One Day at a Time: The Top 10 Most Norman Lear Episodes | Feminist TV, Taboo Topics, and the Sex Lives of Women

Weirding Way Media. Welcome to 80s TV Ladies, where we look back in order to leap forward. Our lovely producer, Melissa, is out having some fun life stuff. So it's just me and Susan today as we take a look at One Day at a Time. I'm Sharon Johnson.

And I'm Susan Lambert-Haddam. Today, we'll be talking about the most Norman Lear episodes of One Day at a Time. Who is Norman Lear, you say? Have you been living under a rock while you've listened to this podcast? Well, for the very few who don't know who we're talking about, he's just one of the godfathers of the television sitcom.

He was born in 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut. Norman Lear attended Emerson College before serving his country in World War II, flying 52 combat missions over Europe. Upon returning from World War II, he embarked on a legendary screenwriting and producing career spanning more than seven decades and over 100 television shows and nine feature films, including Come Blow Your Horn, Divorce, American Style, The Princess Bride, and Fried Green Tomatoes. After early success writing for programs like the Colgate Comedy Hour and Martha Ray Show, which, by the way, Even though they didn't work together on it, Bonnie Franklin was also on the Colgate Comedy Hour as like a tap-dancing nine-year-old. But I digress.

Lear revolutionized the television landscape during the 1970s and 80s. He introduced bold political and social themes to the sitcom format through incredibly iconic and successful series. Between 1971 and 1981, Norman Lear created 22 television shows. including All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and Different Strokes. Like, just an incredible run, Sharon. Incredible.

Unmatched. Beyond his massive impact on entertainment, Lear was a dedicated civic activist who repeatedly leveraged his platform to champion democratic principles. Democratic with a small d. In 1980, he founded People for the American Way, an advocacy group that has grown to over 1.5 million members dedicated to defending constitutional rights, free expression, and equal justice. He and his wife Lynn purchased one of the few surviving original copies of the Declaration of Independence and sent it on a 50-state tour.

He also launched Declare Yourself, a nonpartisan initiative that registered over 4 million young voters between the 2004 and 2008 elections. He basically invented the sitcom dramedy. Lear's influence on American media and culture continued well into his later years through modern projects like the One Day at a Time reboot and the Emmy-winning Live in Front of a Studio Audience specials. He earned six Emmy Awards— the Peabody Lifetime Achievement Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, and an inaugural induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. He was a master storyteller, a huge-hearted person, and a champion of American democracy.

So, Sharon, what, to you, is a Norman Lear episode? I think it's one that encompasses the realities of life while bringing the funny. He stayed mostly in the comedy realm. And he managed to tell stories about the human condition of the time, but still bringing so much humor and laughter in doing so. So it didn't feel like it was just like medicinal TV that you're going to learn something here kind of thing.

What about you? What's a Lear show to you? I think you're absolutely right. You're being, not being preached to, you're being entertained. So it was very character relationship stories and family stories, but it was also tackling the serious issues facing America from the 70s into the 80s and still currently, right?

Some of these episodes still resonate, but I love that it was a very funny sitcom that tackled serious issues. And again, not in the, here's a very special episode, you know, It was integral to the piece itself. It dealt with issues of racism, sexism, sexual dynamics, health, politics in America, in particular, One Day at a Time and Maud were defining examples of sitcoms about second wave feminism. It's not really even the kind of television that we have now, even though we definitely have Television that talks about all these used to be taboo subjects. I do think we cover a lot more.

But the groundbreaking element of what shows he did also for LGBTQ issues, it was pretty stunning how American they felt, right? They were about American families dealing with the issues of the day. and talking about things that had not been talked about in such honest and compelling ways on television before his shows. And bringing it into the living rooms of America in a way that wasn't frightening. There was a base of reality to it that made what they were talking about feel familiar, even if your family wasn't experiencing exactly what was happening to the characters on these shows. He probably knew somebody or heard of somebody maybe that was doing it or involved in it, or you'd heard about it on the news or perhaps.

So it provided the audience with an opportunity to kind of put a face to some of these issues and make it less abstract in talking about how these issues would affect someone. So it's really remarkable what he was able to do. And I think the reason he was successful, though, is because he really did bring the funny. He did it in a way that wasn't scary, that wasn't as preachy as it could have been. It entertained, I think is what I'm trying to say.

It entertained. Archie Bunker is an exaggerated character. And yet at that time in American society, he was just a shade exaggerated from many people. All in the Family really defines to me, you know, a Norman Lear. Arguably the most Norman Lear of all Norman Lear comedies.

Oh, absolutely, because many times when you read an article or hear somebody talk about All in the Family in particular, one of the things that's always brought up is that for people who lived in, let's say, a left-leaning house, they saw things one way, and people in a right-leaning house, and I'm talking politically, resonated with some other things. So it managed to bring. Something for both sides to latch onto. And that's an amazing feat in and of itself. Yes.

And also building characters that you cared about. Mm-hmm. You know, those characters were very defined from all of those shows. You know, Good Times at Jefferson's. And that's why they kept spinning off, right?

Like, Maude was a character on the Archie Bunker show and then got her own show. Um. I'm sure the Jeffersons directly came from All in the Family. Oh, Good Times came from Maude. Came from, oh, yes, of course.

