We often mean different things when we talk about what it means for a TV show to be great, so here s a possible definition:
All in the Family, which debuted on Jan. 12, 1971, scored high on a trifecta of popularity, artistic accomplishment and groundbreaking moral and social seriousness.
It s the combination of these elements that make it one of the greatest shows in the history of American television. The series was the passion project of television writer and producer Norman Lear, a working-class Jew from Connecticut whose irascible father was put in prison for forgery when Lear was nine.
Forty years later, Lear was working as a comedy writer and director in Hollywood when he came across an article about a long-running British TV show called