Just about to air out west...
"All in the Family"/"The Jeffersons" 2019 live reboot- 12/18: AITF & Good Times
- Thread starter Rembrandt Brown
- Start date
Here's the All In the Family episode they reenacted
Check the Tariqisms at the door. man
I thought it was going to be a 2019 version and I'm disappointed it wasn't. That would have made it interesting.
Same scripts as the 70s and poorer acting. No thanks. The originals were better.
One of the episodes I watched before the "reboot" was the original episode... That choice for The Jeffersons was better than the one they picked for All in the Family.
Frank Lorenzo should have been cut-- That part failed to translate more than any other (not that they were great on the original show-- but if you showed a Lorenzo it should've been Irene, not Frank).
Wanda Sykes did a very good job as Louise.
Woody Harrelson and Jaime Foxx came up short as leads. Woody had bigger shoes to fill IMO and came up most lacking.
Marla Gibbs would have been better as Mother Jefferson than Florence.
Gloria is even more annoying in 2019 than 45 years ago.
The end with Florence was worth the hour.
They nailed Louise, Bentley, Helen and Tom and Lionel.
Horrible Archie and Mike.
They nailed Louise, Bentley, Helen and Tom and Lionel.
Horrible Archie and Mike.
I think that was the point. It was reenacted material easily found on youtube, so storyline becomes secondary
I am so used to seeing images of Florence on jeffersons and 227 that it was hard at first to see her looking so old. I have never seen recent pics of her personally.
I don't think so.
Even the opening (Norman Lear) suggested that the show was being rebooted to highlight the the social tensions that still exist today.
If that's the intended goal, then the actors failed.
Because none of it was them focusing on the material as much as it was them focused on being caricatures of George and Archie.
If anything, I thought the dude playing Lionel did well.
Norman and Jimmy Kimmel should consider bringing this back as a summer series.. wouldnt mind seeing what they do with Good Times
Or Sanford & Son. Plenty of characters and material to work with there. Redo the episode "The 3 degrees" with Destiny's Child. The club scene where Fred and his boys got kicked out would be epic. Have Chris Rock be the comic Fred picks on.
Damn, that was fast removal, but i guess they did it to prevent comparisons last night as it was up before the show aired. The shows were done good and the real Florence showing up was hilarious. The 227 connection at the end even more ironic. I thought it was going to be new scripts too as some said, but I had no problem with them using the original scripts since it is one night only thing(at least for now).
Marla Gibbs was a great surprise, but at first it caught me off guard. She would have been good as Mother Jefferson, but that would have throw the show off in terms of people would end up saying why didn't she just play Florence. It was odd seeing her in that role knowing how much snap she gave her lines in the original. It may have been deliberate though as she knows it would not come off the same with this cast.
I liked the 227 connection too with Saaaaandddraaa! I didn't like Will Ferrell as Tom though. Kerry is my wife, so she can do no wrong lol
I think Woody was kind of dodgy as Archie, but he settled in as the show progressed. Jamie Foxx I just knew would slip in In Living Color Jamie which is why I was not too thrilled to hear him announced as George, BUT he did get Helmsley's mannerisms at points. He just got campy at times as that is the critique of him online everywhere. Wanda was good as Weezy and the people playing Jenny(who I admit kind of made more sense than the original darker skin girl (the original was very good though and iconic). BTW anyone know why the original Jenny that was on All In The Family wasn't used on the spin off? I get why they recast Tom and Helen though.
The guy playing Lionel and I guess he was a play off the original as no one liked the second Lionel lol.
Good Times and Sanford a given for shows to be revived in this manner. Not sure if it will happen though. What is sad is that The Cosby Show probably will never get this treatment and it is the biggest show of the 80's for blacks.
I thought Ediths character was the most realistic of them all.
Just watched it this morning … they muted the "N" word but left the script otherwise intact.
.
.
