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Join Date: Jan 09, 2001
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- Other Thoughts:
This show NEVER jumped the shark! Unfortunately, it never got the attention it deserved. This show was "All In The Family" renamed and pieced together life after Mike, Gloria and little Joey moved to California, Edith and Archie took in Edith's niece Stephanie and Archie continued to run his bar and grill. This show brought out the best of Archie Bunker. After Edith died, her good sense and wisdom seemed to live on in Archie!
I agree! This show, in my opinion, was just as good as the show it came from. It's unfortunate how many people choose not to remember this show just because most of the cast is gone. Whoever said this show brought out the best in Archie Bunker is absolutely right! After Edith died, Archie DID inherit her good wisdom and good heart. I hope someday this show will return to TV nationwide, and not just in Pennsylvania. Just because it was the same show with a new title doesn't mean it should be forgotten forever. - Bill Weichand, webmaster of ARCHIE'S PLACE: The Carroll O'Connor Website (http://victorian.fortunecity.com/rushdie/485/)
This show was never any good, but probably the most cloying and ridiculous episode was when Sammy Davis Jr. visits the bar, and in a switch from the classic All in the Family episode, Archie kisses HIM. This goes against everything we know about the Archie Bunker character. The reason this show is un-appreciated is because it stunk.
When Archie started tending bar in a vest! *Archie Bunker*?! NO WAY!! He'd have torn into Mike in no time flat on AITF had 'the Meathead' done that! I have nothing against vests myself but it went totally against Archie's character to have worn one!
If Norman Lear was such a television genius,why did he create this pathetic piece of crap? I only saw one show and it was horrible. Didn't he get it after leaving "All In The Family" on too long? It further amazes me that this show is on in syndication. I believe it's on in Philly. Danniele grew up to be a little slut. She was on Howard Stern a few years ago .She had blue hair. I guess the trauma of being a child star on this lame show has finally gotten her.
This is a good show. I'm saddened so many people dislike this show. I have all but 3 episodes on tape of this series and i will treasure them (along with All in the Family) forever. ALL long-lived sitcoms become weaker after 8 years or so. It should be on a cable station like tv land or WGN. Good stories, sad moments as in Ediths death but also funny times like Sammy Davis and Reggie Jacksons visit to the bar. Life does go on and Archie did go on, a lesson for all of us in real life. All the cast was true to their character and i love them all. This show never jumped the shark at all.
I always loved all in the family, but Archie bunker just wasn't funny without edith!
The changed premise combined with Edith's death. It was great when Archie bought the bar it gave the cast a new place to interact but without familiar faces and Edith's unique outlook on life it just didn't work.
Here's an interesting concept, take a Shark Jumped Show (All in the Family), strip off most of the characters that made it work over the years (before the jump), keep characters that were part of the jump (Archie's niece Stephanie and his partner), change little else and see what happens. The answer is obvious. You wind up with an already shark jumped show that is trying to live off the last fumes of a formally great show. Archie Bunker's Place had a different feel from All in the Family. It was a sadder, slower paced, and unfunny show - all the opposite of All in the Family at its zenith. People who create shows like Archie Bunker's Place forget one of the fundamental rules of show business - 'Always leave them wanting more.'
Let's see... Before All In The Family even started filming, Carroll O'Connor was so certain the show would fail that he had a bunch of guarantee clauses built into his contract. Then, after AITF was a hit and was on for about 3-4 years, he says he's tired of doing it, the show was out of steam and that they should just end it right then. Then, nearly a decade after all this and after the other original cast members decide to move on, O'Connor wants to keep beating a dead horse and plows ahead with this piece of crap. Can you say "running on fumes"? Can you also say "dead on arrival"? This show was conceived after AITF had jumped the shark and the shark had died at a ripe old age years later. A bad bad idea from the outset. And if it were up to O'Connor, Archie Bunker would have been on the air right up to his death; thank God we were spared that horror.
