family questions to the survey of values,164 the finding pointed to a crucial weakness. The study classified viewers as ‘high prejudiced’ and ‘low prejudiced’ on the basis of what other scholars labelled a ‘low reliability’ dogmatism scale.165 Moreover, it applied a median split between low and high prejudiced respondents, so that about half of them were predefined to be highly bigoted. The numerous studies in the wake of Vidmar and Rokeach produced contradictory results. Whereas a few supported the thesis of selective exposure,166 more often it was refuted.167 Without fail, all studies confirmed that the truly bigoted liked Archie more than others.168 But this only concerned a comparatively small camp. All indications were that a few racist

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traditionalists were vastly outnumbered by a large majority of ‘middogmatics’. These two groups were then complemented by a small camp of progressives. A survey from 1975 labelled 58 to 60 per cent of viewers ‘moderate dogmatics’, 16 to 18 per cent bigots and 23 per cent liberals. Remarkably, these results were from small towns in rural areas that were ‘known for the prejudice’ against local minorities.169 Other studies put the number of true bigots somewhere between 5 and 15 per cent.170 The followers of Mike typically came in at about 20 per cent.171 A few studies hinted at generational differences in the makeup of these camps but failed to investigate these in depth.172 As John Brigham concluded in 1977, ‘the viewing audience of All in the Family does not appear to contain a disproportionate number of rabidly cheering white racists or of relatively unprejudiced “White liberals”’.173 Contrary to what some researchers assumed, there was no ‘silent majority’ of bigots rooting for Archie,174 but rather a transitional majority. There is considerable evidence that attitudes in this fence-sitting group were contradictory and subject to change. While most viewers ‘liked’ Archie, they much less ‘agreed with’ him. Oftentimes, they liked him and his progressive counterparts Lionel, Mike and Gloria at the same time.175 Vidmar and Rokeach reported that 20 per cent of subjects felt the show had made them aware of having prejudices they did not know about.176 The Dutch survey found that viewers who were ‘higher on lifestyle intolerance or parental authoritarianism’ discussed the programme more with their peers than others, and stated more often that it made them feel ‘uncertain’ about their attitudes.177 When the scholars behind the early CBS study recontacted the 16 to 19 per cent who had expressed vague sympathy with Archie’s ideas, four months after the initial survey, over half ‘no longer felt that way’, and 10 per cent saw Bunker ‘as reflecting the error of their ways’. Some explicitly hoped the show would help them overcome their weaknesses: ‘I’m a little more understanding than Archie, I hope. Archie is a racist and prejudiced, and his children are showing him the right way’. Another viewer stated, ‘I can’t say I agree with him, but sometimes I’m guilty of prejudice… . Sometimes it’s like looking into a mirror’.178 These impressions dovetail with what actor Carroll O’Connor reported about his conversations with white viewers in 1972. They would ‘tell me, “Archie was my father; Archie was my uncle.” It is always was, was, was. It’s not now … I have an impression that most white people are … in some halting way, trying to reach out … or they’re thinking about it’.179 We should also not discount processes of cognitive dissonance at work, namely, people responding with conflicting feelings and ideas. ‘The program might reinforce prejudice for part of the personality; it may also stir up conflict in other parts of the personality.’180 It would be a mistake to assume that for the majority, Archie’s popularity was due to his racism. Without doubt, he was the central and most liked

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character on the show for children, teenagers and adults.181 But his popularity was peculiar in that it was, first, a negative one, and second, grounded in issues other than race. Mainstream viewers sympathised with Archie because of the traditional lifestyle he represented. They felt affection for the patriarch who clung to his fading power, for the authoritarian parent who had lost control, for the nostalgic critic of the sexual revolution, countercultures, welfare expansion and violent protest movements. This persona of Archie trumped the ethnocentric black baiter. ‘Much of the identification with Archie appears to be unrelated to his ethnic views and to focus on … his “style” – i.e., his manner of handling his family, his directness, etc.’182 The early CBS study found that viewers most readily shared Archie’s ‘ideas about hippies, premarital sex, the supremacy of God, or the like’.183 Much of his popularity was due to his working-class identity: those with low socioeconomic status, low education and strong feelings of powerlessness were shown to identify with him more than other groups.184 The thorough investigation of the responses of the Dutch television audience found ‘fairly strong evidence that lifestyle intolerance affected perception’ of the show. Viewers who objected strongest to homosexuals, hippies, liberated women and unmarried couples identified with Archie the most. Tellingly, ‘the few who said Archie was usually right tended to be high on parental authoritarianism or lifestyle intolerance but not on ethnocentrism’.185 Class and lifestyle trumped racial attitudes. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Archie’s popularity meant a ‘halo effect’ for racism.186 Most viewers got a thrill out of Archie while knowing he was wrong. Survey results from the 1970s demonstrate beyond doubt that he was popular in a negative way. While he was the most liked character on the show, he was simultaneously the most disliked,187 and the overwhelming majority saw him as a fool and ‘likable loser’.188 When a ‘book of daily meditations for men’ used Archie for a daily task (‘I will not harbor my resentments within myself ’), it presented him as an example for people ‘locked within negative, hostile thinking patterns’, going ‘around in mental circles’.190 Children and teenagers perceived Archie as ‘a bad parent’ and ‘comically negative example’. A survey of ninth graders saw them rating their own parents much more favourably in comparison with Archie.191 Similarly, interviews with 201 white third to seventh graders near Lansing, Michigan, established that they identified a lot less with Archie than with other, more positively drawn television characters.192 These eight- to thirteen-year-olds laughed at Archie rather than with him. They found him most of all funny. But in contrast to other popular male TV characters, neither boys nor girls were likely to model themselves after him, as he scored low on the most relevant attributes: physical attractiveness, activity and strength.193 University freshmen, too, rated Archie as highly dogmatic in comparison with other TV characters, with only a minority

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taking his views at face value.194 Even the under-elevens, who often gravely misinterpreted the series’ storylines,195 understood the predominantly negative portrayal of the patriarch. This was important, given that the Bunkers were among the most popular TV personalities among elementary school children, and the show achieved a 15 to 25 per cent Nielsen rating among two- to eleven-year-olds.196 When Archie Bunker appeared in political elections, his credibility with voters was limited. New York mayor John Lindsay signed up Archie for his unsuccessful 1972 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Actor Carroll O’Connor recorded at least seven different radio and television ads for Lindsay and his antiwar platform.197 O’Connor again appeared in TV ads for Democrat Edward Kennedy’s ill-fated presidential campaign in 1980.198 But because Archie Bunker’s popularity had negative connotations, these interventions could not change the momentum. Still, during the 1972 presidential election, both Richard Nixon and Democratic candidate George McGovern courted what they called the ‘Archie Bunker vote’.199 The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a twomillion-strong union, sent an open letter to all candidates, saying workers resented them talking about ‘the Archie Bunker vote’. Union spokesman Bob Kasen argued that ‘it means the “stupid worker” vote … the average worker is … tired of being labeled a racist, hard hat’.200 At the core of this debate was the highly charged issue of race. Archie was identified with the Nixon camp (in such satirical campaign buttons as ‘Bunker in ’72 – Chaos in ’73’ or ‘Another Meathead for Bunker’) and Nixon’s racial policies.201 Although the presidential candidates did their best not to talk about explosive issues such as school bussing and racist George Wallace’s win in the Florida primary, Nixon was widely perceived as the ‘antiblack’ candidate – because of his opposition to bussing and his appeal to Wallace voters – while McGovern appeared ‘as a special friend of the blacks’ for his civil rights record and pro-bussing stance. The ‘subliminal influence of racism in the election’ might have been decisive, contemporaries speculated. Often, they used Archie to make their point: ‘President Nixon is Archie’s candidate. He is the candidate of the white who fears the Negro as a rival for his job … of the wage-earner who … thinks educational quality will be dragged down by integration’.202 Overall, the history of the Archie Bunker frame in political campaigns shows that it could be used effectively, but only as a negative symbol, attacking the opponent on racism or incompetence. This changed slowly from the 1990s onwards. Now, Archie began to be cited more often as a positive symbol. He came to represent the quintessential patriarch and ‘TV dad’ in popular culture.203 References to the character in the Congressional Record began to focus less on racism and more on the lovability of the traditionalist American everyman,204 presumably because the acrimonious

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racial and political conflicts of the sixties had waned. But in his day, Archie Bunker embodied very much the bigoted or foolish antihero. For the large majority in the audience – which could be called ‘mid-dogmatic’ and held transitory and at times contradictory attitudes – he was the popular incarnation of patriarchy and traditional lifestyles that, for most, turned negative as soon as racial attitudes came into focus. Nevertheless, there was a small minority of all-out bigots who felt emboldened by watching Bunker ‘telling it as it is’. White liberals and communication scholars alike worried about the effects of the show on this group, which made up 5 to 15 per cent of the audience. A few viewers openly identified with Archie’s ethnocentrism. When TV Guide reported on research concluding that bigots missed All in the Family’s antiprejudice message, several readers wrote in to proclaim they were ‘the ideal subject of your article’.205 Director John Rich in 1974 received a letter from a devoted fan who protested that ‘last night you went too far – you tried to tell us that a black man is smarter than Archie Bunker’. Rich frequently shared this quotation with the studio audiences, who ‘always reacted in derision’.206 It is beyond doubt, though, that a small core of fans was attracted to the sitcom precisely because of its racist language. Scholars demonstrated that highly prejudiced viewers thought Archie’s jokes about ‘coloreds’, ‘chinks’, ‘dagos’ and the like funnier than their low prejudiced counterparts.207 The more often viewers used ‘frank’ ethnic labels themselves – and in 1974, 59 per cent of whites and 44 per cent of blacks admitted to doing so frequently – the more they tended to enjoy the use of such terms on All in the Family.208 A glance at today’s fan websites reveals that the series still attracts, next to a wide array of mid-dogmatics and some liberals, a small group of strongly bigoted followers.209 The research of the 1970s corroborated the existence of this racist audience segment but could not establish that the show undermined or radicalised attitudes in this camp. Interestingly, while many studies assumed the bigoted viewers to be older white men (just like Archie), they stumbled across evidence of bigotry’s many faces, locating high prejudice in white Anglo-Saxon males but also in Jewish, female, black and Latino viewers.210 How minority viewers reacted to All in the Family can be inferred from Nielsen ratings, individual reports and sociological surveys. During its first two seasons, the sitcom was attacked by plenty of representatives of minority organisations. Eugene Kusielewicz, president of the Kosciuszko Foundation, objected to Polish jokes and the negative image of Mike as a ‘dumb Polack’. Benjamin R. Epstein, national director of the AntiDefamation League, opposed the ‘vicious’ ethnic slurs. His staff director, Oscar Cohen, thought the programme was ‘a disaster in terms of race and ethnic relations’.211 The president of the American Jewish Congress, Rabbi Arthur J. Lelyveld, warned that Archie Bunker created ‘a new freedom to

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be offensive’ and that there was ‘only one step from the epithet … to the gas chamber and systematic extermination’.212 Some African American spokesmen also denounced the programme. Ebony’s managing editor, Charles L. Sanders, hated ‘this dredging up of the old stereotypes’ triggering ‘all kinds of racial wickedness’.213 An early survey of prominent blacks in the media reported these were ‘split down the middle’, with four for and three against the series.214 After the programme had taken off, from summer 1971 onwards, African American critics of the show became increasingly isolated. No black organisation ever launched a formal protest against the programme.215 Roy Wilkins, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), stated there had not been ‘a single letter of complaint from its members’.216 Two black Methodist preachers, Kermit L. Long and Black Panther L.L. White, argued that Bunker was a fool who was laughed at, not with.217 The black press noted how popular the show was with minority viewers.218 When Laura Z. Hobson phoned up the ‘leaders in the field of fighting discrimination and prejudice’ in the summer of 1971, she learned that the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, New York’s Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and the Italian American Civil Rights League resisted formulating an ‘official position’ towards the show. Moreover, the secretaries and executives she talked to admitted to liking the series.219 Tellingly, Lear never faced major legal or political action from minority organisations, though other prime-time comedies did. Whereas the Polish American Congress went to court against a comedy show on ABC that told ‘unanswered’ Polish jokes, it did not act against All in the Family.220 Jewish groups complained so unanimously about the 1972 comedy Bridget Loves Bernie, satirising Catholic-Jewish intermarriage, that CBS cancelled it in spite of a top five Nielsen rating.221 In comparison, few Jewish voices protested against the Bunkers. And although black advocacy groups criticised some Lear comedies during the mid-1970s, especially Sanford and Son and Good Times, Tandem managed to pacify them.222 In fact, producer Lear and his show received several awards from civil rights organisations. The Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP gave All in the Family its 1972 Image Award for its contribution to race relations. In 1975, Lear was honoured for his ‘outstanding contribution toward genuine racial economic equality’ by the Urban League in Los Angeles.223 The later 1970s saw further awards coming his way from the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the United Jewish Welfare Fund and others.224 This was because his sitcoms were enormously popular with minority audiences. ‘Thousands upon thousands of blacks are among his [Archie’s] fans’, reported Ebony. It even cited a leader of the black power movement who had met ‘young brothers’ wearing ‘Archie Bunker for President’ buttons in

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Newark.225 Actor Carroll O’Connor was the first white person ever to appear on the cover of the African American magazine. He knew from his fan mail that he had ‘a tremendous black audience’, with many writers seeing in him ‘the white man we know’: not the lyncher but the unthinking everyday bigot.226 Nielsen data confirm the popularity of All in the Family among blacks.227 Both first runs and reruns of the series scored even higher with black than with white audiences. The programme ranked number three with African Americans in 1973, just behind Sanford and Son and Flip Wilson, both comedies with black stars. Bearing in mind that black audiences generally preferred shows with a predominantly black cast,228 All in the Family’s success is remarkable. Ebony’s Charles L. Sanders scolded his fellow African Americans for letting themselves be ‘hypnotized by … the soft glow of television screens’ and reminded them ‘that they ought always hold in contempt Archie Bunker and his kind’.229 Afterwards, a heated debate unfolded in the letter columns of the magazine. Meticulously balanced by the editor, eleven black voices were printed for and eleven against the show.230 The contradictory mixture displayed here – some spokesmen criticising the programme in public, most minority viewers loving it – was repeated with Lear’s other hit Sanford and Son.231 The empirical surveys reveal what exactly nonwhite viewers liked and disliked about the sitcom. ‘Viewers of both races appeared to enjoy the program equally well’, though for different reasons.232 Blacks were just as likely as whites to feel that the Bunkers reflected ‘how people really behave in their daily life’ (2.7 on a scale of 1 to 5) and slightly less convinced than whites that Archie’s bigotry mirrored social reality (sample mean for blacks 3.20, for whites 3.02).233 Those who were more open to racial integration and cooperation tended to enjoy the show more and find it less dangerous. Those ‘with more negative attitudes toward whites’ were more likely ‘to see the program as having a negative effect on race relations in general’, ‘to feel that most white Americans agreed with Archie’s views and to state that they knew lots of people like Archie’.234 Thus, moderate and radical blacks perceived the programme differently, according to their standpoint in the fight for civil rights. Moreover, minority viewers laughed at different lines than whites. Although rarely accounted for, All in the Family episodes not only contained Archie’s hostile jokes, but also humorous rebuttals by Mike and quite a few antiwhite jibes by black characters, such as young Lionel and his bigoted uncle Henry Jefferson. In line with research demonstrating that whites enjoy ‘anti-Negro jokes’ more than blacks, African Americans found Jefferson’s antiwhite humour a lot funnier than white viewers, and they rated Archie’s gags about blacks much lower than their white counterparts.235 Even if African American viewers felt Archie’s racial jibes moderately insulting, they were not offended by the show as a whole, since such jokes were always

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answered.236 The main reasons for the series’ popularity with minority viewers were, therefore, the way the white bigot was ridiculed, the black characters on its cast and presumably the fact that it provided commentary on racial issues at all. In conclusion, there is no ‘smoking gun’ proof that All in the Family effected major shifts in racial attitudes in either white or black audiences. For this, one would need true before and after, longitudinal attitude studies or comparisons of viewers and nonviewers, with additional variables excluded. But we can refute a number of contemporary assumptions about the programme’s impact, and make some plausible new ones. First, Norman Lear’s hope that comedy would have a cathartic function, that laughter could chip away at bigotry, was futile. For the true bigots, the show was a welcome relief valve and might have reinforced attitudes. But the sitcom did not radicalise or multiply bigots. Nothing points to Archie Bunker fuelling the white ethnic revival and rise of the right during the 1970s. Contemporary speculations that the ‘silent majority’ cheered Archie on are misguided. The faction of true bigots was small, between 5 and 15 per cent of the audience, and predominantly white. The overwhelming majority of viewers – at least 60 per cent – were mid-dogmatics, and there was a further small segment of progressives numbering no more than a fifth of the total. Thus, All in the Family had not only two different audiences, as contemporaries suggested (the progressives laughing at Archie, and the bigots laughing with him237), but at least three. The group most neglected by researchers, the middling majority, was key to the programme’s overall impact on racial relations. Second, many contemporaries labelled the Bunkers dangerous. Some alleged the programme would offend and radicalise minority viewers – which was not the case. Others, from Laura Z. Hobson to Charles L. Sanders, worried that vulnerable viewers, namely, children and the uneducated, would misunderstand the satirical intention. But the satire got through to almost all, bar a very small group of die-hard racists. In his time, Archie was clearly recognised as a negative model, a fool and a loser – even by children. His general popularity with viewers was based less on his racism than on his traditionalism: his patriarchal, working-class, anticounterculture, antiwelfare outlook. The Dutch study confirmed that ‘All in the Family is able to penetrate the barriers of selective perception so that the general satirical message of the program is grasped’ by a ‘substantial majority’ of viewers, regardless of their dogmatism scores.238 Vidmar and Rokeach’s selective perception hypothesis did not hold up for more than a tiny segment of the audience. The lovability of the bigot, so contested at the time,239 did not lure the majority onto the path of racism. The response of the mid-dogmatic majority to the programme warrants closer examination. If the series effected any movements in attitudes at all,

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this was likely to be neither within the progressive nor the highly bigoted faction, but in the middle. A number of findings indicate that the middling majority was to a certain extent transitional. We know that this group generally understood the satire, and that it displayed ‘contradictory’ attitudes, such as liking and disliking Archie, or simultaneously liking Mike, Lionel and Archie. Almost all viewers, including the more dogmatic ones, liked Archie while disagreeing with his ideas. A good number felt the show made them uncertain about their own prejudices. These contradictions point to attitudes being in flux. A comparison with Roots is useful to clarify All in the Family’s impact on race relations. This docudrama, a graphic portrayal of black slavery, was broadcast on eight consecutive nights in January 1977. Between 70 and 80 per cent of the population watched Roots, with on average five of the eight episodes viewed.240 In 1978, Roots and All in the Family came on top of a nationwide poll of TV critics as the two ‘most influential shows ever aired’ in the United States – because they ‘promoted racial understanding by bringing prejudice and bigotry to the public consciousness’.241 Although Roots belonged to a different genre, drama instead of satire, the didactic intent was similar to All in the Family: to denounce racism and help whites better understand minority experiences. Roots generated a wave of academic research. But this time, scholars focussed less on dogmatism and selective perception than on ‘incidental learning’. They primarily asked viewers what emotions they had experienced, what they had learned from the show, whether they had discussed it with others and how they expected others to react to it. Some findings were replicated across five Roots surveys and can be extended to All in the Family. The studies affirmed that ‘a highly regarded television program/series will be widely discussed between acquaintances, friends and family’. Between 80 and 90 per cent of viewers talked about Roots in the household and at work. We have no such numbers for All in the Family, but indications suggest the situation was similar. It was also found that learning processes in the audience were most easily triggered by ‘the type of television programs which seem to emulate real-world conditions, through the use of true-to-life people, places and events, and through the discussion of true-to-life social issues’. All in the Family fell into this category just as much as Roots. Another consistent result was that ‘high authoritarian viewers are most apt to selectively perceive salient television content in order to reinforce pre-existing perspectives and personal biases, irrespective of race’.242 This corresponds with what we know about Archie’s most bigoted fans. Last, the research on Roots demonstrated that viewers of all races overwhelmingly expected the series to cause ‘interracial attitude change’ and worried about incendiary effects on black audiences. But actual audience response turned out to be compassionate and understanding rather than bitter, and the attitude changes measured were

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slight. Still, substantial majorities indicated that they had learned from the programme, had discussed it with members of the other race and had gained insights about racial issues. The cautious conclusion was that Roots ‘may have generated change’.243 Both Roots and All in the Family were broadcast during the era of limited choice, with unrivalled access to audiences. They chose to deal with race at a time of heightened racial conflict. Therefore, audience research on both programmes was guided by concerns that they would be ‘inflammatory’, generating ‘increased black bitterness and rage’ and white racism. As Howard, Rothbart and Sloan put it, the 1970s were ‘a time of racial ambiguity’. The civil rights thrust and the riots of the early and mid-1960s, and the ‘law and order’ counter-thrust of the late 1960s and early 1970s had given way to an ambiguous racial situation… . Surveys done by various social scientists indicated a steady lessening of expressed white prejudice, yet in the major cities residential segregation was increasing… . No one knew in what direction blacks and whites were learning, whether in the same direction, or toward further polarization into two societies.244

Because the contemporaries overestimated the dangers of prime-time bigotry, the prolific research on All in the Family neglected the shifting attitudes and learning experiences of the transitional majority. It only hinted at what is highly plausible: the sitcom, while being unable to challenge a small faction of high dogmatics, accelerated the ongoing decline of racial prejudice in society by slightly shifting attitudes in the mid-dogmatic majority of viewers. All in the Family was a remarkably successful agenda setter in the realms of public health, sexuality and gender norms – mainly because the series framed contentious issues in a moderate, accessible, deradicalised and funny way. There is every indication that the same process was at work in the realm of racial relations, too.

