History of:
167-535: Norman Milton Lear (July 27, 1922 – December 5, 2023) was an American screenwriter and producer who produced, wrote, created, or developed over 100 shows. Lear created and produced numerous popular 1970s sitcoms , including All in the Family (1971–1979), Maude (1972–1978), Sanford and Son (1972–1977), One Day at a Time (1975–1984), The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and Good Times (1974–1979). His shows introduced political and social themes to
334-669: A Golden Globe win for Poehler's performance, and a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy . In TIME ' s 2012 year-end lists issue, Parks and Recreation was named the number one television series of that year. In 2013, after receiving four consecutive nominations in the category, Parks and Recreation won the Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy . It
501-489: A South Park writers' retreat, with some of his ideas making it onto South Park , and was the officiant at co-creator Trey Parker 's wedding. South Park served as a bond between Lear and his son Benjamin, who was not familiar with his more known work from the 1970s. In 2014, Lear published Even This I Get to Experience , a memoir. Lear is spotlighted in the 2016 documentary Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You . In 2017, he served as executive producer for One Day at
668-494: A workplace comedy about the staff of a predominantly black Philadelphia public school, debuted in 2021 on ABC. By its second season it was the network's most-watched comedy and received universal critical acclaim. George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw , was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from
835-565: A 2014 interview with The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles journalist Rob Eshman, Lear described himself as a "total Jew" but said he was never a practicing one. In 1989, Lear founded the Business Enterprise Trust, an educational program that used annual awards, business school case studies, and videos to spotlight exemplary social innovations in American business until it ended in 1998. He announced in 1992 that he
1002-477: A Girl Who Decided to Go for It . In 2020, it was announced that Lear and Act III Productions would executive produce a revival of Who's the Boss? At the time of his death in 2023, he was overseeing multiple shows in development, including a planned reboot of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman . Lear has been honored for his influence on American television and culture. Before All in the Family , television sitcoms in
1169-544: A Jewish household in Connecticut and had a bar mitzvah ceremony. Both parents were of Russian-Jewish descent. When Lear was nine years old and living with his family in Chelsea, Massachusetts , his father went to prison for selling fake bonds. Lear thought of his father as a "rascal" and said that the character of Archie Bunker (whom Lear depicted as white Protestant on the show) was in part inspired by his father, and
1336-492: A Time , the reboot of his 1975–1984 show of the same name that premiered on Netflix starring Justina Machado and Rita Moreno as a Cuban-American family. He hosted a podcast, All of the Above with Norman Lear , since May 1, 2017. On July 29, 2019, it was announced that Lear had teamed with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Steven Kunes to make an American Masters documentary about Moreno's life, tentatively titled Rita Moreno: Just
1503-634: A career as a critic. He had been celibate until his twenty-ninth birthday, when his shyness was overcome by Jane (Jenny) Patterson, a widow some years his senior. Their affair continued, not always smoothly, for eight years. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and debate among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons. The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in 1882–83, and An Unsocial Socialist , begun and finished in 1883. The latter
1670-537: A career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". After using the plot of the aborted 1884 collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses (it was staged twice in London, in December 1892), Shaw continued writing plays. At first he made slow progress; The Philanderer , written in 1893 but not published until 1898, had to wait until 1905 for
1837-549: A comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by Edward VII , who laughed so much that he broke his chair. The play was withheld from Dublin's Abbey Theatre , for fear of the affront it might provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats , who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for ... It
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#17327753727912004-479: A company called The Gans Brothers and later sold family photos door-to-door. Throughout the 1950s, Lear and Simmons turned out comedy sketches for television appearances of Martin and Lewis , Rowan and Martin , and others. They frequently wrote for Martin and Lewis when they appeared on the Colgate Comedy Hour , and a 1953 article from Billboard magazine stated that Lear and Simmons were guaranteed
2171-530: A concept for a sitcom about a blue-collar American family to ABC . They rejected the show after two pilots were taped: "Justice for All" in 1968 and "Those Were the Days" in 1969. After a third pilot was taped, CBS picked up the show, known as All in the Family . It premiered on January 12, 1971, to disappointing ratings, but it took home several Emmy Awards that year, including Outstanding Comedy Series. The show did very well in summer reruns, and it flourished in
2338-478: A contributor, mostly anonymously. He was soon at odds with the magazine's editor, Clifford Sharp , who by 1916 was rejecting his contributions—"the only paper in the world that refuses to print anything by me", according to Shaw. "I see the Junkers and Militarists of England and Germany jumping at the chance they have longed for in vain for many years of smashing one another and establishing their own oligarchy as
2505-561: A decline in quality, earlier writers oversaw the final season and ended the show's run with a positive reception. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a sitcom which began airing in 2005 on FX . It was created by Rob McElhenney , who stars in the show alongside Charlie Day , Glenn Howerton , Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito . The show has garnered critical acclaim and a cult following for its dark humor and performances. In 2020, it
2672-456: A different view, and the management of the theatre staged extra matinée performances to meet the demand. The play ran from April to July, toured the provinces and was staged in New York. It earned him £341 in royalties in its first year, a sufficient sum to enable him to give up his salaried post as a music critic. Among the cast of the London production was Florence Farr , with whom Shaw had
2839-524: A federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. Holroyd records that by this time the separatist party Sinn Féin was in the ascendency, and Shaw's and other moderate schemes were forgotten. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 led to
3006-406: A fine orator. "The most striking result of our present system of farming out the national Land and capital to private individuals has been the division of society into hostile classes, with large appetites and no dinners at one extreme, and large dinners and no appetites at the other" Shaw, Fabian Tract No. 2: A Manifesto (1884). From 1885 to 1889 Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of
3173-458: A flamboyant figure well known in Dublin's musical circles. Shaw retained a lifelong obsession that Lee might have been his biological father; there is no consensus among Shavian scholars on the likelihood of this. The young Shaw suffered no harshness from his mother, but he later recalled that her indifference and lack of affection hurt him deeply. He found solace in the music that abounded in
3340-468: A half-hour time slot. The Jack Benny Program , a radio-TV comedy series that ran for more than three decades, is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy. Fibber McGee and Molly was one of radio's most popular sitcoms of the 1940s. The weekly half-hour domestic sitcom starring real-life husband and wife Jim Jordan and Marian Driscoll ran from 1935 to 1956 on NBC . Mary Kay and Johnny , aired from 1947 to 1950,
3507-474: A house in the country, Shaw, concerned that this might cause scandal, agreed to their marriage. The ceremony took place on 1 June 1898, in the register office in Covent Garden . The bride and bridegroom were both aged forty-one. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine , "their life together was entirely felicitous". There were no children of the marriage, which it is generally believed