Which came from All in the Family. Yes. The Jeffersons came from All in the Family directly. Yes. But again, it all goes back to All in the Family.

The All in the Family tree and its many branches. All in the Family, 1971. Sanford and Son, 1972. Maud, 1972. Good Times, 1974.

The Jeffersons, 1975. One Day at a Time, 1975. I mean, holy crap. Yeah. Each one a gem.

Exactly. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's not unusual for shows to spin off into another show. But the fact that so many of them were so good, it's like treasure that you find. You know, it's just not out there all the time.

And they were, I think One Day at a Time was in the top 10, like one or two seasons of its run, but it was in the top 20 for almost its whole run. Maybe season nine it dropped. But five of those shows were in their top 10 for their run. Like they were tentpole. It's pretty amazing.

So I thought it would be fun to look at the top 10 most Norman Lear episodes of One Day at a Time. Now there are a lot. Yes. And the other caveat I'm going to say is that One Day at a Time kind of pretty quickly started doing multiple episodes covering one storyline, which I think was kind of unusual. They would, you know, end on a little cliffhanger and they knew they were doing a three-parter or a four-parter or a two-parter.

So when we talk about these, we're including them as one episode. Yeah. And there are other multi-part episodes that are not on this list. Yeah. So I have done a count, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this show has the most multi-part episodes.

I had not remembered there were so many of those. I would imagine that one of the reasons that they were able to, allowed to, if you will, by the network is because of because of Norman Lear and his track record. I doubt that too many other TV producers would have been allowed to do that because people are not used to that. But I suspect they said, sure, it's working. You're doing a great job and all these great shows and whatever you want.

Because that means in syndication, you have to show them in order. Showing them out of order becomes a weird exercise somewhat. It wasn't just the, oh, we restart. Every new episode can be watched on its own, but typically sitcoms of that time, you could just watch them and it would be the story of the moment that week. So that was surprising how many there were, but shall we start?

Let's go. So first we're going to just start at the top. The first episode we're going to talk about is called Anne's Decision. It is season one, episode one, the first episode of the show. setting the table for where we are, why we are, who are the players in the show. Newly divorced, 33-year-old Anne Romano moves her teenage daughters, 16-year-old Julie, played by Mackenzie Phillips, and 15-year-old Barbara, played by Valerie Bertinelli, to Indianapolis to start a fresh life.

It established the show's signature tone, sharp comedic banter with authentic discussions about women's independence, modern parenting, and challenges of being a single parent. It was co-created by Whitney Blake, who had been divorced and was the mother of three kids. And much of it was based on her experience from what I've read about the show. Bonnie Franklin was also divorced, and I think the show really appealed to her because of, you know, woman finding her life after divorce and the feminist element of it. But it was the legendary Norman Lear. the king of 70s sitcom television.

It was so interesting that he used the power of All in the Family, a male and a white male-centered show, to spin off successful Black sitcoms and women sitcoms. And he didn't have to do that. He could have. Just done spinoff shows of the same format. It was a choice to be made and a choice that only someone wielding great power in the 70s could make the networks go along with, I think.

It was not pulling the ladder up behind you, and in fact, extending the ladder to make sure that those stories got told. And I think that this is one of them. It was the second show to feature a divorced mom. The first was Lucy's show. And, like, she was already an established... personality, a star, everything.

This was the first time where it was really serious, right? It starts off with her and her two kids coming to the big city from their small town and trying to figure out if they were going to be able to make it, right, on their own. And it just is really hard to explain how unusual it was for there to be a divorced woman on television, much less the lead of a show. and the hero of the show. Literally, when this came out, a woman could not get a credit card in her own name and could not get a mortgage to buy a house and had trouble getting a job. She shows up as a former housewife looking for a job.

All of these were pretty of the time they were happening. They had been happening, but they hadn't been shown on television. I also thought it was interesting that they shot a different pilot Yeah, I. Didn't know that until, obviously, we were doing this podcast. I mean, of course, at that time, I don't know how much people really knew about that sort of thing.

The pilot was originally scheduled to air on Friday, May 16th, 1975, but CBS pulled it at the last minute. I guess they wanted some changes. Yes. The original pilot was called Three to Get Ready. It did have a lot of the same stars, but not all of them.

It starred Bonnie Franklin as a divorced ER nurse with only one daughter, Mackenzie Phillips. She had a neighbor friend played by Marsha Rod. And Pat Harrington Jr. was indeed also the superintendent in the building. But his name was Ralph, not Dwayne Schneider, as in the reshot pilot. Basically, CBS said, we want something different.

And so they retooled the show to be One Day at a Time. Some of the things they asked for in terms of changes, Anne Romano's job changed from a nurse to that of a displaced homemaker entering the workforce. She eventually lands a job at an advertising agency and by the end of the show's run had worked her way up to being a successful advertising and account executive. The family was expanded to two daughters instead of one, adding Valerie Bertinelli as the younger kind of smart-mouthed daughter, but the quote unquote good daughter. And of course, Dwayne Schneider was born out of Ralph, which I think is clearly a better name.

It's hard to imagine that character coming in going, hi, I'm Ralph. Oh, Ralph. And then Marsha Rod's neighbor character was dropped from the pilot. They tried to bring back a neighbor friend in season two, played by Mary Louise Wilson. But it didn't really take.

