Why was archie bunker wearing the same clothes over and over again for all 9 seasons of the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWb5fMPvSXs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHJYAWThx3M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b125NDff49A

Archie was from the Great Depression age where they had to work hard for every thing they got - which was never enough. I can't recall the episode, but Edith was fixing a pair of Archie's socks when Gloria asked her mother why she didn't just throw them away and buy new socks. Archie piped up and told her that the new generation was about waste instead of fixing what still could be fixed. I doubt those were his exact words but it was along the same lines and I feel he made a good point. Edith could sew - or "darn" them, so why spend money on something that could be fixed?

I liked the fact that Archie wore pretty much the same clothes in each episode. He was a blue collar guy living in a changing world during the 1970s gas crisis and accelerating inflation. It wouldn't make sense for this guy to have a closet full of clothes.

Also, most of the episodes took place when he was going to or getting home from work. Most guys of his era had their specific "uniform" for work.

Yeah those were work clothes, he had suits and things when the situation called for them

Archie never seemed like the workaholic kinda guy he was always home drinking beer and watching TV or complaining with his wife for no reason lol

Archie never seemed like the workaholic kinda guy he was always home drinking beer and watching TV or complaining with his wife for no reason lol

Um, I beg to differ. He may not have been a workaholic but the guy had two jobs at one point. Driving Munson's cab and the factory as a foreman - and than later he opened the tavern. If you don't think it's hard work to be a foreman and run your own business than you have no sense. Archie had very strong work ethics as opposed to that know it all, lazy meathead. We see him at home mostly because he's coming home from work and because the show is based on the silly family life of his and dealing with that liberal piece of crap son in law, whiney ass daughter and dingbat wife.

Archie was a hard working guy he should have bought himself some up to date clothes for himself instead of wearing the same thing in each episode lol

Archie worked a blue collar job and essentially wore the same clothes every day. He may have had 4 or 5 white shirts and dark pants that all looked the same but that was not unusual back then. I watched my grandfather go off to work and come home from his factory job the same way for years. That's how people dressed. When he got home he took off his work shirt and walked around in his T-shirt until he went to sleep.

If you grew up in that era you would know that most people wore things until they were almost threadbare. Socks were darned. Anything that ripped was stitched back up. People maybe had a chest of drawers and a small closet that all of the clothes they owned fit in. I grew up in a house where my parents shared a closet that nowadays I couldn't fit one-quarter of my clothes in. There wasn't a lot of extras in middle to lower-middle class America in those days. People were far more thrifty than today. Shopping was out of necessity not recreation. A lot of shows depict that era like everybody was dressed in the latest fashions and were super hip. That wasn't the reality of the era. Archie was the rule not the exception.

Archie worked a blue collar job and essentially wore the same clothes every day. He may have had 4 or 5 white shirts and dark pants that all looked the same but that was not unusual back then. I watched my grandfather go off to work and come home from his factory job the same way for years. That's how people dressed. When he got home he took off his work shirt and walked around in his T-shirt until he went to sleep.

If you grew up in that era you would know that most people wore things until they were almost threadbare. Socks were darned. Anything that ripped was stitched back up. People maybe had a chest of drawers and a small closet that all of the clothes they owned fit in. I grew up in a house where my parents shared a closet that nowadays I couldn't fit one-quarter of my clothes in. There wasn't a lot of extras in middle to lower-middle class America in those days. People were far more thrifty than today. Shopping was out of necessity not recreation. A lot of shows depict that era like everybody was dressed in the latest fashions and were super hip. That wasn't the reality of the era. Archie was the rule not the exception.


Want to welcome you to the site but you probably don't know that the person who started this thread was a little slow and no longer on the site.

But I hope to have some discussions with you about the show because I was very intrigued by your post. Again welcome to the boards and hope you stick around:wave:

Want to welcome you to the site but you probably don't know that the person who started this thread was a little slow and no longer on the site.

But I hope to have some discussions with you about the show because I was very intrigued by your post. Again welcome to the boards and hope you stick around:wave:

Thanks.

Figured I was safe bringing forward a thread that was only a few months old. One never knows. This is quite the unique forum. So many sub-forums for so many different shows, eras, etc that's it's a bit overwhelming to get a feel for who's who. So I jumped in with both feet instead.

