In just about every episode of "Sanford and Son," the comedian Redd Foxx, as 65-year-old junk dealer Fred Sanford, would do his fake-heart-attack act. Whenever things weren't going his way, particularly when he was arguing with his adult son Lamont (Demond Wilson), Fred would clasp his hands over his heart, get a pained expression on his face, look to the heavens and call to his late wife, "Elizabeth, it's the big one! I'm coming to join you, honey."And even though the television audience always knew that Fred's catch-phrase was coming, we'd laugh along with it every time.A hit show for NBC throughout its run from 1972-1977, "Sanford and Son" was a lot more significant than just an ordinary sitcom. The release on DVD this week of "Sanford and Son: The Complete Series" (18 discs, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, $59.95, not rated) provides an opportunity to reflect on the first sitcom to feature a largely African-American cast and remember its star, Redd Foxx.Having just scored big with "All in the Family," which was based on a British sitcom but transplanted to Queens, N.Y., and was centered around a bigoted white blue-collar worker, producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin took another British comedy, "Steptoe and Son," and adapted it for American TV. They set their new show in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood and headed its cast with Foxx, a legendary comedian within the African-American community, and Wilson, a Broadway actor.Foxx had built his career in the 1950s and '60s through his ribald "party records," which, like the recordings of Lenny Bruce, challenged the accepted social mores of the time with their sexual humor and salty language. Recording for Dooto Records, and later, Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records, Foxx made 49 albums and sold over 10 million copies, according to "Prime Time Blues: African-Americans on Network Television," by entertainment historian Donald Bogle. After Yorkin saw Foxx in a small part in the 1970 film comedy, "Cotton Comes to Harlem," the producer chose Foxx for the role of Fred Sanford. (Foxx's real name was John Sanford; he named his character in honor of his brother Fred.)Although Foxx toned down/cleaned up his material for his successful nightclub career in the late '60s and for the TV series, he never lost the aggressive style that first made him famous. As Mel Watkins writes in "On the Real Side," a history of African-American humor, "Foxx delivered his humor in an unmistakably black voice -- one that echoed a pride and belligerence that was associated with more militant factions of the African-American community." And, Watkins continued, "By the seventies, Redd Foxx's brand of blunt, confrontational humor was no longer considered extreme."On "Sanford and Son," Foxx got to deliver such racially charged lines as "Some of my best friends are white," "Black is beautiful, but not when it comes to eggs" and, when answering a white policeman's question, "Was the suspect colored?," replying, "Yeah, white." Poverty and prejudice were never far from the show's surface, though many plot lines concerned Lamont's various get-rich-quick schemes and attempts to move out of his father's house, and crotchety Fred's ability to sabotage them.Connecting it all was Foxx's gifted comic timing, whether launching an insult, parrying a complaint or simply reacting.Foxx never forgot his years as a struggling comedian on the "chitlin' circuit," and he was able to surround himself on "Sanford and Son" with veteran African-American actors and old friends, including the hilarious LaWanda Page, who played Aunt Esther, Fred's sister-in-law and frequent verbal sparring partner, as well as Slappy White (Melvin), Don Bexley (Bubba) and Whitman Mayo (Grady). And he insisted that the producers hire African-American writers for the series' second season -- resulting in the hiring of Richard Pryor and Paul Mooney for some episodes.Like Archie Bunker, Foxx's Fred Sanford was also prejudiced. Some of the show's humor came from Fred's outrageous comments about Lamont's Puerto Rican friend Julio (Gregory Sierra), along with disparaging remarks about Mexicans, Asians, gays and whites in general. But Lamont was usually nearby to criticize his father's attitude and represent a more tolerant point of view.Despite its popularity in the ratings, "Sanford and Son" had its detractors. Bogle cites a 1973 critique in The New York Times by African-American writer Eugenia Collier, who wrote: "Fred Sanford and his little boy Lamont, conceived by white minds and based upon a white value system, are not strong black men capable of achieving -- or even understanding -- liberation... We need to be surrounded by positive -- and true -- images of blackness based upon black realities, not upon white aberrations."Yet Ebony magazine called the series "one of the brightest half hours to grace the TV tube.""Sanford and Son" could not have been the ratings success it was without drawing a substantial audience from all segments of American society. Watching these episodes again provides a reminder that it is possible for all of us to laugh at humor that acknowledges our racial differences -- and similarities -- particularly when delivered by a comedian as gifted as Foxx.Unfortunately, viewers will learn nothing about these issues, or the controversies Foxx had with his producers over such matters as his salary and the show's content, because they are not mentioned on this bare-boned DVD set. There are no bonus features.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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