Archie Bunker.

The name sums up a handy image of the fumbling prejudiced working class man from Queens of the 1970s. He came on the scene at a time when America was being torn apart by opposing factions, a bloody conflict in Viet Nam, civil unrest, riots and assassinations.

While other networks were pushing the same ideal escapist shows like The Brady Bunch or Family Affair, CBS' All in the Family put a bigoted nobody on center stage. Not pretty or polished, for sure, but Archie Bunker was something Greg and Jan and Marcia couldn't be. He was real. He spouted out stuff that we all heard in the corners and recesses of the masses (or your crazy uncle) that resonated with a dark familiarity.

Added to the mix was his little girl Gloria, now a grown woman with leftist leanings gleaned from her husband Micheal, Archie's nemesis and sometimes equally off the mark with his over-intellectual liberal way of dealing with things. And then Edith Bunker, marvelously simple and one-level straightforward, but not complicated. As if she stopped her mental development somewhere in the middle of adolescence.

There was that one episode when Archie is alone with Gloria for a moment or two and he starts kidding around with her, poking her and reminding her about how when she was little he'd try to give her a few 'fake' boxing moves. He's laughing all the way but Gloria wants him to stop. She says "stop it, stop it please. I'm not your little girl anymore."

And then he goes full wide eyed stare, with a slight look of hurt in his eyes. "Don't you ever say that, ever again." The one thing that no one should take away from an old man, his memories about his 'little girl'. Gets you in the bottom of the throat. That was great television.

In just a few seasons later we had other 'seedy' shows with that same lived-in feeling: Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man, The Jeffersons, etc. And of course the 'awful regular guy' trope was carried to further extremes decades later with shows like Married with Children or Shameless.

Mayfield Eight, my southwest Biker tale is set in that era, around 1974. I felt obligated to share a few touchstones of that time, and Archie Bunker is one of them.

(Next week: Evel Knievel).

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