It lasted a season and then they went back. So she did have some female friendship throughout the show, but it was not as consistent. That's the one thing that sort of feels missing from the whole arc of this show is a female friendship for Anne Romano. Well, they had a pretty full cast, I guess they were thinking, and writing stories for another cast. character, I guess they just decided, I'm sure they considered it at some point, and for whatever reason, they decided not to do it. But yeah, that would have been interesting.

I mean, there are some women that do show up throughout the course of the show, but there isn't another adult female character that is in the show from beginning to end. And of course, they retitled the show to One Day at a Time, which is, I mean, I don't know how they got to that title, but it's a much better title than Three to Get Ready, in my opinion. I completely agree. All right. So the number two most Norman Lear episode that I found was All the Way.

This was season one, episode eight. It aired February 3rd, 1976. I think this is a really landmark episode because 16-year-old Julie, Mackenzie Phillips, is struggling to decide if she's going to take her relationship with her boyfriend to the next level because he's pressuring her to have sex with him. It sort of is a frank discussion of teenage sex and how do you navigate that relationship. What's also very Norman Lear about it, like, it's so interesting how much the parents were involved and the parent figures.

Anne Romano is dating David, and he is part of that discussion. And he's like, I'm going to talk to the guy, and he'll listen to me. And he doesn't listen to him. But it's dealt with, I thought, both very funny, but also interesting. imparting important information about how to advocate for what you want out of a relationship and what you don't want out of a relationship. There was a line that I really liked that Barbara's character has.

She's having a discussion with David, asks him about sex, and she's like, what's everybody so uptight about it for? It's been around a long time. You might have think they had perfected it by now. David says, well, we almost had it right about there for a while. Then they invented the waterbed and now you have to fight the undertow, which again, it's kind of a lame joke in some ways, but it's given the subject matter.

I actually thought it was, again, very clever. But what I love about that, not only is that it's funny, right? But the language for her is such a teenage girl language for the time. It's not perfect language. It's a really interesting way to phrase those questions.

And that to me is one of the very Norman Lear signatures is the writing for each character is so unique and so specific. And so it feels very real. Those girls felt very real in that show. That definitely is a very funny exchange. But I will say that for me, the.

The show tended to lean further to the drama than the comedy. The comedy was definitely there, but the drama is what was driving the conversation, driving the interaction, and it also seemed like they were primarily using Schneider to provide laughs in each episode. He'd come in early on, you know, do his thing, and then off he'd go, to applause and laughter from the audience because he's usually very funny. Yes, he's 100% committed to being funny Schneider, I think, all the time. He's the Lenny and the Squeaky.

Yes. You know, it actually, it's been so interesting re-watching these episodes. For a lot of them, watching them for the first time, especially the later episodes, because of my lack of access to a television for some a good part of this in some ways it feels like i'm watching it for the first time despite the fact that i know this show i know the characters are the characters are indelible and yet i'm watching some of this happening it feels like for the first time for whatever it's worth. It's been a while since I revisited this show. I mean, certainly the first two seasons, I knew very well.

And I was fairly young. I mean, 1975, I was 10 or 11. The fact that I was watching some of these, I was like, oh, these girls are talking about having sex. But what's interesting is they do tend to lean towards the drama. And there was a lot of, there's a lot of fighting in them, which is a sort of a Norman Lear thing.

Like, all in the family, Archie Bunker's yelling at everybody, right? And sometimes people yell back. In mod, everybody's yelling at everybody. And in this show, a lot of the storylines are, you know, negotiations between the mom and one or more of the daughters. And so there's a lot of daughters are fighting their sisters.

So they fight like sisters and the mom is yelling at them or they're yelling at their mom. Probably definitely, definitely more than we did when we were children, because we would not have gotten away with that. But but the. The sisterly relationship felt very realistic, even if it was exaggerated. And in many ways, those heightened emotions in some ways made more sense.

They were more earned to me in one day at a time than they were sometimes in All in the Family or Maud, oddly enough. Like, I was like, oh, yeah, of course they're yelling because she's talking about having sex. Like, the 16-year-old is thinking about having sex, so of course mom's upset and not sure what to do. And that mom upset, not sure what to do, such a great exploration. I mean, I feel for my mom in 1976, 75, being a single mom, and had been for a while, and being a single mom of teenage girls, now that I have been a married person with a partner of teenagers, I totally feel for all of those people.

I can't imagine doing it on your. Own. I'm like, no, of course they're yelling. Those kids aren't doing it right. Oh, goodness.

Anyway, well, On our list, we have come to the first of the multi-part episodes, with season two episodes one through four called The Runaways. This aired September 28th through October 19th in 1976. This ambitious four-part story arc was a major ratings winner for CBS. After a clash over her independence, Julie runs off to Chicago with her boyfriend, The storyline tackled the emotional strain of runaway youth and parental fear, proving this sitcom could handle long-form serialization. Yeah, season two and three is when they did a lot of this multi-episode thing.

And I don't know that we've come across another show that did something like this, another sitcom. But it's also very compelling. This series of episodes takes... the show outside of the apartment. So much of the show takes place in their apartment. And so when Julie and her boyfriend have run off, they're first in his van, sleeping in his van, and then they're in this really seedy, scary hotel room.

