the durnMoose blog » All in the Family Hour

All in the Family Hour

Categories: tv, prime time, all in the family, family hour

Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 by durnmoose

Ok, Mooseheads, today we set the wayback machine for 1975. (Y’know, i’m starting to think maybe I should have called this the “Once upon a time” blog or something like that for all the posts that start “wayback when..”… anyway…)

So, ok, it’s January 1975. In response to rising complaints about the amounts of sex and violence on television, Richard Wiley, the head of the FCC, announced that the three national networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS had all agreed to set aside the first hour of prime-time (from 8-9 on the east coast)for family friendly programming. This “family viewing hour” was to be implemented by the start of the fall 1975 season.

However, according to wikipedia:

many television series suffered from the Family Viewing Hour mandate. All in the Family, which was the runaway top-rated show in the U.S. since 1971, was moved to 9 p.m. on Mondays after five seasons leading the Saturday night lineup. Producer Norman Lear, citing an infringement on creative freedom and on his First Amendment rights, mounted a lawsuit with the support of varying guilds including the WGA, but the case was later dropped…

n 1976, United States circuit court Judge Warren Ferguson declared the Family Viewing Hour null and void, starting with the fall 1977 season. Ferguson stated while the idea was good in theory, the FCC had overstepped its bounds in having it instituted; the FCC privately lobbied the three major networks to adopt the policy instead of holding public hearings on the matter, and Ferguson ruled on those grounds that the Family Viewing Hour had no binding merit. The decree made by the National Association of Broadcasters in 1975 was also overturned, giving stations free rein on what to air in the pre-prime time slots.

So by the end of 1977, the family hour was officially dead. Unofficially, however, even today there are some who think about the first hour of prime-time as a period that should at least try to be family friendly and most networks do seem to hold their harsher shows for later viewing (though how Jay Leno’s upcoming domination of the 10 o’clock eastern time slot on NBC will affect the rest of that network’s nightly programming is yet to be seen.

All of which is background for the short video clip below. As cited above, one of the shows most affected by the family hour restrictions was All In the Family. And typically for the show and it’s creator, they were not quiet about it, composing the following take off on the show’s theme song in response. Though never actually aired, it was performed for the show’s studio audience. And now, they perform it for you…

One Response to “All in the Family Hour”

DamnSquirrel Says:
March 26th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
BWAHAHAHAHAH! Very funny indeed.

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Posted: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Categories: tv, prime time, all in the family, family hour
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All in the Family Hour

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