The Ghost of Series Past in ‘704 Hauser’

No one will accuse “704 Hauser” of subtlety.

Black college student Thurgood Marshall (Goodie) Cumberbatch wraps his white sweetheart, Cherlyn Markowitz, in his arms and asks: “Do we dispel the myth about black man and Jewish women or what?”

The nature of that “myth” is a bit gauzy. What is clear is that tonight’s premiere of Norman Lear’s latest CBS comedy series has attic smells. Unlike the often funny and appealing episodes that follow in this six-week trial run, it reeks of Archie Bunker’s musty spirit, as if Lear were seeking to reinvent his greatest success as something fresh and startling in 1994 merely by changing its skin color.

Wrong opening, right series? Well, that’s not entirely the case, for just as “All in the Family” did--and succeeded wildly nevertheless--”704 Hauser” stamps bigotry with a happy face that’s undeserved.

Television remains a black hole (pun intended) when it comes to prime-time drama series built around black characters. When proposed to network decision-makers (who are inevitably white), such projects almost always sink from sight, never to resurface. Of course it’s a race issue.

Yet, paradoxically, prime time’s landscape of black comedies is not only widening (thanks largely to Fox) but finally even diversifying. That means more depictions of upscale and middle-class blacks plus--in contrast to the hip-hopping burlesque of some of the black comedies--new meaty half-hours in Fox’s bracing “South Central” and the heavily politicized “704 Hauser.”

The latter title refers to a fictional address in working-class Queens. Located at 704 Hauser is the weathered old house where white-skinned, red-necked Archie once calmly spewed ignorance about blacks and other minorities on “All in the Family” in the 1970s. Instead of the Bunkers, though, the present occupants are black: auto mechanic Ernie Cumberbatch (John Amos), his caterer wife, Rose (Lynnie Godfrey), and their 23-year-old son, Goodie (T. E. Russell). Almost a resident--although treated as an outcast by Ernie--is Cherlyn (Maura Tierney).

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In addition to this mixed-race-and-religion courtship, the twist is that Ernie and churchgoing Rose are supposed to be liberal, Goodie conservative--the very opposite of Archie’s situation with his live-in liberal son-in-law, Mike Stivic.

Although the irony should be obvious, “704 Hauser” delivers it with a sledgehammer, for who should visit the Cumberbatches tonight and stay for dinner--trailing Archie anecdotes like bread crumbs--but Mike’s grown son, Joey (Casey Siemaszko).

Meanwhile, Ernie calls the white-liking Goodie an “Oreo,” and Goodie calls Ernie a bigot. Ernie smirks: “Black man can’t be a bigot, son.” Goodie retorts: “Tell that to a Korean.” A little inside joke for L.A. viewers.

Much, much funnier is the second episode, which finds cash-strapped Ernie angering Rose when trying to qualify for a big tax exemption by naming himself a minister and his garage the Church of Eternal Life.

Although the episode ends awkwardly in seeking to elevate Rose’s spirituality over Ernie’s cynicism, it features Amos at his comic finest as a mock black preacher and demonstrates just how good “704 Hauser” can be when Ernie and Rose hold center stage. Amos and Godfrey really have it going.

This is not Amos’ first turn as patriarch of a sitcom family clinging desperately to the lower fringes of the middle class. But as the unemployed father in Lear’s “Good Times,” in the mid-1970s, he never showed the range that he does as Ernie Cumberbatch, executing rip-roaring physical comedy and quiet poignancy with equal craft.

Amos has some of his best dramatic moments later in the run, one when Ernie feels humiliated when Rose’s high-achieving sister offers her a free trip to Paris that Ernie himself could never pay for, and later when he admonishes Goodie for doing something that deeply hurt him. Instead of outrage, it’s devastation that you see on Ernie’s face as he ends the episode ambivalently by kissing his son on the cheek and walking away.

Yet it’s the home-front debates and name calling--at times the series feels as much like CNN’s “Crossfire” as a comedy--that make the most noise, and are bound to generate the most controversy for “704 Hauser.” That includes its dialogues about Jews.

In that regard, both Rose and Ernie are burdened by inconsistencies. For example, the same politically sophisticated and eloquent Rose who unleashes a passionate defense of Anita Hill in one episode innocently asks Cherlyn in another: “When you people go to temple and you don’t pray to Jesus, what is it you do there?”

And calling Ernie liberal illustrates the meaninglessness of such labels. Ernie does ridicule conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. But he also repeatedly refers snidely to Cherlyn’s Jewish last name, and her Jewishness is at least as much a target here as is her whiteness. Ernie’s cracks about bagels and gefilte fish, in fact, have the tone of a watermelon reference in connection with blacks.

Why would Cherlyn hang around and accept Ernie’s insults, turning the other cheek with a graciousness that belies believability? The answer lies in the way the character of Ernie is written.

We learn early in the series that Cherlyn’s own white parents have rejected Goodie because he’s black. Having not met them, we can immediately assume the worst and color them racist. But Ernie we have met. And despite his narrow-mindedness in some areas, he remains somehow as likable as Archie Bunker--yet another benign bigot whose essential decency softens the edges of prejudice in a way that blurs reality.

After drawing early criticism in some circles, Archie got away with it, ultimately becoming a seminal character in the history of television, and perhaps there’s glory ahead for Ernie too. A crack here about Jews, a crack there about whites, glazed by laughter. Perhaps it’s harmless.

Yet you view “704 Hauser” with the same clashing emotions that you felt at times when watching “All in the Family,” feeling a bit uneasy while laughing.

* “704 Hauser” airs at 8:30 tonight on CBS (Channels 2 and 8).