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#17327753727913674-503: A less stereotypical role, a high school teacher, but also invoke serious contemporary issues, with the Television Academy Foundation stating that "A season and a half before Norman Lear made "relevant" programming a dominant genre with the introduction of programs like All in the Family and Maude, Room 222 was using the form of the half-hour comedy to discuss serious contemporary issues. During its five seasons on
3841-414: A list titled "TV's 100 Greatest Characters Ever!" Ed Norton was No. 20, and Ralph Kramden was No. 2. In 2002, The Honeymooners was listed at No. 3 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time and No. 13 on their list of the "60 Greatest Shows of All Time" in 2013. The Andy Griffith Show , first televised on CBS between 1960 and 1968, was consistently placed in the top ten during its run. The show
4008-535: A new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara , The Doctor's Dilemma , and Caesar and Cleopatra . Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform , and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in
4175-660: A nominated Fabian delegate, he did not attend the London conference at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street in February 1900, that created the Labour Representation Committee —precursor of the modern Labour Party . By 1903, when his term as borough councillor expired, he had lost his earlier enthusiasm, writing: "After six years of Borough Councilling I am convinced that the borough councils should be abolished". Nevertheless, in 1904 he stood in
4342-617: A picture of Lear where he is depicted as a character from the Simpsons. The chart does not include the made-for-television movies The Wave , which aired on October 4, 1981, or Heartsounds , which aired on September 30, 1984. Sitcoms in the United States Situation comedies, or sitcoms , have long been a popular genre of comedy in the US, initially on radio in the 1920s, and then on television beginning in
4509-508: A press agent. That's the only role model I had. So all I wanted was to grow up to be a guy who could flip a quarter to a nephew." Lear decided to move to California to restart his career in publicity, driving with his toddler daughter across the country. His first night in Los Angeles, Lear stumbled upon a production of George Bernard Shaw 's Major Barbara at the 90-seat theater-in-the-round Circle Theater off Sunset Boulevard. One of
4676-613: A press release and on the Today show that his intent was to tour the document around the United States so that the country could experience its "birth certificate" firsthand. Through the end of 2004, the document traveled throughout the United States on the Declaration of Independence Road Trip, which Lear organized, visiting several presidential libraries, dozens of museums, as well as the 2002 Olympics , Super Bowl XXXVI , and
4843-494: A rally in Trafalgar Square addressed by Besant was violently broken up by the authorities on 13 November 1887 ( "Bloody Sunday" ), Shaw became convinced of the folly of attempting to challenge police power. Thereafter he largely accepted the principle of "permeation" as advocated by Webb: the notion whereby socialism could best be achieved by infiltration of people and ideas into existing political parties. Throughout
5010-586: A record-breaking $ 52,000 (equivalent to $ 590,000 in 2023) each to write for five additional Martin and Lewis appearances on the Colgate Comedy Hour that year. In a 2015 interview with Variety , Lear said that Jerry Lewis had hired him and Simmons as writers for Martin and Lewis three weeks before the comedy duo made their first appearance on the Colgate Comedy Hour in 1950. Lear also acknowledged in 1986 that he and Simmons were
5177-450: A revision of an earlier tract in which Charlotte Wilson had defined socialism in anarchistic terms. In Shaw's new version, readers were assured that "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions". The mid-1880s marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began
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5344-530: A romantic relationship between 1890 and 1894, much resented by Jenny Patterson. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candida , which presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single performance in South Shields in 1895; in 1897 a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon . In
5511-447: A schoolboy left him disillusioned with formal education: "Schools and schoolmasters", he later wrote, were "prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parents." In October 1871 he left school to become a junior clerk in a Dublin firm of land agents , where he worked hard, and quickly rose to become head cashier. During this period, Shaw was known as "George Shaw"; after 1876, he dropped
5678-424: A sensitive boy, found the less salubrious parts of Dublin shocking and distressing, and was happier at the cottage. Lee's students often gave him books, which the young Shaw read avidly; thus, as well as gaining a thorough musical knowledge of choral and operatic works, he became familiar with a wide spectrum of literature. Between 1865 and 1871 Shaw attended four schools, all of which he hated. His experiences as
5845-435: A single parent household. It is the first show to feature Valerie Bertinelli , and emphasized her character as the show progressed. Cheers , which ran for eleven seasons, was one of the most successful sitcoms in the 80s, airing from 1982 to 1993. It was followed by a spin-off sitcom in the 90s, Frasier . During its run, Cheers became one of the most popular series of all time and has received critical acclaim. In 1997,
6012-518: A stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893) was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Man (1894), a mock- Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class. The press found the play overlong, and accused Shaw of mediocrity, sneering at heroism and patriotism, heartless cleverness, and copying W. S. Gilbert 's style. The public took
6179-724: A survey conducted by ABC News and People Magazine . The Honeymooners debuted as a half-hour series on 1955 and was originally aired on the DuMont network's Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network's The Jackie Gleason Show , which was filmed in front of a live audience. Although initially a ratings success —becoming the No. 2 show in the United States during its first season—it faced stiff competition from The Perry Como Show , and eventually dropped to No. 19, ending its production after only 39 episodes (now referred to as
6346-410: A teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet . Lee's relations with Bessie deteriorated after their move to London. Shaw maintained contact with Lee, who found him work as a rehearsal pianist and occasional singer. Eventually Shaw
6513-530: A tract, Why Are The Many Poor? , issued by the recently formed Fabian Society , Shaw went to the society's next advertised meeting, on 16 May 1884. He became a member in September, and before the year's end had provided the society with its first manifesto, published as Fabian Tract No. 2. He joined the society's executive committee in January 1885, and later that year recruited Webb and also Annie Besant ,
6680-405: A tyrannical great-aunt. If, as Holroyd and others surmise, George's motives were mercenary, then he was disappointed, as Bessie brought him little of her family's money. She came to despise her ineffectual and often drunken husband, with whom she shared what their son later described as a life of "shabby-genteel poverty". By the time of Shaw's birth his mother had become close to George John Lee,
6847-616: A venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy. He was eventually persuaded to support the proposal, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) opened in the summer of 1895. By the later 1890s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. In 1897 he was persuaded to fill an uncontested vacancy for a "vestryman" ( parish councillor ) in London's St Pancras district. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; when London government
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7014-419: A writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen , he sought to introduce
7181-403: Is a sitcom created by Mitchell Hurwitz, which originally aired on Fox for three seasons from 2 November 2003 to 10 February 2006. A fourth season of 15 episodes was released on Netflix on 26 May 2013. After its debut in 2003, Arrested Development gained a cult following and received widespread critical acclaim, six Primetime Emmy Awards , and one Golden Globe Award . In 2007, Time listed
