101 Best Written TV Series

Aired: CBS, 1971-1983

Asked how he'd been able to be so controversial on All in the Family, creator Norman Lear said to the WGAW website in 2009: "I don't really know how to explain it. It took me three years to get All in the Family on the air. Let me put it that way." Based on the British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part, All in the Family didn't become a hit right away and then it became a kind of national conversation about the cultural and political fault lines separating baby boomers and those who'd lived through World War II what Archie Bunker called, "The Big One." During the show's heyday, the living room in the Bunkers' Queens household was a character in itself, complete with Archie's chair, a bully pulpit from which he moaned, lectured, and spewed. This was argument as theater, with Archie establishing the bombastic blueprint for sitcom dads to come.

Credited Writers

Douglas Arango
Robert Arnott
Helen August
John Baskin
Harriet Belkin
Norman Belkin
William Bickley, Jr.
George Bloom
Ron Bloomberg
Vincent Bogert
Harve Brosten
George Burditt
Martin Cohan
Bill Dana
Bill Davenport
Elias Davis
Lou Derman
Phil Doran
Michael Elias
Lee Erwin
Robert Fisher
Fred Freiberger
Ron Friedman
Lila Garrett
Henry Garson
Robert L. Goodwin
Sam Greenbaum
Dixie Brown Grossman
Ed Haas
Barry Harman
David P. Harmon
Susan Harris
Paul Harrison
Milt Josefsberg
Bryan Joseph
Lee Kalcheim
Austin Kalish
Irma Kalish
Hal Kanter
Allan Katz
Calvin Kelly
Joe Kerr
Dennis Klein
Dan Klein
Woody Kling
Mort Lachman
Norman Lear
Michael Leeson
Alan J. Levitt
Alfred L. Levitt
Albert E. Lewin
Paul Lichtman
Sam Locke
Michael Loman
Jeffrey MacKowsky
Bill Manhoff
Arthur Marx
Jerry Mayer
Mike Milligan
Philip Mishkin
Gordon Mitchell
Nate Monaster
Jay Moriarty
Michael Morris
Winston Moss
Warren S. Murray
Don Nicholl
Rod Parker
Sue Perkins
Gene Perret
Les Pine
Tina Pine
David Pollock
William C. Rader, M.D.
John Rappaport
Rob Reiner
Don Reo
Larry Rhine
Bill Richmond
Mickey Rose
Michael Ross
Stanley Ralph Ross
Terry Ryan
Tom Sawyer
Bob Schiller
Phil Sharp
Patt Shea
Roger Shulman
Johnny Speight
Ben Starr
Michael R. Stein
Sandy Stern
Chuck Stewart
Howard Storm
John Christopher Strong III
Burt Styler
Erik Tarloff
Ray Taylor
Jim Tisdale
Mel Tolkin
Lloyd Turner
Olga Vallance
Susan Ware
Paul Wayne
Lennie Weinrib
Bob Weiskopf
Harriett Weiss
Bernie West
Bud Wiser
Steve Zacharias
Marion Zola