Thanks.

Figured I was safe bringing forward a thread that was only a few months old. One never knows. This is quite the unique forum. So many sub-forums for so many different shows, eras, etc that's it's a bit overwhelming to get a feel for who's who. So I jumped in with both feet instead.


What other sitcoms are you a fan of from the 1970-79 era besides All in the Family?

What other sitcoms are you a fan of from the 1970-79 era besides All in the Family?

The 70's is right in my wheelhouse. Besides All in the Family... MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, The Brady Bunch, The Odd Couple, Taxi, WKRP in Cincinnati, The Partridge Family, and Carol Burnett Show come to mind. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.

The 70's is right in my wheelhouse. Besides All in the Family... MASH, Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, The Brady Bunch, The Odd Couple, Taxi, WKRP in Cincinnati, The Partridge Family, and Carol Burnett Show come to mind. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch.


Well I like Rhoda, Bob Newhart, the Jeffersons, Alice, Happy Days, and Sanford and Son


Feel free to add to any of my old threads by going to the search box of this forum and putting in TVFactFan

Want to welcome you to the site but you probably don't know that the person who started this thread was a little slow and no longer on the site.


It looks like he posted some new threads today.

It looks like he posted some new threads today.



He doesn't post on the 70's sitcoms boards anymore because I chased his a$$ off of them

He now just post on Family Matters and Boy Meets Worldl

He doesn't post on the 70's sitcoms boards anymore because I chased his a$$ off of them

He now just post on Family Matters and Boy Meets Worldl

Unfortunately I see he just posted a ton of useless drivel on the General Sitcoms Discussion section. I'm tired of this guy too. He just fills up boards with nonsense and that makes it hard for me to get to the posts I need to see because he put way too many there.

Unfortunately I see he just posted a ton of useless drivel on the General Sitcoms Discussion section. I'm tired of this guy too. He just fills up boards with nonsense and that makes it hard for me to get to the posts I need to see because he put way too many there.


Yeah I forgot about the General Sitcom Discussion Board. Those are his main boards now, family Matters, Boy Meets world, and General Discussion

He doesn't post on the 70's sitcoms boards anymore because I chased his a$$ off of them

He now just post on Family Matters and Boy Meets Worldl
I agree that the member in question was quite the nuisance, but quotes like the above are not much better in their tone or content.

I liked the fact that Archie wore pretty much the same clothes in each episode. He was a blue collar guy living in a changing world during the 1970s gas crisis and accelerating inflation. It wouldn't make sense for this guy to have a closet full of clothes.

Also, most of the episodes took place when he was going to or getting home from work. Most guys of his era had their specific "uniform" for work.

Exactly. My dad was a very clean man who cared about his appearance, but he had very few clothes and was often seeing wearing the same ones. It's a generational thing and I think Lear did it just right.

Exactly. My dad was a very clean man who cared about his appearance, but he had very few clothes and was often seeing wearing the same ones. It's a generational thing and I think Lear did it just right.

Exactly. It wasn't unusual to see people in the inner cities wearing their same work uniform everyday. I remember my friend's grandfather wearing the same oil company uniform EVERYDAY...never saw him wearing anything else.

When my dad went to college decades ago, he only had 2 suits. They wore suits in the olden days. They didn't have a lot of throwaway money. He wore them all four years.

OK now this is going to stop now i am sick of TV Fact Fan talking trash about me and not only is he doing this but he's trying to turn people against me because i disagreed with something he said over a year ago on the sanford and son message board lol, anyway all the stuff he says is useless he has no life he has been on sitcomsonline.com for over 11 years, the man has been on here since 2002 thats longer then almost all the people who have been on the site, i feel sorry for his parents must not feel good knowing their son is harrasing people on the internet and spends 24/7 watching TV shows on his television, TVFactFan can i ask you a question do you have a actual real life outside of SitcomsOnline do you have a girlfriend or friends you seem like a loner ???

