Moving On Up!

Norman Lear's Broadway performance of All in The Family and The Jeffersons were a success.

Donald J. Trump appeared on The Jeffersons. He has made numerous cameo appearances on cartoons, television and movies. Trump is a cultural icon. As the current leader of the United States, he is vilified (with good reason). He is a complete utter idiot as our president. He doesn't even know how to run a country.

Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel won the night with a Broadway showing of All in The Family and The Jeffersons. The all-star cast included Jamie Foxx, Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei, Wanda Sykes, Kerry Washington and even a cameo from Marla Gibbs (of The Jeffersons fame).

ABC won with 11 million viewers.

Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons.

Norman Lear wrote some of America's most beloved sitcoms.

The 90-minute special opened up with Lear who looked very healthy at age 96 and Kimmel introducing old and new to Archie Bunker. The series All in the Family debuted in 1969 and lasted through 10 seasons. It also led to The Jeffersons, Good Times, One Day at a Time, Archie Bunker's Place. Maude, Sanford and Son and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

Bunker played by the late Carroll O'Connor was considered a "lovable bigot" who was a working class father and guidance. His lovable but naive wife Edith was played by Jean Stapleton. His daughter Gloria and her husband Michael Stivic were often clashing with Archie over issues. They were played by Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner.

The show introduced the neighbors, George and Louise (Wheezy) Jefferson. They were played by Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford. The Jeffersons focused on an African American family who moved to Manhattan loft after the success of George Jefferson's dry cleaning business. They deal with a bunch of characters who drive George crazy. It was the first American sitcom to feature a prominently married interracial couple.

The whole event was live so anything could happened. Jamie Foxx made sure of that. He flubbed a line and the whole cast busted out in laughter.

Film critic Caroline Framke of Variety wrote in her review: "The experiment worked. With meticulous attention to set detail and wig shapes … [it] managed to feel both like an artifact of a nostalgic past and the urgent present. … Archie (Harrelson) retained his notoriously ugly streaks of sexism and racism." She pointed out that because of current broadcast standards, "ABC ... deployed startling, lengthy bleeps" when the n-word was used in the Jeffersons episode. The episodes had in common Don Nicholl, the writer who co-created The Jeffersons, as well as "bombastic" George Jefferson played by Foxx, and "frank discussions of class inequality, cultural gulfs, and willful ignorance." Despite outdated humor (Lear warned the audience beforehand) many of the jokes worked.

Carroll O'Connor and Sherman Hemsley.

Framke pointed out that this was especially true if the viewer substituted Donald Trump where the character said Richard Nixon. "That doesn’t mean they became less funny, but the deja vu does tend to create an extra depressing level to the proceedings." Maureen Lee Lenker of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Jamie Foxx made a noticeable flub of one of his lines and then proceeded to hilariously call further attention to it."

Foxx said, “It’s live. It’s live — people at home thinking their TV is messed up.” The other cast members, particularly Marisa Tomei and Ellie Kemper, laughed and smiled at Foxx reminding us "anything can happen". Ike Barinholtz covered his mouth and Woody Harrelson had to turn away, "unable to contain himself", Lenker said.