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Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Hey, all you Women's Hoops fans and folks who just don't know yet that they're Women's Hoops fans. We've got a big week over at Good Game with Sarah Spain as we near the end of one of the most exciting women's college basketball seasons ever. The most parody we've seen in years with games coming down to the wire and everyone wondering which team will be crowned national champions this weekend in Tampa.
Listen to Good Game with Sarah Spain on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked.
Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeartPodcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deep fate pornography and the battle to stop it. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take Podcast.
Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up? I'm Laura, host of the podcast Courtside with Laura Carrenti, a masterclass case study of the business of women's sports. I'll be chatting with leaders like tennis icon, Alana Kloss. I don't do what I do only for women.
I do it for everyone, and I want the whole market. And innovators like Jenny Nguyen. I would say 50% of the people that come visit the sports bra aren't sports fans. They come to be in community.
They come to be part of this culture. Courtside with Laura Carrenti is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. Listen to Courtside with Laura Carrenti on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Have you ever wondered if your pet is lying to you? Why is my cat not here? And I go in and she's eating my lunch. Or if hypnotism is real? You will use a suggestion in order to enhance your cognitive control. But what's inside a black hole? Black holes could be a consequence of the way that we understand the universe. Well, we have answers for you in the new iHeart original podcast, Science Stuff. Join me, Jorge Cham, as we answer questions about animals, space, our brains, and our bodies.
So give yourself permission to be a science geek and listen to Science Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last of nine seasons and 212 episodes, the show delivered six of the top 50 highest rated TV programs of all time. Here's Greg Hengler with a story. It was doomed from the start. The social satire television show called All in the Family was seen as too abrasive and failed to pull any punches. Carol O'Connor played the blue collar bigot Archie Bunker. The show's creator, Norman Lear, inclined O'Connor for the combination of bombast and sweetness the actor exuded on the big screen. O'Connor believed in the character, but not in the show's chances to succeed on television. Here's Rob Reiner. We knew he had a good show, but we figured it wouldn't last very long because it was so special.
It was so different. I remember Carol saying, you know, we'll probably do four episodes and then we'll probably get thrown off the air because nobody's going to sit still for this. When Norman Lear invited Gene Stapleton to read for the Edith role, Archie's wife, she couldn't get over the script. This on TV? I was terribly amused by it, by its reality and honesty and humor.
CBS signed on for the pilot episode. O'Connor and Stapleton were joined by Sally Struthers, who played Archie's daughter, Gloria, and Rob Reiner, who played Mike Stivick, Gloria's husband. Rob had grown up surrounded by his comic genius father and his friends, men like Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, Dick Van Dyke. Says Rob, that was my kindergarten and they were my teachers. Norman Lear, a friend of Rob's father, Carl, had known Rob for over a decade. There had even been one day when Lear stopped by Reiner's house that Rob made him laugh with a routine about cheating at Jack's. Noted Lear to Carl Reiner, you've got a funny kid there. Rob's father responded, get out of here, he's not a funny kid. Years later, Carl Reiner expanded on this exchange. Oh, I knew the kid was funny.
What I didn't know until a long time later was that he had talent. On the evening of January 12th, 1971, as soon as Hee Haw went off the air, All in the Family made its television premiere. This is what America heard at the start of the program. Warning, the program you are about to see is All in the Family. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter, we hope to show in a mature fashion just how our family is here, we hope to show in a mature fashion just how absurd they are.
Here's Sally Struthers. I heard that they manned all the CBS stations across the country with extra operators to take all the angry phone calls that were going to come in from people seeing the show and it didn't happen. They got a lot of phone calls, but people were calling in and saying, what was that?
Is that coming back? In the weeks following All in the Family's debut, CBS initiated and financed an opinion poll. The majority of the people questioned, including minority group members, indicated that they hadn't been offended. People who saw it, discussed it. People who hadn't, discussed it anyhow. Bunker gives conservatives a bad name.
Stivik gives liberals a bad name were the typical responses. Here's show creator Norman Lear. The stern warning that began our show tonight was used on the first six episodes of All in the Family. Nervous CBS censors required us to warn viewers lest they be offended by the bunkers. They didn't have bothered.
