Archie Bunker Looks at Flip

Racial jokes are also the staple of television's other top comedy show, All in the Family--but with a difference. Where Flip Wilson kids conventional prejudices by turning them inside out, Family's archbigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) is a living compendium of those prejudices. To see how Archie might react to Flip, TIME asked Family Producer-Writer Norman Lear to imagine a scene in the Bunker living room after the family has watched Flip's show. Lear's script:

Gloria: Daddy, Flip Wilson really flips you, doesn't he?

Archie: Flip Wilson? I can take him or leave him.

Mike: Come on, Arch, I can't remember when I saw you laugh so hard.

Edith: That's right, Archie. Especially when he got in them lady's clothes . . .

Archie: Edith, stifle!

Edith: And played Ernestine . . .

Archie: I said, stifle! I don't know what it is with you guys. We seen the show, we enjoyed it...

Mike: Enjoyed it, hell! I saw you split a gut! The guy is just plain funny--why can't you admit it?

Archie: So. He's funny. I'm the foist to admit it. But I didn't split no gut. I do that maybe for Bob Hope. He's really funny!

Gloria: What's Bob Hope got to do with this?

Archie: Nothin'. He's just the daddy of 'em all, that's all!

Edith: (amazed) Bob Hope is Flip Wilson's father?

Archie: Edith!!

Mike: Archie, I never heard you laugh at Bob Hope the way you just laughed at Flip Wilson.

Archie: Go on! The man entertained our boys through three wars--don't that mean nothin' to you?

Mike: Okay. So he entertained the troops. But that doesn't make him funnier.

Archie: The hell it don't! He paid his dues, sonny boy--and he come up the hard way, too!!

Mike: What the hell does that mean, Bob Hope came up the hard way?

Archie: Well, he didn't have whatchya call yer natural endowerments. His people wasn't all singers and dancers an' like that!

Mike: You mean he wasn't black?

Archie: Right.

Mike: So Bob Hope came up the hard way--and Flip Wilson had it ready, made and waiting! Is that it?

Archie: You're takin' what I said out of contest, like ya always do, Mr. Big Liberal. All I meant was, bein' colored, Flip had a natural advantage of entertainin' being in his blood.

Edith: I thought it's tougher bein' born black.

Archie: Edith, you gotta stop readin' what them two bleeding hearts bring home! I'm tellin' ya--you wanna get into sports or entertainment, it's easier bein' black. That's it!

Mike: How the hell do we get from one hour of your solid laughter at Flip Wilson to another of your broadside attacks against all blacks?

Archie: There you go--just about ready to accuse me of prejudice again, ain't ya?

Mike: (hopelessly) Yeah, Arch, "just about ready."

Archie: An' all because I paid yer favorite minority a few compliments.

Mike: But you said black Flip Wilson wasn't as funny as white Bob Hope. Or are you gonna tell me you don't think of them as black an' white?

Archie: Well, I don't.

Mike: You phony . . .

Archie: Except when they're innerduced, and one steps out in his black skin, and the other is in his white; then I got two eyes, don't I?

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.