7348-434: Is a spinoff of Maude ). Most of these Lear sitcoms share three features: they were shot on videotape in place of film , used a live studio audience, and dealt with current social and political issues. Maude is generally considered to be based on Lear's wife Frances, which she confirmed, with Charlie Hauck serving as main producer and writer. Lear's longtime producing partner was Bud Yorkin , who also produced All in
7515-472: Is an adaptation of the BBC series of the same name . The first season of The Office was met with mixed reviews, but the following four seasons received widespread acclaim from television critics. These seasons were included on several critics' year-end top TV series lists, winning several awards including four Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series in 2006. While later seasons were criticized for
7682-507: Is one of only three shows to have its final season be the number one ranked show on television, the other two being I Love Lucy and Seinfeld . In 1998, more than 5 million people a day watched the show's re-runs on 120 stations. The Dick Van Dyke Show , initially aired on CBS from 1961 to 1966, won 15 Emmy Awards. In 1997, the episodes "Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth" and "It May Look Like a Walnut" were ranked at 8 and 15 respectively on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2002, it
7849-421: Is still syndicated in dozens of languages across the world, and remains popular with an American audience of 40 million each year. Colourised edits of episodes from the original series have aired semi-annually on the network since 2013, six decades after the series aired. It is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential sitcoms in history. In 2012, it was voted the 'Best TV Show of All Time' in
8016-638: Is widely considered one of the best sitcoms of all time. Community ran on NBC from 2009 to 2014 for five seasons, and was picked up for a sixth season in 2015 on the now defunct, Yahoo! Screen . Created by Dan Harmon and starring Joel Mchale, Chevy Chase, Danny Pudi, Donald Glover, Yvette Nicole Brown, Gillian Jacobs, and Alison Brie, Community has gained a cult following, renowned for its level of commitment to homage and parody of popular movies, sitcoms, and genre tropes. Hot in Cleveland ran on TV Land from June 2010 to June 2015, for six seasons. It
8183-490: The "Classic 39" ). The final episode of The Honeymooners aired on September 22, 1956. Creator/producer Jackie Gleason revived The Honeymooners sporadically until 1978. The Honeymooners was one of the first U.S. television shows to portray working class married couples in a gritty, non-idyllic manner (the show is set mostly in the Kramdens' kitchen, in a neglected Brooklyn apartment building). Steven Sheehan explains
8350-541: The Air Medal with four oak leaf clusters. Lear was discharged from the Army Air Forces in 1945. His World War II crew members are featured in the book Crew Umbriago by Daniel P. Carroll. After World War II Lear had a career in public relations . The career choice was inspired by his Uncle Jack: "My dad had a brother, Jack, who flipped me a quarter every time he saw me. He was a press agent so I wanted to be
8517-551: The British Economic Association ; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education". This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism . When in 1886–87 the Fabians debated whether to embrace anarchism , as advocated by Charlotte Wilson , Besant and others, Shaw joined the majority in rejecting this approach. After
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#17327753727918684-709: The Christian right . PFAW ran several advertising campaigns opposing the interjection of religion in politics. PFAW and other like-minded groups succeeded in their efforts to block Reagan's 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court . Lear, a longtime critic of the Religious Right, was an advocate for the advancement of secularism . Prominent right-wing Christians including Pat Robertson , Jerry Falwell , and Jimmy Swaggart have accused Lear of being an atheist and holding an anti-Christian bias. In
8851-576: The First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican , castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award . His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by
9018-663: The Irish Literary Revival , including George Russell and James Joyce , and was a close friend of Seán O'Casey , who was inspired to become a playwright after reading John Bull's Other Island . Man and Superman , completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in Robert Loraine 's New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbara (1905), depicting
9185-635: The Kids' WB series Channel Umptee-3 . The cartoon was notable for being the first television show to meet the Federal Communications Commission 's then-new educational programming requirements. In 2003, Lear appeared on South Park during the " I'm a Little Bit Country " episode, providing the voice of Benjamin Franklin . He also served as a consultant on the episodes "I'm a Little Bit Country" and " Cancelled ". He attended
9352-736: The Live 8 concert in Philadelphia. Lear and Rob Reiner produced a filmed, dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence—the last project filmed by famed cinematographer Conrad Hall —on July 4, 2001, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia . The film is introduced by Morgan Freeman and Kathy Bates , Benicio del Toro , Michael Douglas , Mel Gibson , Whoopi Goldberg , Graham Greene , Ming-Na Wen , Edward Norton , Winona Ryder , Kevin Spacey , and Renée Zellweger appear as readers. It
9519-532: The London County Council elections. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics. Nationally, the 1906 general election produced a huge Liberal majority and an intake of 29 Labour members. Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman , and saw
9686-613: The Social Democratic Federation (SDF), where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx , and thereafter spent much of 1883 reading Das Kapital . He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. M. Hyndman , whom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. After reading
9853-615: The United States Army Air Forces . Lear enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in September 1942. He served in the Mediterranean theater as a radio operator and gunner on Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers with the 772nd Bomb Squadron , 463rd Bomb Group of the Fifteenth Air Force ; in a 2014 interview, he talked about bombing Germany. He flew 52 combat missions and received
10020-553: The Writers Guild of America 's 101 Best Written TV Series of All Time and no. 28 on TV Guide's 60 Best TV Series of All Time. In 2014, the series was ranked by Mundo Estranho the Best TV Series of All Time. Frasier , with five wins in its first five seasons, set the record for most consecutive Emmy awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, a record that has since been matched by Modern Family . The series holds
10187-606: The partition of Ireland between north and south, a provision that dismayed Shaw. In 1922 civil war broke out in the south between its pro-treaty and anti-treaty factions, the former of whom had established the Irish Free State . Shaw visited Dublin in August, and met Michael Collins , then head of the Free State's Provisional Government . Shaw was much impressed by Collins, and was saddened when, three days later,
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#173277537279110354-631: The proposed nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers led by the United States. The letter called for the passage of the bill and warned that the ending of the agreement by Congress would be a "tragic mistake". Lear was married three times. His first marriage was to Charlotte Rosen in 1943. They divorced in 1956. He was married to Frances Loeb , from 1956 to 1985. They separated in 1983, with Loeb eventually receiving $ 112 million from Lear in their divorce settlement, part of which she used to found Lear's magazine. In 1987, he married Lyn Davis, who survived him. When she met Lear in 1984, Lyn
10521-400: The "George" and styled himself "Bernard Shaw". In June 1873 Lee left Dublin for London and never returned. A fortnight later, Bessie followed him; the two girls joined her. Shaw's explanation of why his mother followed Lee was that without the latter's financial contribution the joint household had to be broken up. Left in Dublin with his father, Shaw compensated for the absence of music in
10688-609: The 1880s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. Its profile was raised in 1889 with the publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism , edited by Shaw who also provided two of the essays. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone". In 1890 Shaw produced Tract No. 13, What Socialism Is ,