‘All in the Family’ & ‘The Jeffersons’ Live Shines With Jamie Foxx’s Flub, Surprise Guest & More Than Nostalgia
May 22, 2019 7:00pm
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Eric McCandless/ABC
SPOILER ALERT: This review contains details of tonight’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons on ABC. So, don’t be a meathead and read more if you don’t want to know what happened.
“It’s live,” Jamie Foxx told a suddenly wide awake America tonight after flubbing a line on ABC’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons.
“Everyone sitting at home just thought their TV just messed up,” the Oscar-winning actor with trained recovery skills, breaking his George Jefferson character as fellow cast members like Woody Harrelson’s Archie Bunker, Ellie Kemper, Ike Barinholtz, Anthony Anderson and Marisa Tomei’s Edith Bunker cracked up in the background.
RELATED STORY
Norman Lear & Producer Brent Miller On 'All In The Family' & 'The Jeffersons' Live Redux Tonight & A Potential Franchise
ABC
✔@ABCNetwork
https://twitter.com/ABCNetwork/status/1131380684361064449
We said anything could happen! #LiveInFrontOfAStudioAudience #TheJeffersons #AllintheFamily
720
10:05 PM - May 22, 2019
253 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
At that moment, as everyone let the tension of expectation out, got loose and simultaneously found the deep groove, you knew these pros had come to play andtake us back to some classic TV reborn.
Amidst the highs and mainly forgivable dips of the 90-minute special, the direct genius of Foxx joined Jennifer Hudson belting out that “Movin On Up” theme song; almost everything that Wanda Sykes and Tomei did; and the truly marvelous surprise of Marla Gibbs as the best of the Jimmy Kimmel co-hosted re-staging of the producer’s iconic sitcoms.
ABC
✔@ABCNetwork
https://twitter.com/ABCNetwork/status/1131371326629744641
.@IAMJHUD brought the house down! #TheJeffersons #LiveInFrontOfAStudioAudience
5,436
9:28 PM - May 22, 2019
2,221 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
With the great wordplay, Shirley Chisholm references, and those fastball cultural critiques that defined the best of Lear’s cottage industry of television back in the day, the appearance of the octogenarian Gibbs reprising her multi-Emmy nominated role as George and Louise Jefferson’s quip rich maid Florence Johnston was a true turn of heart that bridged the decades without a word. As the last remaining member of the core cast, Gibbs’ standing on that stag was a loving remembrance and homage to the deceased Isabel Sanford, Sherman Hemsley, Michael Evans, Roxie Roker and Franklin Cover.
Obviously a passion project for the infectious 51-year old late-night host Kimmel, who called AITF and The Jeffersons “two of my all-time favorite shows” at the rehearsal I was at on Tuesday, the re-staging bumped up against the difference in decades on only a few occasions, with fashion and race-related language.
Opening with a pre-taped introduction by a bell-bottomed and action-encouraging Lear, sitting in a replica of that iconic Archie Bunker chair (the real one is in the Smithsonian), the special took a PSA tone to inform 2019 viewers that “the language and themes from almost 50 years ago can still be jarring today, and we are still grappling with many of those issues.”
The issues were there in the scripts, no less perturbing than all those decades ago when Alice Cooper and Issac Hayes ruled the world.
But the reality of how were enacted and endure in the world became clear, as the ABC censor had to lean on the button several times in the Jeffersons portion of the night, when the N-word screeched back from 1975. Knowing what was being beeped out was a shock that was not funny at all, and yet likely the most immense indication of the impact these shows had on their first run and today.
Cutting to the soundstage at the beginning of the night, there was a suited and booted Lear and Kimmel in the center in a moveable balcony that had the potential to make them a live action and praise-slinging version of The Muppets’ Statler and Waldoff.
As a segue between AITF and The Jeffersons, the Lear, Brent Miller, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Kimmel and Justin Theroux EP’d special would return to the duo for commentary, which, while informative of how much the late-night host loved the Lear series of his childhood, unnecessary slowed down the pace of the performances. It also halted things before Hudson’s supreme command of the stage, when she sang one of the greatest TV theme songs of all time.
