All In The Family spawned several spinoffs.
Maude was the feisty opinionated liberal cousin of Archie Bunker’s wife Edith, who was introduced on All in The Family in a 1971 episode superbly acted by Beatrice Arthur. Maude began in 1972 and ran until 1978. Bill Macy played Maude’s husband Walter who owned an appliance store, sharing their home with Maude’s divorced daughter and grandson played by Adrienne Barbeau. Maude had a black maid named Florida, played by actress Esther Rolle.
Good Times, starring Maude’s maid Florida played by Esther Rolle and John Amos playing her husband Henry as they live in a Chicago public housing project, was spun off from Maude and aired by CBS from 1974 to 1979. Good Times cleverly weaved plots involving the women’s liberation movement into the black family setting, with husband Henry not wanting his wife to be a maid, and Florida asserting herself by declaring that there was nothing demeaning about being a maid. Although set in Chicago, all episodes were filmed around Hollywood.
The Jeffersons were the black neighbors of Archie Bunker, with Sherman Hemsley as Mr. Jefferson and Isabel Sanford as Mrs Jefferson plus their son Lionel. Appearing now and then on All In The Family beginning in 1971 when Lionel was introduced as a friend of Michael “meathead” Stivic, The Jeffersons were spun off from All in The Family in 1975 when they move away from the Bunker’s neighborhood to a Manhattan apartment. The Jeffersons continued for 11 seasons, outlasting the parent show as the longest spinoff. Mr Jefferson owned a chain of dry cleaning stores and was portrayed as a black version of Archie Bunker.
The first interracial couple on a television program was introduced on the Jeffersons as neighbors, played by actress Roxie Roxer and Franklin Cover, with a bi-racial daughter played by Berlinda Tolbert, who becomes an item with Lionel. The Jeffersons had a maid named Florence, played by Marla Gibbs. Today the Jeffersons remains the longest television series with a predominantly African-American cast.
Checking In, spun off from the Jeffersons in April 1981, and came and went with only 4 episodes aired and quickly canceled, starring their former maid Florence who had been hired as a hotel housekeeper. The Florence character then boomeranged back to the Jeffersons after the fictitious New York hotel where she worked had burned down.
Gloria, spun off from Archie Bunker’s place, itself a continuation of All In The Family, starring Archie Bunker’s daughter played by Sally Struthers as a new divorcee with a son named Joey, who returns to New York after ditching Michael “meathead” Stivic who had run off to a commune, to be close to dad Bunker, Gloria was hired by a veterinarian played by actor Burgess Meredith. Gloria only ran for one season from September 1982 to September 1983.
704 Hauser Street, the fictitious address of the house where Archie Bunker and family lived, was the last All In The Family spinoff, starring a new black family living in the Bunker house years after Archie had sold it, and bringing back actor John Amos from Good Times. Only 6 episodes were filmed in May and June of 1994, of which only 5 aired.
