An appreciation: How Norman Lear changed television — and with it American life — in the 1970s

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Media Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Norman Lear, who died this week at age 101, changed American life with the candor and comedy of his creations. Television, still in its early days as the 1970s began, used its entertainment to escape from reality before Lear’s “All in the Family” burst onto the scene in 1971. Lear showed a world that was changing rapidly, as much as bigot Archie Bunker tried to resist, and gave Americans reason to laugh together. Through his remarkable run in the 1970s, he introduced television comedies that showed worlds that many hadn’t been exposed to: striving and struggling Black families and a single mom trying to raise two daughters.