{"id":2210018,"date":"2025-12-23T17:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T17:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2210018"},"modified":"2025-12-23T17:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T17:18:12","slug":"michael-douglas-says-all-in-the-family-political-clashes-wouldnt-be-played-for-laughs-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/michael-douglas-says-all-in-the-family-political-clashes-wouldnt-be-played-for-laughs-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Douglas says &#8216;All in the Family&#8217; political clashes wouldn&#8217;t be played for laughs today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2025%2F12%2Fnewspress-collage-qfrhio0v9-1766509869598.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261766491915\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft wp-block-nypost-editor-partner-article-links\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Actor\u00a0Michael Douglas\u00a0mused in a new interview that the political dynamics that made for comedy gold in <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/15\/entertainment\/how-rob-reiner-shot-to-fame-with-all-in-the-family-and-then-churned-out-hollywood-hits\/\">\u201cAll in the Family\u201d<\/a> wouldn\u2019t go over as well in today\u2019s climate.<\/p>\n<p>Appearing on a CBS News special about Rob Reiner, who was <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/15\/us-news\/rob-reiner-wife-michelle-had-throats-slit-by-family-member-during-heated-argument-report\/\">murdered last week along with his wife Michele<\/a>, Douglas reflected on the 1970s sitcom \u201cAll in the Family,\u201d\u00a0where Reiner starred as the liberal Michael Stivic. <\/p>\n<p>His father-in-law, working-class man Archie Bunker, was the opposite politically and preferred to call Stivic \u201cMeathead\u201d for some of his more leftist views.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was basing the story about a blue-collar, right-wing conservative father,\u201d Douglas said of the show. \u201cArchie Bunker thought this guy was not good enough for his daughter, and particularly despised his politics, which is told as a comedy, and it was very funny.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But that conservative-liberal dynamic would not fly as comedy today, Douglas said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Actor\u00a0Michael Douglas\u00a0said in a new interview with CBS News that the political dynamics that made for comedy gold in \u201cAll in the Family\u201d wouldn\u2019t go over as well in today\u2019s climate. <span class=\"credit\">CBS<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cIt was basing the story about a blue-collar, right-wing conservative father. Archie Bunker thought this guy was not good enough for his daughter, and particularly despised his politics, which is told as a comedy, and it was very funny,\u201d Douglas said of the show. \u00a0 <span class=\"credit\">ZUMAPRESS.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAnd how far away those days are now,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to do a political show about a very conservative father and his son, without it becoming a drama.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a flashback interview that aired during the CBS special, Reiner praised the \u201cbrilliant\u201d and \u201cedgy\u201d writing on the show, which is considered a landmark in American television. <\/p>\n<p>It helped launch the career of Reiner, who went on to be better known as a director.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Rob Reiner starred in \u201cAll in the Family\u201d alongside Carroll O\u2019Connor, Jean Stapleton, and Sally Struthers. <span class=\"credit\">CBS \/Landov<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Douglas starred in Reiner\u2019s 1995 film \u201cThe American President\u201d as President Andrew Shepherd and said he had a \u201cspectacular\u201d experience working with him.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/sally-struthers-experienced-culture-shock-set-edgy-all-family\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sally Struthers<\/a>, who <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/10\/29\/entertainment\/all-in-the-family-star-sally-struthers-reveals-disappointment-about-show\/\">starred as Bunker\u2019s daughter<\/a> on \u201cAll in the Family,\u201d recently revealed that she was shocked by the script when she first arrived on set. <\/p>\n<p>In an interview with\u00a0Fox News Digital\u00a0last month, she described how she had a sheltered upbringing and was therefore taken aback by some of the show\u2019s humor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I was very young when I started on that show,\u201d Struthers said. \u201cI was young when I finished it. And I grew up in Portland, Oregon, living with a Lutheran Norwegian family, who had absolutely no bigotry coming out of their mouths or in their hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomething would come out of somebody\u2019s mouth in the show, usually Archie\u2019s, and I would turn to whoever was sitting next to me and say, \u2018What does that mean?\u2019\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Rob Reiner and Michael Douglas at the 41st Annual Chaplin Award Gala dinner at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on April 28, 2014 in New York City.\u00a0 <span class=\"credit\">WireImage<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t hear racial slurs growing up. I didn\u2019t hear negative epithets. I really didn\u2019t know that all this ugliness was out there. So it was a big learning curve for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reiner often supported progressive causes and said he and O\u2019Connor were actually fairly politically aligned in real life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was a raging liberal and so was he,\u201d Reiner said in an old interview clip shown during the special.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/14\/us-news\/2-dead-at-rob-reiners-la-home-lapds-robbery-homicide-division-respond\/\">Reiner and his wife Michele were found dead<\/a> in their home in Brentwood, California, on Dec. 14. Their son, Nick, has been <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/15\/us-news\/rob-reiners-son-nick-in-custody-after-horrifying-murder-of-princess-bride-director-and-wife\/\">charged in the killings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Actor\u00a0Michael Douglas\u00a0mused in a new interview that the political dynamics that made for comedy gold in \u201cAll in the Family\u201d wouldn\u2019t go over as well in today\u2019s climate. Appearing on a CBS News special about Rob Reiner, who was murdered last week along with his wife Michele, Douglas reflected on the 1970s sitcom \u201cAll in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2210019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[22339,21741,312463,359403,22205],"class_list":["post-2210018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-comedy","tag-entertainment","tag-michael-douglas","tag-rob-reiner","tag-television"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Michael-Douglas-says-All-in-the-Family-political-clashes-wouldnt.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2210018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2210020,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210018\/revisions\/2210020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2210019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2210018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2210018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2210018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}