All in the Family: Season 05  (1974)

Theatrical Release Information:
All in the Family: Season 05

Season five of All in the Family begins with a four-part story arc, in which Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) faces a long stretch of unemployment during a union strike, while the other members of the Bunker household -- including wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) -- attempt to either tighten or fatten the family's bank account. In a later multi-episode storyline, Archie disappears en route to a lodge convention in Buffalo, leading the family to believe that he has met with an accident -- possibly a fatal one. This story arc was developed while Carroll O'Connor was making noises about leaving All in the Family because of creative financial and creative difference with producer Norman Lear. In the event that O'Connor made good his threat to leave the show, the producers commissioned a script in which Archie is killed in a car accident. Once the dispute was settled and O'Connor returned to the series, the "death" script was shelved, only to be dragged out several years later and rewritten as an episode of Good Times to accommodate the exit from that series of actor John Amos. During All in the Family's fifth season, the series passed its 100-episode milestone. This event was celebrated with an hour-long retrospective special, hosted by Henry Fonda. A few episodes later, the Bunkers' black next-door neighbors "move on up" to a Manhattan high rise, thereby launching their own spin-off series, The Jeffersons. And in the season's final installment, Mike (Rob Reiner) and Gloria (Sally Struthers) decide to finally move out of the Bunker household -- and into the newly vacated Jefferson house! ~ All Movie Guide