'All in the Family' CBS/Courtesy Everett Collection Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text I'm not going to pretend that I remember Rob Reiner's work as "Delivery Boy" on Batman or as "Mitch" from a couple of episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies. For my purposes, Reiner's television career began with Norman Lear's All in the Family and Mike "Meathead" Stivic, which is a hell of a way to get your start. Being Carl Reiner's son is a hell of a way to get your start, too. Reiner, who died this weekend along with his wife Michele, represents a best-case scenario of the phenomenon we've stupidly taken to calling "nepo babies," as if going into the family business is an inherently problematic thing. Going into the family business is not an inherently problematic thing. Being elevated within that business beyond what you've earned is bad. But as much as Reiner arrived in the business with the most potent family connections imaginable, he also worked his way up, starting as, well, "Delivery Boy" on Batman and achieving his greatest initial fame as designated punching bag for a character with a permanent place on TV's Mt. Rushmore. Related Stories Movies Critic's Appreciation: Rob Reiner Was So Much More Than a Capable Company Man General News Nick Reiner Revealed Violent Outburst, Family Issues and "Cocaine Heart Attack" on 2018 Podcast Taping The genius and lasting impact of All in the Family hinge on its uniquely inverted pyramid of empathy. On any empirical level, Archie Bunker is the show's villain. He's a dinosaur. He's a relic. (He's also, as the show begins, younger than I am now. I need to work my way through that in a different forum.) He's racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, xenophobic, a blind patriot for a version of America that, as All in the Family began, had gone sour and would go fully rancid during the show's run, with Watergate, the dying gasps of the Vietnam War and more. But, at the same time, Archie Bunker is the show's hero. He dominates the storylines, gets the biggest laughs from the audience and, as has been well-documented over the years, so convincingly and enthusiastically trumpeted his ideology that it was possible for people who would never have tolerated Norman Lear's politics in real life to believe All in the Family was actually on Archie's - and their - side. Part of why that was possible was how clever and unflinching Lear and company's writing for Archie tended to be. Part of why that was possible was Carroll O'Connor's impeccable bluster. But perhaps most of why that was possible was Meathead. Mike is, on an empirical level, the show's hero. He's consistently right, a product of his education - the show sees him go through college and grad school, and into teaching - and a product of being young at a moment when the counterculture had simply become the culture. Mike is the present and possibly the future. So any time Archie falls back on a stereotype or slur, every time he says something unforgivable, it's Mike who has to roll his eyes, has to do a double-take, has to deliver a lecture, making it clear that Archie can't say/do/think whatever he wants to. For this reason, Mike is the show's villain. He's the pedant. He is, as Archie immediately dubs him in the flashback episode showing their first meeting, the "meathead." Archie Bunker's home is his castle and Mike is the invader, the interloper, the kid who infiltrated a grown man's domicile, slept with his daughter, sat in his chair and had the temerity to tell him what names he shouldn't call the Chinese or Jews or Blacks or women. The show knows Mike is right and it knows Archie is never going to fully change, and that's a delicate balance that's still astounding to watch even in 2025 - and even more astounding for the percentage of the American population that still thinks Archie is right and Mike is a soy boy. Though any mental image of All in the Family from a distance of decades puts O'Connor at the center, Reiner didn't lack for acclaim. He won two Emmys for supporting actor. And deserved them. It isn't easy what Reiner has to do opposite the far more experienced O'Connor, to be constantly run over by the bulldozer that is Archie Bunker and yet never get entirely flattened. Television is a medium often dominated by a certain kind of obstinate, bellowing patriarch, and it could be argued that nobody, not Jackie Gleason or Desi Arnaz, bellowed as vituperatively and yet lovably as Carroll O'Connor. But Reiner also bellowed exceptionally, and complementarily. If a TV show in 2025 dedicated as much time to characters yelling at each other or expressing non-stop exasperation with each other as All in the Family, critics would call it shrill and strident. I know I would! But All in the Family still stands up, and the right/wro