"No more talk. You can't talk to bullets."
Paul (Gregory Sierra)
It is probably difficult for modern audiences to appreciate, but All in the Family really was a groundbreaking TV series. Probably more than any other — certainly more than any series that preceded it and almost as certainly more than any series since.
The program made viewers uncomfortable by forcing them to think about things many probably preferred to ignore. But after targeting subjects — like racial inequality and women's rights — that can seem obvious from the perspective of four decades after the fact, the series' writers turned their attention to other, lesser–known battles being waged with evil — and, in the process, opened many eyes.
Such was the case with the episode that first aired 45 years ago tonight, "Archie Is Branded."
Early one Sunday morning, Archie (Carroll O'Connor) found a swastika painted on the front door. His first instinct was to blame it on juvenile pranksters in the neighborhood — but then the family found a note on the front porch that suggested that whoever had painted the swastika was not a juvenile from the neighborhood and intended to return.
Swastikas certainly aren't unknown today, and they were recognized even more widely 45 years ago when the World War II generation probably outnumbered any other. Swastikas were symbols of hatred and death, and Archie's generation knew it. Archie had participated in the war with the Nazis. Mike (Rob Reiner) and Gloria (Sally Struthers) had studied the war and the Nazis in school. The Bunkers knew swastikas meant nothing good, and their imaginations began to run wild.
A special–delivery package came, and the Bunkers believed they heard a ticking sound coming from it so they put it in the kitchen sink, started the water and then ran from the house. When they returned, they still heard the ticking sound. Turned out it was coming from a pocket of the apron Edith (Jean Stapleton) wore. She had been timing a cake she was baking.
Archie then looked at the package, which was submerged in water in the sink. The package was from Edith's Cousin Amelia. Her husband was giving up smoking, and he was sending his cigars to Archie.
Archie looked forlornly at the soggy package.
About that time a fellow named Paul (Gregory Sierra) came knocking at the door.
Paul was a member of an organization called the Hebrew Defense Association (inspired by the Jewish Defense League), which was dedicated to fighting anti–Semitism. It turned out that the Bunkers had been targeted by a neo–Nazi group that believed Archie was a Jewish activist who lived nearby.
But while Archie and Paul knew that the swastika had been intended for someone else, the neo–Nazis still believed Archie was the target so Paul stayed with the Bunkers to protect them from what might come, and as they waited they talked about the war that was being waged around the world — openly in most places but seemingly with little attention being paid to it in the United States.
The episode was uncharacteristically dramatic for the series, and the ending pulled no punches as Paul died when his car exploded in the street in front of the Bunkers' house. Viewers didn't see it, but they heard it.
It was a jarring moment for TV viewers. In the years ahead, they would grow accustomed to sitcom episodes that turned serious — MASH, for one, was good at that — but it was new to viewers in 1973.
Even though the story was fictional, it was a real eye–opener for Americans who thought Nazism had been dispensed with when World War II ended. One such American clearly was Archie, who tried to cover the swastika until the police could get there by hanging an American flag over it.
If that had worked, Archie could have put the matter completely out of his mind until the police arrived. "This put the kibosh on the Nazis once before," Archie said as he unfurled the flag. "It's gonna do it again."
But Archie hung the flag incorrectly, and a Boy Scout — played by Stapleton's 11–year–old son — offered to hang it correctly. In the process of doing so, the swastika was revealed.
It is not that easy to deal with evil.
To be sure, some Americans kept an eye on developments beyond America's borders, and they knew there was religious persecution everywhere. American Jews, many of whom had escaped the concentration camps, knew Nazis weren't gone, just in hiding.
But those Americans were the exceptions in the early 1970s. Most Americans lived in blissful ignorance in 1973, aware of little beyond the country's borders except the war in Vietnam that consumed so much blood and treasure.
What they saw on their TV screens on this night in 1973 shocked them.
Some viewers no doubt sided with Archie. He liked the charismatic Paul and his extreme methods, but Mike the pacifist was alarmed, and many viewers certainly sided with him.
This episode was sure to ignite many debates at the time, forcing viewers to acknowledge beliefs — and fears — they may not have known they held.
But that was what All in the Family did best.