10855-573: The 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory , Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature . Born in Dublin, in 1876 Shaw moved to London, where he struggled to establish himself as
11022-612: The 1890s Shaw's plays were better known in print than on the West End stage; his biggest success of the decade was in New York in 1897, when Richard Mansfield 's production of the historical melodrama The Devil's Disciple earned the author more than £2,000 in royalties. In January 1893, as a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party . He
11189-465: The 1940s. A sitcom is defined as a television series featuring a recurring cast of characters in various successive comedic situations. The first sitcom was the radio show Sam 'n' Henry , which had evolved into Amos 'n' Andy by 1928. Mary Kay and Johnny , the first American TV sitcom, premiered in 1947, and by the 1950s, I Love Lucy was leading TV viewership. Since that time, sitcoms such as The Beverly Hillbillies , Bewitched , All in
11356-428: The 1950s and 1960s generally portrayed white American family life as comfortable and avoided raising issues such as racial discrimination and patriarchy. Beginning in 1971, All in the Family openly discussed current social and political topics and became the country's most popular show for five straight years. Lear's subsequent shows widened television's representation of racial and gender diversity, such as Good Times ,
11523-542: The 1971–72 season, becoming the top-rated show on TV for the next five years. After falling from the No. 1 spot, All in the Family still remained in the top ten, with the exception of the 1976-1977 television season where it ranked No. 12, and eventually became Archie Bunker's Place . The show was based loosely on the British sitcom Till Death Us Do Part , about an irascible working-class Tory and his socialist son-in-law. Lear's second big TV sitcom, Sanford and Son ,
11690-605: The 1980s, and almost single handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC's ratings fortunes." TV Guide also ranked it 28th on their list of 50 Greatest Shows . In addition, Cliff Huxtable was named as the "Greatest Television Dad". In May 1992, Entertainment Weekly stated that The Cosby Show helped to make possible a larger variety of sitcoms with a predominantly African-American cast , such as its direct spin-off A Different World , and from another studio The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air . Mama's Family originally aired on NBC , debuting on January 22, 1983. After two seasons,
11857-491: The 2011 fall season. The pilot episode drew 10.28 million U.S. viewers and a 4.8 adults 18–49 demo rating, making it the highest-rated fall debut for a Fox scripted show since 2001. The show has been nominated for several awards, including five Golden Globe Awards and five Primetime Emmy Awards. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a police sitcom set in the fictional 99th precinct in Brooklyn which premiered in 2013 on Fox . Although it
12024-523: The 60 Greatest Shows of All Time. The Cosby Show , airing from 1984 until 1992, spent five consecutive seasons as the number one rated show on television. The Cosby Show and All in the Family are the only sitcoms in the history of the Nielsen ratings, to be the number one show for five seasons. It spent all eight of its seasons in the Top 20. According to TV Guide , the show "was TV's biggest hit in
12191-562: The Artists (1881), but neither found a publisher; each was serialised a few years later in the socialist magazine Our Corner . In 1880 Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race". Here he met Sidney Webb , a junior civil servant who, like Shaw, was busy educating himself. Despite difference of style and temperament,
12358-571: The Avco was dropped, and the combined entity was renamed as Embassy Communications, Inc. Embassy Pictures was led by Alan Horn and Martin Schaeffer, later co-founders of Castle Rock Entertainment with Rob Reiner . In March 1982, Lear produced an ABC television special titled I Love Liberty , as a counterbalance to groups like the Moral Majority . Among the many guests who appeared on
12525-616: The Bourbons nowhere." Total independence, he asserted, was impractical; alliance with a bigger power (preferably England) was essential. The Dublin Easter Rising later that month took him by surprise. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union. In How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), he envisaged
12692-657: The Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series four times, twice for Eric Stonestreet and twice for Ty Burrell, as well as the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series twice for Julie Bowen. It has so far won a total of 22 Emmy awards from 75 nominations. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2011. Parks and Recreation , originally running from 2009 until 2015,
12859-470: The Family , Cheers , The Cosby Show , Seinfeld , and Friends have each been the highest annual rated TV series in the US for at least one season. The sitcom format was born in January 1926 with the initial broadcast of Sam 'n' Henry on WGN radio in Chicago , Illinois. The 15-minute daily program was revamped in 1928, moved to another station, renamed Amos 'n' Andy , and became one of
13026-415: The Family , premiered in January 1971, is often regarded in the United States as one of the greatest television series of all time. Following a lackluster first season, the show became the most watched show in the United States during summer re-runs and afterwards ranked number one in the yearly Nielsen ratings from 1971 to 1976. It became the first television series to reach the milestone of having topped
13193-501: The Family , Sanford and Son , What's Happening!! , Maude , and The Jeffersons . Yorkin split with Lear in 1975. He started a production company with writers and producers Saul Turteltaub and Bernie Orenstein ; however, only two of their shows lasted longer than a year: What's Happening!! and Carter Country . The Lear/Yorkin company was known as Tandem Productions and was founded in 1958. Lear and talent agent Jerry Perenchio founded T.A.T. Communications ("T.A.T." stood for
13360-482: The Irish leader was ambushed and killed by anti-treaty forces. In a letter to Collins's sister, Shaw wrote: "I met Michael for the first and last time on Saturday last, and am very glad I did. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death". Shaw remained a British subject all his life, but took dual British-Irish nationality in 1934. Shaw's first major work to appear after
13527-490: The January 21, 1987, issue of The Christian Century , Lear associate Martin E. Marty (a Lutheran professor of church history at the University of Chicago Divinity School between 1963 and 1998) rejected those allegations, stating the television producer honored religious moral values and complimenting Lear's understanding of Christianity. Marty noted that while Lear and his family had never practiced Orthodox Judaism ,
13694-620: The Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the 1906 election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H. G. Wells , who had joined the society in February 1903. Wells's ideas for reform—particularly his proposals for closer cooperation with the Independent Labour Party—placed him at odds with
13861-534: The London premiere it had ended. The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. In 1899, when the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Rule , to be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald , wanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from
14028-405: The Nielsen ratings for five consecutive years. The episode "Sammy's Visit" was ranked number 13 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time . TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time ranked All in the Family as number four. Bravo also named the show's protagonist, Archie Bunker , TV's greatest character of all time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked All in the Family
14195-661: The Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". Although less active—he blamed his advancing years—Shaw remained a Fabian. In 1912 Shaw invested £1,000 for a one-fifth share in the Webbs' new publishing venture, a socialist weekly magazine called The New Statesman , which appeared in April 1913. He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course
14362-459: The Yiddish phrase tuchus affen tisch , "putting one's ass on the line".) in 1974, which co-existed with Tandem Productions and was often referred to in periodicals as Tandem/T.A.T. The Lear organization was one of the most successful independent TV producers of the 1970s. TAT produced the influential and award-winning 1981 film The Wave about Ron Jones ' social experiment. Lear also developed