Another of those, here's how scary it is to be a parent. When you know your kid's out doing something And particularly in the 70s, no cell phone. There's no find my phone on your child. You're hoping they go to a pay phone and call you, right? And have the change to call you.

I do feel like it's a very dramatic series of episodes. And yet there's also a lot of humor. even when sort of terrible things are happening to them out there. They're like, we can make it on our own. We're going to not live the way that you parents with jobs live. We can live in our van and we'll be fine.

I don't know. It is also a little more dramatic than most Norman Lear moments there. I think this is where the show realized they could maybe do more dramatic arcs. There's a little bit of the movie of the week or the afterschool arc hey, kids, don't get out there on your own. But not too much.

I also give them a lot of credit for taking the time to really explore this. A lot of shows would have done this in one episode, maybe two, but certainly most would probably just get it all resolved in one episode. And they really took some time with it. So I have to give them a lot of credit for that. Yeah, absolutely.

All right. Number four on our list of the most Norman Lear episodes. One day at a time. This is another series of four episodes. Comes in season three, episodes one through four.

And by the way, this is very interesting that The Runaways was the first four episodes of season two. So the first four episodes of season three is, I would say, what would have been a controversial episode in 1977 and feels like, pretty much sexually abusive at this point. At age 17, that's why, Julie falls for a 42-year-old veterinarian, played by Jim Hutton. She's working for him, and they start a relationship, and she wants to marry him, and he wants to marry her, and it is super creepy. Because, of course, mom doesn't think that's a good idea.

And yet, because it's one of those Norman Lear episodes where they're actually trying to give many sides to the issue, they do a lot of work trying to make an argument for that relationship. And it's really hard to not be screaming at the television going, she's 17. He's almost 30 years older than her. This is This is gross and weird, but it's a reminder of just how different things were in the 70s in terms of women's sexuality and age of consent. But also, as my husband Rich likes to say, well, the 70s was the cruisiest decade.

Oh, I will say that. Tubi only seemed to have episode one, three, and four, not episode two. I'm not sure why. Tubi, I thought, had almost every episode of the show. And it's great because it's free and it's not crazy amounts of ads.

But they've often reordered episodes, you know, more than once. Though this was the only place I noticed that they were missing an episode. Now, It may just, maybe it's been resolved since I went looking for this, but I don't think so. I think, I don't know whether it was not there because maybe it had something in it that was more offensive. I have seen the whole arc.

We found it somewhere else. So I've seen all four. So I don't know what that means. Well, I noticed that with other standalone episodes that Sometimes as I'm trying to find the one I'm looking for, there's one missing or they're not in the same order. But again, it's free.

So I find it hard to be too unhappy with them about it. But yeah, what you were saying about the difference in the climate when it came to an older man, younger woman, especially when the younger woman is 17, I think today that that would never happen on a TV show. They'd probably make her at least 18, but goodness gracious. And that's pushing it, but still, it wouldn't be 17, which I think is a good thing. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but the mores were different then.

And a lot of people I'm sure would have been perfectly fine with that. But yeah, interesting. And she works for him. There's something so very like, disturbing about that it's like when you find out that that for Raiders of the Lost Ark Spielberg and George Lucas wanted you know Marion to be like 15 when Harrison Ford had first met her and engaged in a relationship with her I did not know that oh yeah when they were breaking down the story you know when she says it's been a long time and I loved you and you broke my heart like they really seriously wanted Marion at that previous time for their first relationship when she was the daughter of the professor he worked with, to be 15. Well, were they going to say he was, I don't know, within about a three, four-year age difference from her?

I mean, that would at least be a little more palatable, but. I'm just saying some of the 70s into the 80s was still very disturbing. Yeah. And the way men thought about... All right.

But enough. I'm going on. Oh, you're going on. Up next, again, multi-part episode, this time only two-part episodes. It's Barbara's Friend, season three, officially episodes nine and ten, but five and six on Tubi.

If you're going to watch on Tubi, make sure you check the name of the episodes as they list them. So the topic of this couple of episodes is teenage depression and suicide attacks. At a time when youth suicide was a strict taboo on network television, this two-part story follows Barbara Valerie Bertinelli as she tries to help a depressed but manic isolated friend who attempts suicide using sleeping pills. The episodes dealt heavily with guilt, warning signs, and parental denial, making it one of the darkest storylines in the show's history. I'm going to jump in because this episode was so interesting to me, this two-parter.

A very difficult subject for network TV, particularly a sitcom. Again, we're talking about a sitcom. I would imagine there had been a television movie about suicide during this time. Didn't one of the girls. Yes.

Didn't they have a suicide episode as well? Backs of Life did too. After this one, I believe, though. Yes, I think so. But also, what's interesting is it's also a story of friendship because this girl who's new to the school has basically sort of latched on to Barbara and is kind of super-friending her, right?

I don't know that they're writing it like that, but now she's a bipolar character, right? Like, she's clearly very manic about her friendship with Barbara and about her love for this boy that ends up asking out Barbara and not her. And Barbara doesn't want to be friends with her because she's like, she's too much, right? Then she ends up calling Barbara when she's gone to a hotel and taken sleeping pills. So it goes very dark, right?

