All in the Family and that One that Everybody Loves

http://ml.berkeleyblogs.com/archives/actor_peter_frank_barone_boyle_dies.html All in the Family and that One that Everybody Loves             Growing up there are two things I remember watching with the whole of my family: Monk (a comical detective procedural) and Everybody Loves Raymond. Now its been years since I watched the latter, but seeing All in the Family at the last screening brought me some pretty vivid flashbacks, because at a glance the two shows are extraordinarily similar. They are both family-based sitcoms in which two generations of the same family are in close proximity and use the resulting generational clash as a source of humor and they both have the same embodiment of that conflict: The Grumpy Old Man.             Frank Barone and Archie Bunker are practically the same person. They are both brash, unapologetic, and very set in their antiquated viewpoints. They are also two punch line machines for their respective shows. However as similar as these characters are they can also serve to demonstrate the biggest difference between the two programs: namely that All in the Family has much sharper teeth.             Archie Bunker is not a nice character, but then he isn’t supposed to be someone we identify with, no his job (from a writing standpoint) is to provide a satire of the view that he represents. On the other hand, Frank Barone is drawn as a much more likeable character, and this may be due to the fact that he is not the center of the show, as Archie is and that distance makes it easier to laugh at and sometimes with him. This difference can be extended to the rest of the characters and indeed the whole of each show. While Everybody Loves Raymond does raise an issue from time to time, it is much more a comedy designed purely to entertain, as opposed to All in The Family which has the agenda of provoking a reaction. This point was clearly demonstrated by the episode we watched in class as Everybody Loves Raymond would (and to my knowledge has) never dealt so with an issue as touchy as gay rights.