Hardly anyone watched. It was in the summer reruns that you found the show and it caught on. By the second season, All in the Family had become a certified hit.
In May of 1972, All in the Family swept the Emmy awards. Johnny Carson dubbed the ceremonies, An Evening with Norman Lear. Here's a clip of Archie Bunker and his son-in-law, Mike Stivik, sparring. Oh no, oh no, I'm going to sue that guy. First thing in the morning, I'm going to get myself a good Jew lawyer. Archie, do you always have to label people? Why can't you just get a lawyer?
Why does it have to be a judge lawyer? Because when I'm going to sue a neighbor, I'm going to get a guy that's full of hate. My day, nobody went around calling himself Chicanos, Mexican-Americans, Afro-Americans.
We was all Americans. After that, if a guy was a jigger, his pick, it was his own business. Archie's a World War II veteran turned loading dock union worker from Queens, New York. In his eyes, he's no bigot. A bigot spouts mindless prejudice, whereas Archie believes that he's thought things through.
That he's simply aware of the rules ordained by nature to make some people sluggish and other people cheats. Besides, to Archie, a racist would only use negative labels, while he's the first to declare that the sharpest lawyers are Jews. At his core, Archie's not prejudice.
He hates everyone. In The Complete Book of Nerds, author Bob Stein lists Archie's wife's name as Dingbat, her nickname as Edith Bunker, and her hobby as taking abuse. Here's Archie and Edith. Oh, gee, I'm sorry, I thought I was doing a good thing.
Oh, sure, good thing. That's you all over, always doing good. Edith, they're good. You never get mad at nobody, you never holler at nobody, you never swear, no nothing. You're like a saint, Edith. You think it's fun living with a saint? It ain't. It ain't at all. Look at this, you don't even cheat to win.
You cheat to lose. I mean, Edith, you ain't human. That's a terrible thing to say. I'm just as human as you are. Prove you're just as human as me.
Do something rotten. Norman Lear gave Jean Stapleton the key to Edith's character, that Edith no longer hears what Archie is saying, having tuned out years ago. So it's no wonder Edith shuffles the way she does.
Her gears are permanently out of whack from a lifetime of turning the other cheek. Here we are. Ah, here. Oh, thank you, Mrs. Bunker. Ah, thanks, Edith.
No, that's all right. I can say, Mr. Davis, easy. Get out of here. Here's Jean Stapleton and Carol O'Connor on the show's secret for success. I feel there was a moral statement made almost every week. But you see, number one, it was entertainment and it was comedy. You can reach people through comedy.
But we were kidding American attitudes and the artistic term for that is satire. Archie's son-in-law, Mike, is an atheist who renounced his own Catholic baptism long ago. Archie believes in Catholic infant baptism so much that he kidnaps Mike's son, Joey, and baptizes his grandson himself. Now, this here, Lord, is my little grandson, Joe, see? Now, his parents, they don't care if he's baptized because his old man is a dopey atheist.
So they're going to do it here while we get the chance, you know? I don't want my little grandson growing up without religion in this rotten world of yours. An all-intensive friend of their Lord, Joseph Michael Stivick. I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Now, I hope that took, Lord, because they're going to kill me when I get home. And you've been listening to the story of the creation of all in the family and how it started, the prospects for its success, at least according to the actors and the people close to it, no one thought it would last or catch.
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That's washablesophas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia. I'm excited to introduce a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. I'm having conversations with some interesting folks across a wide range of industries to hear how they reach the top of their fields and the lessons they learned along the way that everyone can use. I'll be joined by innovative leaders like Chairman and CEO of Elf Beauty, Tarang Amin. The way I approach risk is constantly try things and actually make it okay to fail. I'm sitting down with legendary singer-songwriter and philanthropist, Jewel.
