All In The Family

Actor George Furth, who plays Whitney Fitzroy IV in this episode, would come back to play Mr. Crenshaw in Season Six's episode "Mike Faces Life."

The stylistic minimalism of the Bunker's sparsely furnished set is on full display in this early episode. According to director John Rich, who grew up not far from Archie's neighbood, the Spartan look of the Bunker's living room decor was achieved as a result of painstaking efforts. The director remembers personally supervising the cracking of windows and repainting of walls to give the place a run-down, lived-in look. "I told the set designers to take all the color out of it,"remembers Rich. "Norman and I wanted to do the show in black and white, but CBS nearly went into a coma. So we decided to do the next best thing and shoot the entire show in muted sepia tones."