West Germany Transplanting antiprejudice comedy to West Germany required some slight modifications – and seemed to cause unexpected reactions in the patient. As the treatment aimed not at a racist but at a fascist syndrome, the therapy prescribed to the West German audience was an enlightening dose of antiauthoritarian personality theory. The fear of the threatening other, which the format set out to cure, here related not mainly to blacks but rather to white minorities: guest workers, Jews and refugees from formerly German Eastern territories. Surprisingly, producer Peter Märthesheimer asserted in 1973 that the format’s focus on bigotry did not translate well into the West

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German setting: ‘We did in fact observe that the whole matter is a bit difficult in Germany as there are no overt racial problems and no antisemitism’.245 Märthesheimer’s claim was breathtakingly wrong. Of course, bigotry and ethnic conflict were rife in the Federal Republic.246 But because the German term Rasse (race) immediately conjured up images of Nazi crimes and biological screening, contemporaries often distinguished between (really bad) ‘racism’ or anti-Semitism and (not quite as bad) sentiment against foreigners. Scriptwriter Wolfgang Menge maintained that racism ‘was absolutely not present’ in society, though some dislike of ‘foreigners’ existed. He judged West Germans less anti-Semitic than their English and American counterparts.247 Similarly, the WDR’s head of TV drama, Günter Rohrbach, labelled Alfred Tetzlaff ‘not racist, just antiforeigner’ and in particular not anti-Semitic. ‘Anti-Semitism was completely taboo … an impossible topic in Germany.’248 The producers of Ein Herz und eine Seele were not alone in their perception that West German society was devoid of racism. A language textbook for West German schools, which in 1976 compared the British with ‘the German Alf Garnett’, held that ‘both Britain and the United States are multiracial societies’ with ‘a colour problem’. It did not mention any such difficulties in West German society. Instead, it repeatedly likened ‘stinker Alfred’ to a vaccine protecting people from an undefined ‘illness’.249 If contemporaries took such pains to differentiate between racism and xenophobia, they did so to stress how different West Germany was from Nazi society, but also from multicultural societies in the West. The Federal Republic refused to define itself as an immigration country, though this contradicted the realities. Not only was the republic a haven for refugees from East Germany and prewar German territories, who by 1960 made up one-quarter of the population;250 additionally, 1.4 million so-called Volksdeutsche or Spätaussiedler (descendants of historic German minorities in Eastern Europe) were granted West German citizenship between 1950 and 1987. Their cultural background was mostly Polish and Romanian.251 During the boom years, scores of migrant workers from the European periphery had settled in the country, too. By 1973, 2.6 million ‘guest workers’ – mainly from Italy, Turkey, Spain, Greece and Yugoslavia – worked in the West German economy, a twelfth of all gainfully employed.252 The share of foreigners in the population increased from 1.2 per cent in 1960 to 4.9 per cent in 1970 and 7.2 per cent in 1980.253 For decades, West German politicians and mass media reacted with a ‘denial of reality’,254 pretending that all guest workers would return to their home countries and efforts at integration were unnecessary. Ein Herz und eine Seele was conceived and broadcast at a turning point. The years 1972 and 1973 saw increasingly racialised public debates on how

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to stem the flow of immigration. There were several reasons for the rising hostility to foreigners: the economic recession in 1967 and the 1973 oil crisis; a shift in immigration patterns that saw Turks outnumbering other migrant groups by 1972; and the increasing realisation that some guest workers had begun to send for their families (the number of foreigners outside of gainful employment surged from 815,000 in 1967 to 1.37 million in 1973). Now, in November 1973, the government issued a ban on the recruitment of guest workers.255 But while this curbed the influx of new workers, it inadvertently consolidated and even enlarged migrant communities. Knowing that returning home would be irreversible, many opted to stay and applied for their relatives to join them.256 Meanwhile, small circles of the New Left wooed the migrants as partners in bringing about a socialist revolution. The young 68ers saw guest workers as suitable revolutionary subjects because they were exploited at work and on the housing market, they often had been politically radicalised in their home countries, and their restaurants and pavement cafés offered a welcome break from the ‘thick brown gravy’ served up in German eateries.257 Producer Peter Märthesheimer developed into a campaigner for this type of New Left ‘proactive engagement with foreigners’.258 These debates formed the backdrop to the sitcom, which was set in a highly industrialised working-class neighbourhood with a long history of immigration (Bochum). In some neighbourhoods of the Ruhr region, by the early 1970s the share of foreigners reached up to 50 per cent.259 By placing Alfred in a setting where he would encounter migrants at work and as neighbours, the series spoke to everyday experiences of West German workers. Alfred was conceived as a racist. The WDR’s first press release described him as ‘narrow-minded, prejudiced, conservative, reactionary, bigoted; he hates Jews, Negroes and guest workers’.260 He got off the tram whenever an Italian got on and despised the pizza at Michael and Rita’s favourite restaurant, Salvatore.261 He ranted against ‘inherently lazy’ Turks, ‘work-shy’ Italians and Arab oil tycoons.262 Alfred reproached the Africans for ‘giving birth to hundreds of Negroes every day’ instead of ‘bearing totally normal white children, like we do over here’.263 He called Russians and Poles ‘Mongols’ and ‘Asians’, just as the Nazis had deemed them subhumans.264 There was always a hint of Nazi undertone in his language. Alfred did not speak of Gastarbeiter (guest workers) but Fremdarbeiter (alien workers), a term used for slave labourers in wartime Germany. He contrasted the ‘Aryans’ to the ‘Levantines’ and ‘eyeties’, arguing that the latter two were poor fighters and traitors who had forfeited German victory in the Second World War.265 To him, proper humans were neither black nor Muslim nor ‘Oriental’.266 Turks were verminous ‘camel drivers’ spreading disease, and Italians raped German girls or were homosexual.267 His extreme nationalism

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was reflected in the assertion that the citizens of socialist East Germany were no longer Germans, as their head shape had changed, and that the Spätaussiedler were lazy ‘Asians’ not worthy of German citizenship.268 The sitcom then ridiculed Alfred’s prejudices by bringing in foreigners who were keen on assimilation, beneficial to society and close to German culture. Alfred’s bias against uncivilised, welfare-scrounging, fervent Muslims was undermined when confronted with an immensely polite, Christian male nurse from Beirut or a short-skirted, heavily made-up, courteous Turkish woman speaking near-native German.269 While Alfred raged about foreigners, he was suspiciously quiet about Jews. Although writer Menge carefully copied down those gags from Speight’s original scripts that played with Alf ’s Jewish traits, he never made use of them.270 So Alfred’s anti-Semitism surfaced only rarely, even if Michael tried to tease it out of him (‘Come on, say it, that the Jews are our downfall!’). The patriarch asserted that the Jews were to blame for the oil crisis, and that his grandfather clock had been bewitched ‘by the Jew’ Uri Geller.271 But Alf was not presented as a fierce Jew hater. Indeed, there were no hints at his involvement in Nazism and no mention of the Nazi crimes. Alfred was a militarist, but not a Nazi Party member.272 The war stories he shared saw Private Tetzlaff in Italy, Paris, Poland and Russia – never at the front but rather in the field kitchen, pillaging instead of fighting.273 Therefore, Alfred’s antidemocratic, racist mentality did not hark back to a past as Nazi perpetrator. Rather, it was rooted in an authoritarian upbringing in which sexuality was repressed and the nation and the military were glorified. If Herr Tetzlaff was presented to West German audiences as a prime example of the dangers of fascism, the ‘fascism’ meant by producers was an abstract notion informed by Theodor Adorno’s and Wilhelm Reich’s theories of authoritarian personality, with no semblance to the actualities of Germany’s National Socialist past. Alfred was a fascist prototype because he was authoritarian, capitalist-minded, aggressive, sexually and emotionally inhibited, and because he bowed to superiors while tormenting inferiors. This take on fascism was informed by West German 68er activists. Believing that the republic faced an imminent slide into dictatorship, they typically highlighted the roots of fascism in psychology and the capitalist economy. They mainly fought authoritarianism while neglecting the virulence of antiSemitism and the historical reality of the Nazi crimes.274 By and large, Ekel Alfred embodied this 68er line on fascism, doubtless due to the influence of producer Märthesheimer and director Jürgen Preen. Not all members of the production team were 68ers, though. Scriptwriter Wolfgang Menge, department head Günter Rohrbach and the WDR’s television director Werner Höfer were older and less ideological. They had other reasons to go along. The liberal Höfer repeatedly defended the sitcom against sceptical advisory councils and other broadcasters,

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although he worried intensely about the show’s impact on ‘yesterday’s men’.275 He knew all too well about the appeal of Nazism, as his own past was compromised by nazified articles he had written as a young editor.276 Department head Rohrbach appreciated the ‘liveliness’ and emancipatory zeal of his 68er colleagues, whom he credited with television’s ‘first serious efforts at coming to terms with the Third Reich’. Rohrbach perceived Alfred ‘not as a Nazi in disguise’, but rather as a symptom of problematic undercurrents in West German mentality that had been ‘suppressed’ and whose smouldering would lead ‘to sudden explosions’ if one was not allowed to vent them periodically.277 His stance, therefore, fit well with the series’ overall message, even if he did not subscribe to theories of authoritarian personality and sexual repression. Wolfgang Menge’s intent also corresponded to the 68er line on fascism, though for different reasons. Unbeknown to his contemporaries, Menge was Jewish, and many of his relatives had been murdered by the Nazis.278 Because he was wary of becoming a poster Jew, and because his own experience in 1930s Hamburg had been ‘particularly pleasant’, he took great care not to make Alfred into a caricature of a Nazi henchman. He insisted that ‘one should not talk about’ Jews anymore and that the Germans were no longer anti-Semitic, though still ‘nationalist’. Looking back on four and a half years as a soldier, with ‘about half ’ of his cohort dying, Menge abhorred Nazism and militarism but defended ordinary Germans against blanket reproaches.279 When the foreign press recognised ‘a resurrected Adolf Hitler’ in the brush-moustached Alfred, Menge strongly disagreed. For him, the West Germans had changed: most were now open to the ‘enlightening elements’ in his series, and authoritarianism was only found ‘in some quarters of society’. His show would act against these ‘defects in civilisation’ like ‘a vaccine against smallpox or cholera’.280 The peculiar way in which Menge equated National Socialism with authoritarianism and repression of bodily needs is revealed in a note to the producer attached to one of his scripts (in which Alfred got into trouble for urinating in public). Written in satirical legalese, Menge addressed himself to the ‘Herr Senior Prosecutor’ and pretended that his script was a reference file for the prosecutor’s case against ‘pissing in public parks and buildings’, adding extended citations of invented laws and ordinances about ‘wetting applications’ and ‘water supply’ allegedly dating from 1939, 1944 and January 1945.281 The 68ers’ ahistorical take on fascism suited Menge’s purpose. He could omit concrete references to Nazi crimes and antiSemitism and concentrate on militarist, nationalist, authoritarian and bodyhostile tendencies.282 Then again, Menge prevented the series from slipping into the thoughtless anti-Semitism that, following the Six-Day War, took root in the West German 68er movement.283

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As rare as Tetzlaff’s anti-Semitic jibes were, they caused discernible unrest. After Alfred attacked the SPD’s postal minister, Horst Ehmke, for issuing a stamp depicting communist martyr Rosa Luxemburg – taunting her with the Nazi term ‘gun-slinging Jewess’ – about one hundred viewers called the broadcaster, ‘many’ of them defending Luxemburg.284 The incident was even taken up in a plenary debate of the West German parliament. Ehmke alleged that the Conservative ‘squad leaders’ Alfred Dregger and Richard Stücklen, who had condemned the Luxemburg stamp, had moved so far to the right that they were worse than Tetzlaff. Tellingly, Jews or anti-Semitism were not mentioned once in this heated debate.285 The taboo surrounding the subject was exceptionally strong. When, two months later, a one-hour expert discussion about the social impact of Ein Herz und eine Seele was televised, anti-Semitism was not remarked on. Although one of the panelists was Alphons Silbermann, a Jewish German sociologist and expert on the subject, the conversation on prejudices and taboos related to the German past beat around the bush.286 Attitudes towards Jews were a burning issue. In early postwar polls, 30 to 40 per cent of the populace had been classified as anti-Semites. During the winter of 1959–60, a wave of anti-Semitic incidents had shocked the West German public. Silbermann co-conducted an empirical survey in 1974 that identified 20 per cent of West Germans as strongly and a further 30 per cent as latently anti-Semitic. Whenever contemporaries tried to address the topic, they were wary of invoking the ‘silent accusation’ by the victims of the Holocaust, which could foster a secondary anti-Semitism in audiences.287 The closest the TV panel came to addressing how anti-Semitic West Germans were was an exchange in which Wolfgang Menge objected to Silbermann’s thesis that foreign observers identified Tetzlaff correctly as ‘a prototype … of something that exists … many thousand times’.288 Even though the sitcom’s messages about anti-Semitism and the Nazi past were so subdued, they acutely disquieted the WDR’s executives. The more successful the show became, the more their fears grew. Could Alfred be read as loveable, was he an outlet for racist and Nazi ideology on television? Werner Höfer expressed grave misgivings that ‘the format had backfired’.289 He declared its success ‘downright uncanny’ and spoke of ‘passionate discussions, self-criticism by the author and by all involved’ in the making of the show.290 Höfer’s discussions with producer Märthesheimer led to the commissioning of an in-depth audience survey. Märthesheimer considered it ‘extremely urgent’ that he were ‘protected from the unbearable suspicion that we pander to the purposes of yesterday’s men’. If Höfer were right, Märthesheimer stated, ‘it would mean that we produce programmes which are hostile to government, to democracy, guest workers, Jews – in a word, fascist’.291 A market research institute, the IFEP, was tasked to find out how many viewers fell in the categories of ‘old Nazis’, ‘latently at risk’,

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‘persons with enlightening effect’ and ‘persons who see pure entertainment in Alfred’.292 To ‘investigate whether the series … reinforces prejudiced and fascist tendencies’,293 the pollsters initiated group discussions with thirty-eight viewers and then interviewed a representative sample of twelve hundred people. Jews and anti-Semitism did not surface once in the discussion transcripts or the questionnaire. Only one of thirty-seven statements used to measure viewers’ prejudices touched on National Socialism. Instead, the survey concentrated on opinions about guest workers, the intensity of national feeling and the wish for a strong leader in politics.294 In regard to guest workers, the results were encouraging. All viewer groups understood the lead character as extremely prejudiced and disagreed with the statements, ‘One should send guest workers home because they take away our jobs and housing’, ‘Ever since so many guest workers have been here, more women and girls are raped’ and ‘Guest workers work less than our fellow countrymen’. The survey reported a ‘pedagogical effect breaking down prejudices’, highlighting that the perception pattern ‘the programme is dangerous for others but not for me’ was particularly strong in regard to the treatment of guest worker issues.295 The young rejected the antiforeigner statements particularly clearly, while those sixty-five and over, representing a sixth of the populace, displayed a ‘relatively intolerant basic attitude’ (figure 7.3). As this group was past retirement age, it would have had less contact with immigrants at the workplace, but wartime encounters

Figure 7.3. Prejudice against foreigners among Ekel Alfred’s viewers Source: IFEP survey, 88–90, 115, 118, 120, 122.

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with forced labourers (of which there were millions) in the context of Nazi racial hierarchies would have been frequent.296 Worryingly, the 15 per cent who loved the show most were a good deal more prejudiced against foreigners than the others. They were also more nationalist and more likely to defend Hitler’s achievements. The more viewers liked the show, and the older they were, the more prejudiced they appeared.297 Clearly, a minority in the audience – well under 15 per cent, and disproportionately elderly – sought out the programme in order to reinforce bigotry. But the large majority of viewers, and the five out of six who were under sixty-five years old, rejected anti–guest worker statements. That the highly prejudiced faction in the audience was small is also borne out by an independent survey in the Westphalian town of Münster. Of the 530 viewers sampled, 8 per cent could be classified as highly dogmatic, as they scored thirty-six points or over on an eight- to forty-eight-point dogmatism scale. Twenty-three per cent populated the corresponding lower end (eight to twenty points) and 69 per cent the middle ground. Again, the elderly were significantly more dogmatic than the young, whereas gender differences were negligible. When the scholars invited fifty-eight ‘prejudiced subjects’ to a group discussion, only four showed up. They sat through the screening of an episode in total silence and refused to answer questions. The few opinions eventually offered were indeed racist. This reticence was in stark contrast to the ‘relaxed atmosphere’ and spontaneity registered with less prejudiced viewers.298 The bigoted minority knew full well that their attitudes were socially undesirable, and allowed the large majority of midand low dogmatics to dominate public debate. In the group discussions monitored by the IFEP, Alfred’s viewers got embroiled in lively exchanges about West German attitudes towards guest workers. The satirical intent of the programme was well understood, and most viewers were concerned about the situation (in 1974, 61 per cent of all West Germans reportedly agreed that ‘new guest workers should not be allowed in’ and ‘guest workers should keep to themselves’299). The patriarch was seen as ‘a very crass racist’ whose rants against foreigners stirred up uncomfortable emotions. ‘It’s not always so respectable … when he argues against guest workers’ – ‘I also thought that was unacceptable’ – ‘The laughter gets stuck in my throat when he sounds off against Italians or guest workers. Because it tells us something about how we treat guest workers … we should be ashamed.’ An unprompted debate unfolded in which viewers volunteered examples of migrants not ‘being respected as human beings’. They were called Du (the less respectful form of ‘you’) and ‘Spaghettis’ on trams and at the workplace. They were treated rudely and ‘called names’ even though they were ‘hardworking’. Quite a few selfcritical voices were heard: ‘Nobody can deny that we make some of these mistakes ourselves’ – ‘One is biased at times’ – ‘There are really a lot of

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prejudices among us’.300 Clearly, the show incited critical discussion about the treatment of foreigners in everyday life. Just as frequently, it called up memories of Nazism. Viewers readily associated Tetzlaff with the Nazis. ‘When I only hear, Ein Herz und eine Seele, I think first of “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer”.’ Alfred was seen as ‘how one would have defined a good German, earlier, after 1933’, ‘a pure Aryan’, ‘shaped by the thousand-year Reich’, ‘embodying all bad traits of the Germans’. When one discussant fantasised that Alfred ‘would have been the typical concentration camp guard’, others enthusiastically agreed: ‘He would have been a dangerous Nazi’, ‘Yes, a dangerous concentration camp guard’ who ‘would have bullied inferiors’ and acted ‘as an informer’.301 Only a few objected on the grounds that Alfred was too young, or rather was ‘a fossil of the Wilhelmine era’ or a product of a deprived childhood in the 1920s.302 But the majority understood Alfred as a Nazi. When twelve hundred viewers were asked to dream up a costume for Alfred, ‘party leader’, ‘Hitler’ and ‘Goebbels’ were the disguises named most often, followed by, among other ideas, ‘Wehrmacht/SS’, ‘dictator’ and ‘concentration camp guard’.303 Though audiences associated Alfred with the Third Reich, they did not pick up on the sitcom’s peculiar concept of fascism. The link between a strict upbringing, repressed sexuality and fascism posited by the show was only rarely understood.304 Typically, viewers commented on Alfred’s authoritarianism in more general terms, characterising him as ‘inhibited, full of inferiority feelings, all bark and no bite … a bootlicker’; ‘he is submissive at work and vents his spleen at home’.305 The link to a repressed sexuality did not come up once in viewers’ discussions or letters. Thus, audiences grasped at most half the message on the fascist authoritarian personality. Viewers’ letters and phone calls only rarely mentioned guest workers or Nazism. More typically, they commented on vulgarity, the right to laugh and broadsides against politicians.306 Nevertheless, two not uncommon frames in viewers’ contributions were about the show playing into the hands of old and new Nazis. The first one was ‘if this is shown abroad, we are finished … they will say, there it is, the old Nazism’.307 The second line of reasoning, particularly by ‘people who felt they did not belong to the lower social strata’, was that ‘these programmes are dangerous not for me, but for everyone else’.308 These two arguments also pervaded press coverage, broadcasting committees’ discussions and politicians’ statements.309 The ‘projection … of course we all understand it [the satire], but isn’t there the danger that others will take it at face value?’ was the most frequent pattern in the discussions run by the producer with studio audiences after the taping, and also in the viewers’ mail received by a large TV weekly.310

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Whereas we are reasonably informed about the way majority audiences experienced the programme, we lack reports about guest workers or Jewish viewers. The only time minority viewers voiced disapproval was when Alfred, in a May 1976 episode, insulted ethnic German migrants from Poland (Spätaussiedler) as uncivilised ‘Neanderthals’ and ‘notoriously communist’ traitors.311 ‘A flood of insults, intimidations, announcements of reprisals’ confronted the broadcaster, including threats of ‘murder, bombs and manslaughter’. On the evening of the broadcast, fifty-three phone calls came in that broke down into three categories: ‘ethnic remigrants and expellees, extremely upset to be labelled Pollacks’, ‘a few Poles living in the Federal Republic who felt strongly discriminated against in public’ and ‘others who spoke up on behalf of the latter two groups’.312 There was no echo when Alfred targeted guest workers, but the ethnic Germans were a well-organised, vocal minority with nationalist leanings. Within a few weeks, the Cologne district attorney investigated a libel case, and the Düsseldorf district president and several refugee associations (Landsmannschaft der Oberschlesier, Bund der Vertriebenen) complained to top executives of the WDR. Excerpts from enraged letters graced the TV weeklies Hör zu!, Gong and Bild und Funk.313 The broadcasting supervisory boards, who had never spoken up on behalf of guest workers, now expressed ‘serious concerns about the tasteless discrimination against remigrants from Poland’.314 Although the WDR’s new CEO Friedrich Wilhelm von Sell defended the programme by pointing out ‘that the Aussiedler [ethnic German migrants] complement Alfred’s prejudices with their own as they feel put down when branded as “Poles”’,315 the onslaught from the well-connected refugee lobby likely contributed to the decision to cancel the series, taken in mid-July 1976.316 The show’s irony was wasted on these angry ethnic German viewers. It seemed to work for most others, though. There was no such ‘Tetzlaff effect’, as rumoured by contemporary journalists – the sitcom boosting racism among viewers identifying with the negative role model.317 Audience research clarified that the satire was widely understood and identification with Alfred was rare. Eighty-five per cent of respondents saw Alfred as a ‘strongly drawn caricature … mirroring extremely negative aspects, possibly also in oneself ’. There was not a single segment of the audience embracing Alfred as a role model. Michael was the character liked most, and Alfred least. Moreover, viewers ‘adequately understood the political allusions’.318 Even the most highly dogmatic respondents recognised the show’s satirical intent and described its protagonist as ‘negative’ and ‘irritating’.319 WDR chairman Bismarck was right when he surmised that ‘the remarkable success with audiences was not due to Alfred’s reactionary and fascist attitudes and behaviour … but rather to the entertaining elements … the family setting, the comedy, the graphic language’.320

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While the huge majority of viewers was enlightened enough to laugh at, not with, Alfred, there was a small group (most likely 5 to 10 per cent) who applauded the programme for the wrong reasons. This pattern, selective exposure on the part of a small core of bigoted fans, is consistent across the three countries the format was broadcast in. The West German reaction was thus by no means as exceptional as contemporaries thought. They overestimated the risks associated with the comedy because they feared that the slightest right-wing draught would make the Federal Republic collapse like a house of cards. As West German democracy was much shakier than its established Western counterparts, the argument ran, the format presented no problems in the U.K. but grave dangers in the homeland of Nazism. The head of the production team conceded that Alfred ‘does present a particular risk where we are’.321 Politicians disagreed about the threat Ein Herz und eine Seele represented. SPD parliamentarian Dieter Lattmann thought it politically destructive ‘precisely in a country like Germany’, ‘where we cannot be so sure that our democracy is stable’. His CSU colleague Hermann Höcherl objected, and an Austrian observer commented, incredulously, how ‘German self-esteem seems to be easily shaken’.322 The exaggerated fear of an antidemocratic resurgence explains, too, why anti-Semitism could not be talked about and the memory of Nazi slave labour was avoided in the discussion about guest workers. Nazism, hardly ever directly mentioned, was on everyone’s mind. It was in the fabric of the show’s storylines and dialogues, it guided the intent of the producers and it informed the decisions of executives – who typically overestimated the audience’s antidemocratic leanings and underestimated its ability to grasp satire. Looking back, producer Märthesheimer summed it up: ‘The great Tetzlaff solidarity effect in the land … “Off with their heads! Kick out the foreigners! Shoot the socialists!” was nothing but fiction. Everybody thought others would react this way – that was all’.323 Because there was so little public discussion about lingering anti-Semitic and antidemocratic attitudes, it was difficult to gauge the people’s mood. Broadcasters and journalists mistakenly assumed the West German masses would still be easily ensnared by right-wing demagogues. But the times had changed; most West Germans had broken with the Nazi mindset to such an extent that they were able to laugh at its parody on television. Five years later, in January 1979, West German TV screened the American miniseries Holocaust. For the first time, televised fiction showed not only the mass murder of Jews but also the involvement of ordinary Germans in a direct, emotionally engaging manner. The sensational success and the unprecedented outpouring of guilt and shock in public took broadcasters by surprise.324 With Holocaust the Nazi crimes became fair game for discussion. There were many remarkable parallels with Ein Herz und eine Seele. Not only was Holocaust brought to German audiences by the same Günter Rohrbach

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and Peter Märthesheimer at the WDR. There had also been months of heated controversy about the programme’s shortcomings and the assumed immaturity of the TV audience, even before the epic aired. The massive criticism in the press, politics and within the ARD broadcasting group resulted in a compromise: the series, which had already been bought by Rohrbach for 1.2 million DM, was not to be broadcast on the nationwide first channel but simultaneously on all the third channels.325 Just as with Alfred, the sky-high ratings came as a complete surprise. Within six days, the broadcasters counted 31,708 phone calls by viewers who were ‘agitated, angry, deeply shocked and often crying’. The didactic materials accompanying Holocaust were requested 511,200 times by March, with only ‘a miniscule number’ of the letters including negative comments.326 The results of audience research, too, were comparable to Ekel Alfred. A clear generation gap emerged, with the over-fifties least open to antiprejudicial messages.327 In addition, extensive research into the impact of the series on anti-Semitism demonstrated a ‘short-term change in attitudes’, valid at least up to 1982.328 Just as Holocaust was able to accelerate the decline of anti-Semitism, Ein Herz und eine Seele had been able to raise awareness about discrimination against guest workers. In both cases, the effects of the programme were mostly positive. The observers had been unduly worried. Thirty years after the murder of millions, the majority of the West German audience was mature enough to deal with Nazism on TV. Not Holocaust but Ekel Alfred was the first media event to prove that point.

