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TV & Showbiz

Norman Lear Library Headed to Amazon Prime

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I may be one of the last people to finally join Amazon Prime. I did so just in time to stream classic Norman Lear comedies.

Amazon and Sony Pictures TV just made a deal that will place classic Norman Lear comedies we grew up with on Amazon Prime and IMDB TV. The Hollywood Reporter reported the news Wednesday.

That means Lear’s classic hits All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times, the original&nbsp One Day at a Time, Diff’rent Strokes, Sanford & Son,&nbsp Sanford and 227 will all soon be available for streaming.

All in the Family is by far my favorite of Lear’s creations. Set in Queens, New York, it tells the story of bigoted Archie Bunker and his wife, Edith. Living under the same roof with them is their daughter, Gloria and her liberal husband, Mike Stivic, who Archie nicknamed “Meathead.”

The program set out to take a very frank look at prejudice. In fact, it was so frank that network executives feared an inevitable backlash from angry viewers. The first few episodes even included an on-air disclaimer.

As a testament to the genius of its writers, the show, which is dated in some references, still largely holds up today. We still argue over the same points the characters argued over 50 years ago.

READ MORE: My 10 Favorite Episodes of ‘All in the Family’

That’s either a sign that the writers were ahead of their time or that society has not advanced as much as we like to think!

&nbsp Several of the titles roll out Thursday.

As of Thursday, All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, One Day at a Time, Diff’rent Strokes and 227 will all become available on Thursday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Maude focuses on Bea Authur’s ultra-liberal Maude Findley and her family. The character first appeared on All in the Family as Edith’s cousin. She served as a powerful foil to Archie Bunker.

Good Times focuses on the Evans family in a housing project in Chicago. Florida Evans, the family matriarch, was first introduced as Maude’s maid on Maude. It was the first sitcom to feature a two-parent African American family, although the father, James, was eventually killed off.

Diff’rent Strokes tells the story of a rich white father who adopts two young Black orphans. The late Gary Coleman was the star and scene-stealer of the show.

The Jeffersons followed the antics of a Black dry cleaner and his long-suffering wife as they move to a fancy high-rise.

READ MORE: My 10 Favorite Episodes of ‘Sanford and Son’

Sanford and Son featured Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson as father and son junk dealers in Watts. This time, a Black man was the bigot. But like Archie Bunker, you couldn’t help yourself in pulling for Foxx’s Fred Sanford. The show returned a couple of years after cancellation as Sanford.

One Day at a Time focused on a newly-divorced mother of two teen girls proving she could provide for her family without a husband.

The youngest series of the group, 227, ran from the mid 1980s to 1990. It featured Marla Gibbes from The Jeffersons. She and her friends served up plenty of gossip in their apartment building.

The remaining series are set to debut later in the year.

Lear, by the way, is still going strong. He turns 99 later this month!

How many of them are you looking forward to streaming?

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.