Remembering television pioneer Norman Lear
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00:00 Guys like us we hadn't made
00:03 Those were the days
00:06 Norman Lear and the shows and characters he created revolutionized television
00:11 No, no, no!
00:13 Do that, you could hit a knife there and make somebody go cock off
00:17 A groundbreaking writer, director, producer who used humor to tackle the political and social issues of the time
00:24 Now I suppose you're gonna tell me that the black man has had the same opportunity in this country as you?
00:27 More, he's had more. I didn't have no million people out there marching and protesting to get me my job
00:32 No, his uncle got it for him
00:35 There was all in the family and Archie Bunker, a bigot who in many ways was still beloved, set in his ways in a changing time
00:44 Black people have arrived, they're here! I ain't letting them in!
00:48 Archie Bunker, Norman Lear once told George, was based in part on Norman's own father
00:54 Is it really true that your dad came up with Archie's signature line?
00:59 What, stifle? Oh, meathead! You're a meathead dead from the neck up
01:03 You are a meathead
01:05 What did you call me?
01:07 A meathead dead from the neck up
01:10 So that's real life
01:11 Yes, that's real life
01:13 And stifle is real life
01:15 Stifle, Jeanette, stifle yourself
01:18 Right into her face
01:20 Stifle that, will you?
01:21 And then I would pick it off the twins
01:23 Will you stifle it?
01:24 The stories were bold and controversial and new to television
01:29 We're moving on up
01:31 We're moving on up
01:32 To the east side
01:34 We're moving on up
01:35 The Jeffersons
01:36 Lots of apartments in the sky
01:39 And our justice
01:40 Of course we are moving up, there's no reason why we have to look down on people
01:45 I'm not telling you to look down on nobody, I'm just saying to shift your angle and let them start looking up to you
01:52 Their success story and all that came with it
01:55 You live in this apartment, right?
01:57 And you got an apartment in this building too?
01:59 Yes, that's right
02:01 Well, how come we overcame and nobody told me?
02:04 Before that, there was Maude
02:07 Maybe we don't remember which of us decided to get the divorce, but there is no doubt who decided we should get married
02:13 My mother
02:15 And then Sanford and Son too
02:17 What do we pay the government that money for?
02:19 What for? For security, Pop, for defense
02:23 We were robbed twice last year, now where were the soldiers?
02:26 Come on, Pop, your tax money also goes to poverty pockets
02:30 And it comes from poverty pockets
02:33 Norman Lear was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1922 to a salesman and a homemaker
02:39 And he would talk often over the years about what inspired his scripts
02:44 The only thing I knew to write about was what I saw around me
02:49 There's nothing that was ever said on any of these shows that you might not hear in a playground
02:54 It's America
02:56 Tonight, his family sang "Norman Lear Died Peacefully Overnight"
02:59 Surrounded by his family at his home in Los Angeles
03:02 The legendary and groundbreaking producer
03:05 Who at times had well more than a hundred million Americans watching his shows
03:10 What was it like to know that on almost any given night someone was watching a show that you helped inspire?
03:15 I remember flying over the country in the early years of all of that at night
03:20 And looking down and thinking wherever I see a light
03:23 It just might be possible that I helped to make somebody laugh
03:27 An extraordinary impact
03:29 When Norman Lear turned 100, he wrote in an essay for the New York Times about the nation
03:34 He wrote, "To be honest, I'm a bit worried that I may be in better shape than our democracy is"
03:39 Tonight, remembering Norman Lear
03:42 Hi everyone, George Stephanopoulos here
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03:56 Thanks for watching