14529-418: The actors in the play was Sydney Chaplin , the son of actors Charlie Chaplin and Lita Grey . Charlie Chaplin, Alan Mowbray , and Dame Gladys Cooper sat in front of Lear, and after the show was over, Charlie Chaplin performed. Lear had a first cousin in Los Angeles, Elaine, who was married to an aspiring comedy writer named Ed Simmons . Simmons and Lear teamed up to sell home furnishings door-to-door for
14696-550: The advocacy organization People for the American Way to counter the influence of the Christian right in politics, and in the early 2000s, he mounted a tour with a copy of the Declaration of Independence . Norman Milton Lear was born on July 27, 1922, in New Haven, Connecticut , to Jeanette ( née Seicol) and Hyman "Herman" Lear, a traveling salesman. He had a younger sister, Claire Lear Brown (1925–2015). Lear grew up in
14863-498: The air, the show included episodes that dealt with such topics as racism, sexism, homophobia, dropping out of school, shoplifting, drug use among both teachers and students, illiteracy, cops in school, guns in school, Vietnam war veterans, venereal disease, and teenage pregnancy". In 1999, President Bill Clinton awarded Lear the National Medal of Arts , noting: "Norman Lear has held up a mirror to American society and changed
15030-913: The character of Edith Bunker was in part inspired by his mother. However, Lear has said the moment which inspired his lifetime of advocacy was another event which he experienced at the age of nine, when he first heard antisemitic Catholic radio priest Father Charles Coughlin while tinkering with his crystal radio set. After hearing more of Coughlin's radio sermons, Lear said he found Coughlin would promote antisemitism by targeting people whom Jews considered to be "great heroes", such as US President Franklin Roosevelt. Lear attended Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn , New York, graduated from Weaver High School in Hartford, Connecticut , in 1940 and attended Emerson College in Boston , but dropped out in 1942 to join
15197-521: The contemporary art world whose views Shaw most admired were William Morris and John Ruskin , and he sought to follow their precepts in his criticisms. Their emphasis on morality appealed to Shaw, who rejected the idea of art for art's sake , and insisted that all great art must be didactic . Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the 1880s and 1890s it was as a music critic that he was best known. After serving as deputy in 1888, he became musical critic of The Star in February 1889, writing under
15364-729: The contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army ; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics; and Caesar and Cleopatra , Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra , seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce ". These plays included Getting Married (premiered 1908), The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1909), Misalliance (1910), and Fanny's First Play (1911). Blanco Posnet
15531-446: The cult favorite TV series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman ( MH MH ) which was turned down by the networks as "too controversial" and placed it into first run syndication with 128 stations in January 1976. A year later, he added another program into first-run syndication along with MH MH , All That Glitters . He planned in 1977 to offer three hours of prime-time Saturday programming directly having stations place his production company in
15698-415: The dominant Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; George Carr Shaw, an ineffectual alcoholic, was among the family's less successful members. His relatives secured him a sinecure in the civil service, from which he was pensioned off in the early 1850s; thereafter he worked irregularly as a corn merchant. In 1852 he married Bessie Gurly; in the view of Shaw's biographer Michael Holroyd she married to escape
15865-542: The dominant military power of the world." Shaw: Common Sense About the War (1914). After the First World War began in August 1914, Shaw produced his tract Common Sense About the War , which argued that the warring nations were equally culpable. Such a view was anathema in an atmosphere of fervent patriotism, and offended many of Shaw's friends; Ervine records that "[h]is appearance at any public function caused
16032-413: The episode "Krazee Eyez Killa". The show won the 2002 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy . Two and a Half Men is a sitcom that originally aired on CBS for twelve seasons from 22 September 2003 to 19 February 2015. The success of the series led to it being the fourth-highest revenue-generating program for 2012, earning $ 3.24 million an episode. Arrested Development
16199-467: The episodes " Thanksgiving Orphans " and " Home Is the Sailor ", aired originally in 1987, were respectively ranked No. 7 and No. 45 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time . In 2002, Cheers was ranked No. 18 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time . In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the eighth best written TV series and TV Guide ranked it No. 11 on their list of
16366-476: The finale, " Goodbye, Farewell and Amen ", became the most-watched and highest-rated single television episode in the U.S. television history at the time, with a record-breaking of 125 million viewers (60.2 rating and 77 share), according to The New York Times . Sanford and Son , which ran from 1972 to 1977, was included on the Time magazine's list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time" in 2007. All in
16533-462: The first television show centered on an African-American nuclear family; Television screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky said that Lear "put the American people [on screen] ... he took the audience and put them on the set". However, it has been acknowledged that James L. Brooks TV series Room 222 , which was not made by Lear and which debuted before Lear's shows debuted, was also among the first shows to not only feature an African American lead character in
16700-405: The fourth-best written TV series ever, and TV Guide ranked it as the fourth-greatest show of all time. One Day at a Time is a situation comedy developed by Norman Lear . The show aired on CBS and ran from December, 1975 until May, 1984. It followed a recently divorced mother and her two daughters as they dealt with the problems and situations that come with growing up, and raising kids in
16867-448: The government for ignoring social issues and concentrating solely on Irish Home Rule , a matter Shaw declared of no relevance to socialism. In 1894 the Fabian Society received a substantial bequest from a sympathiser, Henry Hunt Hutchinson—Holroyd mentions £10,000. Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such
17034-882: The government's attitude to Irish recruits, was banned in the UK and was presented at a Royal Flying Corps base in Belgium in 1917. Augustus Does His Bit , a genial farce, was granted a licence; it opened at the Royal Court in January 1917. Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire (which he thought should become the British Commonwealth). In April 1916 he wrote scathingly in The New York Times about militant Irish nationalism: "In point of learning nothing and forgetting nothing these fellow-patriots of mine leave
17201-461: The highest rated and watched series to date. 30 Rock is a satirical sitcom created by Tina Fey that ran on NBC from 11 October 2006, to 31 January 2013. 30 Rock received critical acclaim throughout its run, winning several major awards (including Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2007, 2008, and 2009 and nominations for every other year it ran), and appearing on many critics' year-end "best of" 2006–2013 lists. On 14 July 2009,
17368-648: The house by teaching himself to play the piano. Early in 1876 Shaw learned from his mother that Agnes was dying of tuberculosis . He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years. Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensington , but he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned
17535-493: The house. Lee was a conductor and teacher of singing; Bessie had a fine mezzo-soprano voice and was much influenced by Lee's unorthodox method of vocal production. The Shaws' house was often filled with music, with frequent gatherings of singers and players. In 1862 Lee and the Shaws agreed to share a house, No. 1 Hatch Street, in an affluent part of Dublin, and a country cottage on Dalkey Hill , overlooking Killiney Bay . Shaw,