Then, with the Jeffersons‘ Apt. 12D on the left side of the stage, and the Bunkers’ front room to the audience’s right, it was a step back to the first year of Richard Nixon’s second term with All in the Family.
That hug Harrelson gave Tomei when they finished their rendition of “Those Were The Days” seemed to let out all the anticipation of getting to the moment of lift-off. Unfortunately, as great as Academy Award winner Tomei was at the role that Jean Stapleton brought to life, her Cheers alum partner took a while to warm up to the task at hand, while simultaneously slipping in and out of a distracting accent that never suspended disbelief.
The first secret of the night to be unveiled was what episodes of the eleven-season Jeffersons and the nine seasons of All in the Family were going to be performed. The decision was very specific to the context of the re-staging in Donald Trump’s America, and the existential logistics of moving from one series to the other. Allowing tonight’s performance to introduce almost all the characters, the special started off with the John Rich and Bob LaHendro-penned “Henry’s Farewell” from October 20, 1973, where George Jefferson’s brother, played tonight by Black-ish’s Anderson, departed. That was followed by the January 18, 1975 pilot of The Jeffersons.
The sixth episode of the fourth season of AITF stumbled with its grumpy Archie, which Harrelson often overplayed with uncharacteristic low energy, as he was burdened by the legacy of the O.G. Carroll O’Conner.
However, beyond that breaking of every wall by Foxx’s flub, the real star of All in The Family tonight was Tomei, who weaved the anxiety and vulnerability that the late and great Stapleton brought to Edith, and injected her own sense of playfulness, especially in scenes with Sykes’ Weezy – a team-up destined to be seen again in another form if Netflix has any programming shuffle left.
Almost beat for beat the same as the full dress run-through that I attended on the Sony lot last night, tonight’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience was ruled by the headliner, as the Jeffersons moved right on up.
Foxx and Sykes, along with Jovan Adepo as their on-screen son, Lionel, had already jettisoned the afterburners. But the arrival of Kerry Washington and Will Ferrell as one of American TV’s first mixed-race couples, Helen and Tom Willis, shot the re-staging stratospheric. While it would have been witty to have Tom Willis played by Scandal’s ex-POTUS Tony Goldwyn instead of Ferrell, it would have risked overwhelming the actual production and denied us the comic flair of the Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby star.
Part Dreamgirls reunion and 227 reunion, and part exercise in the bottomless American appetite for nostalgia, the reprise of The Jeffersons’ pilot was so authoritative that I forgot I was watching a staged throwback until that far-from-Gerald-Ford-era, Washington-instigated group hug right near the end.
Otherwise, in the greatest tribute to the overcoming original and the re-staging, I was back on those nights as a kid when my parents and I howled at Sanford, Hemsley, Gibbs and gang.
Or as Norman Lear told Jimmy Kimmel tonight, “I sit in a chair in an audience and I was had!”
So, if the ratings are strong enough against NBC’s Chicago Med and Chicago Fireseason-enders, can we have some more? And let’s have that tune one more time too –
May 22, 2019 7:00pm
Eric McCandless/ABC
SPOILER ALERT: This review contains details of tonight’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons on ABC. So, don’t be a meathead and read more if you don’t want to know what happened.
“It’s live,” Jamie Foxx told a suddenly wide awake America tonight after flubbing a line on ABC’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons.
“Everyone sitting at home just thought their TV just messed up,” the Oscar-winning actor with trained recovery skills, breaking his George Jefferson character as fellow cast members like Woody Harrelson’s Archie Bunker, Ellie Kemper, Ike Barinholtz, Anthony Anderson and Marisa Tomei’s Edith Bunker cracked up in the background.
RELATED STORY
Norman Lear & Producer Brent Miller On 'All In The Family' & 'The Jeffersons' Live Redux Tonight & A Potential Franchise
ABC
✔@ABCNetwork
https://twitter.com/ABCNetwork/status/1131380684361064449
We said anything could happen! #LiveInFrontOfAStudioAudience #TheJeffersons #AllintheFamily
720
10:05 PM - May 22, 2019
253 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
At that moment, as everyone let the tension of expectation out, got loose and simultaneously found the deep groove, you knew these pros had come to play andtake us back to some classic TV reborn.