Comparison Television’s attempt to combat racism with comedy met with varying degrees of success. In all three countries, public and scholarly discussion suggested that the programmes had backfired. West German observers spoke of a ‘Tetzlaff effect’ and Americans of an ‘Archie Bunker effect’. To this day, the latter term is used by scholars of mass communication to denote how didactically conceived mass media entertainment miscarries when parts of the audience identify with negative role models.329 These terms are misnomers. They can be traced back to the preoccupation with Vidmar and Rokeach’s pioneering audience study – which is cited over and over, while subsequent surveys disproving its findings or criticising its methods are ignored.330 In the United States and West Germany, the majority of audiences did not cheer the racist on, though in Britain most viewers probably did. A comparison of these historical examples serves to clarify exactly which conditions need to be met for antiprejudicial comedy to succeed. Some patterns in audience reaction were consistent across the three cases considered. Everywhere, viewers proved to be more capable than

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contemporary observers expected and were fully able to detect satire and irony. The show’s audience split into three major groups: those laughing at the TV bigot, those laughing with him and a large group of fence-sitters who displayed contradictory or uncertain attitudes. Highly bigoted viewers sought out the sitcom to reinforce their racist attitudes (‘selective exposure’). They belonged to the show’s keenest fans and were consistently more likely to agree with the protagonist’s prejudices than irregular viewers. Here, the differences begin. The negative role model presented by the sitcom was widely perceived as a fool and a loser (in the United States) and a creep (in the Federal Republic). Only in Britain did the lead character mutate into a positive hero appearing in advertising and one-man shows, and only in Britain did ethnic minorities clearly reject the programme. There were also telling differences in the breakdown of the audience. In the United States and West Germany, the middling majority dominated by far, while at least a fifth of viewers belonged to the progressive camp. Those applauding racism numbered between 5 and 15 per cent.331 This confirms recent mass communication scholarship stating that ‘the size of the Archie Bunker effect in entertainment-education programmes is relatively small, usually only a few per cent of the audience’.332 The British pattern diverged, with a large majority watching and enjoying the show precisely for its racist asides. It backfired because the three essential conditions for the success of antiprejudicial programming were not met. Judging from our historical case studies, the first condition concerns the messages sent. The cleaner a show breaks with racism, the more likely its educational message will get across. Johnny Speight’s scripts were simply too ambiguous. The second condition relates to the media environment in which the programme is broadcast. Didactic television series will be more successful where fewer media outlets compete for audience attention and where large parts of the population are exposed to them.333 Their impact will also be augmented by other media reflecting and reinforcing their content: the public debate about the show can become as important as the show itself. This high level of saturation was certainly given in all three countries. Third, the historical setting matters. National audiences differed with respect to the extent they had been exposed both to actual contact with ethnic minorities and to previous debates about racism. Bigots existed everywhere, but they could be more or less sidelined in public discourse. In 1960s and 1970s Britain, nostalgia for the colonial past, with its notions of white supremacy, was still widely tolerated. Most Britons had little contact with nonwhites. Their attitudes were shaped largely by the mass media, whose reporting was strongly biased and associated blacks with trouble. In the United States, by contrast, interethnic contact was abundant and prejudice was firmly linked to the trauma of slavery and the fear of violent

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retaliation by the black power movement. Most contemporaries, including bigots, were perfectly aware that racist attitudes were socially undesirable – a fact that allowed low and mid-dogmatics to dominate public debates. The same held true for 1970s West Germany, where contact with foreigners was widespread and racism was strongly associated with the Nazi past and the national guilt it invoked. In the West German and American cases, then, large parts of the audience were ready to use ‘relevant’ television entertainment for their learning processes. Hence, West German broadcasters overestimated the antidemocratic and anti-Semitic leanings in the population, only to be surprised by Holocaust’s spectacular success in 1979.334 American observers likewise succumbed to exaggerated fears of rabidly racist white audiences before Roots taught them in 1977 that a majority was open to learn from antiprejudicial programming. If a show attracts huge audiences for the wrong reasons, the willingness of broadcasters to cancel or censor can act as a safety valve. But the more broadcasting systems were governed by commercial considerations, the less likely they were to tamper with blockbusters in the name of society’s greater good. Both in Britain and the United States, dependence on ratings meant that potentially racist messages were tolerated by executives. The American network never censored racially controversial material, but did so regularly with sexually and religiously controversial material. The BBC, torn between ideals of public service and the need to keep up with ITV, took halfhearted steps – an on-screen discussion session in 1968 and an audience survey in 1973 – to ensure that the sitcom was not backfiring, but then chose to disregard the incriminating findings. In marked contrast, the West German broadcaster always privileged didactic intent over ratings success and cancelled the show relatively early on. To conclude, antiracist prime-time entertainment that features a bigoted hero will always reinforce bigotry in a small group of resistant viewers. But it can serve to combat racism by swaying transitional majorities in the population, if three minimum requirements are met. The show’s authors must be sensitive to the dangers of racial stereotyping, the show’s reach must be pervasive and the cultural dominance of racism must be already somewhat weakened by previous debates and experiences.

Notes  1. Kaelble, Sozialgeschichte Europas, 239; Solomos, Race and Racism, 23, 25.   2. Race in itself is an arbitrary, culturally constructed category, but racism is a reality. Marger, Race, 14–20, 26–27.   3. Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 457.  4. The minister for Housing and Local Government, Richard Crossman, in 1965, quoted in Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 111; see also 112–14.

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 5. Solomos, Race and Racism, 42, 45; Layton-Henry, Politics of Immigration, 3–5.   6. Rose et al., Colour, 102; Whitehead, Writing, 223.  7. Sandbrook, White Heat, 626–27.   8. In the town of Smethwick in the 1964 elections. Sandbrook, White Heat, 628– 32; Saggar, Race and Politics, 107.   9. Jahoda and Pettigrew, ‘Book Review’, 350. 10. Times, 28 May 1968, 4; Guardian, 6 July 1968, 8; Rose et al., Colour, 597–98; Utley, Enoch Powell, 42–43; see also Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 112; Hansen, Citizenship, 179–92. 11. Times, 28 May 1968, 4. 12. Smith, New Right Discourse, 146. 13. Sunday Mirror, 21 April 1968, quoted in Greenslade, Seeking Scapegoats, 19. A letter to the editor in Guardian, 25 April 1968, also called Powell’s speech ‘really pure Garnett’ (F.J. Lane, Christchurch). 14. The Guardian labelled the Conservative MP Gerald Nabarro a ‘rich man’s Alf Garnett’ (4 February 1969). 15. Observer, 28 April 1968, 32. 16. Mark Bonham-Carter in Guardian, 6 March 1968, 18. 17. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 2 December 1968, vol. 774, col. 1166. 18. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 19 November 1968, vol. 773, col. 1206. 19. MP Benjamin Whitaker, in Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 27 February 1968, vol. 759, cols. 1341–43. 20. Observer, 3 March 1968, 2. 21. See Solomos, Race and Racism, 70–78; Layton-Henry, Politics of Immigration, 46–56; Donnelly, Sixties Britain, 112–15. 22. Guardian, 10 April 1968, 8. 23. Times, 18 April 1968, 10. 24. Guardian, 12 July 1968; see Saggar, Race and Politics, 108–16; Rex and Tomlinson, Colonial Immigrants, 55–57. 25. Guardian, 6 July 1968. 26. British Cartoon Archive, Kent, no. NG0844, AH0242, 13297, 13285, 13323: Guardian, 24 and 26 April 1968; Evening Standard, 23 April 1968; New Statesman, 31 January 1969; Daily Telegraph, 16 August 1972. 27. Medhurst, National Joke, 38; Bourne, Black, ix; Pines, Black and White, 12. 28. Malik, Representing, 93. 29. Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 459. 30. Daily Mail, 3 December 1974. 31. Sun, 21 November 1970, quoted in Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 473. 32. Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 473; Speight, quoted in Daily Mail, 3 December 1974. 33. Johnny Speight interview (BFI), tape 1, side 2; London Standard, 30 August 1985, 23. 34. Speight interview (BFI), tape 2, side 1. 35. Evening News, 30 September 1966. Similar statements in Sun, 21 November 1970; Radio Times, 7 September 1972. 36. Quoted in Pines, Black and White, 67. 37. V/7, ‘Paki-Paddy’.

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38. Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 210. According to Speight, Rupert Murdoch, who at the time held a controlling stake in the broadcaster LWT, had objected to the racial content: Schaffer, ‘Race’, 110. 39. Ross, Black, 89, 92. Similar: Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 210; Schaffer, ‘Race’, 113. 40. Pines, Black and White, 12; Barry, ‘Black Mythologies’, 89, see also 94; Medhurst, ‘Introduction’, 17–18; see also Mather, Tears, 81; Malik, Representing, 93–94. 41. Tellingly, the sequels Till Death… (ATV, 1981) and In Sickness and in Health (BBC, 1985–92) lost the parts of Mike and Rita while keeping racial insults as a key element. For two decades, Warren Mitchell also toured the country with a one-man theatre performance (The Thoughts of Chairman Alf) in which his rants went unanswered. Times, 25 April 2008, 10. 42. WAC, VR68/12, 2. See also VR72/630, 2; VR75/12; VR75/41; New Statesman, 19 January 1968. 43. WAC, VR67/136, 2; VR67/82, 2. 44. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 11. 45. II/10, ‘Cleaning Up TV’. 46. See Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 186–87. 47. Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 463–66. 48. IV/2, ‘The Bird Fancier’; Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 39. 49. IV/3, ‘Holiday in Bornemouth’; Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 112. 50. Speight, Till Death Us Do Part, 114–15; script of ‘Intolerance’, 27 June 1966, WAC, T12/1254/1. 51. Guardian, 31 March 1971. 52. Letter to Director General, 15 January 1968, WAC, R78/2811/1. Similar: Malik, Representing, 93. 53. Guardian, 24 August 1968, 8; see also Observer, 19 July 1970, 25. 54. Tom Sloan in Talkback 15, WAC, transcript, 2. 55. The 1973 audience survey was titled ‘Till Death Us Do Part as Anti-Prejudice Propaganda’. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1. 56. Estimate, as no ratings were recorded. See chap. 3. Radio Times, vols. 171/22215 (2 June to 30 June 1966). 57. Letter by Rose, 15 January 1968, quoted by Greene to the Board of Management meeting on 22 January 1968, WAC, R78/2811/1; see Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 467; Rose et al., Colour. 58. Malik, Representing, 93. 59. Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 472. 60. Guardian, 10 February 1969, 8. 61. Observer, 5 May 1968, 8. 62. Dennis Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 3, side 5, transcript, 3–4. 63. Approximately 1967: Booth, Stroll On, 156. 64. Reviewer of the Monthly Film Bulletin, quoted in Mather, Tears, 76; see also Times, 12 December 1968, 17. 65. Evening Standard, 13 December 1968. 66. Guardian, 10 February 1969, 8. 67. Viewer quoted in audience report, WAC, VR75/12.

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68. 69. 70. 71.

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Quoted in Sunday Times, 5 March 1967. Talkback 15, WAC, transcript, 4. Jeremy Clarke in Independent, Thursday Review, 30 July 1998. Guardian, 5 March 1969, 11; Times, 28 March 1969, 2, 14; Times, 25 June 1968; Guardian, 13 January 1968, 16. 72. Whitehouse occasionally objected to Alf ’s racist slurs. See Tracey and Morrison, Whitehouse, 109–10; McEnery, Swearing, 115; Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 476. 73. Only one of nine letters (WAC, T16/727) mentioned the ‘anti-coloured bias’; one other came from an immigrant. 74. Council members were more concerned about The Black and White Minstrel Show, asking whether it would offend West Indian audiences. Minutes of the meeting of 18 October 1972, (quoted: Ronald Mavor), WAC, R6/29/9, 14– 18. 75. June Evans, quoted in minutes of General Advisory Council meeting, 18 October 1972, WAC, R6/29/9. 76. Note of Controller Tom Morgan to General Advisory Council, 4 March 1973, WAC, R78/2811/1. 77. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 2–4, 41. 78. Ibid., 4. 79. WAC, VR67/136, 2; VR75/705, 1. 80. Newton, ‘Shifting Sentiments’, 118. 81. WAC, VR74/146. 82. Women, the young and the higher educated appeared slightly less intolerant. Rose et al., Colour, 551–88. 83. Daniel, Racial Discrimination, 19–22, 209; see also Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 16. 84. Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 18. 85. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 32–33, 36–37, 21. 86. Ibid., 19, 38. 87. Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 74–76, 93–94. 88. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 41. 89. Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 92–93, 249, 63–66 (sample). 90. Ibid., 111, 116, 189; see also 113–17, 203, 211. 91. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 32–33, 36–37. 92. Ibid., 17, 22; see 16, 21. 93. Ibid., 2, 22–3; see also Schaffer, ‘Till Death’, 470–71. 94. Curran and Professor Aaron, quoted in minutes of General Advisory Council meeting, 18 July 1973, WAC, R78/2811/1. 95. Sir Michael Swann, quoted in minutes of General Advisory Council meeting, 18 July 1973, WAC, R78/2811/1. One reference to the report was buried in BBC Handbook, 1974, 52. 96. Talkback 15, WAC, transcript, 2, 5, 7; Evening Standard, 21 February 1968. 97. Talkback 15, WAC, transcript, 7; Guardian, 20 January 1968, 4. 98. For example, Times, 6 January 1969, 5. 99. Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 201. 100. Quoted in Independent, 1 August 1998. 101. H.G. Leyshon, Pontyminster, 18 January 1968, WAC, T16/727.

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102. Quoted in a 1994 survey of British Asian and African Caribbean viewers; these held that the ‘colonial mentality’ and ‘a sense of white superiority’ still pervaded television. Mullan, Not a Pretty Picture, xi–xii, 85–86. 103. Ian Harris, Stratford-upon-Avon, Independent, 3 August 1998. 104. Bourne, Black, ix, see also 243. 105. Times, 18 October 1971, 3. 106. Afro-Caribbean teacher Barry (‘Black Mythologies’, 83). 107. Shaw, ‘“Light Entertainment”’, 66, 68, 70–73. 108. See Malik, Representing, 16–20; Littlewood and Pickering, ‘Heard the One’, 296–300. 109. DVDs were released in 2004 only. The series received much fewer repeats than Dad’s Army or Steptoe and Son (Mather, Tears, 73), though there was a rerun in 1986 (WAC, T12/1475/1). 110. Observer, 18 December 1994, 27; Daily Telegraph, 18 December 1996; see also Sun, 18 November 1968; Evening Standard, 20 May 1996. 111. Times, 4 February 1978, 2. 112. He stood accused of anti-Semitic remarks. Guardian, 21 June 2006; New Statesman, 3 April 2006, 7. 113. Between 1970 and 1972, the anthropologist Howard F. Stein collected testimonies in several western Pennsylvania mill towns, watching and discussing the programme in ‘many Slovak and Polish-American households’. These viewers ‘shrugged off’ the anti-Polish remarks. Stein, ‘Mirror’, 301. 114. Schulman, Seventies, 56–57, 62–63. 115. Larry Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6. 116. Ross and West, Writing. 117. Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6. 118. Ross and West, Writing. 119. Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6. 120. McMillan counted ninety-nine laughs in the racially themed episode ‘We’re Having a Heat Wave’ in August 1973. Fifty-two pertained to Archie’s speech, of which twenty were racial insults (‘Television Comedy’, 293–99). 121. II/4, ‘Edith Writes a Song’; I/3, ‘Oh My Aching Back’. 122. I/3, ‘Oh My Aching Back’; III/20, ‘Archie Is Branded’. 123. Ross and West, Writing; Rhine AATV interview, pt. 6; Norman Lear AATV interview, pt. 7; Bob Weiskopf and Bob Schiller AATV interview, pt. 7. 124. Carroll O’Connor AATV interview, pt. 4, 8. 125. TV Guide, 27 February 1971, 1, 18; Wright, ‘Criticism’, 59–60; Variety, 13 January 1971, 48. Reprints of early critiques can be found in Adler, All in the Family, 69–94. 126. Adler, All in the Family, 91. 127. New York Times, 12 January 1971, 70; New York Times, 24 January 1974, D17; see Adler, All in the Family, 74. 128. Quoted in Chicago Tribune, 4 May 1971, B15. 129. Los Angeles Sentinel, 4 February 1971, in Adler, All in the Family, 85–86; see also xvi–xvii. 130. Hobson was famous for her 1947 bestseller on anti-Semitism (Gentleman’s Agreement). New York Times, 12 September 1971, D1.

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131. See eighteen viewer letters in the New York Times (3 October 1971, D17–18, D36) and six more on 7 November 1971 (D17, D23). See responses by Lear (10 October 1971, D17), Arnold Hano (12 March 1972, SM32) and seven additional letters (9 April 1972, SM20–22, and 30 April 1972, SM48). 132. Lear AATV interview, pt. 6; Lear, quoted in Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, 212. 133. See chap. 2. 134. Lear on The Arsenio Hall Show, CBS, February 1991, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=A2-Htx-R7EM&feature=related (accessed 12 February 2012). 135. Quoted in Riggs (dir.), Color Adjustment. 136. Acham, Revolution, 93. 137. Lear, quoted in Montgomery, Target, 127. CBS wanted to hold on to the show: New York Times, 9 March 1979, C14; see also MacDonald, Blacks, 186. 138. In 1975, The Jeffersons were ‘moving on up’ and got their own series (CBS, 1975–85). 139. Rich, Warm Up, 117–18. 140. November 1971, quoted in Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 15. 141. Quoted in Ebony, June 1972, 190. 142. Sermon preached on 22 October 1972 at First United Methodist Church of North Hollywood, in Congressional Record, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., 19 April 1973, vol. 119, pt. 11, 13452. 143. TV Guide, quoted in Wright, ‘Criticism’, 55. 144. MacDonald, Blacks, 182; see Riggs (dir.), Color Adjustment; Acham, Revolution; Hamamoto, Nervous Laughter, 88–92. 145. The comedy avoided many of the racial stereotypes other prime-time programmes of the 1970s still wrestled with. See U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Window Dressing, 20–24. 146. See Rintels, in U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, ‘Freedom of the Press’, 1972, 523, 525. 147. Quoted in New York Times, 12 March 1972, SM32. 148. Ross and West, Writing. For controversial debate among today’s viewers of the episode (III/5, ‘Lionel Steps Out’), see www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kNoOC 2VlMc&feature=endscreen&NR=1 (accessed 16 February 2012). 149. New York Times, 10 February 2012. The episode violated two taboos at once, showing an interracial and man-to-man kiss. Bill Dana AATV interview; Rich, Warm Up, 132–33. 150. Lear’s answer to Hobson, New York Times, 10 October 1971, D17; Metz, CBS, 335. 151. Wright, ‘Criticism’, 52. 152. Rich, Warm Up, 128–29. 153. Lachman, ‘No. 103’, 51. 154. Duplicate publications are not included, but there are a few cases in which the same data were mined for different projects. Four additional surveys were inaccessible. 155. See chap. 3. 156. Klapper, ‘Paper Delivered’, 3, 5–7, 10–16. 157. Ibid.; Leckenby and Surlin, ‘Social Learning’; Meyer, ‘Impact’; Brigham and Giesbrecht, ‘“All in the Family”’; Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’; Mills,

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‘Adolescents’; Surlin, ‘“All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son”’; Leckenby and Surlin, ‘Race’; Brigham, ‘Ethnic Humor’. 158. Mills, ‘Adolescents’; Johnson, ‘Relationship’. 159. Mills, ‘Adolescents’; Johnson, ‘Relationship’; Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’; Stein, ‘Dynamics’; Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’. 160. Meyer, ‘Impact’; Miller and Beck, ‘TV Parents’; Atkin, Greenberg and McDermott, ‘Television’; Reeves and Miller, ‘Multidimensional Measure’; Reeves and Lometti, ‘Dimensional Structure’; Reeves and Greenberg, ‘Children’s Perceptions’. 161. Klapper, ‘Paper Delivered’; Wilhoit and de Bock, Archie Bunker. 162. Correspondence from March to June 1972, Rokeach papers, Archives of the History of American Psychology (AHAP); Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 46–47. 163. Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 39. 164. Email to the author by Neil Vidmar, 5 October 2009. 165. Johnson, ‘Relationship’, 42; see also Tate and Surlin, ‘Cross-Cultural Comparison’, 2. 166. Tate and Surlin, ‘Cross-Cultural Comparison’; Surlin, ‘Five Years’, 7–9. 167. Brigham and Giesbrecht, ‘“All in the Family”’; Chapko and Lewis, ‘Authoritarianism’; Wilhoit and de Bock, Archie Bunker; Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’; Johnson, ‘Relationship’. 168. Leckenby, ‘Dogmatism’, 14. 169. Tate and Surlin, ‘Cross-Cultural Comparison’, 5–6, 3–4. 170. Klapper counted 3 to 4 per cent bigots (‘Paper Delivered’, 13–16), Leckenby and Surlin 16 per cent (‘Social Learning’, 489). According to Vidmar and Rokeach, 11 to 13 per cent of respondents thought ‘Archie made better sense than Mike’ (‘Bigotry’, 41). Wilhoit and de Bock reported 9 per cent seeing Archie as ‘usually right’ (Archie Bunker, 41). According to Johnson, 8 per cent agreed with Archie and 6 per cent said he made more sense than Mike (‘Relationship’, 30–31). 171. Klapper found that 20 per cent identified with Mike (‘Paper Delivered’, 9), while Vidmar and Rokeach reported between 13 and 21 per cent admiring Mike (‘Bigotry’, 43). Stein saw about 20 per cent in the liberal and 5 per cent in the bigoted camp (‘Dynamics’, 89–90). 172. Leckenby and Surlin show the under-thirties as least prejudiced and the 31- to 50-year-olds as most prejudiced (‘Social Learning’, 489). See also Brigham and Giesbrecht, ‘“All in the Family”’, 71–72. 173. Brigham, ‘Verbal Aggression’, 54–55. 174. Chapko and Lewis, ‘Authoritarianism’, 247. 175. Surlin, ‘Bigotry’, 38. 176. Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 40, 46. 177. Wilhoit and de Bock, Archie Bunker, 30; Wilhoit and de Bock, ‘“All in the Family”’, 83. 178. Klapper, ‘Paper Delivered’, 13; see also 10–14. 179. Quoted in Ebony, June 1972, 192. 180. UCLA psychiatrist Roderic Gorney, quoted in TV Guide, 8 November 1975, 18.