17702-479: The instant departure of many of those present." Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in 1917 he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields. Shaw's 10,000-word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April 1917 he joined
17869-464: The language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. Shaw was born at 3 Upper Synge Street in Portobello , a lower-middle-class part of Dublin . He was the youngest child and only son of George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth (Bessie) Shaw ( née Gurly). His elder siblings were Lucinda (Lucy) Frances and Elinor Agnes. The Shaw family was of English descent and belonged to
18036-770: The late 1920s, he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism, and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin . In the final decade of his life, he made fewer public statements but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare ; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered
18203-641: The lawsuit, blacklisted Monte and labeled him too difficult to work with. In 1980, Lear founded the organization People for the American Way for the purpose of counteracting the Christian right group Moral Majority which had been founded in 1979. In the fall of 1981, Lear began a 14-month run as the host of a revival of the classic game show Quiz Kids for the CBS Cable Network. In January 1982, Lear and Jerry Perenchio bought Avco Embassy Pictures from Avco Financial Corporation. In January 1982, after merging with company with T.A.T. Communications,
18370-601: The legal defense of Daniel Ellsberg who had released the Pentagon Papers , and they backed the struggling progressive magazine The Nation to keep it afloat. In 1975, they formed the Energy Action Committee to oppose Big Oil 's powerful lobby in Washington. In 1981, Lear founded People for the American Way (PFAW), a progressive advocacy organization formed in reaction to the politics of
18537-429: The main writers for The Martin and Lewis Show for three years. In 1954, Lear was enlisted as a writer and asked to salvage the new CBS sitcom starring Celeste Holm , Honestly, Celeste! , but the program was canceled after eight episodes. During this time he became the producer of NBC 's short-lived (26 episodes) sitcom The Martha Raye Show , after Nat Hiken left as the series director. Lear also wrote some of
18704-622: The most popular television shows of all time. The series was nominated for 62 Primetime Emmy Awards , winning the Outstanding Comedy Series award in 2002 for its eighth season. The show ranked no. 21 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time and no. 5 on Empire magazine's The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 1997, the episode " The One with the Prom Video " was ranked no. 100 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time. In 2013, Friends ranked no. 24 on
18871-471: The most successful sitcoms of the period. It was also one of the earliest examples of radio syndication. Like many radio programs of the time, the two programs continued the American entertainment traditions of vaudeville and the minstrel show . Early sitcoms took the forms of recurring comedy sketches with running characters, which on national network shows often took the form of a broader variety show with vocal and instrumental music performances padding out
19038-525: The national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism ". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war. The Inca of Perusalem , written in 1915, encountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in 1916 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre . O'Flaherty V.C. , satirising
19205-411: The next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian . In the same year he suffered an attack of smallpox ; eventually he grew a beard to hide the resultant facial scar. In rapid succession he wrote two more novels: The Irrational Knot (1880) and Love Among
19372-442: The opening monologs for The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show which aired from 1956 to 1961. In 1959, Lear created his first television series, a half-hour western for Revue Studios called The Deputy , starring Henry Fonda . Starting out as a comedy writer, then a film director (he wrote and produced the 1967 film Divorce American Style and directed the 1971 film Cold Turkey , both starring Dick Van Dyke ), Lear tried to sell
19539-561: The original Jackie Gleason Show , one for The Honeymooners , and two for the final version of The Jackie Gleason Show . He was nominated for another two (1957, 1966) but lost. Gleason and Audrey Meadows were both nominated in 1956 for their work on The Honeymooners . Meadows was also nominated for Emmys for her portrayal of Alice Kramden in 1954 and 1957. In 1997, the episodes "The $ 99,000 Answer" and "TV or Not TV" were respectively ranked No. 6 and No. 26 on " TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time " and in 1999, TV Guide published
19706-408: The part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first." The British production opened in April 1914, starring Sir Herbert Tree and Mrs Patrick Campbell as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a cockney flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of
19873-506: The pen-name Corno di Bassetto. In May 1890 he moved back to The World , where he wrote a weekly column as "G.B.S." for more than four years. In the 2016 version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , Robert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability." Shaw ceased to be a salaried music critic in August 1894, but published occasional articles on
20040-565: The popularity of The Honeymooners as the embodiment of working-class masculinity in the character of Ralph Kramden , and postwar ideals in American society regarding work, housing, consumerism , and consumer satisfaction . The series demonstrated visually the burdens of material obligations and participation in consumer culture , as well as the common use of threats of domestic violence in working class households. Art Carney won five Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Ed Norton — two for
20207-617: The position of an occasional network . In 1977, African-American screenwriter Eric Monte filed a lawsuit accusing ABC and CBS producers Norman Lear, Bud Yorkin , and others of stealing his ideas for Good Times , The Jeffersons , and What's Happening!! Monte received a $ 1-million settlement and a small percentage of the residuals from Good Times and one percent ownership of the show. Monte, due to his lack of business knowledge and experience as well as legal representation, would not receive royalties for other shows that he created. However, Lear and other Hollywood producers, outraged over
20374-445: The record for most total Emmy wins, 37, shattering the record of 29 which had been set by The Mary Tyler Moore Show . Frasier is considered the most successful spin-off series in television history, beginning its run one season after Cheers went off the air, where the character of Frasier Crane had been appearing for nine years. Frasier ran from 1993 to 2004. In early 2000s, Curb Your Enthusiasm premiered on HBO . The series
20541-655: The rest of their lives. They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court . During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker established a company at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square , Chelsea to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. The first, John Bull's Other Island ,
20708-553: The same year the critic William Archer suggested a collaboration, with a plot by Archer and dialogue by Shaw. The project foundered, but Shaw returned to the draft as the basis of Widowers' Houses in 1892, and the connection with Archer proved of immense value to Shaw's career. On 5 September 1882 Shaw attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon , addressed by the political economist Henry George . Shaw then read George's book Progress and Poverty , which awakened his interest in economics. He began attending meetings of
20875-775: The scientific theory . It began airing in 2007 on CBS and completed season 12, its final season, in 2019. The show was set in Pasadena, California and focused on five main characters (later on others get promoted to starring roles), Leonard Hofstadter (experimental physicist) and Sheldon Cooper (theoretical physicist) who live across the hall from aspiring actress Penny . Leonard and Sheldon are friends with Howard Wolowitz (aerospace engineer) and Raj Koothrappali (astrophysicist). Later additions include Bernadette Rostenkowski (microbiologist), Amy Farrah Fowler (neurobiologist), Stuart Bloom (comic-book store owner) and Emily Sweeney (dermatologist). Season 7 had 19.96 million viewers,
