Farewell to a Game Changer

AS PRODUCER OF ALL IN THE FAMILY AND OTHER GROUNDBREAKING SITCOMS, HE MADE AMERICANS TAKE A GOOD, HARD LOOK AT THEMSELVES AND LAUGH  

- TOM GLIATTO

Nearly a century ago, a boy named Norman Lear stood by a lake with his grandfather, tossing pebbles into the water. When the old man told Norman that every additional pebble raised the water level, Norman chucked in a rock. Well, he said, the lake looked just the same. No, the water was higher, his grandfather responded, adding, but “all you see is the ripple.” Reflecting on this decades later, after he’d become one of the most powerful creative forces in TV history, Lear supplied a moral: When you measure how you yourself might have changed the world, “be satisfied with the ripples.”

The venerated writer, who died at the age of 101 in Los Angeles on Dec. 5, redefined prime-time TV in the ’70s as the creator and producer of landmark sitcoms (all on CBS) that showed audiences an America that was complicated, diverse and often troubled— programs that took TV beyond what Lear called “tee-hee ha ha.”