OK now this is going to stop now i am sick of TV Fact Fan talking trash about me and not only is he doing this but he's trying to turn people against me because i disagreed with something he said over a year ago on the sanford and son message board lol, anyway all the stuff he says is useless he has no life he has been on sitcomsonline.com for over 11 years, the man has been on here since 2002 thats longer then almost all the people who have been on the site, i feel sorry for his parents must not feel good knowing their son is harrasing people on the internet and spends 24/7 watching TV shows on his television, TVFactFan can i ask you a question do you have a actual real life outside of SitcomsOnline do you have a girlfriend or friends you seem like a loner ???


I am in the process of getting you banned. Sick of your craziness.

Your days are numbered

TVFactFan hasn't turned anyone against any poster. Any boards you visit will have some discord. It's up to the individual as far as what they want to read -- anything else is the job of the moderators. Maybe it's time for an updating of the rules.

OK now this is going to stop now i am sick of TV Fact Fan talking trash about me and not only is he doing this but he's trying to turn people against me because i disagreed with something he said over a year ago on the sanford and son message board lol, anyway all the stuff he says is useless he has no life he has been on sitcomsonline.com for over 11 years, the man has been on here since 2002 thats longer then almost all the people who have been on the site, i feel sorry for his parents must not feel good knowing their son is harrasing people on the internet and spends 24/7 watching TV shows on his television, TVFactFan can i ask you a question do you have a actual real life outside of SitcomsOnline do you have a girlfriend or friends you seem like a loner ???


Crazyman67:crazy: :crazy:

There is a Nixon White House tape where Nixon was talking with John Erhlchman (sic, too lazy to look up) where they were talking back and forth about various subjects when All In the Family came up. ATIF was a new show, or when this show first became popular, so huge tape was around 1971-2.

Nixon hated the show, and one thing I remember was him talking about Archie wearing "sloppy clothes". "Here is this guy wearing the sloppy clothes.......", and then goes on about the hippy son in law, the dizzy daughter etc.

Nixon was probably the only one who hated the show.e

There is a Nixon White House tape where Nixon was talking with John Erhlchman (sic, too lazy to look up) where they were talking back and forth about various subjects when All In the Family came up. ATIF was a new show, or when this show first became popular, so huge tape was around 1971-2.

Nixon hated the show, and one thing I remember was him talking about Archie wearing "sloppy clothes". "Here is this guy wearing the sloppy clothes.......", and then goes on about the hippy son in law, the dizzy daughter etc.

Nixon was probably the only one who hated the show.e

Nixon hating it was probably further proof of the show's worthiness.

(I always hate it when I miss a great thread...) so...sorry for jumping in the middle. Yes, like others have said, Archie was lower middle-class so all their material items were limited. So it made perfect sense for him to pretty much be the same way every ep. Besides, Archie was a little bit on the sloppy side, which goes against being a clothes horse.

Um, I beg to differ. He may not have been a workaholic but the guy had two jobs at one point. Driving Munson's cab and the factory as a foreman - and than later he opened the tavern. If you don't think it's hard work to be a foreman and run your own business than you have no sense. Archie had very strong work ethics as opposed to that know it all, lazy meathead. We see him at home mostly because he's coming home from work and because the show is based on the silly family life of his and dealing with that liberal piece of crap son in law, whiney ass daughter and dingbat wife.

Absolutely Archie was a hard working guy. All his jobs were either labor-intensive or dangerous (driving a cab in NYC is dangerous and hard work.). Archie may not have been the brightest bulb on the block but he INDEED worked hard.

My take on Mike though isn't as harsh as yours. More than anything else, Mike was naive and misguided; but his smug "I'm smarter and more evolved than up you are" was irritating. It was fun watching him get his cumuppence in ep #69 "The Games Bunkers Play". Watching him flip over the board and storm out of the living room like a six year old was priceless. LOL you can dish it out but can't take it huh Mike. (I've noticed that about many liberals, they're liberal as long as you agree with them 100%, but begin to differ and watch closed -minded ness in action!)

On the other hand, Mike was trying to better himself. He did work hard in college, got good grades, and eventually landed a nice job.

Absolutely Archie was a hard working guy. All his jobs were either labor-intensive or dangerous (driving a cab in NYC is dangerous and hard work.). Archie may not have been the brightest bulb on the block but he INDEED worked hard.

