Going into this review, All In the Family was a show that I had heard of, but never seen, as it was started and over with long before I was watching television. In the time I have had this set for review, I’ve made a very small dent in the two hundred and thirteen episodes within, spanning nine seasons. The show began in 1971 and would run into the first quarter of 1979. It spent an incredible five consecutive years as the top TV show according to ratings. In reading about this series’ legacy online, it also was the forerunner of other popular shows that would follow, such as The Jeffersons and Good Times.
All In the Family, both from what I have read and have been able to watch, could base much of its success on not only the actors, but the writing and direction. It was one of, if not the first, sitcom to broach sensitive topics such as race and religion, and do so from the perspective of one family living in Queens. Its humor can be seen as offensive at times, or at the very least, politically incorrect. These days, it may not cause much of a stir (or quite the opposite, depending on how you look at it), but for those shows that do walk or cross that line, they owe a small part of their existence to All In the Family.
The cast consisted of Carroll O’Connor, who played Archie, the head of the household. He’s the lead role, the face, and voice, of the series. His views on the world are antiquated, and slow to evolve. It’s his body language and dialogue that creates much of the humor. He was supported by Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers, along with George Jefferson (who indeed went on to star in The Jeffersons). Through Archie’s character, as well as the others but to a lesser degree, a number of difficult subjects were tackled both with some seriousness and laughs.
The series is what it is though, and if you’ve arrived to this review I suspect you’re probably more interested in the DVD set itself than the series. Most, if not all, of the series has already been released in individual seasons, but as studios typically do, once those individual seasons are out, a complete series set is released. Shout! did their homework though and didn’t just repackage what was already released. This is a more complete and thoughtful set, and deservedly so. Beginning with the packaging, expect a sturdy box with five standard sized DVD cases within. Cases one through four contain the first eight seasons, while the fifth case, containing four discs instead of six, includes season nine and the bonus material. Presentation quality across the DVDs is on par for the source material and format — nothing fancy or unusual here. However, it is worth pointing out that these episodes are the complete originals, not trimmed down, made-to-fit-in-a-timeslot syndicated ones.
The heart of the set, beyond the series itself, are the extras. When you first remove the factory plastic, you’ll discover a significant forty page booklet that is a short of celebration of the show, complete with short articles from critic Tom Shales and Media Professor Marty Kaplan. Other bonus features in this set:
-New video interview with series producer Norman Lear, running over eleven minutes.
-Two previously released documentaries, totaling just under an hour combined (“Those Were The Days: The Birth of All In the Family,” and “The Television Revolution Begins: “All In the Family” Is On the Air”).
-Two pilot episodes, “Justice For All,” which was the original pilot for the show before the last name of the fictitious family was changed to Bunker, and “Those Were The Days.”
-Two more pilot episodes for the spinoff shows known as “Gloria,” based on the daughter of the family, and “Archie Bunker’s Place,” which starred O’Connor as the main series wound down.
-Another pilot episode, this one for “704 Hauser,” a poorly executed spinoff from 1994 that lasted six episodes.
In a way, it sounds like a lot more extra content than it is, as far as content that is specifically about the series itself. It’s too bad that those essays in the booklet weren’t expanded more into actual interviews, for example, to give the video (i.e. most important) features more weight. Still, it would have been easy for Shout! to neglect the new interview with Norman Lear or leave off the other pilot episodes, so what’s here isn’t bad, but for such a renowned and long-running series, the bonus content feels just a little underwhelming.
With that, let’s get to the summary…