Sammy Davis, Jr. on ALL IN THE FAMILY

[LittleRickyII]

The reviews started coming in before the episode even aired. Here's an example:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hr5SAAAAIBAJ&sjid=An4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5553,3854273&dq=all-in-the-family+sammy-davis&hl=en

[lucyandethel]

This was a funny episode, one of the best remembered of the series, but also one of the most unrealistic. I can picture the real Sammy Davis Jr. would have said, "Give me my damn briefcase and let get the hell out of here!"

[LittleRickyII]

This is an update. I need to revise my Ginger Rogers/Sammy Davis Jr. comment below. Actually, both of those episodes aired the same season. In fact, the Ginger Rogers Here's Lucy episode aired three months before the Sammy Davis Jr. All in the Family episode, not after (Ginger Rogers on HL aired Nov 22, 1971; Sammy on AITF aired Feb 19, 1972). So I had that backwards. Perhaps to AITF writers got their idea from that HL episode.

This was a funny episode, one of the best remembered of the series, but also one of the most unrealistic. I can picture the real Sammy Davis Jr. would have said, "Give me my damn briefcase and let get the hell out of here!"

I suppose, except that Archie didn't have Sammy's briefcase when he arrived. He had left it at the cab company where he worked and called a cabbie friend to pick it up and bring it to his house. Sammy was only there at the house because he was waiting for Archie's friend to come by with his briefcase.

I never thought about this before, but the next season, there was a Here's Lucy episode guest starring Ginger Rogers that had basically the same plot: Ginger had forgotten her purse at a movie theatre (where she had been in disguise). Lucy and Harry found it, called her to come to Lucy's house for it. But in the meantime, it had been damaged, and Harry had taken it to get repaired. So when Ginger arrived at Lucy's house, she was detained there while they waited for Harry to bring the purse. The writers of that episode MUST have had that AITF episode in mind when they wrote that. It was a decent episode, but nowhere near the classic that the AITF episode was. It was pure genius.