50 Years Ago: Sanford and Son Salvaged Friday Nights
On January 14, 1972, a seismic shift occurred in American television. A brash, low-budget sitcom about a cranky, junk-dealing widower and his long-suffering son debuted on NBC. That show was Sanford and Son.
Fifty years later, the show’s impact remains colossal. Not only did it anchor a new era of Black-led television comedy, but it also accomplished a seemingly impossible task: it salvaged NBC’s languishing Friday night lineup and injected a raw, urban authenticity into primetime that network executives had long feared.
The true genius of Sanford and Son lay in its ability to take a proven British format, infuse it with the unfiltered, adult sensibility of its star, Redd Foxx, and transform it into a massive, mainstream American hit—all while paving the way for the next generation of Black comedic talent.
NBC’s Friday Night Problem
By the early 1970s, NBC was in a serious ratings slump, particularly on Friday nights. While CBS, powered by producer Norman Lear’s groundbreaking social-issue sitcoms like All in the Family and Maude, dominated the schedule, NBC was desperate for a hit that could capture the changing American viewing audience.
The network needed a show that was:
- Relevant: Reflective of contemporary urban life and cultural shifts.
- Edgy, but Accessible: Capable of generating big laughs without alienating mainstream white audiences.
- Powerful: Able to serve as a reliable anchor to boost the ratings of surrounding shows.
Enter Norman Lear and his producing partner Bud Yorkin. Fresh off their successes in tackling controversial issues, they acquired the rights to the popular BBC series Steptoe and Son, a comedy about a father-and-son junk dealer duo in London. Lear and Yorkin understood that transposing the premise to the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles with a Black cast could offer the necessary authenticity and edge.
The key to the entire operation, however, was the casting of the father.
The Redd Foxx Gamble: Sanitizing the ‘King of the Party Records’
Casting Redd Foxx as the patriarch, Fred G. Sanford, was an enormous, calculated risk.
Foxx was a legend, yes, but his fame rested almost entirely on his “party records”—uncensored comedy albums filled with the kind of raunchy, profane, and sexually explicit humor that was completely forbidden on network television. He was the very definition of a “blue” comic, a star of the Chitlin’ Circuit whose material was too hot to touch.
The transformation from the uncensored Redd Foxx to the primetime Fred Sanford involved a careful process of sanitization:
- The Swap of Obscenity for Outrage: The producers replaced Foxx’s trademark vulgarity with a different kind of boundary-pushing content: micro-aggressions and low-brow insults. Fred’s constant jibes at his son, Lamont (“You big dummy!”), his religious sister-in-law, Aunt Esther (“Fish-eye!”), and his prejudice against Puerto Rican and Japanese neighbors gave the show its comedic spark. It was controversial, but it was network-acceptable controversy.
- The Birth of the Heart Attack: Fred’s running gag of faking a heart attack—clutching his chest and crying out, “I’m coming, Elizabeth!”—was a brilliantly original, yet harmless, comedic device. It was a physical release for the character’s frustration, replacing the explosive verbal releases of Foxx’s nightclub routines.
This sanitized version of Foxx’s comedic genius was exactly what NBC needed. Fred Sanford was abrasive and bigoted, but he was also lovable, an ordinary working man scraping by—a character America could root for, even if they winced at his comments.
The Ratings Juggernaut and Cultural Breakthrough
Sanford and Son debuted and immediately became a monumental ratings hit. It swiftly moved up the Nielsen charts, landing in the Top 10 in its first season. By its second season, it was the second-highest-rated show on television, surpassed only by All in the Family.
The show’s success proved several critical points to a previously skeptical television industry:
1. The Commercial Power of Black Sitcoms
Prior to Sanford and Son, Black-focused television was either overtly political or marginalized. The sheer popularity of the show proved, definitively, that a predominantly Black cast could command a massive, multicultural audience and deliver staggering profits. This directly paved the way for the success of other Lear-produced spin-offs and Black-led comedies that followed.
2. Launching a Black Ensemble
Foxx and Demond Wilson (Lamont) were the stars, but the show became a cultural launching pad for an incredible ensemble of Black comedic talent, much of which came directly from Foxx’s past. LaWanda Page (Aunt Esther), Whitman Mayo (Grady Wilson), and Don Bexley (Bubba) were all veteran performers from the Chitlin’ Circuit, finally given a national platform. Foxx had successfully used his star power to give his peers a seat at the network table.
3. Anchoring the Network
The junkman single-handedly turned NBC’s Friday night around. The network could now schedule other shows, such as Chico and the Man (co-starring Pat Morita, who also had a recurring role on Sanford and Son), alongside it, confident that the immense viewership for Sanford and Son would provide a stable launchpad. Fred Sanford had salvaged Friday nights, and by extension, a substantial portion of NBC’s schedule.
The Enduring Legacy: More Than Just Jokes
While the jokes were hilarious and the banter between Fred and Lamont remains iconic, the legacy of Sanford and Son runs deeper.
The series depicted working-class Black life in an urban setting with a candor never before seen in primetime. Unlike the pristine, integrated settings of earlier shows, Fred and Lamont’s junk yard was grimy, cluttered, and real. It showed an ordinary family dealing with ordinary issues—money, family drama, and generational conflict—that transcended race.
The show’s triumph was that it allowed audiences to laugh with an authentic, flawed, and complex Black character, without having to tiptoe around sanitized stereotypes. It was an unfiltered look at family love dressed up in the loud, outrageous wrapping of insults and fake heart attacks.
Fifty years on, every Black-led sitcom that has found mainstream success owes a debt to the junkman of Watts. The risk taken by Norman Lear, and the brilliance of Redd Foxx in adapting his raunchy comedic genius for a new medium, remains one of the most important chapters in television history.
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