The Other Sitcom Bigot Who Inspired Cartman

Archie Bunker, the OG beloved sitcom racist. #shorts #southpark #cartman #archiebunker #sitcom #youtubeshorts

Transcript

00:00Did you know that the inspiration behind Eric Cartman on South Park was actually another beloved sitcom racist?

00:06That's right, long before Cartman, another misunderstood bigot, captivated America with comedy.

00:11Every South Park fan has a personal pick for which one of the Bus Stop Boys is their favorite,

00:15but no one can argue that any one of Stan, Kyle, or Kenny have any claim to being the show's star.

00:19Eric Cartman, with all his foul-mouthed, respect-my-authorita aura,

00:23is easily the most popular character in the entire South Park universe.

00:27And although South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone use Cartman as a stand-in

00:31for the most selfish and idiotic tendencies of the modern American public,

00:35many dum-dums who don't understand when they're being satirized

00:38see him as something of a figurehead for the chauvinist loser movement.

00:41Well, 50 years ago, America's favorite bigot,

00:44whom many fans mistakenly believed to be the hero of the sitcom,

00:47was All in the Family's Archie Bunker, played by the late, great Carol O'Connor.

00:51And as it turns out, the cross-generational comedy similarities

00:54between All in the Family and South Park are no accident.

00:57When Parker and Stone appeared on 60 Minutes back in 2011,

01:00they revealed that the original idea behind Cartman was for him to be an animated Archie Bunker.

01:05We used to talk about All in the Family, and we were big fans of All in the Family,

01:09and in the time of the early 90s, we were kind of sitting there going,

01:12you know, a show like that couldn't be on the air right now.

01:14You couldn't do it.

01:16Because things are so PC, you couldn't have an Archie Bunker.

01:20And we used to talk about how, you know, if Archie Bunker was eight years old,

01:24I bet you could do it.

01:25The Norman Lear-created All in the Family satirized many American social issues

01:29throughout the tumultuous 1970s, albeit with a much lighter touch

01:33and stricter censors than Parker and Stone would later do it.

01:35And the cranky, old-fashioned patriarch Archie Bunker

01:38was both the nucleus and the target of the legendary sitcom's political commentary.

01:43However, in a less politically correct era,

01:45when being openly racist was more socially acceptable than it would be when South Park premiered,

01:50many small-minded viewers whom the writers were criticizing through Archie Bunker

01:53unironically identified with him and his ideas about race and gender.

01:57Similarly, South Park fans have long struggled to understand

02:00that empathizing with Cartman's politics probably makes you a terrible person.

02:04Hmm.

02:05Do you think that half a century ago,

02:06unemployed 20-somethings across America were painting Carol O'Connor on their bongs?

02:10Do you think that half a century ago,