Among the most popular television programs of the 1970s and 80s were sitcoms (All in the Family, MASH), westerns ( Little House on the Prairie), dramas ( Roots ) and science documentaries ( Nova, Connections ). Some of the clips below are among the best that television produced during the era.
| All in the Family — A popular American sitcom (situation – comedy) that aired on CBS for nine seasons from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979, with a total of 205 episodes. It was later produced as Archie Bunker’s Place, a continuation series, which picked up where All in the Family ended and ran for four seasons through April 4, 1983. The concept was a working-class White American family living in Queens, New York with its patriarch, Archie Bunker, as an outspoken, narrow-minded man. Archie’s wife, Edith is sweet and understanding. . |
|
| M*A*S*H 1971 – 1983. The word “bonanza” refers to a rich mining claim. The show often dealt with themes of justice and reconciliation between different ethnic groups. Many of the eccentric characters of the American West are on display here, but in milder forms suitable for family audiences. | |
Little House on the Prairie was an American Western historical drama television series loosely based on the Little House on the Prairie book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The series is centered on the Ingalls family, who live on a farm on Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s–1890s. |
|
| Roots –– a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley‘s 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, set during and after the era of enslavement in the United States. | |
| Cosmos — 1980 – an American science documentary television series hosted by Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan. The series was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television at the time, and still the most widely watched PBS series in the world. |
—