Don't get me wrong, I like the character of Archie Bunker and consider him to be one of the greatest of all time. In fact I think All In The Family when all the characters were still on was the greatest sitcom of all time. As a show with no Gloria or Mike it sits up among some good sitcoms and is still watchable as it was before. The problem, however, was that people were not giving it a chance . Hence the ratings and the show itself never really took off.
I felt Archie Bunkers Place Jumped When Edith Passed Away Altough I didnt Think Much of this Show It just wasnt the same Without Edith Mike And Gloria Around Beleive me I love All In The Family its a Real Classic I see it On Occasion on Nick At Nite. The One Thing I felt Bad About was When Daneile Brebious Said on The E True Hollywood Story That They Were Canceled Coldly By CBS Two Months after the Filming of The Last Episode That Sucked.
It jumped when Murray left for San Fran. I liked him as Archie's foil and after he left some of the new characters they brought in were pretty lame. (Billy and that lawyer guy...I can't remember his name.) It also seemed somewhat contrived that every single person Archie encountered belonged to a minority of some kind. I understand the point that the world around Archie was continuing to change, but come on.
I suppose this would not be such a bad show, if you didn't have ALL IN THE FAMILY to compare it with. If you do that, it is a really, really WEAK show. It is a very dull and dark show, too. Could they not afford any lighting on the show? The house suddenly becomes as dark as the bar. Anne Meara and Martin Balsam are brilliant actors, but pretty much wasted here. And it is a documented fact that this show did not...I repeat...DID NOT tape in front of a studio audience. It was quicker for them to get these in the can without one. The laughs supposedly came from old ALL IN THE FAMILY soundtracks. What is bad about this, is that the comic timing is very "off"...You don't react the same way without an audience there, even if you are "holding" for the laughs. And this show had very few. But, the twoparter concerning Edith's death (called "Archie Alone") are very well done.... And deeply moving
Given that it was missing three-fourths of the All In the Family cast, there was no way Archie Bunker's Place was going to be a genuinely good show. But now that I've caught some episodes on TV Land, I have to say it isn't as bad as I remembered. It's not the writing or the actors or even the Edith-less premise that brings it down. It's the lack of a studio audience. No audience equals bad comic timing and a lack of excitement on the actors' part. I think if you could take some of the scripts and re-film them again in front of real people, the show would be pretty good.
When Martin Balsam left the show, it really did go downhill. My memories of this show were that it was pretty lame, and then when TV Land recently began to rerun the show, the first season was actually pretty good. The arguments between Archie and Murray were almost as good as those between Archie and the Meathead. Plus, Archie actually needed Murray's help in running the bar and converting it into a restaurant. Head Writer Milt Josefsberg, whose writing on the later episodes of "All in the Family" seemed sub-standard for both himself and the show, helped turn out a pretty good first season for this program. Once he left, "Archie Bunker's Place" really fell apart. All of the characters became caricatures, and once Martin Balsam left the cast, there was never a good sparring partner for Archie again. Billie Bunker was no match, nor was Barry Rabinowitz.
Archie Bunker's place could've went off the air w/a special episode like having archie's niece billie marrying her old lawyer bf barry,as well as have stephanie graduate college.
Although All in the Family put on water skis when Meathead and Gloria moved next door, and jumped when they moved away, Archie Bunker’s Place never really jumped. Edith Bunker was killed off shortly into this show’s run, but she had been regulated to a bit part before then anyway. I think the brilliant Jean Stapleton caved under pressure to appear in ABP, but the producers ultimately gave her a break and let her leave. Norman Lear had nothing to do with this show, at least that’s what IMDB.com says. This show when judged on it’s own merits is not half bad, certainly better than any sitcom show on UPN. O’Connor is great but Archie Bunker is a tired old wussy, very unlike his All in the Family days. At least O’Connor had class enough to change the name of the show and not suckle at the All in the Family teat for ratings purposes (he should have done that two years prior, when Meathead left the show, but oh well). Better than AfterMASH, that’s for sure, but CBS has one hell of a death wish in the early, post-Lear 80s?