When this is happening, they're literally Schneiders. They're implying that the motel she's at might be one where he's gone to with prostitutes. Like it's a very odd combination of things that are happening in this episode. And yet that storyline is so interesting in that it's also about how far do you go to help somebody and they get sort of caught up in this very dramatic situation with someone that she barely knows. She's really just started friendship with her and then it's gone very off the rails very quickly but she's trying to be a good friend and then she's obviously very upset and so this could go bad in so many ways both what's happening but also the way they're telling it i think for the most part they do a really great job of telling it somehow they manage to navigate the humor and the darkness and a discussion of a really important subject however the biggest problem of this one for me was they blame the mom.

They blame the parents and they blame the mom for being in denial or being basically a B. That feels like what they're doing in that episode in a way that's not fair. That does not feel like Norman Lear. It's still not surprising for the time in that that would, I think, be the reaction to a certain extent. There was still this idea that these sorts of things were the mom's realm to deal with. and not so much for both of the parents to be involved or be equally important in trying to get their daughter some help and recognizing that she needs help.

So I'm not surprised, but yeah, they really did seem to want Judith to lean into the mom sort of being the parent who was almost neglectful about what was going on with her daughter. They'd moved her from school to school because they were embarrassed or didn't know what else to do. And there are so many things going on with this. But again, I give them so much credit for tackling this issue. And overall, I think they did a good job, especially dealing with what Barbara went through and how that was for her, because she had no knowledge of or experience with dealing with something like this, as most kids don't at that age or really at any age.

And she was just perplexed and really tried to do her best to try to maybe help as best she could with what information she had. So I give a lot of credit for tackling it. And I think it's a great Valerie Bertinelli episode. She's really good in it. She's very good at both the drama and the comedy.

And she's mostly reacting now to this situation. But I was like, oh, yeah, Valerie Bertinelli, like she does the heavy lifting on this episode and does a really good job. All right. Now, number six is You can go to 80s TV Ladies My Deals link in the show notes to get 21% off Cozy Earth's amazing soft bamboo sheets. Use promo code 80sTVLadies and get 21% off Cozy Earth.

Number six, Ann's Out of Town Client. Season three, episode five, episode eight on Tubi. Basically, this one is about workplace sexual harassment, which I think perfect topic for a Norman Lear show to talk about, particularly a female Norman Lear show. What happens is that Anne's now an advertising agent with an agency and she's got several accounts and her biggest account, the top client is coming and her boss is like, well, you don't need to take him to dinner. I'll have the guy take him to dinner.

And she's like, it's my client. I need to take him to dinner. And so basically she finds out that part of the reason he comes to town is to basically have the advertising agency set up a prostitute or a woman who'll sleep with him. I think that's his only reason for coming. At some point he says something like, I don't need to come here and sign this.

So, And so she's like, no, he's my client. I'm taking him to dinner. And then they go to dinner and she's trying to explain to him that she did not get a woman for him. And then he interprets that as meaning that, oh, she'll sleep with him. Oh, gosh.

I think that for this episode, they handled it with humor very well in dealing with this. There were several couple women that stopped by the table and he kept thinking this is the one and and it's like no this is just this is nothing to do with i mean it's just sort of a a seedy kind of thing to have to deal with obviously not outside the realm of possibility for this sort of thing to be going on then and probably now based on some things we've heard in the news and i liked that that She just refused from the beginning. She's like, no, this is just a business meal. That's it. That's all we're doing.

And made no bones about that to him, even though it took him a while to understand that she was not kidding. I know. He just keeps thinking that she's joking or something with him or that she's on board until she's not. And then ultimately, when he's disappointed and upset that it's not going to work out the way he thought it was going to, and she's finally like, no. No.

He's like, oh, well, then I'm going to drop you as an agency. And she's like, no, I've done a great job for you. I've made money for you. No one can do a better job than what I've done for you. So he keeps her on and learns a very powerful lesson.

That's the part where I'm like, yeah, that one's really hard to believe. I'm not sure in this scenario that she would have a job at the end of it and certainly not represent that client. He might sort of accommodate, but He would be like, yeah, I'm not working with her again. It's interesting you say that because I believed that this guy would keep her on. That doesn't mean that he's not going to continue his extracurricular activities elsewhere.

But he wasn't a total, I'm not saying he wasn't a sleaze because, you know, this is sleazy, but he wasn't at the bottom of the sleaze range. No, he was not the bottom of the sliver's barrel. No, he was maybe closer to the top. And he recognized that, you know, I can take care of this some other way. She's right.

It is to my advantage to keep her on as my account person because she is doing a very good job. So I will separate these two activities and do what's best for me in both areas. That's kind of the way I took it. Okay, all right, I'll buy that. I mean, I think that's the way they were selling it.

I just was like, oh, yeah, she's not going to have that account. Because you can imagine a lot of times, you know, these sort of guys really are just sleazy up to the top of their heads and above that. But he. just seemed like just this nice, relatively nice guy for whom this was the way he did things for God knows how long. And that's how men are supposed to do things, and it's okay. And the rest of his life, unlike many other men, he's not out there looking for extracurricular activities.

It's Vegas. What happens when he goes to check on his account is Vegas. Again, it's about degree of sleaze opposed to the fact that they're not saying there is no sleaze, but to the degree of sleaze in this guy was relatively low. Yes. What happens in Indianapolis stays in Indianapolis on one day at a time.

