Transcript: Celebrating Norman Lear's Legacy in Christian Television

Greetings, classic cinema and TV fans. Jason here with you once again. And today's a special video. This is going to be a tribute video. A tribute video to a man that, sadly, as we're recording this, We have just heard the news that he has sadly passed away at the age of 101. We're talking about the great Norman Lear. Yes, Norman Lear, an amazing producer and writer. And, you know, Norman Lear was amazing. Um, so, um, we're going to do a tribute video today and talk about Norman Lear comedies. Uh, so, uh, if you enjoy this, uh, please subscribe, uh, be sure to like and comment. Tell us what you think about Norman Lear and let's jump into this. All right. So, um, you know, it's interesting because, um, Norman Lear comedies are known for, uh, pushing the boundaries of, you know, what would be considered good, in a lot of ways, good taste, maybe in a lot of ways, you know, Norman Lear was known for pushing the boundaries in a lot of ways when it comes to talking about racism, talking about gay rights, you know, sexuality, you know, all kinds of stuff. And, you know, it's interesting because me, I grew up, you know, and I know this is going to sound really strange, but I grew up not even realizing racism was a thing. My parents didn't even, you know, racism wasn't even a thing. We didn't even talk about it. We just treated everybody the way, you know, they were all the same. I didn't look at, you know, black or white or, you know, Hispanic or Caucasian or Asian. I didn't look at that. I just looked at it as people, you know. I never saw it that way until one day when I was it was one afternoon after school I think it was I was probably maybe in 10th grade or something you know maybe 9th grade 9th or 10th I don't know. It was, you know, one of those early points of my life. life. And I happened to come home and I turned on the TV and I came across a local network that was playing a show of Norman Lears, which was All in the Family. And I saw this for the first time and I saw Archie Bunker and I saw Mike Stivik and Gloria and Edith and all this. And I saw these characters played before my eyes and I saw how racism was and I was like, this is really a thing? And it was just amazing to me. And then I realized, you know, not everybody thought like I did, you know, there were people out there that thought differently and did maybe look at people differently because of the color of their skin. And I was like, this was amazing to me. And that's what I think was so amazing and so brave about Norman Lear. He was not willing to just sit there and say, ah, let's just let it be. He decided to take a show and kind of like shine a light on racism and different things. That's why All in the Family is such an iconic show. This, of course, is the box set of All in the Family. I had to have this because I grew up on this show. Not so much grew up, but grew up as my later teens into my adult years and all, and I still watch this show all the time. Archie Bunker was your typical bigot. He didn't like people that didn't think the same way he thought. And I think that's cool to shine a light on that type of thing. But Norman Lear didn't stop there. Norman Lear went on with other shows like Maud. Maud is more the liberal side of things. and it was more like the liberal side of life. And you would see where Archie was the conservative and the bigot where Maud was more of the liberal and open to anything And that was kind of cool And that's what I loved about Norman Lear. But he didn't go just there. He would go on to do shows like Sanford and Son. Sanford and Son, based off of – many of these shows are based off of like British sitcoms. This was Steptoe and Son, and All in the Family was, of course, based off of Justice for All, British comedies. Very interesting shows, and this was another show where it dealt with Fred Sanford, who was a black bigot, if you will. He was all about that, and that was, again, very, very interesting, And so was The Jeffersons, The Jeffersons, another Norman Lear comedy. And Jeffersons, who doesn't remember The Jeffersons, the deluxe apartment in the sky, you know, all of these shows. The show that spun off of Maud is one of my absolute favorites. I love it so much is Good Times. Good Times, oh, what they did, though, after about, what, four seasons? I think it was about halfway through the fourth season or something. They killed off James, the father. Destroyed that show for me in a lot of ways because James was just – John Amos was that show for me. I love that strong father character. But that was what Norman Lear was. Norman Lear wanted to shine a light on things, to have conversations, not hide the fact of racism or sexuality or whatever the case may be. Let's talk about it. Let's shine a light on it. Let's maybe laugh at it a little bit. Let's have fun with it a little bit. Don't just sit there and throw things in the closet and say, oh, well, it's not important. important. No, let's shine a light on it. And I think that's what I loved about Norman Lear so much. We've even seen Norman Lear near the end of his life, bringing a lot of these shows back for specials. They were nice, but they can't compare to the originals. All the people doing these reboot type of specials, they were nice, but they're not the original. To me, there's nothing like John Amos and Esther Roll as Florida and James in Good Times Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford as the Jeffersons Red Fox is Fred Sanford you know just amazing things Bea Arthur, Maude, Carol O'Connor as Archie Bunker. These shows will live with me forever. And as a special tribute, I just, this is just a special tribute. I just want to say thank you to Norman Lear. You know, I know he's passed, but if anybody of his family happens to see this video or whatever, or somebody that knows Norman Lear, I wanted to say thank you for the amazing entertainment that he has left behind. And may it always be with us. May we take the lessons from Norman Lear that he has done and go forward in it and shine a light on racism, shine a light in a fun way, and just not be so much of trying to fight, but let's try to shine a light in a fun way to say, hey, let's talk about this. Let's ask why we're like this. And that's what Norman Lear did. And he was a visionary. He was amazing. And I will never forget him. And I will live the rest of my life watching these amazing shows of Norman Lear because he was so amazing. So this is just a little spotlight video that I wanted to do just to say thank you for the memories to Norman Lear. He's a great guy and a great, amazing producer and a great writer. And I'll never forget those shows. I will continually watch these for the rest of my life. So thank you to Norman Lear. What a life lived, a great life lived, and we appreciate him. All right. Just something I wanted to say today. So, all right. Thank you for watching me, watching this video with me today and letting me tell you about my thoughts on Norman Lear comedies. You know, what are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments. We'd love to know what your favorite Norman Lear comedy is. Also, be sure to like, share and subscribe. We would appreciate it. It helps out so much. and until we're with you next time with another video of some sort, this is Jason reminding you that if you want to see a great film or TV series, check out a classic and we'll see you next time. Rest in peace, Norman Lear. We'll see you next time. Bye. you