alex: well, how do i look? steven: middle aged. michael gross: it was about the clashes between two generations. steven: you re a young man, you shouldn t be worried about success. you should be thinking about hopping on a tramp steamer and going around the world. alex: the 60 s are over, dad. steven: thanks for the tip. gerrad hall: family ties is a reversal in many ways of all in the family, except now you have the liberal parents and the conservative child. elyse: this morning i found a copy of the wall street journal under his bed. steven: you think maybe he was switched at birth and the rockefellers have our kid? meredith baxter: michael was just wonderful. he was young and energetic and he had such good timing. alex: who did this? michael gross: we started rather slowly, nbc was moving us around a little bit, trying to find the right place for us. jim colucci: family ties pumped a little bit of life into the family sitcom, but the sitcom in general
al: now bud, apologize to your sister. bud: no. al: okay. anita sarkeesian: married with children is full of trash people that do horrible things and say horrible things. al: quiet you morons! paul reiser: you were always aware they were just wise guys, you know, zinging each other. al: peg, how could you sell the family playboys? jacqueline coley: looking back on it now, i don t know how that show stayed on air. kelly: is this okay, mom? i haven t worn it since grandma s funeral. jim colucci: married with children helped put fox on the map. ethan alter: this idea of a darker family presentation spoke to people who were bored with what the main family sitcoms were offering at the time. al: family before you go, would you bring old daddy s shot gun and stand close together?
jim: ah. a quiet evening at home. i could use it. [slam] billy gray: and i played bud. bud usually had a problem with the truth telling, on some level. jim: what was all that racket upstairs? bud: i didn t hear anything. billy gray: father knows best represented the good life; the american dream. jim: i ll read you one story, then off to bed you go. bob: and then leave it to beaver enters the sitcom realm in 1957. wally: what s that? beaver: a haircut i think. tony dow: the real key to leave it to beaver is that it s written from a child s point of view. wally: why didn t you let stanley cut your hair? beaver: i losted my money. jerry mathers: you have the character of beaver and you have wally his older brother who usually does things right, beaver s always the one that gets in trouble. june: [gasps] marisa guthrie: and there were the parents to teach them, to show them the right path. ward: we want you to feel that you can come to me or to your
patrick gomez: advertisers wanted to cater towards that new suburban family that needed to buy that kitchen appliance or needed to buy that vacuum. jacqueline coley: and after i love lucy, there was a formula for what the american family should look like. cybill shepherd: ozzie and harriet. announcer: the adventures of ozzie and harriet. cybill shepherd: i just loved everybody in it, actually. david: hurry up, bring it in. i m starved! candice bergen: it was a happy, gentle american family of the 1950s. ozzie: how much do you need? david: never mind pop, that s okay. ozzie: no don t worry about it, you can pay me back. david: honest pop, i don t want it. ricky: what s the matter with you david, you got rocks in your head? linda lavin: the kids were very polite. everybody was very nice to each other. those were not real people, but they entertained and delighted us. jim: alright kids, dinner is on, we re sitting down. jennifer armstrong: when you get to father knows best, it s very patr
jim colucci: family ties pumped a little bit of life into the family sitcom, but the sitcom in general had been pronounced dead. there were very few on the air. and then all of a sudden comes the cosby show in 84. theo: dad, can i have an advance on my allowance? cliff: son, you re already backed up to your 50th birthday. tim allen: the cosby show was a game changer to me. this is just a family i adored. present history has tainted that a little bit. it didn t stop the fact that that was a ground-breaking experience. jacqueline coley: they had this really sort of idyllic family. claire was a lawyer. he was a doctor. jaleel white: there was a very natural chemistry between cliff huxtable and clair and their children that wasn t cliché black poverty. cliff: son, your mother asked me to come up here and kill you. how do you expect to get into college with grades like this?