Mike86

DWilson

I'm wondering what happened there. Justina Machado (the lead in the "One Day at a Time" reboot) has been listed as playing the Gibbs character; she's in the opening credits. I'm wondering if Justina was actually the "understudy", just in case Marla couldn't make a surprise cameo on performance day.

eXcentris

And yes it felt a little weird that Marisa Tomei was so good as Edith but at the same time she's still hot. It's like catching a sudden granny porn addiction.

Crocker Jarmen

Interesting experiment, but really drives home how central the casting of All In The Family was to the success of that show. Right from the opening song, Woody Harrelson was shaky as Archie. I never for a moment bought him as a character, he always seemed like Woody Harrelson reciting lines and and carefully mispronouncing his words.

I'll echo most other people here, singling out Tomei, and Elle Kemper, and especially Wanda Sykes for their fantastic performances. I really believed them as the characters.

I thought Jamie Foxx was absolutely awful. He was so over the top imitating George's mannerisms with the head bobbing and weaving. I thought he was acting at the level of someone in a Saturday Night Live parody of The Jeffersons. And his line stumble in no way warranted him bringing the entire show to a screeching halt.

I'd recently watched the episode of The Jeffersons they chose to do tonight, so it was cool to see this new version with the original so fresh in my mind.

If they don't want to broadcast the word "******" then they ought to have picked a script that didn't have it.

Fun watch. But holy moley, I couldn't believe all the commercials for new shows, like the miniature golf thing. I haven't watched any network shows in a couple of years. I guess they've given up scripted shows, and are just letting the streaming services and cable do them or something?

Lefty Morton

There are older men who have great body builds; perhaps this version of Archie Bunker lifted weights in his youth, doesn't eat much, and still works out somewhat.

JimRochester

I didn't even notice the flub until Foxx brought the attention to it. It was an interesting experiment but so much looked like a parody. They took two half hour shows, added a couple of personal pieces about Leer then added commercials to hit 90 minutes. Not a great way to keep audience connected. Now that I have it recorded we'll watch it again. I'm going to agree, the original casting was so spot on, everyone here was doing bad impressions.

Red Dog

She was by far the best thing about this as the rest was pretty meh. Jamie Foxx went overboard with George's mannerisms. Great seeing Florence though.

Lefty Morton

Roseanne has wrecked her career with those racist comments she made, and won't ever get a TV show again, I think. She needs to see a shrink and therapist, and get a CAT scan beforehand, to see what her brain is like and why she says/does what she says/does (she was in an accident, and suffered a brain injury in her teens; I suspect that this is why she did all of that nonsense in 1994 accusing her dad of molesting her and her sister, and also why she said what she said that got her fired from her own show.)

dave94

I thought Foxx overdid it during the AITF appearance, but was outstanding in the Jeffersons episode.

Sonny Corinthos

It's been a very long time in my neck of the woods. I can't remember the last time I saw it air on TV.

RichC2

I think Foxx got his jitters out, he definitely overdid it on AITF but settled in Jeffersons. Harrelson didn't get a warm-up sequence and was awful initially but settled pretty well later on.

Tomei hunching looked unnatural, but she did a great job bringing life to the character. Sykes didn't try to emulate Sanford the same way everyone else tried to emulate their original actors, and also stood out as extremely grounded so a good choice there as well.

For those curious, this pulled a 1.7 / 1.4 (split between hours) in the demo which is solid enough these days, it pulled 10m+ viewers in the first hour and about 8m for the last half hour. They'll be doing it again.

Paff

I don't think I've ever watched a single episode of The Jeffersons despite being of prime age to have seen it. For some reason, it never appealed to me to even tune in. I hope like hell that it wasn't some latent racist tendencies to not watch a "black show". I really don't think it was that, as I was a huge fan of Good Times and What's Happening. There were just a lot of 70s sitcoms I never had interest in. Maude, another perfect example.

DWilson

I didn't watch "The Jeffersons" after the first few episodes because I just didn't like the characters, -primarily the supporting cast.

Paff

Yeah, the sitcoms I watched back then were more "kid-friendly" (because I WAS a kid). Happy Days, Diff'rent Strokes, Facts of Life, etc. Preferred reruns were Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch, The Flintstones. My family watched M*A*S*H and All in the Family, but I didn't like those either (although I appreciated them more later, when I was a teen, and saw them in reruns). Jeffersons was just totally off my radar.

Decker

I could only watch about a half hour due to other commitments (and a too-busy DVR). Thought it was pretty good and, if nothing else, an interesting endeavor.

Fortunately, I see it's on Hulu now. I will watch the rest on that service.

GuessWho

Would like to see this continue as ABC's answer to the live musicals on NBC and Fox.

I can picture pairings of Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley (pure fun) and Diff'rent Strokes/The Facts of Life (for fun yet socially conscious episodes like yesterday).

Sonny Corinthos

I agree with what a lot of you have already said. Foxx was way over the top. Instead of portraying the character and making it his own, he tried way too hard and it seemed like he was doing a very bad impression of George Jefferson. Same with Harrelson. He came off as a bad imitation of Archie Bunker. Still, I enjoyed it, as these two shows were a big part of my childhood growing up.

Double_Oh_7

Does anyone know if they did it live again for the west coast?

Double_Oh_7

He said the character name, not who played her. It's no spoiler that Florence appears.

LurkerDan

I liked both. I thought Woody was pretty miscast as Archie. At least without a makeup job. It's not just the age thing (regardless of their actual ages), it's the physical appearance. Woody needed to be fatter. The person who suggested Devito was on to something (though he's too old and short).

Double_Oh_7

Why was Woody playing Archie with limp-wristed mannerisms? I found it distracting.

skywalker8

Shannon Nutt

No, it was taped for the West Coast. They only did it once.

Shannon Nutt

I found his whole performance to be distracting...it's like he was trying to do Carol O'Connor's voice, but not his mannerisms. Either do an impression of the actor (Foxx had Sherman Hemsley nailed perfectly) or do your own interpretation...don't try to mix them.

I thought Woody would do great...I was wrong. They should have asked John Goodman.

coli

The irony of The Jeffersons, Sanford&Son, Good Times and What's Happening is that they all appealed to whites just as much as they did to blacks back then, compared to African American shows of the past 20 years on WB or CW that just appealed to a more black audience. I loved all of those shows from the 70's (I was too young but watched them all in syndication in the 80's). They played on racism, but not to the point where it was over the top or exploiting it. Fred Sanford and George Jefferson had racist tendencies in their shows (George hated that his son was married to a mixed race girl, as he would call them Zebra parents). Fred Sanford was very racist toward Latino's as he did not like his next neighbor Julio simply because he was Puerto Rican. But again, it never dominated the show as it just showed a side of those characters like any one of us. I also thought all of those respected the Black Family as it showed them from being Rich like George Jefferson and making it, to middle class like What's Happening, to poor and trying to get by with Good Times. And Sanford & Son was probably one of the funniest sitcoms overall, as Fred Sanford is pure comedy gold.

I do remember Fred Sanford and George Jefferson using the 'N' word back then, but I don't know if it is bleeped out in syndication these days?