There was a bittersweet quality to ABC’s triumphant two-hour live sitcom special on Wednesday night. At least, for me there was.
On the sweet side, watching talented stars like Jamie Foxx and Woody Harrelson re-create classic scripts from All in the Family and The Jeffersons was a shot of pure, uncut nostalgia. There are few spectacles as entertaining as these guys mugging their ways through impressions of classic characters like George Jefferson and Archie Bunker — in live performance.
For those of us raised on the original stuff — the inspired swagger of Sherman Hemsley as self-made success George; Carroll O’Connor’s vividly authentic, Queens patois as Archie — even the distant echoes evoked by Foxx and Harrelson on ABC’s live special were entertaining. And, of course, Foxx stole the show by improvising his way through an inevitable line flub. (“It’s live,” he said, turning to the audience while his co-stars struggled to keep straight faces. “Everyone sitting at home … think they TV just messed up.”)
Harrelson actually struggled a bit as Archie; I never quite bought him as a cluelessly bigoted (yet somehow lovable) working-class schlub from Queens. And his labored efforts to make those old-school punchlines sing revealed just how much O’Connor’s grounded performance helped sell the material back in the day.
Marisa Tomei fared much better as well-meaning wife Edith Bunker, smoothing over Archie’s barbs with a manic earnestness very close to the magic Jean Stapleton once managed weekly. Wanda Sykes was earnest, but uncharacteristically subdued, as Louise “Weezy” Jefferson.
They, along with a cast of fellow stars, re-created two actual, unchanged scripts from All in the Family and The Jeffersons that originally aired in the 1970s, on sets painstakingly copied from the originals, directed by the great sitcom craftsman James Burrows. Hosted by late-night talker Jimmy Kimmel, who dreamed up this revival, the live event also had the blessing of the TV legend who helped develop both shows: 96-year-old executive producer Norman Lear.
Lear’s benediction came before it all started, delivered while sitting in Archie’s legendary living room chair: “The language and themes from almost 50 years ago can still be jarring today,” he said, as a bit of a warning. “And we are still grappling with many of these same issues.”
