Archie Bunker - Definition and Overview

Archie Bunker was a fictional character in the classic and top-rated 1970s American television sitcom All in the Family. He was a racist, bigoted, blue-collar worker played to acclaim by Carroll O'Connor. In 1979 the show was retooled and renamed as Archie Bunker’s Place, finally going off the air in 1983. Bunker lived in the borough of Queens in New York City.

The show got many of its laughs by playing on Archie's bigotry, although the dynamic tension between Archie and his son-in-law Michael "Meathead" Stivic (Rob Reiner) provided an ongoing political and social sounding board for a variety of topics. Other family members include wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) and daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers).

Such was the name recognition and societal influence of the Bunker character that by 1972 commentators were discussing the "Archie Bunker vote" (i.e., the voting bloc comprised of urban, white, working-class men) in that year's presidential election, and the term "Archie-ism" was coined to refer to the many malapropisms that Bunker used on the series.