Until the arrival of The Simpsons, this was the best show in the history of television. Somehow, it's comedic satire is lost on some that are still in the "concrete operations" stage, but to higher order thinkers each utterance out of the mouth of Carroll O'Connor's Archie Bunker is pure gold. This show typified the verbal (and all too often, in reality, physical) confrontations that took place between "baby boomers" and WWII generation members and was a preview of the world that the boomers would soon inherit. As the boomers become more like their elders and their kids look disdainfully upon the utopian vision that never became realized, All in the Family stands as a document that accurately depicts the ongoing generation gap that has always been apparent to us as a species. The performances in the first five years of this series are truly priceless and O'Connor's Archie picks up both verbally and physically, were Gleason's Ralph Kramden left off. A Ten out of Ten!!!