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181. Meyer, ‘Impact’, 27; Mills, ‘Adolescents’, 47, 77–78; Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 204. 182. Klapper (head of CBS’s Office of Social Research) to Rokeach, 8 June 1972, Rokeach papers, AHAP. 183. Klapper, ‘Paper Delivered’, 13; see Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 43–44. 184. See Tate and Surlin, ‘Cross-Cultural Comparison’, 5; Surlin, ‘“All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son”’, 7; Leckenby and Surlin, ‘Race’, 11–12; Surlin, ‘Five Years’, 8. 185. Wilhoit and de Bock, Archie Bunker, 22, see also 4, 15, 37; Wilhoit and de Bock, ‘“All in the Family”’, 81–82 (quotation); see Stein, ‘Mirror’, 280, 299. 186. Surlin, ‘Five Years’, 6. 187. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 204. 188. Wilhoit and de Bock, ‘“All in the Family”’, 80; see also Brigham and Giesbrecht, ‘“All in the Family”’, 72. 189. Chapko and Lewis, ‘Authoritarianism’, 247. 190. Spohn, Touchstones, 19 November. 191. Miller and Beck, ‘TV Parents’, 324–28; see also Los Angeles Times, 12 August 1975, E16. 192. Reeves and Miller, ‘Multidimensional Measure’, 79; see Reeves and Lometti, ‘Dimensional Structure’. 193. Reeves and Greenberg, ‘Children’s Perceptions’, 124–26. 194. Leckenby, ‘TV Characters’. 195. Meyer, ‘Impact’, 27. 196. See chap. 3. Archie and Edith also appeared in the reading skills series The Electric Company, which was shown in 40 per cent of all television-equipped primary schools in 1971–72. Oakland Post, 12 October 1972, 17. 197. CBS Evening News, 10 March 1972, Vanderbilt TV news archive; ads at www. thirteen.org/lindsay/video/sample-2/10/ (accessed 28 February 2012). 198. ABC Evening News, 14 April 1982, Vanderbilt TV news archive; ad at www. youtube.com/watch?v=BT597JaE6Mo (accessed 28 February 2012). 199. Lear’s firm turned down numerous requests by political organisations wanting to use the characters. Washington Post, 18 February 1972, C10. 200. Los Angeles Times, 5 April 1972, A1. 201. New York Times, 16 July 1972, F3; Washington Post, 4 November 1972, A22. 202. Washington Post, 4 November 1972, A22; see also Chicago Tribune, 28 March 1972, 8. 203. In 2005, readers of Seattle-based journal Scene It overwhelmingly voted for Archie as the TV personality best representing their own father: www. thefreelibrary.com/Archie+Bunker+Voted+America%27s+TV+Dad! -a0133312868. A poll on Father’s Day in 1996 named him the second most memorable TV dad of all time: Jet, 1 July 1996, 32. 204. Lexis-Nexis search for ‘Archie Bunker’ in U.S. Congressional Record 1985– 2010, 99–111th Congress (thirty-two results). 205. TV Guide, 29 November 1975, A6. 206. Rich, Warm Up, 117. 207. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 77–80; see also Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 41, 43.

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208. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 112–13. 209. See the following threads at www.sitcomsonline.com: ‘Archie Bunker Thoughts on our new president’ and ‘Was Archie a hateful bigot or just misunderstood?’ (accessed 8 June 2012). At http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/, see ‘most politically incorrect statement’, ‘Archie should ‘ve been Irish’, ‘Black burglars’, ‘Rabinovitz’, ‘Archie the hero’, ‘racist or bigot?’, ‘Archie would of voted’, ‘9/11 at the Bunkers’, ‘Sammy Davis episode’ and ‘Did Archie use this word?’ (accessed 5 March 2010). 210. Leckenby and Surlin, ‘Social Learning’; Brigham, ‘Verbal Aggression’; Brigham and Giesbrecht, ‘“All in the Family”’; Mills, ‘Adolescents’; Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’; Johnson, ‘Relationship’, 34. 211. New York Times, 12 March 1972, SM32; Kusielewicz’s response in New York Times, 9 April 1972, SM20; Cohen to R.H. Klein, 4 April 1972, Rokeach papers, AHAP. 212. Chicago Daily Defender, 6 May 1972, 23; See also Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 16. 213. Ebony, June 1972, 188–90. 214. Variety, 27 January 1971, 27, 40; see McCrohan, Archie and Edith, 185. 215. Brigham and Giesbrecht, ‘“All in the Family”’, 70. 216. Quoted in New York Times, 12 March 1972, SM32. 217. Sermon by Long, in Congressional Record, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., 19 April 1973, vol. 119, pt. 11, 13452. 218. Sun Reporter (San Francisco), 6 May 1972, 13; 25 December 1971, 9; 7 October 1972, 33; Tri-State Defender (Memphis), 14 February 1976, 5; Bay State Banner (Boston), 9 May 1974, 18. 219. New York Times, 12 September 1971, D1. 220. Polish American Congress v. Federal Communications Commission, 520 F.2d 1248, 25 (7th Cir. 23 July 1975). 221. Montgomery, Target, 39–40. 222. Ibid., 72; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Window Dressing, 21, 24. 223. Los Angeles Times, 6 November 1975, WS3; 22 November 1975, B10; Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 37. 224. See http://normanlear.com/backstory_awards.html (accessed 28 February 2012). 225. Jeledi Mfuesi, Committee for Unified Newark, quoted in Ebony, June 1972, 190. 226. Ibid., 192. 227. See figure 3.3. Minority ratings were not usually monitored, but by 1970, advertisers had begun to target African Americans in big urban markets. MacDonald, Blacks, xix, 112. 228. Ibid., 186–88. See Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 39–40. 229. Ebony, June 1972, 190. 230. Seven readers objected, mainly to putting a white man on the cover. Ebony, August 1972, 14–18; September 1972, 18–20. 231. Acham, Revolution, 106–7; see also Jet, 27 March 1975, 60. 232. Brigham, ‘Verbal Aggression’, 53; see also Klapper, ‘Paper Delivered’. 233. Surlin, ‘“All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son”’, 7–8, tables 2 and 4 (1 = strongly agree). The findings were confirmed by Leckenby and Surlin (‘Race’,

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tables 2 and 4) but slightly contradicted by Brigham and Giesbrecht, ‘“All in the Family”’, 72. 234. Brigham, ‘Verbal Aggression’, 54; Brigham and Giesbrecht, ‘“All in the Family”’, 72–73. 235. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 40, 88–91, 77–78. 236. Ibid., 81, 99–100, 85–86. 237. Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’; Chapko and Lewis, ‘Authoritarianism’. 238. Wilhoit and de Bock, Archie Bunker, 30; see also Leckenby, ‘Dogmatism’, 17. 239. Thompson, ‘Selective Exposure’, 10; Wright, ‘Criticism’, 86. 240. Surlin, ‘“Roots” Research’, 312, 316; see also Pierson, ‘Importance’, 19. 241. Jet, 6 April 1978, 26. 242. Surlin, ‘“Roots” Research’, 319, 313, 310. 243. Ibid.; Howard, Rothbart and Sloan, ‘Response to “Roots”’, 286, see also 280– 85. 244. Howard, Rothbart and Sloan, ‘Response to “Roots”’, 279, 286. 245. Märthesheimer to Beryl Vertue (Speight’s agent), 14 March 1973, WDR, 8574. 246. Bergmann and Erb, Anti-Semitism, 1–24; Chin, Guest Worker Question, 14– 15. 247. Author’s interview with Menge. 248. Author’s interview with Rohrbach. 249. Page proofs of textbook Lebendiges Englisch 1 (published by Hübner), 5 July 1976, WDR, 8575, 82–85. 250. Wehler, Gesellschaftsgeschichte, 5:35; Herbert, Ausländerpolitik, 192–95. 251. Herbert, Ausländerpolitik, 275. 252. Kaelble, Sozialgeschichte Europas, 239–48; Wehler, Gesellschaftsgeschichte, 5:40–43. 253. Poutrus, ‘Migrationen’, 165. 254. Ibid., 169. 255. Herbert, Ausländerpolitik, 220–28; see Schönwälder, Einwanderung, chap. 5; Chin, Guest Worker Question, 10. 256. Poutrus, ‘Migrationen’, 165; Sturm-Martin, ‘Tradition’, 116. 257. Bojadzijev and Perinelli, ‘Herausforderung’, 141. 258. In 1980, he coedited the mass-market paperback Ausländerbuch für Inländer, which sold thirty thousand copies by 1982 (preface, blurb). 259. Herbert, Ausländerpolitik, 235. 260. N.d. [1973], WDR, 8574. 261. I/8, ‘Urlaubsvorbereitungen’; I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’. 262. Turks: II/4, ‘Schlußwort’; I/12, ‘Silvesterpunsch’; I/19, ‘Tapetenwechsel’. Italians: I/1, ‘Das Hähnchen’; I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’. Arabs: I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’. 263. I/8, ‘Urlaubsvorbereitungen’; see also I/6, ‘Hausverkauf ’. 264. I/15, ‘Frühjahrsputz’; I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’; II/1, ‘Telefon’; I/4, ‘Die Beerdigung’. 265. Alfred calls Italians ‘Itaker’, ‘Makaronis’ or ‘Spaghettis’: I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’; I/3 and I/17, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’. 266. I/5, ‘Die Bombe’.

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267. I/19, ‘Tapetenwechsel’; I/10, ‘Eine schwere Erkrankung’; I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’. 268. I/3, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’; II/1, ‘Telefon’. 269. I/5, ‘Die Bombe’; I/19, ‘Tapetenwechsel’. 270. ‘Der tote Otto und Fragmente’, DK, 4.4.-1996.05, 4. 271. I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’; see also I/5, ‘Die Bombe’, and I/11, ‘Der Sittenstrolch’. 272. II/4, ‘Schlusswort’. 273. II/4, ‘Schlusswort’; I/17, ‘Besuch aus der Ostzone’; I/7, ‘Silberne Hochzeit’; I/16, ‘Selbstbedienung’. 274. Mausbach, ‘Wende’; Andresen, ‘Antisemitismus’; see also chap. 6. 275. Märthesheimer to Höfer, 21 March 1974, and minutes of Ständige Fernsehprogrammkonferenz/Beirat, 19 June 1974, 3, both in WDR, HF1. 276. Until his past became public in 1987, ‘there had been rumours’, but his WDR colleagues believed Höfer’s excuses (author’s interview with Rohrbach); see Kammann, ‘Spätschoppen’. 277. Author’s interview with Rohrbach. 278. Menge ‘came out’ in the 2000s when he wrote ‘the first Jewish sitcom of German TV’ in which a blonde German male discovers before his wedding that his mother is Jewish. The programme was rejected by the WDR. Frankfurter Allgemeine, 8 April 2004, 45. 279. Author’s interview with Menge; Frankfurter Allgemeine, 8 April 2004, 45. 280. Draft for New York Times article (29 April 1974), WDR, HF1, 2, 5–6, 9–11. 281. Attached to script ‘Der Sittenstrolch’, 4 October 1974, WDR, 8578. 282. Hints at former Nazis in West German politics are rare (the early episode I/5, ‘Die Bombe’, mentions Hans Globke and Gerhard Schröder). 283. Mainly in the form of anti-Zionism and secondary anti-Semitism: Andresen, ‘Antisemitismus’; Bergmann and Erb, Anti-Semitism, 19–20; Kraushaar, Die Bombe; Mausbach, ‘Wende’; Herzog, Sex after Fascism, chap. 4. 284. I/13, ‘Der Ofen ist aus’; Kölnische Rundschau, 30 January 1974, WDR, 8581. 285. Deutscher Bundestag, 7th Wahlperiode, 80th Sitzung, 15 February 1974, 5140. 286. Mikado, 25 April 1974; see Historical Archive of Südwestrundfunk (SWR), Baden-Baden, P16996. The one remark on anti-Semitism related to Austria. 287. Bergmann and Erb, Anti-Semitism, 1–5, 18. 288. In Mikado, 25 April 1974. 289. Märthesheimer to Höfer, 21 March 1974, WDR, HF1. 290. At meeting no. 173 of the ARD’s Programmbeirat, 9 April 1974, DRAF, A07/24, 19. 291. Märthesheimer to Höfer, 21 March 1974, WDR, 8580; see also correspondence between Höfer, Märthesheimer and Magnus from March 1974, WDR, HF1. 292. Uwe Magnus, WDR Medienreferat, to Höfer, 22 April 1974, WDR, HF1. 293. IFEP to WDR, 8 April 1974, WDR, 8580. 294. IFEP survey, 107–13. 295. Short report on group discussions, n.d., WDR, 8580, 15–16. 296. The IFEP study wrongly assumed that foreign workers ‘were unknown’ to the elderly. IFEP survey, 118, 91, 95–96 (quotations); see also Herbert, Ausländerpolitik, chap. 3. 297. IFEP survey, 124, 127.

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298. Hammer, Vogt and Wehmeier, Kommunikation, 71–75, 78–79, 89–96. 299. Quoted in Esprit 3 (1974), WDR, UF1. 300. IFEP group discussions, I, 8, 15, 17–20; II, 3, WDR, 8580. 301. Ibid., I, 5, 9, 15, 22, 43, 46. 302. Ibid., I, 9, 22–23, 46. 303. IFEP survey, 67. Alfred dressed up as Napoleon in I/14, ‘Rosenmontagszug’. 304. IFEP group discussions, I, 9–10, 23, WDR, 8580. 305. Short report on group discussions n.d., WDR, 8580, 12; see IFEP group discussions, I, 28–30, 38–40, 42, 47–48; II, 4, 8, WDR, 8580; IFEP survey, 65. 306. See chap. 6. 307. IFEP group discussions, I, 16 (quotation), 47, WDR, 8580. See also viewers H. Wisskirchen, in Express, 8 February 1974; H. Vahs, in Hör zu!, 23 October 1976. 308. Short report on group discussions, n.d., WDR, 8580, 4; IFEP survey, 7, 10, 27, 74. 309. Press clippings, WDR, 8579, 8581. Typical: Das Parlament 13, 30 March 1974; Weltwoche, 8 May 1974; Frankfurter Allgemeine, 6 November 1974. 310. Märthesheimer and Dieter Lattmann, in Mikado, 25 April 1974. 311. II/1, ‘Telefon’. 312. Daily report by WDR Chef vom Dienst, Sendeleitung Fernsehen, 31 May 1976, WDR, 8575. 313. Letters Pütz to Rohrbach, 29 July 1976; Schwiederski to WDR Verwaltungsrat, 5 July 1976; Märthesheimer to Schwiederski, 28 July 1976; Liebeneiner to WDR, 4 June 1976; Bund der Vertriebenen Hessen to WDR, 1 July 1976; Ferenz to WDR, 11 June 1976; Rohrbach to Paluschtzik, 16 June 1976; ‘Resolution der Oberschlesier’, Recklinghauser Zeitung, 2 June 1976; numerous viewer letters from June 1976 in press clippings, all in WDR, 8575. 314. Confidential minutes of meeting no. 5, Hessischer Rundfunkrat, 30 July 1976, WDR, 8575, 8–9. 315. Sell to Regierungspräsident Düsseldorf, 18 June 1976, WDR, 8575. 316. Rohrbach to Grünefeldt, 21 July 1976, WDR, 8575. 317. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, n.d. [April 1974]; Weltwoche, 29 May 1974, WDR, 8581. 318. IFEP survey, 6, 75, 71, 86; see also 64–65, 102. 319. Hammer, Vogt and Wehmeier, Kommunikation, 90–91. 320. Draft report by Bismarck, 29 May 1974, WDR, 12520, 4. 321. Rohrbach, quoted in minutes of Fernsehprogrammkonferenz and Beirat, 19 June 1974, WDR, HF1, 4. CEO Bismarck likewise argued the British Alf ‘cannot stir up fascist associations and syndromes because England does not have the same socio-political background’ as Germany. Draft report by Bismarck, 29 May 1974, WDR, 12520, 2. 322. Lattmann, Höcherl and TV journalist Klaus Emmerich (ORF), in Mikado, 25 April 1974. 323. Quoted in Stuttgarter Zeitung, 31 May 1976, WDR, 8575. 324. Earlier documentaries had proven unpopular. They typically distinguished between the opportunist masses and a few main perpetrators. Hodenberg, Konsens, 271–74; see also Kansteiner, Pursuit, 112–18, 122–25; Classen, Bilder, 179, 186; Horn, Erinnerungsbilder.

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325. Märthesheimer and Frenzel, Im Kreuzfeuer, 50. For a selection of the press debate, see ibid., 25–71. 326. Forty-eight per cent of the population watched at least one of the four instalments. Ibid., 220, 230, 296; see also 221–29. 327. Ibid., 224. 328. Bergmann and Erb, Anti-Semitism, 5; see also Andresen, ‘Antisemitismus’, 157–63, 166; Bösch, ‘Film’, 2–5. 329. See the textbook Marger, Race, 34, 56–57; Singhal and Rogers, EntertainmentEducation, 157–59, 207. 330. Singhal and Rogers, Entertainment-Education, 157–59, 207; Singhal and Rogers, ‘Agenda’, 123–25. A recent example is Emily Nussbaum’s comment piece in the New Yorker, 7 April 2014. See also Hartmann and Husband, Racism, 37–43. 331. Some surveys overestimate the size of the bigoted faction because they fail to dissect the reasons for Archie’s popularity. 332. Moreover, the number of viewers identifying with the negative role model diminishes with long-term exposure to the programme. Singhal and Rogers, Entertainment-Education, 158. 333. Sherry, ‘Media Saturation’, 206–7. 334. They were correct in assuming the prevalence of anti-Semitism but incorrect about its intensity and character.

8

Trading TV Bigots Transnational Trajectories

The television industry of the 1960s and 1970s was truly international, because it depended economically on an extensive trade of formats and programmes across borders. But transnational studies of television history, tracing the movements of products, people and concepts across borders, are still relatively scarce.1 In the fields of television and cultural studies, there has always been ‘a strong tie of media historiography with the national project’.2 Building on Benedict Anderson, media scholars understood TV as a driving factor of nation building and the construction of imagined communities. From the 1950s to the 1990s, television played ‘a key role in stabilising a nationally defined realm of experience’3 and, more than any other medium, embodied ‘the modernist intent of engineering a national identity’.4 Only recently has media scholarship turned to globally traded TV formats and the way they are translated and received by local producers and audiences. Such work typically concentrates on post-2000 programming5 and, in the rare cases engaging with historical examples, privileges production over reception contexts.6 Still, these new studies raise important questions about transnational links and cross-border effects. In particular, to what extent did television limit itself to a national arena and apply itself to the construction of nationalisms? To what extent were audiences aware of the foreign origins of format adaptations, and did they really display a steady preference for nationally customised fare? In the three cases investigated here, it remains to be explored what the international marketing of the TV bigot meant for its contemporaries: how producers and viewers related to the fact that their favourite show was borrowed from another country, and

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whether the import of Speight’s format introduced specifically British concepts into the American and West German public sphere. A look at the transnational links forged by the series can reveal the extent to which national identities and certainties taken for granted were in fact borrowed from and interconnected with external sources. Nations are fragile and fluid constructs; they define themselves in contrast to others, often using puzzle pieces of foreign origin for the making of their own identity.7 To what extent, then, did Alf Garnett, in his many incarnations, become a vehicle for defining one’s own nation and stereotyping the other? When Till Death Us Do Part was conceived in 1965–66 and sold overseas in the late 1960s and 1970s, broadcasting offerings to viewers were still almost exclusively tied to national channels of communication. Today’s world knows global TV channels, deterritorialised audiences and diasporic public spheres – with Koreans watching Korean music videos or Turks following Turkish sports events on the Internet, whether they are in Bradford or Beijing. But viewers at the time had neither videos nor DVDs nor Webbased broadcasting.8 The television industry itself had only just begun to realise the potential of internationally marketing its own products: raw pictures, finished programmes and formats. In Britain, the BBC created a Television Enterprises department for this purpose relatively late, in 1960. The marketing and merchandising of BBC products took off only during the late 1960s.9 In those days, few shows were sold abroad, and if they were, their producers hardly noticed. As Till Death included a fair number of references to current affairs in Britain, the Television Enterprises department targeted the sale of finished episodes foremost to the Commonwealth countries. In this way, Speight’s comedy ‘rapidly became one of Australia’s top-rated shows’, with between 37 and 47 per cent of television sets tuned in, bringing the Australian broadcaster ABC ‘its highest viewing figures ever’. New Zealand, too, was ‘particularly enthusiastic’ about the series.10 The BBC then went on to sell the pilot to West Pakistan, Nigeria and Uganda, but failed to find an American client. It was barred from offering the series to Europe by a stipulation in Speight’s contract that reserved these rights for him.11 When a sale of the format to the United States materialised, in February 1968, the BBC’s nine-month option had expired and Speight’s agent was in business.12 The same was true for the export of the format to West Germany in 1972. The BBC had missed the boat, and the profit went directly to the author.13 Even though Johnny Speight reaped enormous financial benefits from these exports, he showed little interest in the fate of his series beyond Britain’s shores. His outlook remained nationally confined, and he refused to make any changes so that the show might be more marketable overseas. The naïve request of the Television Enterprises department to increase the programme’s saleability by cutting down on swearing, ‘very topical jokes’ and ‘local