Archie Bunker's place was just an example of an actor trying to milk his success for a few more dollars. It had none of the original cutting edge humor that all in the family did, which jumped long before it even ended. I suppose Carroll O'Connor got some beefy paychecks for this lame stint, but he was probably rich enough by then that he should have just let well enough alone and moved on to other projects. It was also a new low for the great character actor Martin Balsam. The whole show sucked and it jumped in the writers' room, before it even made it to the air.
Archie Bunker's Place should have never happened. While I don't agree that it was Carroll O'Connor trying to milk more money out of a tired premise, I do think it should have ended in 1978 when Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers left. Anything after that is difficult to watch. They should have left well enough alone. Now the legacy of All in the Family carries with it the sour note it ended on as ABP. The death of Edith. Archie mellowing and even dating. It became absurd. I am one of All in the Family's biggest fans but look at Archie Bunker's Place with no interest.
Although it’s easier in hindsight to reflect on an historic latter-day disaster like “ABP” and reminisce how they “might have done this show and made it actually work”, it’s all far too late to go back and change it now! Maybe if they adapted this premise and changed to the new format right after Mike & Gloria left the first series they would have never had to 1). Add “Stephanie” to AITF in the first place, sinking it deeper than it was already headed. In all fairness to Danielle Brisebois who was an adorable, talented child star a young kid just DID NOT fit in to the adult world of the original ANYWHERE. They never had Gloria be any younger than 20 after all, so it wasn’t even like “Steffy” was replacing anyone and served no real purpose. 2). They probably wouldn’t have had to kill off Edith when Jean Stapleton wanted out after so long, thus closing the door forever on any reunion possibilities. I’d think a guest appearance here & there to run out her contract would have been easier to live with than pointlessly dragging down AITF full time until its final demise. 3). Maybe then some of the better new cast wouldn’t have bowed out so soon and it might have found more of an audience! Martin Balsam was great as a costar, I agree with others. IMO, Ann Meara…to me she just got more and more annoying “Linda Lavin” style with characters she played on this and “Rhoda”. She was entertaining as ˝ of “Stiller and Meara”, but that nagging “mother-in-law” voice just grated on my nerves after a short while! It was so funny to me (many years later when she appeared on the first “Ben Stiller Show” as herself) the far-fetched way they used her in a bit. Ben had her guest-star and was trying to exploit his famous mom, dragging her around the MTV set. At one point he grabbed Martha Quinn by the arm as a “hostage”. Martha then turned and spotted Ann and screamed “Oh my God! Ann Meara, from Archie Bunker’s Place!” AS IF!!! Who from that MTV generation would likely even remember Ann OR had watched this crummy show she had done over a decade ago being young twenty-somethings themselves!
A disgrace. Who wants to see a mellow, sappy Archie Bunker? It's almost as if Alan Alda took over as Archie. Like, Cheers, this show had a great opportunity of adding characters, but I can't think of one that was interesting or memorable. The one show that I think was well done was the episode concerning Edith's death. While I don't think it was a good idea, I think it was brilliantly handled.
Once the original premise of "All In the Family" was gone, there was no real need for "Archie Bunker's Place." Archie Bunker was placed in the most unfamiliar setting of any television character in any ill-advised spin-off (and this really WASN'T a spin-off but an altered version of the original). Sure, it would have been a difficult decision to pull the plug on such a beloved character. CBS and Norman Lear were loyal to Archie, but that sentiment began to wane. When "Archie Bunker's Place" and "M*A*S*H" left the eye network in 1983, their departures were markedly different. "M*A*S*H" had the largest single television audience ever when the 4077th went home, thanks in part to effective advertising at CBS, starting the trend of super-hyped last episodes. By contrast, Archie Bunker would receive no such treatment: no celebrated "last episode," no chance to say "goodbye." Carroll O'Connor lobbied CBS and Lear for a reprisal, long enough for Archie to bid his audience farewell, to no avail. O'Connor's relationship with Lear was understandably strained after that. After five atop the Nielsens and helping to give CBS and Lear a virtual on the first half of the 70s, the character of Archie Bunker deserved a more fitting send-off. The studio audience should have been a chance to give Archie and Carroll O'Connor the standing ovation they both so richly deserved. Those truly were the days!
