Norman Lear
Norman Lear
Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Maude. As a political activist, he founded the advocacy organization People for the American Way in 1981 and has supported First Amendment rights and progressive causes...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Producer
Date of Birth27 July 1922
CityNew Haven, CT
CountryUnited States of America
I think what's dangerous is 24 hours a day, 335 channels, or whatever the hell there is. Too much is too much.
I was the laziest white kid my dad ever met.
I think somehow I got a sense of the foolishness of the human - my favorite phrase, the foolishness of the human condition.
Bud [Yorkin] was the kindest and dearest man, and one of the most talented directors there was.
Culturally, I think 'All in the Family' was universal enough to have good timing at any time.
The people responsible for the dollars that will buy the sex and violence so many deplore, don't even know what's going - well, of course they know. But they're comfortably ensconced in their country clubs and churches, and very far removed from the decisions that are made on their behalf.
That's a very hard thing to help the establishment know. We're still an establishment that thinks the average mentality is something like 13 years of age, that never forgot H.L. Mencken's notion that nobody lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people. That's the horseshit the establishment has always lived with.
'All in the Family' took ten weeks to take off in 1971, and we were lucky to start in January, because if it had started in the regular fall season of 1970, I don't know if we would have lasted. The ratings didn't take off until the end of that fall season, when the other two networks ran out of fresh shows.
As a matter of fact, when people ask where my 'point of view' comes from, it was there in one of the first sketches we wrote for [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis.
The movies had a slogan at the time, to distinguish themselves from TV, that said 'movies are better than ever.'
I get a kick out of the fact that people will pick on the writers in California for being responsible for the content. The people seriously responsible for the content are the people who buy it.
I think Americans have become a - much more a nation of consumers than citizens.
If there was a sense of - a bigger sense of responsibility in the various leadership positions in America, things would be not as grotesquely overly done as they are now.
I think if you're feeling great about where you are, everything that led up to it had to be terrific.