Did mike evans actor good times smoke7/26/2023 “All in the Family” was not the first comedy to tackle hot-button or political issues. And so began what we regard as his real career. It was Yorkin, who would step away from the partnership in 1975, who pointed Lear to the British comedy “Till Death Us Do Part.” Its bickering, politically and socially opposite father and son would provide the model for “All in the Family,” into which Lear folded elements of his own family. In the 1960s, they packaged variety specials and made movies together, including “Come Blow Your Horn,” which Yorkin directed and Lear adapted from the Neil Simon play “Divorce American Style,” which Lear wrote and Yorkin directed “Never Too Late,” which Lear produced and Yorkin directed and the satirical smoking comedy “Cold Turkey,” which Yorkin produced and Lear wrote and directed. He then teamed up with Bud Yorkin, an Emmy-winning television director who had hired him to write for Ford. Lear series have looked at racism, homophobia, misogyny, sexual identity, mental health, addiction, aging, rape, PTSD, immigration, gentrification - if there was a point to make, it would be made. “Good Times” (created by “Jeffersons” son Mike Evans and Eric Monte) was the first full-on Black family sitcom no one had seen the likes of Sherman Hemsley’s George Jefferson. ![]() (I preferred the becalmed quiet of his formally radical soap opera parody, “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”) But strong memories suggest that I watched them all, along with “Sanford and Son” and “One Day at a Time.” And there’s no question that these shows, born in an era of war protests, (sometimes militant) liberation movements, presidential malfeasance and an ever-widening generation gap, brought something fresh to the medium, making room for passages of seriousness and emotional depth between the crafted laughs. The series for which he was best known - including “All in the Family,” “Maude” and “The Jeffersons” - were not necessarily my favorite comedies. ![]() Norman Lear turned 100 on July 27, and to belatedly mark the occasion, ABC is airing a star-encrusted tribute Thursday, “Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter.” On broadcast television, the producer’s home for nearly all his TV career.
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