It jumped the shark when Martin Balsam's character, Murray Kline, left the show. The show lost the person that could challenge Archie's views. After Murray left, Archie was able to say whatever he wanted. This show wasn't supposed to be another All in the Family and it wasn't. I thought the show was good when Martin Balsam was on it. The show stopped working when there was no longer a foil for Archie.
This show was pretty good. Especially when Martin Balsam was on. Didn't compare to AITF, of course, but still pretty good. I did however hate that everyone Archie had working in the bar was a different minority Hispanic dishwasher, gay bus boy, drunken Irish chef, Jewish partner, etc. Nobody has mentioned yet, what I consider one of the greatest Archie scenes ever. Second only to Ediths death. Remember when Celeste Holm comes in dripping with diamonds & furs trying to adopt Stephanie? She was so sure as the only blood relative & rich, to boot, that she'd be deemed more acceptable as Stephanie's guardian. Never mind that when her daughter eloped with that loser she was cut off, even after Stephanie was born? And that when her daughter died she never tried to get Stephanie back because her husband forbade it? She waited until he died to even investigate & found that Edith was a good substitute so she left them alone until Edith Died. Then Archie gave this whole big speech about how when his daughter married someone he didn't approve of, she didn't run away. She married right in his living room. They moved in while his son-in-law was in college (laugh time here) "with never a harsh word between us". This showed us that Archie had humanity & wasn't as bad as people thought he was. Those 2 episodes, along with the 2 about Edith's death & the one about Stephanie's bat mitzvah where her no good bum of a father returns & steals her money tree were some of this show's best episodes. After Martin Balsam left, the show went downhill fast with Barry Rabinowitz & his never before seen niece Billie.
As sad as it is to say, ARCHIE BUNKER'S PLACE jumped from day one. This was just a bad idea from the beginning. Clearly, the producers of ALL IN THE FAMILY wanted to keep the franchise alive despite the exits of Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, and sally Struthers and decided that if O'Connor was willing to continue, the would morph AITF into this weak spinoff and move Archie permanently into the bar he purchased on the previous show. I understand wanting to keep Archie on television because he was a wonderfully unique character who changed the television landscape forever, but without Edith and the Stivics as sounding boards and buffers, Archie was just too abrasive by himself and was hard to swallow for 22 minutes a week. We dealt with Archie's rantings and ravings before because we had Edith and Gloria and Mike as the voices of reason and antagonists for Archie's bigoted and outrageous views, but with no one to bounce his ravings off of, Archie became too much of a good thing, so to speak. He had no chemistry with Danielle Brisbois's Stephanie and his onscreen relationship with Martin Balsam just came off as two seasoned acting veterans trying to outstage one another. Bill Quinn contributed some funny moments as the blind Mr. Van Ransleer, but the magic that was ALL IN THE FAMILY was gone and they should have allowed the show to die a respectful death rather than wring the gimmick dry with this tired spinoff.
By 1978,Rob Riener and Sally Struthers had enough and wanted to move on-and thus they decided to end All In The Family.There were very good episodes in that final season and the episodes where Mike and Gloria left were touching. But they decided to keep the series going and brought in little Danielle Brisbois to keep a family in the show.It was a mistake,but I don't blame her.The actual show ended in 1979(and I believe Norman Lear retired then). Yet they continued as Archie Bunker's Place.For a while it had some quality,but it was really only a shadow of what All In The Family had been during it's glory days.By then,Jean Stapleton was tired of being Edith,so they killed her off. I did see the season premiere in 1980 and cried along with Archie as he commented,"I was supposed to be the first to go."After that I gave up seeing it entirely.Unfortunately,not enough of the viewers gave up-and it lasted 3 more years. Carroll O'Conner seemed to be the only man in the country who hadn't had enough of Archie Bunker by that time...and face it,Archie had really mellowed from the hard-core bigot that he was.By 1981 I couldn't wait for the show to end. I do admire O'Conner for getting another series role(In The Hear of The Night)afterwards,proving that he was not totaly typecast,even after 13 years in a role he should've had for only 8.
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11-05-2013, 07:08 AM