That's right. I do love that it is acknowledging a workplace sexual harassment and navigating that. And it's also told with a lot of humor. it's also told with a lot of heart. And Bonnie Franklin really also gets to be kind of the hero of the moment because she kind of gets to shame a man and he stands down, which again, that's why I'm like, I don't know. That's a dangerous place to go in the 70s, even now.

Oh, absolutely. He's the exception, not the rule. Trust me. I've that. But anyway.

Okay. Next episode. Hey, another multi-parter. This one's called The Married Man. Season four, episodes...

14 through 16, but on Tubi, it's 12 through 14. In these episodes, Anne starts having a relationship with a married man. She knows when the relationship starts that he's married and makes a choice to get into a relationship with him, which I don't know that I've seen that before or have seen it recently or I've seen it a lot. I think she doesn't know at first. She finds out.

But she.... And then makes the choice. She does. She does decide to continue the relationship. So what's interesting about this is it's a three-parter.

It's not a two-parter, not a four-parter, a three-parter. I think in the end of the first episode, she finds out that he's married. But they've already started. And then the next two are, I'm going to keep going with this relationship. And then whatever happens next.

So. Yeah, it's very interesting. One, like the Golden Girls, there weren't a lot of really frank discussions about women having sex, period. Particularly on a sitcom, particularly a divorcee who's choosing different relationships. They make it very clear in season one that Anne Romano is in a relationship with a guy and they are not having sex because they talk about it in several episodes.

So it's very interesting that here, You know, we're in season four and she's clearly going away with him. They are having sex. She's having a relationship and she makes a choice to have a relationship with a married man, which is very interesting. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

And doesn't Barbara know that he's married? I can't remember. I think she does find out. Yeah, because I seem to remember in the course of the episodes that Barbara knows that this is happening. So she's not keeping this from her.

And then ultimately, not to spoil anything, she decides not to continue the relationship after experiencing the feelings that she's having as being someone who is dating a married person. It is, she gets to sort of go, I really love this person and like this person and want to continue this relationship. And then... faces the, yeah, but it may not be worth what it's costing me to feel like I'm in this relationship that's limited in how honest anyone can be with anyone, right? So it is a very interesting three-parter and a very Norman Lear because, again, there's funny moments. It's not one of the funniest of the Norman Lear episodes that we've picked, It sort of reminds me of what's that same time next year, there's a play that then they made into a movie with Alan Alda and Carol Burnett, I think.

Is that it? Yep. Where they're basically having this affair one weekend a year. It's got that kind of humor in this episode. Oh, next one's me.

If you wish. And that's what happens in Indianapolis, stays in Indianapolis. Number eight on our list is Indianapolis Story. from season six, episode 21. It aired May 10th, 1981, so we're now into the 80s. It's the season finale, and by this point, has been in a relationship with Nick, played by Ron Rifkin, which is fun.

Young Ron Rifkin is fun. They start off as co-workers, and they don't like each other, and then, of course, they start a romance. And they finally, like, have the apartment to their self, because Julie's gone off and got married, but Barbara is still living with her, and she's off somewhere. And then David... Richard Mazur from the first season shows up at the door, you know, wet blankets their romantic sex night.

And then she ends up in a triangle because he's like, I want to marry you. I'm back and I want you back. And Ron Rifkin is like, I don't want that to happen. It's fun sexual discussion. It's clearly that she's having sex.

It's clear that, you know, She's not married and having sex. She's in this relationship. And this was another one where I just thought the dialogue was really fun in that Nick is saying they have enough time to get it on. I've got Schneider up in my place working on the shower nozzle. And she's like, Nick, that's not going to take nearly long enough.

He says, want to bet? I left a dozen issues of Playboy lying around for Schneider, the super, to use in his bathroom that he's supposed to be fixing. And of course, the audience is like, well, sure, of course, Schneider would take time out of his day. To read the articles, of course. Yes, read the articles.

It's a goofy episode. It kind of becomes like the man who came to dinner and that David hurts his knee and then has been a bit goofy. Pretty goofy to hurt his knees, to give him an excuse. A time, that's right. Yeah.

It's very interesting because then there's this twist at the end where by the time they played this out, They both have now decided that they're not interested. Well, David's not interested, but he's decided he doesn't want to marry her after all. And before David makes that proclamation, Ron Rifkin's character says, I'm great with the way things are right now. I'm not going to marry you. Again, the end of the episode is like, wait, what?

What's happening? I think we all probably expected her to... Sent David on his way and end up with Nick. Did not expect her to be standing there by herself at the end as they both walk out the door. With Schneider.

But it was interesting that they brought him back from season one. And it's two men fighting for the same woman. And she's got a lot of agency in that discussion until the very end. But I just love that it's so clear. There was all this drama over Three's Company when it came out.

Because they were like, oh my God, a guy and two girls living in the same apartment together. And they made it very clear that they never had sex. Everybody may have thought they were having sex. It's all salacious from the outside. But there is no sexual happening between the three main characters or three's company.

But in this show, she's a mom of now adult children. And she's having sex. live-in boyfriends and not live-in boyfriends. Like, he lives in the same building, it seems like. He does, absolutely. They live on another floor.