21042-408: The series was nominated for 22 Primetime Emmy Awards, the most in a single year for a comedy series. Modern Family is a mockumentary sitcom that premiered on ABC on 23 September 2009. The series is presented in mockumentary style, with the fictional characters frequently talking directly into the camera. The show won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in each of its first five years and
21209-412: The show among its "All-TIME 100 TV Shows"; in 2008, it was ranked 16th on Entertainment Weekly 's "New TV Classics" list. In 2011, IGN named Arrested Development the "funniest show of all time". Its humour has been cited as a key influence on later single-camera sitcoms such as 30 Rock and Community . The Office is a sitcom that aired on NBC from 24 March 2005 to 16 May 2013. It
21376-640: The show was canceled in 1984 and subsequently revived for an additional four seasons in September 1986 until February 1990. The Golden Girls originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 9, 1992, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes, spanning seven seasons. The show received critical acclaim throughout most of its run, and won several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series twice. It also won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy . Another popular sitcom from this decade
21543-658: The sitcom format. Lear received many awards, including six Primetime Emmy Awards , two Peabody Awards , the National Medal of Arts in 1999, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017, and the Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award in 2021. He was a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame . Lear was known for his political activism and funding of liberal and progressive causes and politicians. In 1980, he founded
21710-583: The society when it followed Shaw. In the Fabians' war manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), Shaw declared that "until the Federation of the World becomes an accomplished fact we must accept the most responsible Imperial federations available as a substitute for it". As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. Thus, although
21877-412: The society's "Old Gang", led by Shaw. According to Cole, Wells "had minimal capacity for putting [his ideas] across in public meetings against Shaw's trained and practised virtuosity". In Shaw's view, "the Old Gang did not extinguish Mr Wells, he annihilated himself". Wells resigned from the society in September 1908; Shaw remained a member, but left the executive in April 1911. He later wondered whether
22044-555: The special was conservative icon and the 1964 U.S. presidential election's Republican nominee Barry Goldwater . On June 18, 1985, Lear and Perenchio sold Embassy Communications to Columbia Pictures (then owned by The Coca-Cola Company ), which acquired Embassy's film and television division (including Embassy's in-house television productions and the television rights to the Embassy theatrical library) for $ 485 million of shares of The Coca-Cola Company. The brand Tandem Productions
22211-463: The subject throughout his career, his last in 1950. From 1895 to 1898, Shaw was the theatre critic for The Saturday Review , edited by his friend Frank Harris . As at The World , he used the by-line "G.B.S." He campaigned against the artificial conventions and hypocrisies of the Victorian theatre and called for plays of real ideas and true characters. By this time he had embarked in earnest on
22378-434: The television producer was a follower of Judaism. In a 2009 interview with US News journalist Dan Gilgoff, Lear rejected claims by right-wing Christian nationalists that he was an atheist and prejudiced against Christianity. Lear held religious beliefs and integrated some evangelical Christian language into his Born Again American campaign. He believed that religion should be kept separate from politics and policymaking. In
22545-460: The two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know ... We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Drame , written in 1884 but not published in his lifetime. In
22712-642: The war was Heartbreak House , written in 1916–17 and performed in 1920. It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times : "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". After the London premiere in October 1921 The Times concurred with the American critics: "As usual with Mr Shaw, the play is about an hour too long", although containing "much entertainment and some profitable reflection". Ervine in The Observer thought
22879-685: The way we look at it." That year, he and Bud Yorkin received the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of excellence and innovation in creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television. The Producers Guild of America awarded Lear its Achievement Award in Television in 2006; by the next year, the honor was named the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television . In 2017, he
23046-590: Was Roseanne , which ran from 1988 to 1997. Seinfeld , which originally ran for nine seasons on NBC from 1989 to 1998, led the Nielsen ratings in seasons six and nine, and finished among the top two (with NBC's ER ) every year from 1994 to 1998. In 2002, TV Guide named Seinfeld the greatest television program of all time. In 1997, the episodes " The Boyfriend " and " The Parking Garage " were respectively ranked numbers 4 and 33 on TV Guide' s 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time , and in 2009, " The Contest "
23213-405: Was TV Land's highest rated telecast in the cable network's 14-year history. New Girl is a single-camera sitcom centered around a group of guy roommates adjusting to a new addition to their Los Angeles loft in the form of Jess, portrayed by Zooey Deschanel which premiered in 2011 on Fox . New Girl has received favorable responses from critics and was named one of the best new comedies of
23380-544: Was a sitcom which ran from 1990 to 1996. The series stars Will Smith as a fictionalized version of himself, a street-smart teenager from West Philadelphia who is sent to move in with his wealthy aunt and uncle in their Bel Air mansion after getting into a fight on a local basketball court. It became one of the popular sitcoms during the 1990s, despite only one Emmy nomination and moderately positive critical reception. Friends , which originally aired on NBC from 1994 to 2004, received acclaim throughout its run, becoming one of
23547-482: Was a trustee of The Paley Center for Media . In 2001, Lear and his wife, Lyn, purchased a Dunlap broadside —one of the first published copies of the United States Declaration of Independence —for $ 8.1 million. John Dunlap printed about 200 copies of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Twenty-five copies survive today and only four of those are in private hands. Lear said in
23714-517: Was abandoned in 1986 with the cancellation of Diff'rent Strokes , and Embassy ceased to exist as a single entity in late 1986, having been split into different components owned by different entities. Coca-Cola sold the film division to Dino De Laurentiis and the home video arm to Nelson Holdings (led by Barry Spikings). The TV properties continued under the Columbia Pictures Television banner. Lear's Act III Communications
23881-533: Was also based on a British sitcom, Steptoe and Son , about a west London junk dealer and his son. Lear changed the setting to the Watts section of Los Angeles and the characters to African Americans, and the NBC show Sanford and Son was an instant hit. Numerous hit shows followed thereafter, including Maude , The Jeffersons (both spin-offs of All in the Family ), One Day at a Time , and Good Times (which
24048-679: Was an outspoken supporter of First Amendment and liberal causes. The only time that he did not support the Democratic candidate for president was in 1980 when he supported John Anderson over Jimmy Carter because he considered the Carter administration to be "a complete disaster". Lear was one of the wealthy Jewish Angelenos known as the Malibu Mafia . In the 1970s and 1980s, the group discussed progressive and liberal political issues, and worked together to fund them. They helped to fund
24215-586: Was awarded the fourth annual Woody Guthrie Prize presented by the Woody Guthrie Center , recognizing an artist whose work represents the spirit of Woody Guthrie "as a positive force for social change". He became the oldest recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors later that year at the age of 95. Lear's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6615 Hollywood Boulevard . He received other numerous honorary accolades, including: Lear
24382-704: Was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. Fanny's First Play , a comedy about suffragettes , had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances. Androcles and the Lion (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnet , ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913. It
