Those Were the Days

Beginning Saturday, CBS will present a tribute to three of its classic series: “All in the Family,” “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

All in the Family 20th Anniversary Special kicks off the salutes Saturday (8-9:30 p.m.), a 90-minute retrospective featuring clips from producer Norman Lear’s landmark sitcom and interviews with the four regulars: Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers. Lear is the host.

“The Very Best of the Ed Sullivan Show,” hosted by Carol Burnett, airs next Sunday (9-11 p.m.), and “Mary Tyler Moore: The 20th Anniversary Show” is the next night, Feb. 18 (9:30-11 p.m.), featuring Moore and her fellow cast members.

As for “All in the Family,” it’s been 20 years since America was introduced to the Bunker family of Queens, N.Y. The show premiered Jan. 12, 1971, developed by Lear from the British series “Till Death Do Us Part.”

The mid-season replacement was so outrageous for its day it took until that summer for viewers and critics to warm up to the show. But it became the No. 1 series during the 1971-72 season and stayed there for five years. “All in the Family” also racked up 20 Emmys.

At a recent press conference in Los Angeles, Reiner and Lear reflected upon the revolutionary series.

“I looked at the clips yesterday,” Reiner said. “I hadn’t seen it in years and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was really moved. You don’t get moved by television any more. You don’t laugh out loud by yourself. This was great stuff. It was in another stratosphere. I cried and thought, ‘Gee, I was a part of this.’ ”

Reiner, now a successful film director, said he never wants to distance himself from the series. “I did my work on that show and I am doing my work now,” he said. “The show had such tremendous impact. It’s a great show. I always made the joke that no matter what I do, I always will be thought of as Meathead. If I win the Nobel Prize, the headlines will say ‘Meathead wins the Nobel.’ ”

“Working on this special, I am stunned by it,” Lear said. “I read comparisons of the show with ‘Married . . . With Children,’ ‘Roseanne,’ gritty family shows. None of those shows do what these four players did. It is bigger than chemistry. Rob and Carroll invented so much of what you saw on the show--the pieces, the words and ideas.”

Reiner added, “When you start with something that good and innovative, you want to rise to the occasion. We wanted to do our best.”

“All in the Family” is rarely seen these days in syndication (it was last seen in the Los Angeles area about five years ago). The series’ syndicator, Viacom, has slowly been taking it off the market because the rights revert back to Columbia Pictures Television next year.

“Columbia has plans for going forward with it fresh,” Lear said. He added that means either Columbia will syndicate it in markets across the country or “a network might even put it on during prime-time.” Also worth watching:

“A Womb with a View” episode of Moonlighting (Friday at 2 p.m. on Lifetime) is a precursor to “Look Who’s Talking,” with Bruce Willis wearing diapers, playing Maddie’s unborn child and commenting on her relationship with David.

Set your VCRs for the Emmy-winning “Atomic Shakespeare” episode of Moonlighting (Saturday at 2 p.m. on Lifetime), which finds David and Maddie starring in a spoof of “The Taming of the Shrew.”

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“All in the Family” was based on the British series, “Till Death Us Do Part,” (the correct name) not on a series called “Till Death Do Us Part.”

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