She's clearly having adult sexual relationships, and there's not any shame in that. There's not any, like, oh, no, my goodness. There's no gasp from the audience, which is, by that point, Norman Lear had sort of taught us that it was okay to have sex, I think. Particularly women. Exactly.

And as we learn in the next episode, that was the last we saw of Ron Rifkin's character, Nick, because when season seven, episode one airs, October 11th, 1981, we find that between the end of last season, beginning of this season, Nick was killed. By a drunk driver. And his 14-year-old son, Alex. Has run away from his mother's house somewhere in another city somewhere in Indiana and run away to Anne's house, to Anne's apartment. Because of what his mother has going on with her new husband and their situation, agrees to Alex's request that he stay with Anne.

And initially, hesitant Anne agrees eventually. So now we have a 13, 14-year-old boy living in the apartment, as well as Anne and Barbara. I mean, this was clearly an attempt to kind of reset the show a little bit because Barbara living in the apartment just didn't make any sense anymore. So they're sort of rebooted for season seven. I will say that this is Norman Lear because some of the subject matter, but it's not really controversial.

It's probably our weakest Norman Lear episode because... It's confusing that Nick has died off screen somewhere between season six and season seven. He's been dead. She already grieved him and his kid was shared custody and now his mom has full custody, but he's unhappy with that situation and clearly likes Anne to be the mother figure that he's looking for at this time. It's really sweet.

Like there is a lot of sweet discussion where he comes and sits in bed with her and it's a very mother-son conversation. seen even though she doesn't really want to be a mom again i just thought it was a very uniquely navigated episode they're clearly trying to kind of reset for season seven and alex has been around and there's been some stories and he was clearly an actor that was probably getting a lot of attention because he was the young kid on the he was the kid on the show that could act out like a kid but it's just so interesting that discussion of kind of taking in somebody else's kid which seems really unusual now, but I was thinking back to it and I was thinking about my friends from high school, some of whom lived with other people for like a year because they were having a hard time with their parent or they were circumstances changed and like their parent had to move, but they wanted to finish their senior year.

And so a friend would take them in and it was more casual. Like when that happened, it was more casual than I think it is now. At least that was my perception growing up when I was like, oh yeah, no, Lori lives with Janet and her mom now. I don't think I ever encountered that when I was growing up. That's interesting.

I'm from Georgia. No, I think it was, you know, parents would have issues and kids would have issues with their parents and The 70s and 80s was a time when kids were expected to be out of the house by 18, right? Like once you graduated high school and you were 18, you either went off to college or you moved out and got a job. And that's so weird now. Well, that was certainly my parents' expectation.

They made it very clear. Yeah, that was the expectation. And it's less the expectation now, I would say, generally. Yeah. I just thought it was an interesting episode because they're clearly, I think, trying to kind of reset the show a little bit.

But I think. Everyone sort of agrees these last two or three seasons were not the best of one day at a time because it's hard. The most compelling part, the mom and the two daughters, that dynamic has shifted so dramatically because they're not kids anymore. They're adults. They're both married by the end of the show and they're in their own places.

The apartment isn't the apartment anymore. It can't be the same show. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I haven't watched much of the last season.

So I don't know where things really stood completely at the end of the show. But yeah, I mean, I think it's clear, like you said, it's trying to evolve into something else at this point. And maybe they were hoping or thinking that having a kid again this time... a boy instead of the girls and what's different about that for her. In addition to the fact that maybe she was kind of like. Yeah, I'm done with all of this kid stuff.

My kids are adults and their problems are different and they don't need me the same way they did before. And now suddenly she's got this young person whose needs are very different than an adult child's needs. So I'm not sure eventually whether it helped the show or not. I don't think. Glenn Scarpelli, who played Alex, was in the show till the end, but I'm not sure what happened to the character.

They probably sent him off to college or around the world doing something fantastic. Who knows? So the last episode on our list is Miracle of Birth, Parts 1 and 2, Season 8, Episodes 8 and 9. It's a milestone episode for character progression. After struggling with married life and career ambitions, Julie gives birth to her daughter, little Annie, and the episode earned praise for its emotional depth and realistic portrayal of childbirth and modern family dynamics.

Julie wants to do a natural water birth and make plans to travel to California, but the baby had other ideas and made her arrival earlier than expected. And so, of course, they have to do it in the apartment. LAUGHTER I really like part two of this only because the first part is all set up. It is discussions of childbirth choice and all this stuff. Clearly, she wants to have her baby in a water birth outside a hospital and Romano and everyone else is very concerned with that thought process and that choice.

But it does talk, frankly, about childbirth and childbirth. natural childbirth. And that was pretty amazing to be discussing on national television in 1982. It's played a lot of comedy. And then ultimately, she has natural childbirth in the apartment by necessity. So it's a pretty interesting episode.

I just think childbirth, even in the early 80s in a television sitcom, was treated in a lot of different ways. And here it feels just a little more unique, a little more real, with difficult choices, and yet still with a lot of that humor that is the Norman Lear signature. And so it felt like a really unique episode. And I mean, I don't know that anybody was talking about water births on a national level. That was not necessarily a really first thought when you talked about childbirth.

Oh, no, not at all. I think it seems like it would have been something that was still kind of very new for the American public, but it was very Julie. Yeah. It was very Julie. And it's nice.

