Some Favorite Television Shows Of The Past, Sanford and Son

The success of "All In The Family" had producer Norman Lear haul out another groundbreaking show, "Sanford and Son." Based on a British television show, "Steptoe and Son," the new comedy began on NBC in 1972 and quickly soared in the ratings. The show had Fred Sanford, played by Redd Foxx (whose real family name was Sanford), as a sort of a black Archie Bunker. Fred was a junk dealer in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, and he was cantankerous as hell. He frequently called his son, Lamont, played by Demond Wilson, "dummy," but he saved his sharpest barbs for his sister-in-law, Esther, played by Cleveland-born LaWanda Page. The battles between Fred and Esther were hilarious, especially in one episode where a very drunk Fred stared up at Esther and shouted, "Call the zoo! I just captured a gorilla-faced ugly-opotamous!" Fred also had a fit when a goat-owning Puerto Rican, named Julio, played by Gregory Sierra, moved in next door, and he blared out every imaginable insult and stereotype he could think of. Then there was Aw Chew, played by Pat Morita, a Japanese neighbor, who also endured Fred's ethnic insults. There were other fairly regular characters in the show during its six seasons, including Lamont's friend Rollo, other close friends of Fred, Bubba and Melvin, Fred's girlfriend Donna, a black and white LA police duo, Smitty and Hoppy, with Hoppy being the white cop who constantly messed up the urban lingo, but who also used such complicated language when talking to Fred and Lamont, they would have to turn to Smitty, the black cop, for a translation into speech they could understand. The next to last season saw long time Beverly Hillbillies' co-star Nancy Kulp become a tenant of Fred and Lamont, as May, policeman Hoppy's mother.

There were some really great episodes, and the show tried to convey how people of all races, but especially black and white Americans, needed to get along and work together. In one episode Fred is using crutches, so Lamont hires a housekeeper through an employment agency. When the woman shows up, Fred is stunned that she's white and his bigotry takes over, in spite of her telling Fred that people are people and that she didn't care about race. In a reverse of a good many real life situations from those times, where whites tried to score points with blacks by being patronizing, Fred tells the housekeeper he thinks former 1920s white world heavyweight boxing champ Jack Dempsey could have beaten Joe Louis, the 1930s and 1940s black world heavyweight champ. When Fred forces Lamont to get rid of the housekeeper, just as she goes out the door, she turns and tells Fred something like, "And I think you're wrong Mr. Sanford, Joe Louis could have beaten the hell out of Jack Dempsey."

Redd Foxx became well known for his acting as if he were having a heart attack when Lamont talked of leaving home or Julio's goat got loose and wandered into Fred's house. He'd grab his chest and look to the heavens to speak to his late wife, Elizabeth, and shout, "I'm coming to join ya, Elizabeth." 
  
The show was not without real life controversy, as Redd Foxx walked out for a time in a salary dispute, leaving Whitman Mayo, who played Fred's friend Grady Wilson, to run the house and trade insults with Esther, who frequently answered Fred's and Grady's insults with, "Watch it sucka!" She also often referred to Fred as, "You beady-eyed old heathen." In perhaps the best episode of all, a long time friend of Fred and his family in St. Louis arrived in LA to announce that he was Lamont's real father. This declaration brought Fred and Esther together, temporarily, as allies, with Esther even shouting, "Fred, let's you and I beat the hell out of him!" If you've never seen the episode or if you've forgotten the outcome, I won't spoil it, but you won't be able to hold back the laughter, or perhaps even a tear or two, when Lamont makes a statement about the whole "father" situation.

Photo is from "Sanford And Son, The Complete Series" DVD set, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2008

WORD HISTORY:
Harken (also spelled "hearken")/Hark-"Harken" and "hark" are both closely related, so I will cover them both here, and they are both related to "hear." They go back to the Indo European root "khous/kous," with the meaning of "hear." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "hauzijanan/hausjanan," and "perhaps" even a variant, "heorskjanan," meaning "to hear." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "heorcian," meaning "to hear, to listen." This then became "herken," before the more modern "hark," with the meaning, "listen closely, attentively." The Germanic form also produced Old English "heorcnian," meaning "to listen." This then became "hercnen," before "harken." "Harken back/hark back, seems originally to have meant "to go back to a place and listen" while one was hunting, but in more modern times it simply means, "go back to a particular place or point, to recall something." The other Germanic languages have: German "horchen" (to listen, including to listen secretly; that is, eavesdrop, also listen attentively, harken), Low German Saxon "horken" (to listen, to harken, and was once also used by Dutch), West Frisian "harkje" (harken, listen). The other Germanic languages ceased using forms directly related to English "hark/harken," but all have forms directly related to the closely related English word, "hear."