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allusions’ (of course, ‘without losing any of the programme’s natural exuberance’) fell on deaf ears.14 Hence, international marketing had little direct impact on the content of the series. In the American context, too, the sitcom targeted almost exclusively the home country’s audience. All in the Family nevertheless sold well in Malaysia, Canada and the Netherlands.15 Although the packaged episodes were slightly edited for global sales, the production team kept basing storylines on U.S. politics, be it a recent Supreme Court decision on pornography or President Nixon’s wage and price freeze.16 The broadcaster WDR, finally, undertook no attempt to sell Ekel Alfred abroad and filled the scripts to the brim with topical discussions of domestic affairs. Both the target audiences and the messages remained specifically West German.17 Speight’s format was quickly assimilated to the cultures of the countries it was sold to. Both the American and German variant lost Alf ’s monarchist and religious zeal and his longing for the empire – truly British ingredients – while holding on to his political conservatism, racism and nostalgia. Both kept the working-class setting but modified sets and props so that they accurately mirrored local living conditions. The language, too, was adjusted to national requirements. The American producer Norman Lear admitted that he had the wording ‘watered down considerably from its British ancestor’ to pacify the networks (the pilot still struck director John Rich as ‘unusually explicit’).18 Lear maintained that the original, about which he had learned in a newspaper article, had delivered no more than the basic idea, and that he had built the pilot around his own arguments with his father. He acknowledged that ‘I did need permission’ from Speight and had agreed to ‘a created-by credit (which I later learned was nonsense)’.19 In fact, though, Lear used Speight’s scripts extensively at first. The pilot’s storyline was largely identical to a British episode, and a London TV critic who watched the 1971 season contended that ‘lines, indeed lumps, are lifted intact. The Is-Dad-A-Yid scene had been carried almost brick by brick to the States and rebuilt there’.20 But only the first season borrowed liberally from the original, scouring it for the best stories and gags. As the show went on, it became increasingly independent from the prototype, introducing new elements and developing the characters in different ways. The same held for the West German version.21 The WDR team, who had initially hoped for ‘a normal translation of the text’ with some tweaking, quickly realised that this was ‘not sufficient to meet German conditions convincingly’.22 They decided that ‘we would only use the characters and some of the basic situations and gags and have new scripts written … because the English pattern has to be adapted to German circumstances … but also because every part of our planned series should always be up-to-date – referring to [recent political] events’.23 Consequently, in both the Federal Republic and the United States the British original provided the basic pattern and raw material for some

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early storylines, but as the episodes clocked up, the series became thoroughly ‘nationalised’. Even the minorities targeted by the television bigots were chiefly taken from the domestic and not the international context. Alfred would mainly aim at Turkish guest workers, Archie at African Americans and Alf at colonial immigrants in Britain. It was a rare occurrence to see, for instance, Alfred singling out British ‘fags’.24 One of the reasons for the fast acculturation of the format was an underlying conception of national superiority among broadcasters and producers, who typically contrasted ‘our’ television with the ‘other’. There was a long-standing perception among British broadcasters that their television was ‘the best in the world’. But by the late 1960s, it was abundantly clear that the American industry dominated the international trade in programming. While British TV sold well in small European and some Commonwealth countries, American markets seemed impenetrable. The three networks rejected programmes coloured by overseas origin, and most BBC exports were confined to PBS, which only reached a small, educated elite.25 So British producers were proud when their sitcom formats broke into American prime time. (Norman Lear had been the first to introduce these, remaking not only Till Death but also Steptoe and Son.26 The 1970s saw other U.S. producers in his footsteps, searching BBC and ITV for promising material.27) The rivalry over whose programming was best spilled over into public and academic arguments about ‘cultural imperialism’ and ‘Americanisation’ – forgetting that less than 14 per cent of broadcasts shown in Britain were U.S. imports, and that audiences in any case tend to creatively ‘localise’ their readings of such programmes.28 The BBC managers who were responsible for Alf always defined their output against U.S. sitcoms. Head of Light Entertainment Tom Sloan maintained that U.S. sitcoms were dependent on sponsors and ‘built on wisecrack following wisecrack in a sequence of crescendos’, while British productions involved character development and ‘this thread of reality: we must be able to identify ourselves with the characters or the situation’.29 For his colleague Frank Muir, the Americans produced bland ‘formula comedy’ where ‘teams of less inspired writers … produce scripts to the given formula’, avoiding any ‘reality’ and making everybody ‘lovable’. In contrast, British ‘organic comedy’ was ‘highly individual’, ‘the product of one writer’s mind and talent’, and gave audiences ‘the glee of recognition’.30 The anti-American undertones were even clearer in Johnny Speight’s vision of uncultured money ‘junkies’ across the Atlantic. On a visit to Hollywood, Speight exclaimed that he was in a ‘modern gold rush town’, with the ‘smell of money’ hanging everywhere. To him, its TV industry was a savagely commercial ‘entertainment factory’: ‘what makes a good show here is what makes the money flow’.31 When he was interviewed on live TV during New York’s ‘British week’, he insulted ‘Yankee’ viewers as being ‘too dumb’ to

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understand British humour. U.S. comedies were ‘less impressive’ than British ones, he claimed, because ‘the average Englishman is more intelligent and more tolerant than the average American… . Americans cannot take criticism … they’ve got no culture’. The producer and lead actor of the American version, linked up over video, reacted angrily. O’Connor pointed out that the Britons had ‘not even paid our World War One debt back’, and Lear claimed to be ‘very impressed’ with Speight’s superior intelligence, as ‘he manages to sign all the cheques we send him for his Till Death royalties and he always spells his name right’.32 Obviously, the dealings of producers and writers across borders were fraught with stereotyping and aggressive nationalism. Johnny Speight in particular was not given to cultural sensitivity. In the heyday of the series’ success, he travelled to Australia on invitation. This continent for Speight was insignificant, first because it only had a population of 14 million (‘our audience for the show in Britain was a lot larger than that’) and second because its inhabitants were ‘rednecks … bigoted chauvinist pigs … descended from criminals’. He did not endear himself to this audience by joking that Britons, with their habitual cleanliness, could safely wear long hair, while the unwashed Australians needed ‘prison haircuts’ – a comparison that made front-page news during his visit (‘Don’t wash enough, Pommie writer accuses Australians’).33 If the Australians were rednecks to Speight, the Germans were unreconstructed Nazis. So he mistakenly assumed that their ‘Alf character [was] made up to look like Hitler’ and that ‘the Germans, who are not known for a sense of humour … missed the satire, and took him into their hearts as they had done before with their adored prototype, Adolf ’. Speight moreover claimed that Chancellor Willy Brandt had decreed ‘that it should be taken off the air’ but had backed off after an outcry of addicted viewers.34 The producer of Till Death Us Do Part, Dennis Main Wilson, likewise belittled the West Germans, though he knew their broadcasting system from his own role in denazifying Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk in the 1940s. To his mind, the German way of ‘organised, mechanical and logical thinking’ made for ‘regiment[ed]’ and ‘inorganic comedy’: ‘The Germans … don’t have humour as we know it. They are unable to laugh at themselves, and therefore at their establishments’. He asserted that Alfred Tetzlaff had only lasted ‘two or three episodes’ and recounted how once a West German delegation had come in to observe his production: ‘They’d sit up in the gallery behind you, and with Till Death their minds boggled… . How many days did you have in the studio? – One, today. – Oh. How many weeks rehearsal? – Five days, we did one a week ago today. – Unmöglich, impossible. We tried to help them, it used to take them three weeks to rehearse a half hour comedy’.35

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Not only Main Wilson felt British broadcasting to be superior than its West German counterpart; his colleagues on the other side of the Channel agreed. WDR department head Günter Rohrbach admired the BBC as ‘the most renowned and most capable broadcaster in the world’. Its production methods were unrivalled in their efficiency and in their ability to preserve quality while churning out mass-produced TV fare, he held.36 Producer Peter Märthesheimer sought to catch up with the way comedy was produced elsewhere, consulting American books on how to construct TV series.37 WDR’s director of television, Werner Höfer, understood the United States as ‘the truly classic TV land where all models and shortcomings of the medium can be studied under a magnifying glass’.38 But the West German team was not so taken with British and American know-how that they would have uncritically copied it. Rohrbach thought the Britons were too wedded to radio-style living-room drama, and too uninspired to try out new things. The U.S. industry was even worse, milking one idea for five hundred hours of entertainment. Its comedies sold jokes like corn flakes and detergent, its talk shows were devoid of spontaneity and overall the American TV diet was so ‘trivial’ as to cause ‘socio-psychological damage’ in the population.39 Similarly, scriptwriter Wolfgang Menge lambasted how loveable Archie Bunker was, pointing to Alfred being ‘nastier, more inhuman, more vulgar, a permanent loser’.40 There was a common thread running through British and German criticism: American fare was allegedly more formulaic, commercialised and geared to the uneducated masses than European offerings. In 1960s Britain and 1970s West Germany, the divisions between high and popular culture were still much more pronounced than in North America.41 Despite his supposedly pervasive mass appeal, the American TV bigot was rejected by British and German audiences as too foreign. When All in the Family aired on the BBC in 1971, British critics called it ‘inferior’, ‘tame’ or damned it with faint praise: ‘well above average of American television comedy, which is not saying much’ – ‘God help America if they regard [this] as a biting, controversial comedy’.42 The show was cancelled after the first season, not least because of the ‘slang barrier’ (‘I thought a Hebe was some antique Greek who handed round the nectar … seems not. And what the devil is a dingbat’).43 West German broadcasters never bought entire seasons of All in the Family or Till Death Us Do Part, but aired a few occasional episodes, complete with educational commentary.44 Although Ein Herz und eine Seele was repeatedly announced as ‘having been invented in England’ and ‘a huge success in commercial American television’,45 most West German fans regarded Alfred Tetzlaff as a native – such as the caller who in January 1975 demanded that the WDR ‘run more Alfred and more Bavarian folk plays and not that rotten American stuff [das amerikanische Lumpenzeug]’.46 The willingness of West German and British audiences to accept foreign

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comedy and drama was limited, as they were used to a wealth of domestic productions. It was different in countries that traditionally depended more on imported programming, such as the Netherlands and Canada: there the Bunkers became a top-rated show. The majority of Dutch viewers felt the programme ‘extremely relevant to Dutch society’, and Canadians likewise embraced it – although they found it slightly less ‘true to life’ and funny than Americans.47 Audiences and critics everywhere were quick to interpret imported TV bigots as the embodiment of a foreign nation. This popular pattern of perception was modelled after the experience with the domestic bigot. Thus, Britons who were used to being called ‘a nation of Alf Garnetts’48 took delight in discovering a nation of latent Nazis in Alfred Tetzlaff’s audience. Upon the news that West Germans loved the show, the Guardian’s headline read, ‘Enter Herr Garnett – Little Hitler’, and the Daily Express’s title exclaimed, ‘A Heil of a Row as Germany’s Alf Lets Rip’.49 The Daily Mirror carried Alfred on its title page and worried that ‘Herr Von Garnett could stir up a new wave of anti-Semitism’.50 Alfred’s ‘alarming resemblance to Adolf you-remember-who’ caught the British imagination.51 In comparison, the British response to Alf ’s American counterpart was mellow. At most, the papers alleged that Archie was ‘the complete American slob’ and represented ‘Mr Nixon’s silent majority’.52 The mechanism worked just as well on the other side of the Atlantic. The American press commented on Enoch Powell’s speech that ‘Britain presented to the world … the image of a nation of Alf Garnetts’.53 Alf embodied ‘everything most hateful’ about the British ‘national character’, and ‘a substantial number of Britons’ were said to share a racist ‘Alf Garnett mentality’.54 As late as 1978, the Chicago Tribune wrote about Britain’s white working-class ‘Alf Garnett vote’.55 And the West German TV bigot, again, was the resurrection of the ugly German to the Americans. Alfred was the harbinger of a Nazi revival in the Federal Republic, and as such even made it into the CBS Evening News.56 ‘An uncannily accurate barometer of what the average German has uppermost on his mind’, Alfred was seen to personify ‘narrow-minded nationalism and anti-Semitism’ and ‘the old Nazis who still survive in Germany today’.57 A caricature in the New York Times depicted a caged Tetzlaff ape with Hitler moustache and hairdo.58 Other countries, too, rediscovered the Nazi in West Germany’s new television hero. The French L’Express asked whether Alfred was ‘un nouveau Führer’.59 The Milan paper Il Giorno worried about ‘Hitler in underwear’ entering the living rooms of millions of Germans.60 For the Soviet elite paper Literaturnaja Gaseta, the figure embodied the politics of the conservative CDU/CSU, which was playing to the chauvinist, materialist and antisocialist instincts of the protofascist petty bourgeoisie.61 The WDR’s production team at first unsuccessfully tried to counteract the

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foreign overreaction to their antihero,62 but in the end turned the tables: Wolfgang Menge wrote an episode in which the Tetzlaffs were visited by an American journalist scouting out a model German family.63 Many West German newspapers, reporting on Alfred’s critics abroad, answered by asserting the superiority of their own bigot or pointing to the homegrown racism of foreign observers. ‘Our Creep Is a Lot Bolder’, headlined the radio weekly Hör zu!64 Its competitor Fernsehwoche alleged that Archie Bunker ‘embodies perfectly the average American with white skin and a middle income’ and ‘says out loud what the silent majority thinks’ in a country with a ‘200-year-old guilt complex regarding the blacks’.65 Therefore, in West Germany just as in the United States and Britain, the foreign TV bigots became objects of crudely nationalist projections. The debate about Alf & Co. was saturated with the familiar stereotypes of uncultured, money-grabbing Americans, humourless, nazified Germans and racist Britons. Internationally marketed television characters like Archie and Alfred rose to the status of national cultural symbols, while audiences were mostly unaware of the foreign ancestry. Producers and broadcasters quickly and thoroughly ‘nationalised’ the series, largely concealing its debt to foreign sources. Though they were actors in a transnational exchange, they refused to modify programmes for export and engaged only reluctantly in exchanges with their counterparts abroad. Cross-border communications between production teams were fraught with national stereotypes and tensions. The case of these sitcoms illustrates that scholars should not simply assume that imported products pervaded and transformed nationally defined public spheres as part of an overarching process of ‘Americanisation’ or ‘globalisation’.66 The adaptation and reception of programmes during the 1970s underlines the ongoing dominance of national cultures. Not only were most genres – news, children’s programming, documentaries, drama and comedy – still dominated by homegrown broadcasts. Audiences also resisted foreign fare, and imported formats were adapted so comprehensively that they lost their foreignness and became carriers of nationally specific discourses of negotiation.67 Thus, the transnational exchange was less about cross-cultural fertilisation than about the cobbling together of national identities at the expense of other cultures.

Notes  1. See Hodenberg, ‘Expeditionen’. Transnational studies include Steemers, Selling; Ang, Watching Dallas.   2. Fickers and Johnson, ‘Transnational Television’, 1.   3. Fickers, ‘Nationale Traditionen’, 1, 19.  4. Chalaby, ‘Understanding’, 1; see Anderson, Imagined Communities; Drummond, Paterson and Willis, National Identity.

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  5. See the 2013 special issue of Critical Studies in Television 8(2); McCabe and Akass, TV’s Betty; Moran, TV Formats; Oren and Shahaf, Global Television.  6. Ferrari, ‘“National Mike”’; Bourdon, ‘Adaptations’, Weissmann, Television Drama.  7. Seigel, ‘Beyond Compare’, 63–64; Berger, ‘Comparative History’, 169–70; Werner and Zimmermann, ‘Vergleich’, 613–15.  8. See Arjun Appadurai’s diagnosis of a postnational media world since the 1980s: Modernity, 1–11.  9. See BBC Handbook, 1966, 38–39; 1967, 33–36; 1968, 41–43; 1969, 46–47; 1970, 44–46; 1973, 42–43. 10. BBC Handbook, 1968, 42; 1970, 45; Chief Assistant Sales TV Enterprises to Main Wilson, 2 October 1967, WAC, T12/1321/1. 11. Contracts of 17 August 1965 and 24 April 1967, WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight/1; note by J. Henderson, Assistant Head of Copyright, 14 January 1966, WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight/1; for West Pakistan and Nigeria, WAC, R Cont 20 Johnny Speight, 1970–74. 12. Memo by General Manager Television Enterprises to Head of Copyright, 7 February 1968, WAC, R Cont 18 Johnny Speight/1. 13. Correspondence between the WDR and ALS Management, 1972, WDR, 8574. 14. S. Twiston-Davies, Liaison Assistant Television Enterprises, to Main Wilson, 5 October 1966, WAC, T12/1321/1. 15. TV Guide, 3 September 1983, 34–35; Wilhoit and de Bock, Archie Bunker; Tate and Surlin, ‘Agreement’; Vidmar and Rokeach, ‘Bigotry’, 40. 16. IV/4, ‘Archie and the Kiss’; III/1, ‘Archie and the Editorial’. 17. The Austrian broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) enquired about the rights to the series and received three of Menge’s scripts, but did not follow up. G. Szyszkowitz to G. Witte, 4 January 1974; Märthesheimer to Szyszkowitz, 8 January 1974, both in WDR, 8577. 18. Rich, Warm Up, 1–2. 19. Norman Lear AATV interview, pt. 5; see also Miller, Something, 141. 20. Nancy Banks-Smith, Guardian, 9 July 1971, 8; All in the Family, I/1, ‘Meet the Bunkers’; Till Death Us Do Part, I/3, ‘A House with Love in It’, script in WAC, T12/1253/1. 21. Early, largely identical storylines include the silver wedding anniversary (Till Death Us Do Part, I/3; All in the Family, I/1; Ein Herz und eine Seele, I/7), the funeral (Till Death Us Do Part, III/4; All in the Family, II/1; Ein Herz und eine Seele, I/4), the blood donor (Till Death Us Do Part, III/2; All in the Family, I/4) and Stalin the spy (Till Death Us Do Part, IV/4; Ein Herz und eine Seele, I/1). 22. Report by CEO Bismarck, 29 May 1974, WDR, 12520, 5; see also Märthesheimer to Speight, 5 January 1972, WDR, 8574. 23. Märthesheimer to Speight’s agent Beryl Vertue, 7 April 1972; Märthesheimer to Hoffmann, 2 October 1973, both in WDR, 8574. 24. I/10, ‘Eine schwere Erkrankung’. 25. Steemers, Selling, xiii, 1–2, 109–11. 26. Miller, Something, 139–40, 150–56.

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27. Porridge (On the Rocks), Love Thy Neighbour and Man about the House (Three’s Company) were also exported to the United States. Guardian, 15 March 1975, 8; Newsweek, 7 May 2001, 44; Miller, Something, 157–61. 28. Steemers, Selling, 5–6; Feuer, Kerr and Vahimagi, ‘Introduction’, ix. 29. Sloan, ‘Television Light Entertainment’, BBC Lunchtime Lecture 8(2) (11 December 1969), BFI, 8–9. 30. Muir, ‘Comedy in Television’, BBC Lunchtime Lecture 5(3) (14 December 1966), BFI, 8–10, 17. 31. Speight, For Richer, 159–63. 32. Evening News, 9 September 1976. 33. Speight, For Richer, 172–76. Actor Warren Mitchell developed a better understanding of Australian culture and toured the country with one-man Alf shows, living there for part of each year. Times, 13 December 1982, 10; Duncan Wood to John Moore, 8 February 1973, WAC, T12/1475/1. 34. Speight, It Stands to Reason, 239; Speight, For Richer, 171. 35. Dennis Main Wilson interview (BFI), tape 1, side 2, transcript, 13. There is no record of such a visit in the WDR files. 36. Rohrbach, ‘Papier für den medienpolitischen Kongreß der SPD’, epd Kirche und Rundfunk 26, 4 April 1984, 19. 37. See Märthesheimer’s library receipt (for Stedman, Serials), WDR, 8577. He also read the BBC’s and Vidmar and Rokeach’s audience surveys. Märthesheimer to Lerg, 16 April 1974, WDR, 8578; BBC study, WDR, 8581. 38. Höfer, ‘Einleitung’, 8. 39. Rohrbach, ‘Das Subventions-TV’, epd Kirche und Rundfunk, 7 May 1977; Rohrbach, in Die Zeit, 23 May 1975, WDR, D1446. 40. Draft for New York Times article, WDR, HF1, 5. 41. Silj and Alvarado, East of Dallas, 201–2. 42. Guardian, 9 July 1971, 8; Times, 9 July 1971, 10; Daily Mirror and Daily Telegraph, quoted in Wright, ‘Criticism’, 67; see also Guardian, 23 December 1971, 8. 43. Guardian, 9 July 1971, 8. For much the same reasons, Speight’s feature film Till Death Us Do Part was screened in art houses (as Alf ’n’family) but never put on general release in the United States: ‘the Cockney accent is almost another language to American ears’. Washington Post, 17 March 1968; see Speight, For Richer, 142. 44. Till Death was shown on 9 and 23 January 1974 on the first ARD channel, with long introductory comments (WDR, 8581), and on 17 March 1974 on the third WDR channel, followed by a discussion with the head of the Cologne British Council (WDR, 8578). The third NDR channel screened an ‘Ekel-Olympiade’ [Bigot Olympics] with episodes from each version in summer 1974: Hans Brecht, NDR, to WDR, 30 April 1974, WDR, 8578. 45. Press release to first episode (I/1, ‘Das Hähnchen’) and opening comments for transmission on 15 January 1973, WDR, 8574. 46. Meckerecke report, 20 January 1975, WDR, 8581. 47. Wilhoit and de Bock, Archie Bunker, 3, 7–8; Tate and Surlin, ‘Agreement’. 48. In a front-page poll about racism in Britain: The Independent, 14 November 2004, 1. The Observer (24 March 1974, 15) called the British voter a cross ‘between Alf Garnett and Winston Churchill’.

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49. Guardian, 10 January 1974, 4; Daily Express, 9 January 1974; see also Sunday Times, 20 January 1974, 7. 50. Daily Mirror, 22 January 1974; title-page reprint in Hör zu! 6, 9 February 1974; see also Guardian, 20 August 1974, 14. 51. Daily Express, 9 January 1974. 52. Times, 9 July 1971, 10. A nominee for Nixon’s administration was also compared to Archie: Guardian, 11 December 1972, 10. 53. New York Times, 28 April 1968. 54. Washington Post, 17 March 1968; Los Angeles Times, 23 April 1968, 4. 55. Chicago Tribune, 17 February 1978, C4; see also Los Angeles Times, 4 January 1982, G7. 56. CBS Evening News, 23 April 1974, Vanderbilt TV news archive, no. 234019. 57. Washington Post, 30 July 1974, A6; Washington Post, 7 January 1974, A13; New York Times, 16 January 1974; see Time, 13 May 1974. 58. New York Times, 23 April 1974, 41. 59. L’Express, 1 April 1974, 68. 60. Quoted in Hamburger Morgenpost, 23 March 1974, and Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 22 March 1974. 61. Quoted in Tages-Anzeiger (Zurich), 26 April 1974. 62. Menge refuted these charges in a piece for the New York Times (23 April 1974, 41), and the transnational radio station Deutsche Welle responded to the Literaturnaja Gaseta with a commentary on Alfred aired in Russian, Polish, Czech and Slovak (S. Brandt to Rohrbach, 28 May 1974, WDR, 8581). 63. II/3, ‘Modell Tetzlaff’. 64. Hör zu! 9, 2 March 1974; see also TV Hören und Sehen 11, 16 March 1974, WDR, 8579. 65. Fernsehwoche 15, 13 April 1974, WDR, 8579. Der Spiegel took the same line (18 March 1974, 60–63). 66. ‘It has sometimes been too easy to blame the Americans. Many of the developments in European television have not been caused by American dominance, but by internal struggles between popular culture and high culture within the nation-states of Europe.’ Bondebjerg et al., ‘American Television’, 180–81; see also Silj and Alvarado, East of Dallas, 199–211. 67. See the similar case of the Italian quiz show Lascia o Raddoppia? (Ferrari, ‘“National Mike”’).