Amidst the highs and mainly forgivable dips of the 90-minute special, the direct genius of Foxx joined Jennifer Hudson belting out that “Movin On Up” theme song; almost everything that Wanda Sykes and Tomei did; and the truly marvelous surprise of Marla Gibbs as the best of the Jimmy Kimmel co-hosted re-staging of the producer’s iconic sitcoms.
ABC
✔@ABCNetwork
https://twitter.com/ABCNetwork/status/1131371326629744641
.@IAMJHUD brought the house down! #TheJeffersons #LiveInFrontOfAStudioAudience
5,436
9:28 PM - May 22, 2019
2,221 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
With the great wordplay, Shirley Chisholm references, and those fastball cultural critiques that defined the best of Lear’s cottage industry of television back in the day, the appearance of the octogenarian Gibbs reprising her multi-Emmy nominated role as George and Louise Jefferson’s quip rich maid Florence Johnston was a true turn of heart that bridged the decades without a word. As the last remaining member of the core cast, Gibbs’ standing on that stag was a loving remembrance and homage to the deceased Isabel Sanford, Sherman Hemsley, Michael Evans, Roxie Roker and Franklin Cover.
Obviously a passion project for the infectious 51-year old late-night host Kimmel, who called AITF and The Jeffersons “two of my all-time favorite shows” at the rehearsal I was at on Tuesday, the re-staging bumped up against the difference in decades on only a few occasions, with fashion and race-related language.
Opening with a pre-taped introduction by a bell-bottomed and action-encouraging Lear, sitting in a replica of that iconic Archie Bunker chair (the real one is in the Smithsonian), the special took a PSA tone to inform 2019 viewers that “the language and themes from almost 50 years ago can still be jarring today, and we are still grappling with many of those issues.”
The issues were there in the scripts, no less perturbing than all those decades ago when Alice Cooper and Issac Hayes ruled the world.
But the reality of how were enacted and endure in the world became clear, as the ABC censor had to lean on the button several times in the Jeffersons portion of the night, when the N-word screeched back from 1975. Knowing what was being beeped out was a shock that was not funny at all, and yet likely the most immense indication of the impact these shows had on their first run and today.
Cutting to the soundstage at the beginning of the night, there was a suited and booted Lear and Kimmel in the center in a moveable balcony that had the potential to make them a live action and praise-slinging version of The Muppets’ Statler and Waldoff.
As a segue between AITF and The Jeffersons, the Lear, Brent Miller, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Kimmel and Justin Theroux EP’d special would return to the duo for commentary, which, while informative of how much the late-night host loved the Lear series of his childhood, unnecessary slowed down the pace of the performances. It also halted things before Hudson’s supreme command of the stage, when she sang one of the greatest TV theme songs of all time.
Then, with the Jeffersons‘ Apt. 12D on the left side of the stage, and the Bunkers’ front room to the audience’s right, it was a step back to the first year of Richard Nixon’s second term with All in the Family.
That hug Harrelson gave Tomei when they finished their rendition of “Those Were The Days” seemed to let out all the anticipation of getting to the moment of lift-off. Unfortunately, as great as Academy Award winner Tomei was at the role that Jean Stapleton brought to life, her Cheers alum partner took a while to warm up to the task at hand, while simultaneously slipping in and out of a distracting accent that never suspended disbelief.
The first secret of the night to be unveiled was what episodes of the eleven-season Jeffersons and the nine seasons of All in the Family were going to be performed. The decision was very specific to the context of the re-staging in Donald Trump’s America, and the existential logistics of moving from one series to the other. Allowing tonight’s performance to introduce almost all the characters, the special started off with the John Rich and Bob LaHendro-penned “Henry’s Farewell” from October 20, 1973, where George Jefferson’s brother, played tonight by Black-ish’s Anderson, departed. That was followed by the January 18, 1975 pilot of The Jeffersons.
