Screenwriter and producer Norman Lear died Tuesday at the age of 101, but his impact on television will live on forever. Here are six of many Norman Lear television episodes that changed small screen history.
“All in the Family” Season 1, Episode 5: Judging Books by Covers
The bigoted Archie Bunker comes face to face with his homophobia in “Judging Books by Covers.” After railing that his son-in-law Michael has a gay friend, Archie learns that one of his own friends, Steve, is gay too.
Steve, played by Philip Carey, is considered the first gay character to appear in a primetime sitcom.
“Maude” Season 1, Episodes 9 and 10: Maude’s Dilemma
In the popular “All in the Family” spinoff, the title character confronts a shocking problem: She’s pregnant at age 47. The two-part episode deals with Maude’s internal debate over what to do. She eventually decides to get an abortion.
When the episode aired in 1972, Roe v. Wade was still one year away, and abortion had only been legal in Maude’s “home state” of New York since 1970. The Chicago Tribune called the episode “a watershed in TV history, an event that brought the battle over choice into the primetime arena.”
“The Jeffersons” Season 4, Episode 3: Once a Friend
Transgender characters had appeared on major television before, but they were often mocked or portrayed as unstable. In “Once a Friend,” George Jefferson hears from his old Navy buddy Eddie Stokes — but she is now Edie Stokes, a trans woman.
“Once a Friend” is often called the first sympathetic telling of a trans story on American television, as Edie is confident and tells the audience (and the Jeffersons): “Everything about me was a woman, except for the way I looked.”
“Good Times” Season 1, Episode 5: Michael Gets Suspended
Good Times was the first American sitcom to focus on a Black nuclear family, in this case the Evans family.
In this early episode, bookish son Michael gets suspended from school for correctly telling his class that George Washington owned slaves. Though his parents are appalled, Michael cites Black history books from the school library — foreshadowing debates nearly 50 years later about how schools teach American history.
“All in the Family” Season 8, Episodes 4 and 5: Edith’s 50th Birthday
Despite the innocuous title, “Edith’s 50th Birthday” tells a harrowing story of sexual assault. A man posing as a cop tricks his way into the Bunker household and attempts to rape Edith. She creatively fights him off but spends the rest of the episode traumatized from the attack, refusing to leave the house or identify the rapist.
“Edith’s 50th Birthday” is known as the first sitcom episode to deal with rape, and Lear and his production team consulted with sexual violence crisis professionals for months to make sure it was realistic.
“Maude” Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2: Walter’s Problem
Maude’s husband Walter has a drinking problem, and she’s forced to come to terms with it in the two-part opening of the show’s second season. Walter rebuffs his wife’s attempts to help, including a shocking scene at the end of the first part, in which he slaps Maude across the face and gives her a black eye.
“Walter’s Problem” was a solemn view of alcoholism and its effects on people and those around them.