Conclusion Television’s Social Impact

The preceding chapters have traced the history of TV bigots and their audiences, considering parallels and differences between countries. The international comparison leads to a number of fundamental observations about the impact of these sitcoms, and television more generally, on social change in the long sixties. I will begin with the sitcom genre and from there move to broadcasting structures, audience characteristics and television’s impact on racism and the lifestyle revolution. To start with, situational comedy can stretch genre conventions and function as a showcase for cultural innovations. Sitcoms are neither genuinely ‘conservative’ nor ‘female’. The genre can be filled with different meanings and targeted to diverse audience segments. This finding contradicts media scholarship that brands family-based, domestically set sitcoms as an apolitical, affirmative genre masking social inequality and isolation, or exacerbating social tensions. While these judgments may ring true for many such programmes, others break through the ‘obsessive circularity’ of storylines and develop their characters over time.1 In addition, the target groups attracted entirely depend on producers’ strategies. Hence, in Britain and West Germany, the format under analysis here appealed most to men, while in the United States, women liked it most. Yet, to a certain extent the rules of the genre set limits to the way stories could be told, especially in highly professionalised production settings. All in the Family’s and Till Death Us Do Part’s producers indeed stretched the genre, but to a lesser extent than the inexperienced West Germans. Because the WDR team held on to artisan traditions, its Ekel Alfred could carry a more ideological message and exploited the possibilities for ratings success less fully. The West German producers switched to a slower-paced 45-minute format, introduced long-winded political discussions and elements of Brechtian epic theatre, changed actors midstream and made the bigot more despicable and the young couple more endearing. The result was less funny

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and would not have enticed audiences used to a steady sitcom diet. But even in the United States, where the market was saturated with situation comedies and TV production was more industrialised, the story editors occasionally broke the rules of the genre to drive home educational messages. Instalments such as the ones on Gloria or Edith being attacked by a rapist or Archie finding his house targeted by anti-Semites ended on a serious note, refusing to come full circle and return the Bunkers to their initial state.2 As these and other controversial episodes confirm, a commercialised setting does not prevent television from fostering social change. While the structural differences of the three broadcasting systems affected the production and scheduling of programmes, they were not linked to levels of censorship. The more commercialised the system was, the more industrialised production conditions were, and the more closely programme creators kept to genre patterns (most in the United States, moderately in Britain and least in West Germany). But the extent of commercialisation did not determine the degree to which programming was socially relevant. Surprisingly, in our case the profit-oriented U.S. channels were more responsive to changing social attitudes, and more ready to break taboos, than the public service–governed industries in Britain and the Federal Republic. This refutes those who argue that prime-time TV always commercialises the trends that it spreads.3 The degree of commercialisation affected how fully and quickly executives supported a show once it had proven a hit with mass audiences. Whereas CBS threw its weight behind Archie Bunker as soon as ratings soared, the BBC – guided by an educational mission but struggling with commercial competition – was constantly torn between exploiting and worrying about Alf Garnett’s mass appeal. The internal divisions led to the series being interrupted for four years. In West Germany, Alfred Tetzlaff fell victim to a system in which ratings were marginalised. In tandem with his success grew the concern about his following, resulting in early cancellation despite mass popularity. With publicly owned broadcasters, the fear that the TV bigot could accidentally foster racism led to strict limits on merchandising and repeats (in Germany up to the 1990s, in Britain even today). In the American marketplace, by contrast, it was largely down to the independent production companies to follow a socially responsible agenda. The networks were unconcerned about racism, and merchandising and syndication went ahead full steam. The extent to which Alf & Co. were censored varied little across the three national cases. Everywhere, attempts at censorship from above had only limited effect. Whether the BBC wanted to stifle ‘bloodies’, CBS ‘goddamns’ or the WDR ‘assholes’, it was all in vain. Remarkably, too, American advertisers had no influence over the content of a top-rated series. Not the extent of commercialisation but the personalities of writers, producers and CEOs turned out to be decisive in shaping the shows’ content. The strong

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will of Johnny Speight, Dennis Main Wilson, Norman Lear and the Märthesheimer-Menge duo helped them fend off the censors. But they could only succeed as long as the broadcaster’s top executives held the line against moral campaigners and internal critics. At the BBC, the liberal director general Hugh Carleton Greene sheltered the contentious comedy from moral panic until 1969. Things were different under Lord Hill’s chairmanship in the 1970s, when overall censorship increased. The same happened to the West German programme with the switch from the WDR’s feisty Klaus von Bismarck to the cautious Friedrich Wilhelm von Sell. Last, at CBS in 1975, the new network president Arthur Taylor demanded content changes to All in the Family, since as a moral conservative and father of three young girls, he supported the ‘family viewing time’ campaign against sex and violence.4 While he could not censor the show, he could push it to a post-9.00 P.M. slot and therefore curb its success in the long term. In all three cases, personalities more than broadcasting structures determined the outcome. With such controversial content, during the era of limited choice, television entertainment reached into all corners of society and ignited discussion even among groups that traditionally had been slow to embrace social change. In the sixties, TV was the unchallenged leading medium and a pillar of sociability. Its frames penetrated other media, private lives, peer communication and politics. Almost all households owned a TV set, the daily exposure was two to five hours, and the choice of channels and programmes was very limited. These conditions enabled top-rated series to reach the largest audiences ever, peaking over comparatively long periods of one to five years. Sitcoms were massively popular across all social strata and were often watched together with family and friends. Alf, Archie and Alfred connected extremely well with groups who, before the age of television, had been harder to get through to. Everywhere, working-class, unskilled, uneducated and low-earning viewers were the show’s biggest fans. Villagers, housewives and the elderly also watched it regularly and avidly (although these groups could be a bit less keen than young urbanites, particularly in Britain). The format worked for all generations and both genders, with females embracing it most in the United States and males in Britain and West Germany. It was also a huge success with teenagers and children, even when showing after 9.00 P.M. The ‘relevant’ sitcoms stimulated discussion about unresolved issues in private and public life, offering lighthearted ways to address personal and political conflicts. One-third of British viewers chatted about Alf ‘often’, ‘virtually all the rest’ occasionally. About half of West German viewers engaged in substantial debate about Alfred. Though women, the young and workers were the most eager to talk about the show, even the unskilled, the elderly and those who disliked the series frequently discussed it.

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During its peak, many tuned in just ‘to be able to join the conversation’. The programmes functioned as a ‘contact bridge’ linking people ‘of different opinions’.5 In the United States, virtually everyone knew the sitcom. Audiences appropriated characters, catchphrases, malapropisms, mannerisms and symbols such as Archie’s chair in manifold ways for their own storytelling. The programmes’ impact was reinforced not only by peer discussion, but also by other media outlets. Newspapers, magazines, other television shows and opinion polling interpreted the sitcom’s meaning. Media mirroring influenced how often and what viewers thought of the series, and could over time detach itself partly or wholly from the broadcast content. Thus, the coverage of the American series almost exclusively focussed on race and neglected the other social issues that its main appeal was based on. The rich media coverage also contributed to the ability of audiences to see through the satire, because it spelled out the antiprejudicial intent of producers and often contrasted the lead character with the actor behind it. Even beyond media mirroring, our sources indicate that the average viewer was smarter than assumed by contemporaries within and without the TV industry. Audiences in the 1960s and 1970s were more active, more mediasavvy and more capable of informed choice and understanding satire than observers thought possible. Viewers did not fall for scheduling ploys all too easily. To tune into a popular broadcast, Britons would watch the clock, abandon noncoterminous counterprogramming and get up from the sofa to switch channels. West Germans consciously avoided didactic fare and stayed up beyond bedtime for a laugh. Both Americans and Britons would keep watching a familiar show in an inconvenient slot for about one year. Moreover, audiences everywhere could perfectly well detect satire, although some chose to apply resistant readings to ironic, and thus by nature ambiguous, fare. Even the most highly prejudiced West German viewers grasped that ‘disgusting Alfred’ was a negative role model. So did the overwhelming majority of Archie’s American (and Dutch) viewers, including children and the lesser educated. A large majority of British viewers interpreted Alf as ‘a harmless buffoon’, too.6 Audiences were not only chronically underestimated but generally headstrong and idiosyncratic. Viewers refused to comply where they smelled manipulative intent. So they rejected the antiracist veneer of the British Alf and the New Left ideology informing the German Alfred. While audiences sought entertainment and resented all-out didacticism, they readily embraced shows combining an unobtrusive treatment of politically and socially relevant issues with fun and diversion. In order to get through to their viewers, American producers diluted social messages as much as possible and packed them in thick layers of entertainment. That television ran into difficulties whenever it privileged didacticism over amusement is unsurprising, given

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what we know about the limited appeal of overtly propagandistic programming in other historic settings.7 The West German case in particular reveals that audience savvy was not dependent on previous experience with the genre. Alfred’s audience was new to sitcom as such. German viewers stunned broadcasters by making Ein Herz und eine Seele into a blockbuster despite erratic schedules and zero promotion. They freed it from the ghetto of the third channel, rechristened the show and persisted in a depoliticised interpretation of its content. Audiences were also active in the sense that they could directly impact programmes. Viewers’ letters to producers and the press nudged the female characters on the American and West German series in the direction of feminism. Organised protest campaigns by moral entrepreneurs and educated elites were less successful, not least because a good number of dissenting viewers’ voices were heard in the (British and West German) press. Antitelevision campaigners achieved more in the American setting, but they could not change the comedy’s content, only its scheduling. The public battles about the sitcoms under analysis reveal that primetime TV played an internationally similar role in negotiations about social change. TV was a catalyst, not a pioneer. It picked up new norms from pockets of society and mainstreamed them as a component of mass entertainment. Typically, television aimed its criticism at values that had already been softened up. The format’s negative role model embodied the fading consensus of the past: Alf personified Britons clinging to the norms and hierarchies of the Victorian era and the British empire. Archie belonged to a bygone era, as emphasised in the show’s theme tune, ‘Those Were the Days’, and the sepia colour scheme. Likewise, Alfred was the early Federal Republic incarnate, as it was perceived by the 68er generation: stiflingly authoritarian and anticommunist, hostile to all things sexual and post- and protofascist at the same time. Alf & Co. were so appealing because they played with contested new values that had already been experimented with in particular groups or at the fringes of society. When the Garnetts spouted ‘bloodies’ and admitted to having had sex before marriage, or when Alf was ridiculed for his prudishness, television kept to the trail that others – youth, soldiers, the lower classes – had been blazing. When the Bunkers argued about frustrated housewives, childbirth techniques, breast cancer and same-sex couples, activist groups had been there beforehand. The Tetzlaffs, too, followed the lead of sixties protesters in the way they satirically tackled authoritarian education, anticommunism, subordinate wives and sexual inhibitions. The antiracist thrust of these sitcoms was similarly borrowed from vanguards outside the television industry. In the United States, the civil rights movement preached equality long before Mike Stivic did. In the Federal Republic, 68er alternative communities had embraced foreign migrants as revolutionary allies years

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before Alfred came along. In 1960s Britain, Labour politicians had already spoken up against discrimination, and the 1965 Race Relations Act was passed well before the start of Till Death Us Do Part. Everywhere, ‘relevant’ TV comedy depended on issues prepared by vanguard groups. The American producers alone realised that this dependence could be turned into a conscious strategy to mine the creative potential of advocacy groups. To dig up the grassroots potential, the production firm Tandem hired an ‘issues consultant’ who was well-connected to feminist and homosexual groups and liaised between activists and scriptwriters. The aim was to capitalise on the pioneers without letting them take over, which would have spoiled the sitcom’s mass appeal. In this way, prime-time television sanitised, deradicalised and deideologised the sixties cultural revolution. In a period of rapid value change, these blockbusters succeeded because they depicted both the new values of the lifestyle revolution and the backlash. The format criticised its bigoted hero but allowed him to stay loveable. His young counterparts were not entirely endearing, with the son-in-law a freeloader and banner waver and the daughter a consumerist, immature girl child.8 The sitcoms consistently showcased new values but watered them down to make them palatable to the masses. For example, the programmes deconstructed patriarchal hierarchies and traditional masculinity but reaffirmed marriage. They encouraged female emancipation and partnership but shunned radical feminism. They promoted the liberation of sexuality but preferably within the bounds of marriage and heterosexuality. There was no airtime for the radical fringes and overextensions of sixties cultural change such as dropouts, drug abuse, promiscuity or radicals propagating political violence. All three series kept away from the most highly charged topic of the feminist movement, abortion. And only the American version (ironically produced in the most commercialised setting) dared to deal with rape and gender identity, the liberation of female bodies and female sexuality. In doing so, it picked up cues from the women’s and gay movements while stripping them of radicalism. The antirape and pro-homosexual messages were carefully edited so they would not question the dominance of heterosexuality and matrimony. Moreover, if the producers subscribed to a particular ideology, it was toned down and lost in transmission. In West Germany, Alfred was to embody Marxism’s alienated factory worker and the protofascist authoritarian personality of Theodor Adorno and Wilhelm Reich, with his sexually repressive, bourgeois upbringing and anal fixation. But viewers commonly ignored these ideas, embracing the vulgarity and comedic elements of the show instead. In regard to racial conflict, too, television chose a middle-of-the-road, deradicalised stance. It criticised racial prejudice but never strayed from a

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white perspective. It kept away from anything deemed too hot to handle, such as anti-Semitism in West Germany and black rage in the United States. Its liberal, pro-integrationist message impressed the point that racial harmony and equality could be achieved peacefully and would benefit all. The message unsurprisingly pleased moderate viewers most; among African Americans, radicals liked the show less than moderates. The findings from the three national contexts suggest that TV comedy can combat racism, but only if certain conditions are met. While it can accelerate learning processes in the majority of viewers, it will reinforce attitudes in a small group of bigots. There is no categorical ‘Archie Bunker effect’, in which antiprejudicial programmes backfire and viewers identify with negative role models on television. Strongly prejudiced viewers will always applaud a TV bigot. But in the sixties, this only held for a small minority in the United States and West Germany: no more than 15 percent, and probably closer to 5 per cent. The largest audience group were those who were neither racists nor entirely tolerant, somewhat uncertain of their attitudes and willing to adapt to the challenges of a multiethnic society to an extent. Contemporaries often misjudged Archie’s and Alfred’s impact, as the factual and perceived value consensus diverged strongly. Americans and West Germans tended to overestimate the prevalence of racism in the 1970s. Hence, they often argued against these sitcoms from an elitist perspective: while the satire was clear to the enlightened, it would be missed by ordinary viewers. The British case differed clearly, with Till Death becoming a boomerang for racial relations. The international comparison tells us why. Three preconditions bear upon the success of antiprejudicial comedy. Such projects are more likely to work (1) the more cleanly a show’s text breaks with racism, (2) the higher the exposure to the broadcasts is, and the more other media engage in mirroring them, and (3) the more audiences have been exposed to personal interracial contact and previous public debates challenging racism. These requirements were met by All in the Family and Ein Herz und eine Seele, and also by two other antiprejudicial blockbusters of the 1970s, Roots and Holocaust. But Till Death took an ambiguous stance on racism, the wider media environment had a strong racial bias and audiences had had little contact with immigrants – which is why the show backfired. Societies in the sixties saw contentious debates not only on racial but also on religious, sexual and gender issues. Television was a major force in the thrust of sixties value change. Beyond reinforcing attitudes, it accelerated the erosion of value standards. A surge of value change swept the Western industrialised world from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. Trends that had been in the making for decades – such as female emancipation, sexual liberation and a move away from authoritarian parenting styles – were

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propelled to their breaking point in the space of a few years. While scholars have amassed ample evidence for the speed and scope of change, the factors driving it remain unclear. Those proposed most often are affluence and new mass media, particularly television. Likewise, researchers investigating the spread of the sexual revolution frequently contend that media coverage of scandals promoted value change.9 This study provides evidence for TV’s crucial role in speeding up the process. It also puts forward a (necessarily hypothetical) model to explain the ways in which television entertainment impacted on social change. It suggests that repetitive programmes with real-life settings and high standing impacted on a transitional majority of viewers by setting agendas, promoting the erosion of institutionalised values and accelerating ongoing learning processes. The three cases examined here capture the pervasive agenda-setting effects of prime-time blockbusters in the era of limited choice. There were some direct, short-term effects on behaviour (a rare occurrence for audience research), mainly in regard to public health issues: when Archie Bunker donated blood, donations increased across the country, and when Edith Bunker feared breast cancer, more women called for information about cancer. It also appears that Alfred Tetzlaff’s vicious rants unintentionally exacerbated Willy Brandt’s leadership crisis during April and May 1974. But such unmitigated effects on behaviour and attitudes are rare, and they pale in comparison to television’s main agenda-setting function: it influences which issues people think about and talk about. Instead of causing direct attitude change, it encourages viewers to take up contentious topics, discuss them with peers and eventually develop an opinion. This study has gathered a wide array of evidence for the amount of debate incited by the three series in private and in public, and for the way televised frames were woven into everyday language, private negotiations and public controversies. The sitcoms discussed were only able to be such effective agenda setters because (1) exposure to them was extraordinarily high, (2) as series, they sent frequently repeated messages embedded in a stable formula and (3) their standing was so strong that their messages were widely disseminated by other media outlets. As an ‘elite’ medium, the show tended to set the agenda for other media.10 During the cultural revolution of the sixties, television’s sway was particularly strong. It was the uncontested leading medium, levels of exposure to top-rated broadcasts were at all-time highs, and its signal speed and geographical and social reach were historically unprecedented. But television also proved useful to countless viewers who sought orientation during a time of uncertain values. The sitcoms’ audiences typically split in three ways: a small traditionalist faction, a small progressive faction and a large majority in between. This transitional majority had

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already made contact with new norms but struggled to open up to them fully. The size of the middling majority varied in respect to country, timing and values in question, but figured regularly between 60 and 80 per cent of American, British and West German viewers – in respect to sexual, gender and religious values as well as racial attitudes. With new attitudes having gained a foothold but not yet fully fixed, television could weigh in by reassuring the half-convinced and fostering learning processes that had already begun. Alf & Co. contributed to the acceptance of a freer language, a liberalised heterosexuality and less prescriptive gender roles in all three countries. The series also furthered ongoing learning processes in a majority of viewers in regard to racial relations in the United States and guest workers in West Germany. Remarkably, though, the smaller camps of those who fully backed either the patriarch or his son-in-law could not be persuaded. Television’s main impact was on the transitional majority, and it was precisely this group that was neglected by contemporary audience research. This study argues against the dogma that mass media can never change attitudes but only reinforce existing opinions and patterns of perception.11 While we know that solitary media messages cannot change minds – particularly not for those with firmly entrenched attitudes – and that audiences are active recipients, to date there has been little effort to investigate how transitional viewers put repeated television messages to creative use in shaping attitudes over the long term. Although reception is a highly individual process, and peer contact influences attitude formation much more strongly than the mass media, there are distinct ways in which TV can foster value change in fence-sitting audiences. The three sitcoms analysed here sent frequently repeated messages. They invited identification with a family setting whose recognition value was unusually strong. They instigated discussion about sensitive topics and provided a lighthearted way to criticise the defenders of tradition. Aiming at norms that were already under pressure, entertainment television became a source of the erosion of stable values and standards in the transitional majority.12 Broadcasting accelerated the decline of church morals, patriarchal authority, highbrow culture and generational hierarchies by playing with calculated taboo breaking. This strategy of moderate scandalising had considerable mass appeal and therefore worked in public service–governed and (even better) in commercialised settings. Audiences enjoyed the sitcoms’ critique of traditional, institutionalised value standards and welcomed TV as a nonauthoritarian source of the selffashioning of identities. The mid-1960s to late 1970s were a defined period in which the advocates of individualism and liberalisation temporarily managed to dominate public debates. From the late 1970s onwards, they faced a growing backlash. Whereas in British and West German culture the liberals largely prevailed,

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in the United States they beat a partial retreat. In prime time, the dominance of Norman Lear’s comedy formats receded.13 The era of limited choice and the ‘family viewing time’ was over, too. Value change was neither linear nor inevitable, and television was not by definition at its service. But in the historically specific constellation of the sixties, TV came to be one of the major forces behind the lifestyle revolution. It was television’s historical moment.

Notes   1. Bignell and Lacey, ‘Introduction’, 12–13; see also introduction.   2. VIII/3, ‘Edith’s 50th Birthday’; III/23, ‘Gloria the Victim’; III/20, ‘Archie Is Branded’.   3. Cf. Levine, Wallowing, 4–7, 253–58.   4. Taylor did so despite misgivings at CBS, and was fired when the family viewing policy failed. New York Times, 7 December 1975, 169; Cowan, See No Evil, chap. 4; Ferguson, ‘Memorandum Opinion’; Smith, In All His Glory, 497–98.   5. IFEP survey, 5.   6. The problem with Alf was not that the satirical intent was misunderstood; it was rather that the scripts left his prejudices unanswered and invited ambiguous readings. BBC study, WAC, R9/757/1, 23.   7. Nazi radio propaganda also had to prioritise entertainment. Ross, Making, chaps 9–11.   8. In the American show, both matured over time.   9. Herzog, ‘Sexuality’, 155–58, 167. 10. See Sherry, ‘Media Saturation’, 211–13, 217. 11. See Gauntlett, Moving Experiences, chaps 5, 9; Schenk, Medienwirkungsforschung. 12. The sociological term for value erosion is ‘anomie’. Thome and Birkel, Sozialer Wandel, 36–38, chap. 7. 13. To this day, All in the Family attracts a large American viewership, but most readings follow present-day political divisions and misunderstand the sixties as a civil war between today’s right and left. See Morgan, What Really Happened, 4–5; discussion threads on current politics in online fan forums www. sitcomsonline.com/ and http://forum.allinthefamilysit.com/.