24549-450: Was cancelled by Fox in 2018 after five seasons, NBC immediately picked it up for a sixth season on the following day. It has won two Creative Arts Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards: one for Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy and one for Andy Samberg for Best Actor — Television Series Musical or Comedy. Andre Braugher has also been nominated for three consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for his performance. Abbott Elementary ,
24716-455: Was created by Larry David , who stars as a semi-fictionalized version of himself following his life after the end of his work in Seinfeld . Curb Your Enthusiasm has received high critical acclaim and has grown in popularity since its debut. It has been nominated for 51 Primetime Emmy Awards and won twice. Robert B. Weide received an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for
24883-431: Was cremated. Numerous celebrities paid tribute to Lear, including Jimmy Kimmel , Bill Clinton , Tyler Perry , George Clooney , John Leguizamo , Jon Stewart , Valerie Bertinelli , Bob Iger , Rob Reiner , John Amos , Billy Crystal , Quinta Brunson , Rita Moreno , Mark Hamill , Ben Stiller , Albert Brooks and more. The Simpsons' episode 9 from the 35th season ends with the words "In memory of Norman Lear" and
25050-521: Was directed by Arvin Brown and scored by John Williams . In 2004, Lear established Declare Yourself which is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign created to empower and encourage eligible 18- to 29-year-olds in America to register and vote. It has registered almost 4 million young people. Lear was one of 98 "prominent members of Los Angeles' Jewish community" who signed an open letter supporting
25217-569: Was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room (the forerunner of the British Library ) and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. His first attempt at drama, begun in 1878, was a blank-verse satirical piece on a religious theme. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturity (1879),
25384-562: Was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, Pygmalion , written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards. Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful. ... Hence arose an urgent demand on
25551-760: Was founded in 1986 and in the following year, Thomas B. McGrath was named president and chief operating officer of ACT III Communications Inc after previously serving as senior vice president. On February 2, 1989, Norman Lear's Act III Communications formed a joint venture with Columbia Pictures Television called Act III Television to produce television series instead of managing. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Act III Communications purchased several business journals, including Channels magazine that had been founded by Les Brown , former New York Times TV correspondent. Channels closed in 1990, by which time Act III and Brown published and edited Television Business International ( TBI ). In 1997, Lear and Jim George produced
25718-454: Was honoured with a Peabody Award in 1976 and was ranked number 25 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time in 2002. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the fifth-best written TV series ever and TV Guide ranked it as the eighth-greatest show of all time. The episodes " Abyssinia, Henry " and "The Interview" were ranked number 20 and number 80, respectively, on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time in 1997. And
25885-401: Was in the process of earning a doctorate in clinical psychology . She later became a documentary filmmaker through her production company Lyn Lear Productions. From his three marriages, he had six children. He was a godparent to actress and singer Katey Sagal . Lear died at his Los Angeles home on December 5, 2023, from cardiac arrest, as a complication of heart failure. He was 101. His body
26052-499: Was never consummated; whether this was wholly at Charlotte's wish, as Shaw liked to suggest, is less widely credited. In the early weeks of the marriage Shaw was much occupied writing his Marxist analysis of Wagner 's Ring cycle , published as The Perfect Wagnerite late in 1898. In 1906 the Shaws found a country home in Ayot St Lawrence , Hertfordshire; they renamed the house " Shaw's Corner ", and lived there for
26219-451: Was part of NBC's " Comedy Night Done Right " programming during its Thursday night prime-time block . The series received mixed reviews during its first season, but after re-working its tone and format, the second and subsequent seasons were widely acclaimed. Throughout its run, Parks and Recreation received several awards and nominations, including two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series , six Emmy nominations,
26386-459: Was published as a serial in To-Day magazine in 1884, although it did not appear in book form until 1887. Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in 1886. In 1884 and 1885, through the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers. When Archer resigned as art critic of The World in 1886, he secured the succession for Shaw. The two figures in
26553-426: Was ranked No. 1 on the same magazine's list of TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time. E! named it the "number 1 reason the '90s ruled." In 2013, the Writers Guild of America named Seinfeld the No. 2 Best Written TV Series of All Time (second to The Sopranos ). That same year, Entertainment Weekly named it the No. 3 best TV series of all time and TV Guide ranked it at No. 2. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
26720-401: Was ranked at 13 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time and in 2013, it was ranked at 20 on their list of the 60 Best Series. The Mary Tyler Moore Show ran from 1970 to 1977, winning 29 Emmy Awards . MTM Enterprises , the studio formed to produce it, would produce dozens of sitcoms from the 1970s through the 1990s. The series M*A*S*H , aired in the U.S. from 1972 to 1983, and
26887-424: Was reducing his political activism. In 2000, he provided an endowment for a multidisciplinary research and public policy center, the Norman Lear Center , that explored the convergence of entertainment, commerce, and society at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism . Lear served on the National Advisory Board of the Young Storytellers Foundation . He wrote articles for The Huffington Post . He
27054-441: Was reformed in 1899 and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras , he was elected to the newly formed borough council. In 1898, as a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. He was nursed by Charlotte Payne-Townshend , a rich Anglo-Irish woman whom he had met through the Webbs. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. He had declined, but when she insisted on nursing him in
27221-402: Was renewed for its fifteenth series making it the longest running live-action American sitcom of all time. How I Met Your Mother is a sitcom which aired from 2005 to 2014 on CBS , lasting 9 series. The show won 9 Emmy awards and 18 awards in general, whilst being nominated for 72 awards. It became successful in many places across the world. The Big Bang Theory is a sitcom named after
27388-487: Was sceptical about the new party, and scorned the likelihood that it could switch the allegiance of the working class from sport to politics. He persuaded the conference to adopt resolutions abolishing indirect taxation , and taxing unearned income "to extinction". Back in London, Shaw produced what Margaret Cole , in her Fabian history, terms a "grand philippic" against the minority Liberal administration that had taken power in 1892. To Your Tents, O Israel! excoriated
27555-525: Was the first sitcom broadcast on network television in the United States and was the first program to show a couple sharing a bed, and the first series to show a woman's pregnancy on television. I Love Lucy , which originally ran from 1951 to 1957 on CBS , was the most watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and was the first to end its run at the top of the Nielsen ratings (an accomplishment later matched only by The Andy Griffith Show in 1968 and Seinfeld in 1998). The show
27722-399: Was too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the 1930s. He was employed briefly by the newly formed Edison Telephone Company in 1879–80 and, as in Dublin, achieved rapid promotion. Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. Thereafter he pursued a full-time career as an author. For
27889-443: Was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge 's death in 1909. Shaw admired other figures in
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