Revisiting a WBUR conversation with Norman Lear

Legendary TV producer Norman Lear has died at the age of 101.

Lear created some of the most iconic sitcoms in American television history, including "The Jeffersons," "Good Times" and "Maude."

At one time he had nine programs on the air. They used comedy to explore controversial issues. Perhaps the most striking example of that was his 1970's hit "All in the Family."

Once a week, Americans watched the endearing but unabashedly racist man of the house, Archie Bunker, and his saintly wife Edith at their home in Queens. Bunker liked his easy chair and his cigar. He did not like people who weren't white, weren't Christian or weren't straight. If the show made you uncomfortable, it was supposed to.

WBUR's All Things Considered host Lisa Mullins spoke with Lear in 2018 when Emerson College in Boston, where he had studied, unveiled a statue in his honor. He said the caustic conversations in his shows were inspired by the typical talk at home when he was growing up in a Jewish home in Connecticut.