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Index

‘1945ers’, 60-61 ‘1968ers’, 27, 57-58, 60, 188, 195-96, 200, 205, 207, 250-53, 289 A Abarbanell, Gail, 164 ABC (American Broadcasting Company), 44-45, 53, 85-87, 89, 91, 158, 165-66, 175n108, 180n226, 244 abortion, 5, 53, 118, 123-24, 157, 168, 180n242, 180n249, 190-91, 199-200, 214n82, 290 actors, 42, 64 fees of, 41, 43-44, 51-52, 62, 73n210 non-white, 25-26, 91, 223-25, 236, 245-46 Adam, Kenneth, 78, 115, 119 Adorno, Theodor W., 57, 195, 207, 210, 251, 290 advertising, 9, 32, 41, 44, 52-53, 60, 78, 84, 86, 92, 93, 105n143, 109, 147, 168, 227, 260, 277, 286 cost of, 47, 53, 70n106, 71n150, 103n85, 109 targeted, 45, 89, 209, 269n227 advocacy groups, 144-46, 164, 168, 170, 209, 211, 244, 290 affirmative action, 137 affluence, 5-16, 19, 25, 108, 127, 162, 292 Africa, 28-29, 225, 228, 250, 275 African Americans, 7, 22-23, 25-26, 50, 90-91, 219, 232-37, 242-45, 247-48, 269n227. See also viewers Afro-Caribbeans, 219, 225, 264n74, 265n102, 265n106 ageing, 137, 145-46

agenda setting, 8, 13-14, 109, 113-14, 118, 122, 125, 136-37, 144, 146, 170, 200, 211, 292 Agnew, Spiro, 85, 234 alcohol, 35, 41, 44, 110, 146, 153 ‘Alf Garnett vote’, 221, 232, 280, 283n48 Alexander, Peter, 94 American Cancer Society, 145-46 American dream, 10, 22, 210 Americanisation. See Westernisation American Jewish Congress, 239, 243 American Society for Psychoprophylaxis in Obstetrics, 145 Amory, Cleveland, 86 Amos’n’Andy, 236 Anderson, Benedict, 274 anticommunism, 26-29, 165, 200, 204-5, 207-8, 253, 257, 289 Anti-Defamation League, 239, 243-44 anti-German sentiment, 39, 47 antiprejudicial comedy. See racism anti-Semitism, 14, 20-21, 26, 28, 60, 225, 232-35, 249-54, 258-59, 261, 265n112, 265n130, 271n283, 273n334, 280, 286, 291 anti-television movement, 157, 168-69, 289. See also Clean Up TV campaign ‘Archie Bunker chair’, 137-38, 142-43, 172n41, 288 ‘Archie Bunker effect’, 15, 241, 259-60 Archie Bunker’s Place, 15n11, 25 ARD (broadcaster), 62, 206, 259 committees and councils, 56, 186-88, 191-92, 204-5, 210, 204-5, 210, 252, 256-57 educational mission of, 54-55, 93 first channel of, 2-3, 55-56, 93, 95

320

Arthur, Beatrice, 149 atheism, 20, 38, 126, 137, 168-69, 181n255 Atlanta, 88, 90, 156 Attenborough, David, 35, 126 audience 12, 98, 275. See also viewers audience research, 11-13, 77, 82, 148, 238-39, 293 at BBC, 35, 78-80, 82-84, 112-13, 227-30, 263n55 at CBS, 45, 91, 170, 238, 240-41, 268n182 on minorities, 224, 226-27, 230-31, 238, 243-45, 257, 269n227 at WDR, 97, 182, 186, 253 audio recordings, 84, 106n181, 120, 138 Australia, 84, 275, 278, 283n33 Austria, 258, 271, 282n17 authoritarianism, 54, 60-61, 108, 117-18, 202, 204, 256, 289 parental, 112-13, 141, 194-96, 208, 212, 215n115, 240, 241, 251, 256, 291 authoritarian personality, 188, 195-200, 207-8, 248, 251-52, 256, 290 awards, 47, 86, 109, 129n6, 174n78, 183, 244. See also Emmy Awards B bad language. See vulgarity Bahr, Egon, 201 Baptiste, Thomas, 224 Barry, Angela, 224 Barsig, Fritz, 205 BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 2, 4, 19, 22, 32-44, 65, 117, 125, 261, 279 boards and council, 35-37, 82, 119, 126-28, 131n79, 227, 230, 264n74 chairman, 37, 115, 126 channels, 33, 78, 100n15, 225 departments of, 38, 43, 102n63, 275 director general, 32, 36, 66n5, 115 (see also Greene, Hugh) responding to competition, 32-33, 78, 116, 286 senior management of, 35, 66n21, 119, 225, 276-77 visitors to, 57, 278, 283n35 See also Light Entertainment Group bedtime, 81-82, 95, 119, 287-88 Belton, Derek, 110 Berlin, 93-94, 98, 183, 192, 199, 205 Berlin ensemble, 61

Index

Beulah, 236 Bible, 21, 125, 167-68 bigotry, 2-3, 9, 15, 19, 24, 30n35, 60, 88, 113, 126, 138-39, 141, 143, 156, 209, 212, 223-27, 233, 236-40, 243, 245-50, 255, 258, 260-61, 267nn170-171, 273n331, 278 as loveable, 225, 233-35, 246, 253, 277, 290 See also racism, viewers Bismarck, Klaus von, 64, 201-2, 205, 257, 272n321, 287 Black Panthers, 235, 244 Black, Peter, 36 black power movement, 219, 231, 236, 244-45, 248, 261, 291 Blair, Tony, 39, 130n30 blasphemy, 21, 117, 126 Bloch, Ernst, 57-58 blockbusters, 3, 13, 75-76, 289 Blyton, Enid, 35 Bochum, 7, 27, 55, 57, 59, 72n164, 199, 250 body, female 4, 121, 198, 200, 209, 290. See also abortion, breast cancer, breastfeeding, menopause, menstruation, pregnancy body, male, 137, 158-60, 177n170, 187, 209, 252. See also castration, impotence, vasectomy Bogart, Paul, 51 Booth, Anthony (Tony), 39, 41-43, 67n43, 68n64, 109, 130n30, 226 Bourne, Steven, 223, 231 Brandt, Willy, 28-29, 56-57, 183-84, 190, 201-5, 208, 211, 212n19, 213n73, 278 breast cancer, 4, 137, 144-46, 159, 198, 210, 233, 289, 292 breastfeeding, 121, 161 Brecht, Bertolt, 61 Bridget Loves Bernie, 244 Briggs ballot initiative, 166-67 Brigham, John, 100n13, 240 British empire, 7, 19, 220, 225, 260, 276-77, 289 broadcasting systems, 9, 14, 33, 54-55, 58-59, 65, 66n5, 93, 293 American, 14, 85 (see also networks) British, 14, 32-37, 78 West German, 14, 54-56, 93, 182 Brown, Charlotte, 147 Brownmiller, Susan, 163 Bryant, Anita, 166

Index

Buren, Abigail von (‘Dear Abby’), 137, 171n4 Butler, Joyce, 111 C California, 47, 136, 138, 147, 157, 160, 164, 166, 168, 178n198 Callaghan, James, 118 Campaign for Homosexual Equality, 123 Camp David agreement, 137 Canadians, Canada, 88, 90, 238-39, 276, 280 Canaris, Volker, 56 cancellation of programmes, 22, 40, 44, 61, 64, 81, 100, 103n91, 125, 133n125, 166, 196, 205-6, 224, 235, 244, 257, 261, 263n38, 279, 286 carnival, 96-97, 186 Carroll, Diahann, 236 Carter, Jimmy, 137 Carter, Virginia, 144-47, 153, 155, 163, 166, 176n121 cartoons, 91, 109, 129n5, 222-23 casting, 40, 226, 236 castration, 197-99 catalyst, television as, 2, 117, 164, 170, 199, 207, 211, 289 catchphrases, 1, 9, 15n2, 50, 61, 83, 110-11, 117, 124, 130n30, 138-39, 141-42, 170, 186, 190, 288 Catholicism, 37, 165, 234, 244 CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), 2, 17n54, 44-48, 52-53, 65, 69n89, 86-87, 89-92, 168-69, 244, 261, 266n137, 280, 286-87, 294n4 affiliates of, 45-46, 89, 168 Department of Program Practices, 46, 160-62, 237 research department, 45, 91, 238-39 censorship, 9, 38, 45-46, 64, 84, 109, 115-19, 122, 125-28, 134n176, 157, 159-62, 165, 168-69, 177n169, 178n194, 191, 206, 231, 237, 261, 275-76, 286 self-censorship, 9, 161, 168-69, 202, 237 See also cancellation of programmes, racism chastity, 118, 121, 196 Chicago, 88, 90, 156, 234-35, 280 Chicanos. See Hispanic Americans children and teenagers, 111, 115, 117, 122, 140, 143, 231. See also viewers Chinese Americans, 26, 232 Christchurch (Dorset), 111, 119

321

Christianity. See religion Christmas, 21, 134n176, 169 churches, clergy, 5, 36, 56, 112, 118-19, 125-26, 153, 166, 168-69, 176n124, 186, 198, 220, 293 Churchill, Winston, 20 Church of God, 169 civil rights movement, 7, 22, 29, 157, 234, 245, 289 Civil Rights, U.S. Commission on, 146, 150-51 Clean Up TV campaign (or NVALA), 3, 36-37, 112, 117, 128, 131n79, 227 clothing, sitcom-themed, 1, 156, 242, 244 Coalition for Better Television, 168 cockney dialect, 2, 19-20, 38-40, 110, 114-15, 283n43 codetermination laws, 187, 201, 203, 217n161 Cohen, Oscar, 243 Cohn-Bendit, Daniel, 112 Cold War. See East-West conflict Cologne, 63, 186, 189, 203, 257, 283n44 colonies. See British empire colour scheme of series, 24-25 colour television, 22, 33, 62, 66n2 Comedy Playhouse, 34 commercial television. See advertising, ITV, networks Communist Party, 38 concentration camps, 60, 256 Conservatives (Tories), 19, 21, 36, 83, 102n49, 116, 119, 126, 220-21 (CDU/CSU), 56, 64, 184, 201-6, 217n171, 253, 280 consumerism, 20, 27, 58, 108, 127, 190 contraception, 118, 121, 126, 157, 160-62, 197, 209, 218n198, 225. See also vasectomy Cordle, John, 119 Coronation Street, 32, 34, 78, 80-83, 101n22 Cosby, Bill, 236 cosmetics, 27, 149, 190, 199 costumes, 49, 24-25, 30n24, 49, 52, 148-49, 256 Cotton, Bill, 34, 44, 78, 126 ‘counterprogramming’, 53, 76, 81, 86-88, 106n163, 288

322

court cases, 41, 121, 128, 136, 138, 157, 159, 162, 174n83, 175n108, 178n198, 197, 257 crime series, 59, 81, 94, 105n156 cultural revolution. See sixties cultural revolution Curran, Charles, 127, 230 Curry and Chips, 15n11, 41, 224 D Dann, Mike, 45 Davenport, Bill, 151-52 Davis, Sammy, Jr., 86, 236-37 Derman, Lou, 151-52 Deiter, Newt, 165-66, 180n227 Democratic Party, 242 Deutscher Lyzeum-Club, 63 directors, 25, 38, 40, 46-52, 57, 59, 61-62, 64, 174n83, 211, 236-37, 243, 251, 276 divorce, 5, 118, 121, 123-24, 137, 147, 153, 155, 157, 176n136, 190-92, 202, 207, 209 doctors. See medicine documentaries, 81, 95, 105n162, 117, 196, 225, 227, 229, 272n324, 281 Dow, Bonnie J., 154 draft dodging, 22-23, 27, 137 Dregger, Alfred, 204, 253 drugs, 117, 137, 146-47, 165, 196, 210, 233, 290 Dutschke, Rudi, 57, 207 Dylan, Bob, 27 E East End, 7, 19, 38 Eastern Policy (Ostpolitik), 201, 205 East Germany, 27-28, 93, 97, 183, 201, 204, 217n183, 251 East-West conflict, 165, 200-201, 204, 216n154 Ebony, 137, 244-45, 269n230 Eccles, Joseph, 139 Edith (sitcom character), 2, 22, 25, 138-43, 145-161, 163, 167, 268n196, 286, 292 ‘Edith the Good’, 153-54, 176n124 education, 25, 82, 88-89, 97, 114, 192 Ehmke, Horst, 201, 217n177, 253 El-Droubie, Mr, 230 election campaigns, 8, 204, 206, 220, 242, 268n199

Index

Ellis, John, 15n8, 75, 100n1 Else (sitcom character), 2, 19-21, 27-29, 39, 84, 110-11, 122-24, 189-92, 197-99, 224 Emmy Awards, 47, 86, 158, 167 emotions, 6, 11,76, 163, 170, 175n108, 187, 196, 227, 235, 247, 251, 255, 258-59 epic theatre, 61, 285 Epstein, Benjamin R., 243 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 147, 154, 166 era of limited choice, 1, 3, 12, 15n8, 75-76, 100n1, 248, 287, 292, 294 Ervin, Sam J., 137 evangelism, 129n1, 166, 168-69 Evans, Mike, 236 Evening News, 82, 124 expellees. See refugees F Falwell, Jerry, 166, 168-69 family photographs, 142, 210 family series, 4, 8, 54, 61 ‘family viewing time’, 3, 81, 87, 115, 119, 138, 157, 161-62, 168, 178n198, 237, 287, 294, 294n4 fans and fan websites, 13, 15n10, 97-98, 106n183, 110-11, 124, 129n2, 138, 141-43, 149, 163, 167, 187, 193-94, 202, 204, 208, 243-44, 247, 258, 260, 279, 287, 294n13 fascism, 54, 199, 207, 248, 251-54, 256-57, 272n321, 280, 289. See also Nazism Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, 72n173, 73n189 Father Knows Best, 44, 170 fathers, grandfathers, 110, 140-42, 145, 184, 240, 268n203 FBI, 232 FCC (Federal Communications Commission), 85, 136, 150, 162, 175n108, 178n198 Fechner, Frau (sitcom character), 190, 197 Feddersen, Helga, 215n89 female employment, 133n146, 147, 149-53, 176n121, 192 feminism, 10, 111, 138, 169-170, 207, 290-91 liberal versus radical, 152-55, 170, 209-10, 290 opponents of, 122-24, 223, 241 Feminist Alliance Against Rape, 163

Index

feminist movement, 5, 22, 124, 133n145, 144, 147-55, 157, 209, 218n202, 290 on television, 22, 24, 123-24, 147-55, 175n108, 190-93, 289 See also Equal Rights Amendment, NOW fertility, 13, 137 Field, Monica, 126 firemen, 42, 63 Firestone, Shulamith, 124 Fischer, Hans-Hermann, 194 Fiske, John, 11 football, 20-21, 43, 87, 110-11 framing, 8-9, 108-12, 139, 142, 210, 221, 287-88, 292 France, 11, 38, 251, 280 Friedan, Betty, 124, 147 G Galton, Ray, 43 game shows, 32, 81, 94, 105n156 Gaulle, Charles de, 21 Gay Media Task Force, 165-66 gay movement, 5, 122, 132n123, 157, 165-66, 199, 290 Geller, Uri, 251 generational conflict, 2, 20, 24, 27, 29, 40, 112-13, 120, 124, 136, 138, 150, 193, 208, 211-12, 218n203, 223, 293 genre. See sitcom German Democratic Republic. See East Germany German News Service, 57 Germany, division of, 26, 93, 97-98, 204-5. See also East-West conflict girl of the sixties, 27, 160-61, 190-91 Glenn, Val, 111 global formats, 14, 274-76, 281. See also localisation Gloria (sitcom character), 2, 15n11, 24-26, 48, 51, 138-40, 145-51, 153-61, 168-69, 176n136, 240, 286 Goebbels, Joseph, 203, 256 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 204 Good Times, 15n11, 70n115, 145-46, 235, 244 Gong, 183, 257 Grass, Günter, 57 Gray Panthers, 146 Greeks, Greece, 29, 165, 249

323

Greene, Hugh Carleton, 32-33, 37-39, 66n2, 82, 115-16, 120, 126, 128, 131n79, 226, 287 Greer, Germaine, 133n144, 158 Griffiths, Peter, 220 guest workers, 7, 27, 29, 57, 60, 206, 248-51, 253-58, 271n296, 289, 293 Guillaume, Günter, 201, 203 Gunter, Ray, 221 H Haas, Anneliese de, 73n195, 183, 212n12 hair, long, 19, 27, 60, 112, 122, 140, 194-95, 208, 224, 278 Haley, Jack, 47 Hall, Stuart, 11, 225 Hartmann, Paul G., 229 heart transplants, 26, 116 Heath, Edward, 35, 116 Heffer, Eric, 221 Hill, Lord Charles of Luton, 37, 125-26, 287 hippies, 22, 24, 159, 199, 241 Hispanic Americans, 91, 99, 169, 232, 237-38 Hitler, Adolf, 125, 203, 252, 254-56, 278, 280 HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), 13, 122 Hobson, Laura Z., 234-35, 237, 244, 246, 265n130 Höcherl, Hermann, 258 Ho Chi Minh, 57 Höfer, Werner, 58, 64, 186-87, 205, 251-53, 271n276, 279 Hollywood, 49, 145, 169 Holocaust. See Nazi crimes Holocaust, 72n173, 258-59, 261, 291 homosexuality, 4-5, 22, 118, 121-23, 199, 290 on television, 24, 137,166-67, 170, 191, 197-98, 209-11, 218n199, 251, 277, 289 See also lesbianism, gay movement, transvestites Horkheimer, Max, 57 Horn, Alan, 53 Hör zu!, 94, 183, 186, 191, 257, 281 Hot’L Baltimore, 166 Howe, Darcus, 231 Howerd, Frankie, 37, 69n82 Hoover, Herbert, 24 housewives, 76, 78, 83, 99, 124, 147-56, 191-93, 289. See also viewers housework, 123-24, 151-54, 189-90

324

humour, 61, 79, 123, 141, 163, 169, 178n194, 234 frequency of, 41, 50, 265n120 slapstick, 10, 186, 200, 206 targeting minorities, 10, 51, 122, 140, 142, 163, 224, 227-28, 231, 233, 237, 245 (see also racial abuse) See also vulgarity Husband, Charles, 229 Hutchinson, Enid, 225 I identities, 9, 12, 275, 293 IFEP (Institut für empirische Psychologie), 186, 192-96, 202-4, 254-55 illegitimacy, 118, 120, 202 immigration laws, 219-21, 228, 230, 250 immigrants, 7, 19, 21, 22, 33, 219-21, 228-32, 249-50 See also guest workers impotence, 4, 137, 158, 160, 197-200 Independent Television Authority (ITA), 32 Indians, India, 225, 230 Industriegewerkschaft Metall, 57 infratam, infratest. See ratings Inglehart, Ronald, 6 In Sickness and in Health, 15n11, 84, 133n125, 263n41 Institute of Human Relations, 138 Intendanten, 56. See also Bismarck, Klaus von interracial contact, 137, 230, 236-37, 266nn148-49 Irish, Ireland, 21, 37, 220, 224-25, 229, 232 Italians, Italy, 26, 29, 244, 249-51, 255, 270n265, 280, 284n67 ITV (Independent Television), 32-34, 78-81, 83, 100n14, 119, 128, 231, 261, 277 J Jefferson, Lionel (sitcom character), 26, 235-37, 240, 245, 247 The Jeffersons, 15n11, 25, 47, 70n115, 87-88, 91, 266n138 Jenkins, Roy, 118 Jewish Defense Organization, 233 Jews, Jewishness, 22, 39, 47-48, 60, 137, 144, 201, 224-25, 233-34, 238-39, 243-44, 248, 250-54, 258, 271n278 Josefsberg, Milt, 48, 233 Julia, 47, 236

Index

K Kalish, Irma, 147 Kanter, Hal, 145, 151-53 Kasen, Bob, 242 Kennedy, Edward, 242 Kent State University, 23 Kinderladen movement, 195-96 Kindertransport, 39 Klages, Helmut, 6 Knapp, Karen, 162 Knilli, Friedrich, 61, 64 Kohl, Helmut, 206 Kosciuszko Foundation, 243 Krebs, Diether, 62, 64 Krekel, Hildegard, 62 Küchenhoff study, 191 Ku Klux Klan, 137 Kusielewicz, Eugene, 243 L Labour Party, 37-39, 82, 102n49, 219-21, 290 Lachman, Mort, 48, 50-51, 88, 163, 233, 237 LaHendro, Bob, 49 Lamaze method, 145-46, 289 language, changes to, 110-11, 115-18, 138-39, 143, 188, 210, 221, 293 See also catchphrases, popular culture, vulgarity Lassalle, Beverly (sitcom character), 166-67 Latinos. See Hispanic Americans Lattmann, Dieter, 258 laugh track, 10, 42, 49-50, 54, 63, 68n68 Lazarsfeld, Paul, 11 lead-in programme, 76, 80, 86-87 Lear, Frances, 71n155, 144, 146-47, 155 Lear, Norman, 3, 17n54, 22, 24-25, 45-53, 70n107, 70n115, 71n155, 88, 92, 136-38, 144-47, 150-52, 154-55, 157-62, 166, 168-69, 174n83, 176n124, 179n222, 233-35, 237-38, 244, 246, 277-78, 287, 294 Lee, John, 221 Lelyveld, Arthur J., 243 Lenin, Vladimir I., 29, 57 Leonard, John, 234 lesbianism, 122, 133n125, 137, 144, 155, 157, 165-67, 209. See also homosexuality Levine, Elana, 158, 218n199 Lewis, Denise, 111 Lewis, Jerry, 47

Index

liberalisation, 5, 7, 27, 138, 169, 195, 211, 293 Liberal Party, 26, 102, 183 licence fee, 9, 33, 55, 62, 93, 175n108 Light Entertainment Group (BBC), 34-35, 38, 41, 78, 116, 120, 225, 277 Lindsay, John, 242 Literaturnaja Gaseta, 280, 284n62 Liverpool, 19-20, 22, 43, 111, 221, 224 Livingstone, Ken, 232 localisation of formats, 13-14, 22, 29, 54, 73n201, 274-81 London, 19, 37-39, 40-42, 57, 81, 83-84, 110-12, 117, 122, 127, 133n123, 211, 220, 226, 231-32, 276. See also East End Long, Kermit, 169, 236, 244 Los Angeles, 90, 102n70, 145, 147, 152-53, 163, 169, 244 Lovelace, Linda, 121, 132n113 Love Thy Neighbour, 231, 283n27 Luther, Martin, 204 Luxemburg, Rosa, 253 LWT (London Weekend Television), 41, 263n38 M Main Wilson, Dennis, 20, 34-35, 38-42, 44, 68n68, 82, 115-16, 120-21, 123, 128, 129n6, 226, 278-79, 287 malapropisms, 9, 50, 139, 142-43, 288 Malik, Sarita, 223 Man, Paul de, 138 Mao Zedong, 16n14, 56, 206 Marcuse, Herbert, 57 marriage, 121-24, 151, 161, 190, 192, 207, 209-11, 290 modern, 124, 137, 155-57 traditional, 155-57 See also divorce, sexuality Marsh, Spencer, 153-55, 169, 176n124 Märthesheimer, Helga, 191 Märthesheimer, Peter, 27, 56-64, 72n173, 73n189, 96, 183, 190-91, 196, 198-200, 202, 204, 206-7, 211, 212n19, 248-51, 253, 258-59, 279, 283n37, 287 Marxism, 38, 57-58, 61, 65, 154, 200, 207, 210, 290 The Mary Tyler Moore Show, 45, 51-52, 86-89, 154, 158

