‘Sanford and Son’ — 10 Surprising Secrets About Life in the Comic Junkyard (p1)
From failed spin-offs to Redd Foxx’s real name, get all the secrets here!
TV viewers may remember Thursday nights as NBC’s evening of “Must See TV,” but back in the 1970s that would actually be Friday nights, especially during the 1974 to 1975 season with Sanford and Son kicking things off and leading into Chico and the Man, The Rockford Files and Police Woman. But the true standout, however, was Sanford and Son, which ranked in the Top 10 rated shows during its first five seasons (coming in at No. 2 in two of those years).
Sanford and Son, which ran from 1971 to 1977 with 136 episodes produced, stars Redd Foxx as widower Fred Sanford and Demond Wilson as his son, Lamont. The two of them run the Sanford & Son junkyard, providing huge laughs for viewers and amazing chemistry between each other as they’re constantly butting heads with their different views of the world.
Surroudning them were recurring characters like LaWanda Page’s ultra-religious Esther Anderson, Whitman Mayo’s Grady Wilson, Nathaniel Taylor’s Rollo Lawson, Gregory Sierra’s (Chano from Barney Miller) Julio Fuentes, and Pat Morita’s (Arnold from Happy Days) Ah Chew.
From behind-the-scenes dynamics to the fact there were actually three spin-offs to the show, what follows are 10 facts you may not know regarding Sanford and Son, one of the most innovative sitcoms of the 1970s.
1. Redd Foxx Had to Clean Up His Act For ‘Sanford and Son’
Redd Foxx enjoyed a brilliant — but verbally filthy — stand up career prior to Sanford and Son, which Norman Lear happened to catch in Las Vegas and instantly knew he should be starring in a TV show. Lear told USA Today, “We met with him and came back to LA sky high. Miraculously, several days later a British agent came to us with the idea of making an American version of a big hit in Britain entitled Steptoe and Son. It was an instant marriage. Not that he wasn’t difficult to deal with, but he was funny as hell and that made everything possible.”
2. Demond Wilson or Richard Pryor?
Demond Wilson, a Vietnam veteran, was a stage performer in New York, had appeared in several films and made a guest appearance on All in the Family, which led to his being approached to play Lamont on Sanford and Son. Maybe.
As he told the Associated Press, “They said, ‘We were considering Richard Pryor and I said, ‘C’mon, you can’t put a comedian with a comedian. You’ve got to have a straight man.’ Dick Martin was the nut, Dan Rowan was the straight guy on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” He must have made his point, because he was cast alongside Redd Foxx.
3. ‘Steptoe and Son’
In the same way that All in the Family was based on the British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part, Sanford and Son was based on that country’s Steptoe and Son. That show spanned eight seasons (or “series” as they’re referred to in the UK) for a total of 57 episodes airing between 1962 and 1974.
The show stars Wilfrid Brambell (who played Paul McCartney‘s grandfather in The Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night) as junkman Albert Steptoe (considered a “dirty old man”) and Harry H. Corbett as his son, Harold Steptoe, who is pretentious and has aspirations of lifting his societal status. Both work as junkmen and there is, naturally, generational conflict between the two of them. In addition to America’s Sanford and Son, it inspired Sweden’s Albert & Herbert, the Netherlands’ Stiefbeen en zoon, Portugal’s Camilo & filho and South Africa’s Snetherswaite and Son. There were also the feature films Steptoe and Son (released in 1972) and Steptoe and Son Ride Again (1973).
4. Redd Foxx’s Actual Name Was Sanford
Redd Foxx was actually born John Elroy Sanford on December 9, 1922 in St. Louis, Missouri, which made his starring in Sanford and Son even more meaningful for him. In detailing how the change in name came, he told British interviewer Bobbie Wygant, “I was searching for a name that could be remembered by everyone, and I thought about Red Fox. A kid three or four could remember Red Fox; that’d be a good name. So I added the extra D and extra X to make it a name instead of the animal or the color an an animal. And it worked out pretty well. Now, some of my dearest friends call me Sanford, so it is odd for me to turn around and answer, because Sanford is my family name.”