I wanted a way to do something that I loved for the rest of my life. We're also hearing how leaders brought their businesses out of unprecedented times like Stéphane Bonsal, CEO of Moderna. He becomes a human decision to decide to throw by the window your business strategy and to do what you think is the right thing for the world. Join me as we uncover innovations in data and analytics, the math and the ever-important creative spark, the magic. Listen to Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Maura Ahrens-Miele, host of The Anxious Achiever. It's a show that looks at where we spend most of our waking hours, work. We explore how work impacts our mental health, how neurodiversity impacts our careers, and how companies impact our well-being. Is work broken? It's hard to say that work is broken because work is work. And the system itself doesn't favor workers. I would say that the system is unsustainable. Is capitalism and work just relentless, cruel, and unsustainable, which is really my experience and my family's experience.
So in that way, yeah, it's broken. Listen to The Anxious Achiever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Horrific stories that, to this day, have been kept restricted from the public until now. You're feeling this too, a horror anthology podcast.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are we ready to fight? I'm ready to fight.
As you ready to fight. I thought it was, oh, this is fighting words. Okay, I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a best-selling author with the second most banned book in America. Now, more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. And that's what we're doing on Fighting Words. We're not gonna let anyone silence us. That's the reason why they're banning books like yours, George. That's the reason why they're trying to stop the teaching of Black history or queer history, any history that challenges the whitewashed norm.
Or put us in a box. Black people have never, ever depended on the history of the black community. Depended on the so-called mainstream to support us. That's why we are great. We are the greatest culture makers in world history.
Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we continue with our American stories and the story of the making of All in the Family. When we last left off, we learned that the show had not initially done well, but during summer reruns, it found an audience, particularly the young people of America, but soon the whole country.
Let's pick up now where we last left off. Although claiming to be a Christian, Archie's God and his theology are made in Archie's image. All over the world, they celebrate the birth of that baby.
And everybody gets time to walk from work. Now, if that ain't proof that he's the son of God, then nothing is. He made us all one true religion, ain't it? Christians. She named after his son, Christian. Christ for sure. I never thought of that.
Here's Archie and Sammy Davis Jr. I think that, I mean, if God had meant us to be together, he'd have put us together. Well, look what he done. He put you over in Africa, he put the rest of us in all the white countries. Well, you must have told him where we were because somebody came and got us.
Archie's patriotism and American history are also made in his image. That ain't the American way, buddy. No, sirree. Listen here, professor. You're the one that needs an American history lesson. You don't know nothing about Lady Liberty standing there in the harbor with her torch on high, screaming out to all the nations of the world, send me your poor, your deadbeats, your filthy. And all the nations sent them in here. They come smiling in like ants. Your Spanish P.Rs. from the Caribbean.
Your jacks, your Chinamans, your crouch and your heaves and your ladies' pants. They all come in here and they're all free to live in their own separate sections. Where they feel safe and they bust your head if you go in there.
That's what makes America great, buddy. Chicago-born Mike Stivick married Archie's daughter Gloria, who works full-time while her husband is enrolled in college full-time. Mike is a jobless, peace-marching sociology major of heavily left-wing persuasion. And they both live with Archie and Edith in Queens. Mike's friends frequently seem to appreciate Gloria more than he does. Indeed, in many ways, he treats Gloria just as Archie treats Edith, with the difference that maybe he'll kiss her in the living room. Mike is of Polish descent.
Sports long hair and a parted Prince Valiant cut and a mustache, which Rob Reiner grew at 24, to look old enough to get the part of Mike. You know something, Mr. Bunker? At first, I thought I misjudged you. And I was right.
I did misjudge you. You're a lot more ignorant than I thought. You say ignorant. Did you hear what he called me ignorant? Well, let me tell you something. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but you are one dumb polo.
The jobless Mike doesn't consider that Archie has lived firsthand, a life he only reads about in sociology books. Get all these ideas. From the College of Hard Knocks, sonny boy. I've been everywhere the grass grows green. I've seen everything there is to see. I know people. The reason you don't know nothing about people is you always got your big mouth open. You're never willing to listen to nobody.