325

masculinity, 156, 165, 197, 199, 290. See also body, patriarchy Masek, Tracy, 142 M*A*S*H, 45, 51-52, 86, 158 Maude, 25, 47, 53, 138, 146, 149, 168-69, 180n249 McCarthy, Joseph, 47 McGovern, George, 242 Medhurst, Andy, 223-24 medicine and doctors, 21, 26, 118, 145, 236 Meinhof, Ulrike, 64, 205 Menge, Wolfgang, 57, 59-64, 94, 98, 183, 187-88, 191, 194, 196-206, 213n43, 249, 251-53, 271n278, 279, 281, 282n17, 284n62, 287 menopause, 4, 146, 158-9, 177n163, 198 menstruation, 4, 121, 137, 158, 198, 210 mental health, 145-46, 153, 196-98 merchandising and marketing, 9, 52, 84, 97-98, 102n63, 106n181, 138, 159, 171n10, 183, 274-76, 286 Michael or Mike (sitcom character), 2, 19-29, 39, 41-42, 48, 110-11, 113, 122-23, 125, 128, 138-42, 159-65, 168-70, 176n136, 190, 192, 194, 197-99, 204, 207-9, 216n126, 224, 233, 240, 243, 245, 247, 250-51, 257, 289 middle classes, 10, 22-25, 27, 30n35, 33-36, 38, 44, 48, 54, 58-60, 63, 65, 114-16, 121, 156, 188, 223, 228, 235-36 military, militarism, 37-38, 196, 252, 256 Milk, Harvey, 166 Milligan, Spike, 37-38 Mills, Michael, 115 Mills, Steve, 87 mini skirts, 19, 149, 163, 197, 199, 208, 251 Minow, Newton, 85 minstrel shows, 51, 224, 236, 264n74 Mitchell, Warren, 39-40, 42-43, 84, 109-11, 119, 126, 129n6, 129n9, 225, 263n41, 283n33 monarchy. See royal family Monty Python’s Flying Circus, 128, 135n183 Morality in Media, 168 Moral Majority, 166, 168-69, 210 moral panic, 109, 117-18, 127, 166, 210, 223, 287, 289 Morecambe and Wise Show, 66n8, 101n21 Moscone, George, 166 Motzki, 15n11, 98

326

Muggeridge, Malcolm, 112 Muir, Frank, 34, 277 Munich, 60, 183 Münster, 183, 199, 217n173, 255 Murdoch, Rupert, 263n38 museums, 8, 25, 137-38, 142-43, 207 Myers, Mrs Ronnie, 162 N NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), 244 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 21 national anthem, 21, 203 National Federation for Decency, 168 National Health Service, 118 National Secular Society, 126 national symbols, 8, 137-38, 183, 275, 278-81 National Urban League, 234, 244 National Women’s Conference, 147 nation building, 274-75, 281 Nazis, 182-184, 254, 256, 271n282, 280 Nazism (National Socialism) crimes of, 195, 234, 249, 251, 258-59 language of, 189, 252-53, 256 legacy of, 28, 38, 54, 60, 249, 251-259, 261 propaganda of, 11, 294n7 on television, 28, 60, 182, 196, 204, 250-53, 258-59, 271n282 victims of, 253, 255, 258 NBC (National Broadcasting Company), 44, 85-87, 165 networks, 9, 25, 44, 53, 69n86, 85, 87, 157-59, 162, 165, 168, 237, 277 and independent producers, 44, 48, 52, 70n107 New Left, 7, 60, 65, 202-203, 250, 288 News of the World, 109, 111, 119 news programmes, 81, 164, 280-81 New Year’s Eve, 96-98, 106nn182-83, 186 New York (city), 7, 25, 46, 85-86, 90, 102n70, 163-64, 186, 234, 242, 244, 277 Queens, 7, 24, 139 New York Times, 86, 234-35, 280, 284n62 Nicholls, Don, 47-48, 159, 161, 175 Nichols, Dandy, 39-41, 43, 67n42, 68n72, 123 Nielsen, A.C. (company), 44-45, 47, 85-91, 103n75, 104n132, 238, 242-45 Nixon, Richard, 22-23, 92, 150, 164-65, 179n222, 235, 242, 276, 280, 284n52

Index

Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth, 6 Nolte, Margaret, 111 Normanbrook, Lord Norman Brook of, 115 Nottingham, 220 NOW (National Organization for Women), 13, 144, 147, 150, 155, 163, 175n108 NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands), 204 nudity, 4, 29, 120-22, 159, 161, 163, 197-98, 209 NWDR (Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk), 38-39, 278 O Occidental movement, 27 O’Connor, Carroll, 46, 48, 50-52, 137, 140, 168, 234, 240, 242, 245, 278 oil crisis, 7, 26, 183, 186, 201, 250-51 One Day at a Time, 88, 154 Oxford English Dictionary, 139 Ozersky, Josh, 88 P Paki-Paddy (sitcom character), 224, 227-28 Pakistanis, Pakistan, 224-25, 229-30, 275 Paley, William S., 45-46, 87 Panorama, 55, 71n157, 81 Parliament, parliamentarians in Britain, 19, 33, 36, 109, 111-12, 124, 126, 219-21, 231, 262n14 in West Germany, 201, 204, 217n164, 258 in the U.S., 137-38, 235, 242 Pastega, Jennie, Louie and Richard, 139-40 patriarchy, 110, 140, 142, 155-57, 189-90, 195-96, 198, 241-43, 290, 293 criticism of, 123, 137, 148, 153, 164, 207-11 peace movement. See student protests Peacock, Michael, 35, 43 peak period, 3, 22, 75-76, 78-79, 86-87, 95, 99, 118, 136-37, 287 People for the American Way, 166, 168-69 Pilkington Committee, 33 pill. See contraception pilot episodes, 22, 34-36, 45-46, 53, 160-61, 275 testing of, 45, 69n93, 235 Pines, Jim, 223-24 Pittsburgh, 88, 141

Index

Poles, Poland, 22, 51, 138, 140, 225, 232, 243-44, 249-51, 257, 265n113, 284n62 police, 28-29, 152, 163, 211 pop music, 37, 122, 127, 130n30, 189 popular culture, 6, 65, 108, 138, 279, 284n66 attacking elitism, 114-17, 188, 208, 210, 223, 293 See also language, vulgarity Population Institute, 145-46 pornography, 121, 124, 137, 154, 157-59, 199, 211, 276 Poussaint, Alvin, 236 Powell, Enoch, 220-25, 262n13, 280 Praunheim, Rosa von, 199 Preen, Joachim, 57, 59-62, 64, 73n189, 73n198, 211, 251 pregnancy, 120, 137, 145, 153, 160-61, 178n194, 198, 233 President’s Committee for Mental Retardation, 137, 146 prime time, 25, 69n86, 85, 150, 158, 162, 185, 277, 286, 294 prisons, prisoners, 24, 137, 141 production budget of, 39-40, 43-44, 48, 50-52, 62, 73n210 crew, 40, 49, 61 and lighting, 42, 49, 61 of opening sequences, 40, 63, 189 professionalism of, 32, 44, 48, 50, 53, 61, 65-66, 144, 285-86 schedule of, 40-41, 43, 48-50, 62-63 studios, 40, 42, 49, 62-64 on video or film, 49-52 production team, 9, 281 at the BBC, 37-40 at Tandem, 47-48, 53 at WDR, 56-60, 285-86 product placement, 41 promotion of shows, 55, 81, 86, 94, 289 props and furnishing of sets, 20, 25, 27, 43, 49, 62-63 See also ‘Archie Bunker chair’ public health and television, 136-37, 144-46, 170, 211, 292 public television (PBS), 85, 103n73, 277 R Race Relations Acts, 221, 290 Race Relations Board, 221

327

race riots, 219-20, 235, 248 racial abuse on television, 21, 221, 224-27, 230-31, 266n145, 270n265 terms of, 21, 231, 233-235, 237, 243-44, 255, 265n120 racism, 3, 7, 14, 39, 138, 196, 219-261, 261n2, 281 antiprejudicial comedy and, 3, 15, 219, 223-27, 230-32, 238, 246, 248, 259-61, 288, 291 censorship and, 219, 231, 235, 237-38, 286 everyday, 220-21, 223, 228, 250, 255 and segregation, 26, 230, 235, 242, 248 and television, 15n10, 219, 229-32, 280, 290-91 U.S. press and, 24, 26, 210, 232-34, 288 and xenophobia, 249, 253-58 See also anti-Semitism, humour Rader, William C., 146, 174n72 Radio Times, 81 rape, 137, 153, 157-58, 162-64, 170, 190, 196, 198, 202, 209, 211, 254, 286, 290 rape crisis centres, 163-64, 211 ratings, 2-3, 44-47, 55, 75-83, 85-99 demographically refined, 45, 77-78, 94 impact of, 35-36, 53, 61, 64-65, 99, 182, 187, 207, 286 methods of measurement of, 9, 12, 76-78, 85, 94, 103n75 timelag of, 35, 85, 94 Rawald, Paul, 139 real-life setting, 13, 88, 186, 188-89, 202, 232, 235, 245, 247, 277, 292 recognition effect, 110, 140-41, 144, 156, 170, 184, 210, 277, 293 Red Army Faction. See terrorism Red Cross, 145 ‘red radio’ (Rotfunk) campaign, 56, 64, 205-6 Rees, Merlyn, 221 refugees and expellees, 56, 212n19, 248, 251, 257 rehearsals, 40-42, 49, 63, 278 Reich, Wilhelm, 195-96, 198, 207, 210, 251, 290 Reiner, Rob, 48, 50, 140 Reith, John, 33, 66n5 ‘relevancy’, 4, 16n13, 37, 60, 170, 261, 286 See also sitcom

328

religion, 21, 26, 29, 108-9, 113, 120, 125-28, 167-69, 223, 241 See also Bible, evangelism, secularisation remote control, 81, 99 reruns, 3, 46-47, 52-53, 76, 81, 86, 92, 97-98, 100, 100n4, 104n132, 104n134, 136, 138, 162, 177n169, 231, 245, 265n109, 286 Reynolds, Stanley, 122, 231 Rhine, Larry, 48, 149, 153, 161, 233-34 Rich, John, 25, 46-48, 51, 236, 243 Richards, Cliff, 39-40 Richardson, Carl, 169 Riggs, Rita, 25, 30n32, 148-49 Rita (sitcom character), 2, 19-20, 27, 29, 39-40, 110-11, 122-24, 128, 190-91, 198-99, 209, 216n126, 224, 250 Rohrbach, Günter, 56, 58, 60-62, 72n173, 188, 191, 199-201, 205-6, 249, 251-52, 258-59, 279 Rokeach, Milton, 100n13, 238-40, 246, 259, 267nn170-71, 283n37 Roots, 247-48, 261, 291 Rose, Jim, 226, 228 Rosenbloom, Barbara, 85 Ross, Karen, 224 Ross, Michael, 25, 47-49, 92, 149, 175n97, 233-34, 237 Rotary Club, 36 Rowbotham, Sheila, 124 royal family, 20-21, 29, 114, 116-18, 123 Royal Academy of Arts, 84 Ruhr region, 7, 27, 54-55, 59, 187, 250 rural society, defence of, 111-12, 127, 210 Russians, Russia, 27, 165, 250-51, 284n62 S Sanborne, Duane B., 148 Sanders, Charles L., 244-46 Sandhurst, Royal Military Academy, 38 Sanford and Son, 15n11, 47, 50, 70n115, 91, 235, 244-45 San Francisco, 164, 166 Save Our Children, 166-67 Schaffer, Gavin, 224 scheduling, 9, 36, 46, 53, 55, 65, 72n160, 76, 80-82, 86-88, 95, 99, 128, 287-89 on holidays, 79, 81, 96-97 seasonal, 81, 95, 101n34 on weekdays, 81, 87, 90, 95, 185 See also ‘counterprogramming’

Index

Scheel, Walter, 192 Schiller, Bob, 48, 50, 164, 233 Schmid, Carlo, 57 Schmidt, Helmut, 201, 206 schoolteachers, 36, 83, 111-12, 140-41, 166, 174n81, 194, 226-27 Schubert, Heinz, 61-62, 64, 204 Scots, Scotland, 21, 35, 83 scriptwriters. See writers scriptwriting process, 40-41, 47-49, 61, 64 advisers in, 144-46, 164, 166 rules for, 41, 61 secularisation, 108, 112, 125-28, 129n1, 168 segregation. See racism selective exposure, selective perception, 193-94, 238-39, 246-47, 255, 258, 260 Sell, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 205, 217n185, 257, 287 sex discrimination, 111, 137, 153, 160, 174n83 sex education, 118, 160, 197, 199 sexologists, 165, 178n182, 199 sexuality, 4, 57, 87, 108, 116, 132n113, 136, 144, 161-62, 207, 209-12, 289-91 extramarital, 22, 121, 123, 127, 137, 156-57, 159-61, 163, 176n136, 197-98, 216n126 female, 118, 121, 124, 137, 157, 160, 190, 198-99, 209, 290 male, 118, 120-21, 159-60, 196-98 marital, 119-120, 122-23, 156, 160, 197-98 premarital, 5, 118-21, 125, 137, 160, 209-12, 289 repressed, 195-96, 198, 208, 251-52, 256, 290 talking about, 160, 162, 197 violent, 162-64, 170 See also body, homosexuality, pornography sexual revolution, 5, 27, 118, 121, 123, 128, 157-58, 160, 169-70, 210-11, 241, 290-93 SFB (Sender Freies Berlin), 192, 204-5 Shakespeare, William, 87 Shapley, Olive, 117 Shaw, George Bernard, 37, 117 Shimokawa, Gary, 49 Short, Edward, 112 Silbermann, Alphons, 253 silent majority, 234, 240, 246, 280-81 Silverman, Fred, 45-46, 53, 89, 160

Index

Simpson, Alan, 43 sitcom (situational comedy) genre, 4, 9-10, 34, 44-45, 52, 281, 285 experience of, 185-86, 207, 286, 289 demographics of, 91-92 ethnic, 47, 97 as female, 10, 83, 285 relevant subgenre of, 10, 13, 47, 65, 170, 261, 290 Six-Day War, 253 sixties cultural revolution, 4-7, 16nn14-15, 24, 58, 108, 128, 136, 170, 207-12, 292-94, 294n13 backlash to, 6-7, 26-27, 88, 108, 136, 166, 182-83, 206, 290-94 Sloan, Tom, 34-35, 39, 41, 116, 120, 125-26, 132n102, 277 Smithsonian Institution. See museums Soap, 169, 180n226 soap opera, 10, 13, 17n40, 32, 164 Social Democrat Party (SPD), 26, 28, 56-58, 64, 182-83, 187-88, 200-207, 253, 258 Socialism, 20, 56, 58, 65, 200, 218n202, 224, 250, 258 Socialist German Student Union (SDS), 57, 207 sources, 10, 12-13, 17n54, 73n195, 76-77, 129n2, 172n22, 175n115, 266n154 Spätaussiedler (ethnic German migrants). See refugees Speight, Johnny, 20, 27, 35, 37-45, 69n80, 73n201, 84, 110, 115-16, 118-26, 128, 129n6, 209, 211, 213n43, 223-26, 229, 231, 251, 260, 263n38, 275-78, 283n43, 287 Der Spiegel, 27, 183, 185 Spigel, Lynn, 12 spin-offs, 4, 15n11, 46-47, 76, 98, 106n186, 138, 207 standing, 8, 108-9, 137-38, 170, 183, 210, 292 Stapleton, Jean, 48, 140, 146-49, 153-55, 158, 172n21, 174n81, 176n124 Stein, Ben, 144, 173n51 Steptoe and Son, 15n11, 33-34, 43, 114, 116-17, 265n109, 277 Stivic, Joey (sitcom character), 159-60, 177n170 Stonewall riots, 164 story editors. See writers

329

strikes, 137, 183, 201, 220 Stop Immorality in TV, 168 Strauss, Franz Josef, 201, 203 Struthers, Sally, 48, 51, 71n136 Stubbs, Una, 39-40, 43, 109 Stücklen, Richard, 253 student protests, 23-24, 26-29, 57, 60, 112, 118, 150, 182, 205-7, 224 studio audience, 36, 40, 42, 44, 50-51, 62-63, 152, 163, 169, 186, 198, 226, 230-31, 243, 256 warm-up of, 42-43, 48, 50, 63 subcultures and countercultures, 5, 24, 27, 146, 164, 211, 241 suburbia, 25, 44 suicide, 137 The Sun, 38, 109, 114 Supreme Court, 159, 276 swearing. See vulgarity Sykes, Eric, 37, 66n5 syndication, 52, 92, 162, 177n169, 286 T tabloids, 25, 36, 82, 98, 109-11, 117, 128 talk shows, 12, 129n2, 279 Tandem (company), 17n54, 47-53, 71n155, 138, 140, 144, 147, 153, 155, 159, 166, 168, 170, 176n124, 178n198, 244, 268n199, 290 Tankersley, William, 45 Taylor, Arthur, 287, 294n4 Teamsters, International Brotherhood of, 242 telenovelas, 10 television consumption as daily exposure, 3, 76, 78, 85, 93, 287 as exposure to series, 82, 88, 292 television critics, 4, 21-22, 24, 35-36, 84, 87, 114-15, 163, 215n89, 221, 224, 234-35, 247, 279-80 television sets (ownership), 78, 85, 93, 98, 102n66, 189, 287 television trade, 2, 14, 274-77, 281. See also global formats terrorism, 26, 64, 183, 201, 205-6, 210-11, 290 ‘Tetzlaff effect’, 76, 201, 257-59 textbooks, 194, 249 Thatcher, Margaret, 232 That Was the Week That Was (TW3), 32-33, 66n2, 116

330

theatres, sitcom adaptations in, 55, 59, 72n164, 84, 98, 106n181, 107n188 theme tune, 19, 24, 142-43, 161, 289 third channels (in West Germany), 55, 58, 93-94, 98, 201, 259, 283n44 Thompson, Nancy, 155 Till Death…, 15n11, 84, 263n41 The Times (London), 1, 112, 123, 231 Tito, Josip Broz, 29 toilet humour. See vulgarity Tolkin, Mel, 24, 48, 151-52, 161, 233 trade unions, 36, 57, 186, 188, 230, 242, 295 transitional majority, 113, 157, 170-71, 194, 211-12, 240, 246-48, 260-61, 292-93 transnational links, 14, 61, 274-281 transvestites, 22, 166-67 Die Trotzkis, 15n11, 98 Turks, Turkey, 7, 27, 249-51, 275, 277. See also guest workers TV Guide, 47, 70n106, 86, 88, 137, 153, 157, 165, 234, 243 Twickenham, 126 U United Jewish Welfare Fund, 244 Unity Theatre (London), 37-38 Universal Life Church, 168 universities, 23, 39, 60, 138, 196, 199, 239, 241 researching sitcoms, 60, 138, 183 University of Television and Film (HFF) Munich, 60, 183, 212n12 V value change, 1-2, 4, 5-6, 16n18, 150, 164, 193, 208, 210-12, 215n110, 218n203, 289-94, 294n12 Variety, 92, 234 vasectomy, 137, 145, 160-61 venereal disease, 118, 146 Victorian values, 127-28, 210, 289 videotaping, 49-50, 52-53 Vidmar, Neil, 100n13, 238-40, 246, 259, 267nn170-71, 283n37 Vietnam War, 22, 141, 150 viewers African American, 46, 50, 90-92, 156, 235, 244-45, 269n227, 291 by age group, 45, 81-83, 88-89, 92, 96-97, 102n48, 112-13, 170, 193, 240, 254, 259, 267n172

Index

bigoted, 113, 239-41, 243, 246-47, 258, 260-61, 267n170, 273nn331-32, 288, 291 children and teenagers, 81-83, 91-92, 95, 97-99, 101n39, 148, 184, 194, 215n108, 241-42, 246, 268n196, 288 by class, 33, 42, 55, 58-59, 82-83, 88, 92-96, 99, 114-16, 156-57, 187-88, 208, 210, 223-24, 228, 241, 287 compared with nonviewers, 82, 84, 112, 227, 246 competence of, 99, 204, 207-8, 258-61, 288-89 Dutch, 105n137, 238-41, 246, 276, 280, 288 by education, 88-89, 96-97, 106n176, 162 elderly, 45, 76, 83, 91-92, 96, 112-13, 124, 162, 193-94, 255, 271n296, 287 by ethnic group, 76, 91, 243 by gender, 76, 78, 83, 89, 92, 96-97, 149, 151-52 mid-dogmatic, 240, 243, 246, 248, 255, 261, 291 progressive, 112-13, 167, 170, 211, 240, 243, 246-47, 255, 260, 267n171, 292 rural vs. urban, 45-46, 83, 89-90, 92, 97, 287 See also audience viewers’ letters, 13, 21, 73n195, 119, 140, 148-49, 155, 158, 170, 184, 186, 194, 209, 225-27, 231, 237, 243, 245, 256-57, 259, 264n73, 266n131, 269n230, 289 viewers’ phone calls, 46, 110, 117, 125, 172n25, 185, 189, 200, 216n153, 256-57, 259, 279 viewing experience collective, 76, 95-96, 106n168 and incidental learning, 247-48 inciting discussion, 77, 83-84, 92, 95-96, 105n137, 162, 183-84, 247-48, 287-88, 292-93 ritualised, 97-98 vulgarity, 79, 97, 108, 112-17, 184, 207-8, 210, 256, 290 language of, 4, 21, 25, 27, 45, 54, 114-18, 180n250, 184, 186, 208, 257, 276, 286 ill manners, 27, 184, 186-88, 198, 208, 210, 213n43 toilet humour, 50, 110, 114-15, 119, 121-22, 158-59, 161, 187-88, 196, 198

Index

W Wallace, George, 234-35, 242 wardrobe design. See costumes war experience, 255 of producers, 35, 37-40, 47, 252 on television, 26, 28, 178n179, 204-5, 250-51 ‘watershed’. See bedtime WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk), 2, 54-56, 66-65, 93, 97-98, 185, 200-202, 205, 257, 259, 276, 279-80, 286 departments of, 56, 58, 200, 205-6 See also audience research, third channels, ‘red radio’ Weiskopf, Bob, 48, 164, 234 welfare, 23-24, 224-25, 227, 241, 246, 251 West, Bernie, 47-48, 92, 145, 149, 175n97, 233, 237 Westernisation, 57, 60-61, 275, 277, 279, 281, 284n66 West Ham. See football Wheldon, Hugh, 80, 116, 126, 128 White, L.L., 244 Whitehouse, Mary, 3, 36-37, 112, 114-19, 121, 125-26, 128, 135n183, 210, 264n72 White House tapes, 92, 164 Wiedemann, Elisabeth, 62, 64, 98, 189-90 Wildmon, Donald, 168

331

Wilson, Harold, 21, 35, 37, 109, 111 Wolf, Ben, 46 Wood, Robert (Bob) D., 45-46, 160, 237 women’s liberation. See feminist movement working class, working-class setting, 7, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 38, 58-59, 69n88, 82-83, 114-16, 128, 142, 156, 188-89, 208, 210, 220-23, 233, 241, 246, 250, 276, 280, 287 writers, 44, 48-49, 70n115, 144, 147, 209, 235 fees of, 38, 43-44, 49, 52, 62, 69n80, 73n213 See also scriptwriting Writers Guild, 13, 129n6, 136, 138, 162, 178n198 Y Yorke, Leslie, 119 Yorkin, Bud, 47, 52 Young, Whitney, Jr., 234 Yugoslavia, 29, 249 Z Zadek, Peter, 59-60 ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen), 93, 95, 105n143