The sixth episode of the fourth season of AITF stumbled with its grumpy Archie, which Harrelson often overplayed with uncharacteristic low energy, as he was burdened by the legacy of the O.G. Carroll O’Conner.
However, beyond that breaking of every wall by Foxx’s flub, the real star of All in The Family tonight was Tomei, who weaved the anxiety and vulnerability that the late and great Stapleton brought to Edith, and injected her own sense of playfulness, especially in scenes with Sykes’ Weezy – a team-up destined to be seen again in another form if Netflix has any programming shuffle left.
Almost beat for beat the same as the full dress run-through that I attended on the Sony lot last night, tonight’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience was ruled by the headliner, as the Jeffersons moved right on up.
Foxx and Sykes, along with Jovan Adepo as their on-screen son, Lionel, had already jettisoned the afterburners. But the arrival of Kerry Washington and Will Ferrell as one of American TV’s first mixed-race couples, Helen and Tom Willis, shot the re-staging stratospheric. While it would have been witty to have Tom Willis played by Scandal’s ex-POTUS Tony Goldwyn instead of Ferrell, it would have risked overwhelming the actual production and denied us the comic flair of the Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby star.
Part Dreamgirls reunion and 227 reunion, and part exercise in the bottomless American appetite for nostalgia, the reprise of The Jeffersons’ pilot was so authoritative that I forgot I was watching a staged throwback until that far-from-Gerald-Ford-era, Washington-instigated group hug right near the end.
Otherwise, in the greatest tribute to the overcoming original and the re-staging, I was back on those nights as a kid when my parents and I howled at Sanford, Hemsley, Gibbs and gang.
Or as Norman Lear told Jimmy Kimmel tonight, “I sit in a chair in an audience and I was had!”
So, if the ratings are strong enough against NBC’s Chicago Med and Chicago Fireseason-enders, can we have some more? And let’s have that tune one more time too –
ABC’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons Live Special Was a Retro Delight
By Jen Chaney@chaneyj
Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei, doing their version of “Those Were the Days.” Photo: Eric McCandless/ABC
Live In Front of a Studio Audience, the 90-minute restaging of two classic episodes of Norman Lear sitcoms performed by an all-star cast, could have been just another shallow attempt to wallow in television nostalgia. You know, like rebooting Press Your Luck and Card Sharks, something ABC will do next month as part of its all-retro-game-show approach to summertime programming.
But the back-to-back staging of the All in the Family episode “Henry’s Farewell” and the first-ever episode of The Jeffersons, an All in the Familyspin-off, worked on more levels than that. It was effective as a televised stage play; as, yes, an admittedly nostalgia-riddled exercise in watching contemporary actors try to nail the mannerisms of old sitcom characters; and as a reminder that the same social issues addressed in these nearly 50-year-old comedies remain relevant today. That last point is something Lear, who hosted the proceedings alongside executive producer Jimmy Kimmel, highlighted in his introduction. “There is so much more work we must do in this country we love so much,” the TV pioneer said at the top of the show, while also warning the audience that the dialogue in the original scripts had not been watered down and might be hard to stomach. (ABC did bleep the use of the N-word, twice, in The Jeffersons.)
Listening to Archie Bunker, played by Woody Harrelson in lieu of the great Carroll O’Connor, rail about “the coloreds” was indeed uncomfortable, partly because of the language but partly because there surely are old white men in America, sitting in their worn living room armchairs, still talking like this.
Foxx botched one of George Jefferson’s lines. “It’s live,” he said, breaking character after his tongue got all twisted during a toast to Henry, played by Anthony Anderson of Black-ish. “Everyone sitting at home just thinks their TV messed up.” In the background, Harrelson could be seen turning his back to the camera because he was laughing so hard. That screw-up and the subsequent attempt to get the scene back on track gave Live In Front of a Studio Audience the flavor of another great comedy from the same era: The Carol Burnett Show.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of watching this staged bit of time travel was gauging which actor did the best job of capturing the original performance. The MVP in that department was Marisa Tomei, whose high-pitched lilt and awkward lumbering was Jean Stapleton’s Edith Bunker to a T, yet still registered as acting as opposed to a straight-up impression. Tomei got Edith’s warmth and agreeable ditziness just right. Harrelson, who had the most difficult task of anyone, didn’t fare quite as well with Archie. He sometimes lost control of his Queens accent and seemed more whiny than grumpy, though his face-off with Foxx’s George was a good match.