My take on Mike though isn't as harsh as yours. More than anything else, Mike was naive and misguided; but his smug "I'm smarter and more evolved than up you are" was irritating. It was fun watching him get his cumuppence in ep #69 "The Games Bunkers Play". Watching him flip over the board and storm out of the living room like a six year old was priceless. LOL you can dish it out but can't take it huh Mike. (I've noticed that about many liberals, they're liberal as long as you agree with them 100%, but just to differ and watch closed -minded ness in action!)

On the other hand, Mike was trying to better himself. He did work hard in college, got good grades, and eventually landed a nice job.

Agreed. I don't like it when people think that to like Mike is to dislike Archie, or vice versa. They were both imperfect human beings, with areas of strengths and weaknesses. I really don't think Lear set up the show to be about how right Mike was all the time, and that's to his credit. As a huge liberal, he might very well have done this but he liked Archie and conveyed his humanity in every episode, as well as Mike's frailties.

God, I miss that show...

Agreed. I don't like it when people think that to like Mike is to dislike Archie, or vice versa. They were both imperfect human beings, with areas of strengths and weaknesses. I really don't think Lear set up the show to be about how right Mike was all the time, and that's to his credit. As a huge liberal, he might very well have done this but he liked Archie and conveyed his humanity in every episode, as well as Mike's frailties.

God, I miss that show...

Yes, I like your take very much. Mike and Archie were complex characters indeed, with both strengths weaknesses and contradictions in their personalities. Lear did do a FANTASTIC job with the show's character and the topics.

I love the show too. IMO it's the second best TV show ever (slightly behind I Love Lucy). All In The Family was 25-30 years ahead of its time. A monumental show.

There were pretty frequent instances revealing how Mike was a flawed person, which of course added depth to the show and made the character seem more realistic. For example, he strongly resists allowing a female surgeon to do his operation, while ordinarily you might expect him to be very outspoken about gender equality. It's hypocritical scenarios like that which made the show so interesting. Everything from the plot, script, and acting all clicked, in tightly-executed episodes.

Getting back to the wearing of the same clothes, there are several other sitcom examples that come to mind. On My Three Sons, Uncle Charley almost always wore a light blue long-sleeved shirt at home, despite not being in any kind of formal employ and ostensibly he could have worn anything he chose.

what i find interesting is carroll oconnor was actually much younger than his charactor i think when he started doing 'in the heat of the night' he was closer to the age that arch bunker was suppose to have been.

His shirts are not white. More like pink or cream.

Like on Gilligan's Island, Gilligan, The Skipper and The Professor always were the same clothes. The Howels, Ginger and Mary Ann had a variety of clothing .

My dad wore the almost exact same clothes his whole career in the 70s and 80s. Some brown or black trousers with a white or off white collared shirt. Today they may call that business casual. But that was the norm back then. As a kid Archie reminded me of my dad not for his beliefs but for the exact shirts he would wear.

His shirts are not white. More like pink or cream.

Archie would not be caught wearing pink. His shirts were most likely "old" white. He probably had several of those along with the brown pants.

Like on Gilligan's Island, Gilligan, The Skipper and The Professor always were the same clothes. The Howels, Ginger and Mary Ann had a variety of clothing .

Go figure. So many clothes packed for a three hour tour...

And why did Mr. Howell bring his teddy bear on a three-hour cruise? LOL

My dad was a mechanic. He had four pairs of work trousers and maybe 5 work shirts. His pants were brown or dark blue and his shirts were grey. Every shirt had some kind of smudge from oil, grease, lubricants and sealants. He was a mess and his clean shirts weren't very clean at all.

And why did Mr. Howell bring his teddy bear on a three-hour cruise? LOL

I know right ! ? Good thing Teddy didn't get thrown overboard during the storm, Mr.Howell would have really been traumatized !! :eek::confused::D

Why was archie bunker wearing the same clothes over and over again for all 9 seasons of the show.Maybe he liked those clothes :)

Archie would not be caught wearing pink. His shirts were most likely "old" white. He probably had several of those along with the brown pants.

Pink is a traditional color for men's dress shirts. I don't know how else to describe it.

I know right ! ? Good thing Teddy didn't get thrown overboard during the storm, Mr.Howell would have really been traumatized !! :eek::confused::D

:lol: