Were you around when "All in the Family" was on and if so, did it influence your thinking in any way?

I used to watch re-runs of it all the time on Nick at Nite. It was one of my favorite shows as a kid.

I don’t think it influenced me in any way, but I always thought Archie and Edith were adorable, and Gloria was one of the first girls I ever noticed to have an… arousing effect on me, haha!

Yes. I always sympathized with Mike.

I was a kid, but used to watch it every week with my parents. It didn’t really influence my thinking, I came from a fairly liberal family, although my dad was a registered Republican, and we are minorities, Jewish. I just thought it was a funny show demonstarting many points of view. I always felt there was an undertone of love and family.

I still watch it in rerun sometimes. It is so good.

I remember the night it premiered, it was so funny but crossed so many lines.

If anything it gave me insight into an older man who sees his cozy safe structured prejudiced life change right before his eyes faster than he can deal with it.

i just remember it being loud + annoying akin to a form of verbal violence as a young kid + usu changed the channel (mebbe to sanford + son).

@963chris Now that is very interesting.

When it premiered, I was a year old, so it’s one of those shows that seemed to be always on the air, and I don’t remember the earliest episodes. By the time I started watching it attentively, the plot lines for certain episodes were getting a little anvilicious.

The one that sticks out in my mind is the episode dealing with Edith’s near-rape and its aftermath, which was shocking to my 8 year old self.

I grew up with the original sitcom Till Death us do Part and loved Alf Garnett. He dealt with divisive social issues in a humorous way and this helped the country come to terms with post war changes. The show was very popular even notorious, but no one wanted to sound like Alf Garnett and so being bigoted became unfashionable.

I watched it fairly regularly. I thought the writing and acting were excellent but Archie’s prejudices and Mike’s self-righteousness often irritated me. I loved Edith because she reminded me of my mother. The characters I liked best were the ones who dropped in.

We watched it and enjoyed it and my son, when he was a toddler, would stop what he was doing and stand transfixed in front of the tv when the theme song came on.

I remember it and I watched it. Like @Austinlad, Meathead, er I mean Mike’s loud mouthed self-righteousness and Archie’s prejudices irritated me a bit. It was funny and broke a lot of barriers in television. I remember when Archie was babysitting for Mike and Gloria’s baby and he had to change a diaper, I think it was the first time that a penis was shown on National television.

i remember Archie and Meat Head’s debate – what do you put on first, a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe, or a sock and a shoe and a sock and a shoe? In a fire you could run out with two socks on, etc.

I was 28 when it first came on, and I didn’t like the harsh speech. I was raised in a family a lot more like Ozzie and Harriet, so the people seemed very rough to me.

I find the comments on how they spoke to each other so interesting. I know I said this already. It just hits home with me and something that is going on in my family right now. All in the family was sort of typical NY arguing.

I was, and it did.

I remember when it came on the air; I followed it from the first episode. It influenced my thinking, all right, because I was innocent and well brought up and had no idea that anybody talked the way Archie Bunker did. Yet his blatant bigotry also helped me see less obvious prejudices that were simply woven into the fabric of my environment.

It was a double whammy because I also found that I couldn’t automatically condemn him for his manner and attitudes either. Being liberal is one thing; extending liberal tolerance to your ideological opposite is quite another. And Mike as yin to Archie’s yang, taking to extreme the views that were nearer my own, added an illuminating perspective. I was in my early twenties and needed that lesson.

I was also very much aware that ground was being broken in the media. It was amazing to see how television opened up after that.

My dad watched it a lot, and he pretty much convinced me Polacks were actually idiots. I didn’t stop thinking that until my late teens/early 20s. Thanks dad and All In The Family!

I just read this answer to my wife and she told me the correct answer is more like my early 30s.

Yes I was. No. Silly TV shows don’t influence my thinking.

Yep watched it from the beginning and since at the time I was in my bleeding heart liberal college days, I always identified with Mike.

Now I am somewhere in the middle, more like Mike in some instances and Archie in the other. Edith and Gloria didn’t seem to have much to do except be fluff on the sidelines.

I loved the show. I thought that Archie was unjust in his philosophy’s. But it was always fun to watch Meat head bring out his bigotry and make it bit him on the butt. One of the funniest episodes was where Archic got some of Sammy Davis Jr.blood, in a transfusion.