Overall, everyone in the cast seemed to enjoy themselves and that gave this whole ABC experiment, directed by distinguished sitcom vet James Burrows, the type of verve that can’t be replicated in pre-recorded scripted fare. Given how well it went, I wouldn’t be surprised if ABC makes the live sitcom its version of the live musicals that NBC and Fox regularly stage. Even if it is a blatant nostalgia play, bringing some old TV history into the present seems like a smart move for ABC — and a reason for the rest of us to actually watch live network television for a change.
By Jen Chaney@chaneyj
Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei, doing their version of “Those Were the Days.” Photo: Eric McCandless/ABC
Live In Front of a Studio Audience, the 90-minute restaging of two classic episodes of Norman Lear sitcoms performed by an all-star cast, could have been just another shallow attempt to wallow in television nostalgia. You know, like rebooting Press Your Luck and Card Sharks, something ABC will do next month as part of its all-retro-game-show approach to summertime programming.
But the back-to-back staging of the All in the Family episode “Henry’s Farewell” and the first-ever episode of The Jeffersons, an All in the Familyspin-off, worked on more levels than that. It was effective as a televised stage play; as, yes, an admittedly nostalgia-riddled exercise in watching contemporary actors try to nail the mannerisms of old sitcom characters; and as a reminder that the same social issues addressed in these nearly 50-year-old comedies remain relevant today. That last point is something Lear, who hosted the proceedings alongside executive producer Jimmy Kimmel, highlighted in his introduction. “There is so much more work we must do in this country we love so much,” the TV pioneer said at the top of the show, while also warning the audience that the dialogue in the original scripts had not been watered down and might be hard to stomach. (ABC did bleep the use of the N-word, twice, in The Jeffersons.)
Listening to Archie Bunker, played by Woody Harrelson in lieu of the great Carroll O’Connor, rail about “the coloreds” was indeed uncomfortable, partly because of the language but partly because there surely are old white men in America, sitting in their worn living room armchairs, still talking like this.
Foxx botched one of George Jefferson’s lines. “It’s live,” he said, breaking character after his tongue got all twisted during a toast to Henry, played by Anthony Anderson of Black-ish. “Everyone sitting at home just thinks their TV messed up.” In the background, Harrelson could be seen turning his back to the camera because he was laughing so hard. That screw-up and the subsequent attempt to get the scene back on track gave Live In Front of a Studio Audience the flavor of another great comedy from the same era: The Carol Burnett Show.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of watching this staged bit of time travel was gauging which actor did the best job of capturing the original performance. The MVP in that department was Marisa Tomei, whose high-pitched lilt and awkward lumbering was Jean Stapleton’s Edith Bunker to a T, yet still registered as acting as opposed to a straight-up impression. Tomei got Edith’s warmth and agreeable ditziness just right. Harrelson, who had the most difficult task of anyone, didn’t fare quite as well with Archie. He sometimes lost control of his Queens accent and seemed more whiny than grumpy, though his face-off with Foxx’s George was a good match.
Overall, everyone in the cast seemed to enjoy themselves and that gave this whole ABC experiment, directed by distinguished sitcom vet James Burrows, the type of verve that can’t be replicated in pre-recorded scripted fare. Given how well it went, I wouldn’t be surprised if ABC makes the live sitcom its version of the live musicals that NBC and Fox regularly stage. Even if it is a blatant nostalgia play, bringing some old TV history into the present seems like a smart move for ABC — and a reason for the rest of us to actually watch live network television for a change.
If they were to do Maude like this im already picturing John Legend singing the theme onstage..
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