How do you do, sir? May I have a moment of your time? No. The relationship between Archie and Mike was written by Norman Lear to reflect his relationship with his own father. In fact, Lear's father also referred to Norman as dead from the neck up, an expletive which Lear has Archie hurling at Mike as early as the first episode. Let me tell you something, Mr. Bunker. No, let me tell you something, Mr. Stivick. You are a meathead.
What is it? A meathead, dead from the neck up, meathead. What Archie would love to see most of all is Mike working. So adding insult to injury when Mike inherits money, he decides to donate it to George McGovern's presidential campaign instead of toward repaying Archie, who has been subsidizing his lifestyle, and then pontificates that Archie doesn't do enough for his fellow man. And since Archie doesn't choose to give more of his money away, Mike advocates a socialist system that will call him nasty names and give it away on his behalf. But through all of the wincing and laughter, we also learn something.
We learn how to be less hateful and bigoted towards those who are hateful and bigoted. The episode Two's a Crowd chronicles the events of Archie and Mike getting locked in a storeroom overnight. When escape seems futile, the two turn to sharing a bottle and a large blanket as the episode slowly turns into an incredibly honest, personal look at who these two men are.
This episode was Carol O'Connor's favorite. Here's a clip. Did you ever think that possibly your father just might be wrong? He's wrong, my old man?
Don't be stupid, my old man. Let me tell you about him. He was never wrong about nothing. Yes, he was, Arch.
I? My old man used to call people the same things as your old man. But I always knew he was wrong. So was your old man. No, he wasn't.
Yes, he was. Your father was wrong. Son! Your father was wrong! Don't tell me my father was wrong.
Let me tell you something. Your father, who made you wrong, your father, the breadwinner of the house there, the man who goes out and busts his butt to keep a roof over your head and clothes on your back, you call your father wrong? Hey, hey, hey, your father, you're supposed to love your father. Of course, your father loves you.
But how can any man that loves you tell you anything that's wrong? As Rob Reiner's father, Carl, remarked, a few would deny, all in the family reshaped the face of television. For years, every new sitcom on the air was either liberated by or reacting to it. It's the Jeffersons, Archie. Oh, the Jeffersons.
Oh, wait a minute. Oh. You don't mean them new people that moved in down the front. Yeah, Lion House family. They're really very nice people, Archie. Oh, yeah, very nice. They're wonderful people. They're lovely people, Rita.
But they are also colored people. Better hold it there, Daddy. Now listen, little girl. Been around a lot of places.
I've done a lot of things. But there's one thing Archie Bunker ain't never going to do, and that's break bread with no jungle bunnies. Within a few years of its debut in 1971, All in the Family, together with its spin-offs and godchildren, the Jeffersons, Maude, Good Times, and Sanford & Son, reached 120 million Americans, more than half the nation's population. All in the Family frequently earned the accolade of national theater, and its best scripts fall not an iota short of national literature, while Archie has joined the pantheon of American folk heroes. For his portrayal of Archie Bunker, Carroll O'Connor earned more awards than any other actor ever received for a single TV characterization. When the Guinness Book of World Records recognized All in the Family as commanding TV's highest advertising rates, the series became known as the Super Bowl of sitcoms, and Archie as the most expensive racist on television.
Any topical program runs the danger of quickly becoming dated. All in the Family escaped that fate. So strong is the story, so real are the people, that the episodes work even when occasional references elude the audience. It is why Archie's chair, Edith's chair, and Archie's beer can occupy a place of honor on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
They are as much a part of our national heritage as Abe Lincoln's stovepipe hat and George Washington's wooden teeth. All in the Family was recorded on tape before a live audience. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And what a story he told Norman Lear, the genius behind this show and the many shows that spawned from it. But the primary and driving force was that relationship between Michael, his son-in-law, and Archie himself. But those scenes of intimacy were always there.
Both were equally ridiculed in the writing and equally human in the writing of Lear's. It's what made it so good. It infuriated everybody, and everybody loved the characters and recognized the characters in themselves, their own families, and their own lives. No doubt, this show reshaped the face of TV. Every show thereafter was liberated by it or shaped by it. It was the Super Bowl of TV sitcoms. The story of our American story, the story of All in the Family here on Our American Stories.