Mackenzie Phillips very famously struggled with drug abuse during the run of this show. And she was asked to leave the show more than once and brought back. And so this is a time when she's brought back. So it's always nice to have that dynamic of the three of them together. That is the show.

You know, it's sort of the triumvirate that makes the show work the best. Yeah, I agree. There's other people in the mix, her husband, whatever. But particularly in the later seasons, whenever it can be the three of them, that's when it perks up for me. I agree.

Totally agree. All right. So that's our 10, except that, you know, we can't leave without a bonus episode. You know us, we like to push the envelope of how many episodes we can get into a top 10. So our bonus episode for our top 10 most Norman Lear episodes of One Day at a Time is from season nine, episode 20, Off We Go.

And it is indeed the second to last episode of the series. Aired February 22nd, 1984, after nine seasons and... makes a life-changing decision to accept a career move to London. We really have followed this woman from being a newly divorced housewife who moves her children to a big city to try to find herself and try to figure out how to be a single parent, has no job, to a woman that's having to make a decision to have a career moment of her life, but will take her away from her grown kids. And it's, she wins, you know? She's Leslie Knope in Parks and Rec.

It's like her career wins. She's made a very happy life. And that includes a career path that's fulfilling her. And then, of course, there's the nice flashback to the first episode where we see the first time they kind of walked into the apartment. And, you know, nine seasons.

I grew up on One Day at a Time. I was in my senior year of high school in February 1984. So. I was heading off on my own journey soon. Not yet.

I didn't know where I was going yet in February. Oh, and I did enjoy Schneider. He gets very upset because Anne's in a relationship and he's going to go with her. He's upset. He's like, the man does not follow the woman.

The woman follows the man. It's very dangerous what you're doing. Ah, Schneider. He has become such a gunkle, like he's practically gay by the time this series is over. He has very little sexuality.

And I will say that Pat Harrington Jr. is so great that you forgive a lot of the Dwayne Schneider person because in the early season of the show, he is breaking and entering into their apartment. He just keeps letting himself in to this apartment with everything. three women in it. And he sort of, he creeps on all of them at one point or another in the first three seasons. And then, then they transition him into a sort of lovable buffoon uncle character. I'm very creeped out by season one Schneider.

You know, until we started rewatching it, I hadn't, it's been a long time since I'd seen any of it. And yeah, my. Reaction to the whole Schneider of it all initially in particular was very. Much the same. It's like, ah, this is not good.

What's he doing? But they did eventually make him part of the family, essentially. He's the goofy uncle, you know, the goofy cousin. Yeah. And, you know, kudos to Pat Harrington Jr.

Like, he built this character that was such an icon of actually of 70s and 80s television, the sort of, the Kramer. He's the Kramer of One Day at a Time. I don't know if there'd be a Kramer without Schneider. Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, that's a very good question.

Because Kramer's kind of Schneider plus Lenny and Squiggy. Yeah. To his credit, he did win an Emmy for playing that role in 1984, and he was nominated for several Golden Globes, and so good for him. And I believe I. Read somewhere that he also did some writing work on the show and helped to shape the character over time.

So again, good for him. Yeah, he talks about, like, apparently right before they started shooting, he just grabbed one of the set guys' handyman belt because he wanted something to work with. And that became you know, a signature feature of the character. I also love that in like the 1977 episodes, there was a lot of Schneider talking about his CB community. He clearly had a CB radio in his apartment.

And I think it was during the Runaways episode. He's like, let me check with my CB group and see if they've spotted the kids. You know, I think he does it again for the suicide episode. So I was like, don't they track down the girl? They track down the girl.

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's so interesting because I was like, wait, when did Smokey and the Bandit come out? And it came out in 1977.. That movie made CB culture like off the charts cool. And I have no doubt that without Smokey and the Bandit, Schneider would not have become a CB radio enthusiast.

Oh, the 70s. Indeed. Well, that was really great. I think that's a really good list. And even though these are in chronological order, we're not making any sort of judgment about which ones are best.

It's just, you know, from beginning to end of series, these are the ones we think are the best examples of Norman Lear. Norman Lear-esque. Yes, exactly. Wow. I mean, what a legacy Norman Lear left us.

For television. I mean, exactly. Really amazing. We want to make sure when we're recommending products that it's something we like. And that's exactly what Cozy Earth is all about.

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That's 80s TV Ladies. So in today's audiography, One Day at a Time is streaming on Tubi, as we've mentioned, available for purchase on Netflix and YouTube. You can watch Norman Lear, Just Another Version of You, a 2019 documentary available to purchase on Amazon and Apple, and available for free right now on Roku. You can find Norman Lear's biography, Even This I Get to Experience, on bookshop.org. Links will be in our description for all of these.

Next up, it's time for the 90s TV babies to take on One Day at a Time. You know you don't want to miss it. I cannot wait to hear what they're going to have to say about One Day at a Time. I have my thoughts, and I'm usually wrong, but I'm curious about whether they've watched the new one and whether it made them look up the old one, but I suspect that at least some of them will not know anything about this show, really, other than the title. Like you, I'll be surprised if they know much about it.

I think I will also be surprised, as I usually am, by their reaction to it. So that's always kind of the best part. The 90s TV babies, one day at a time episode. You don't want to miss it. As always, we hope 80s TV Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch. all of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the 21st century.

Ladies!