The Jeffersons

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The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons title card
Genre	Sitcom
Creator(s)	Norman Lear
Starring	Isabel Sanford Sherman Hemsley Marla Gibbs Roxie Roker Franklin Cover Paul Benedict (1975-1981, 1983-1985) Damon Evans (1975-1978) Berlinda Tolbert (1975-1981) Mike Evans (1975, 1979-1981) Zara Cully (1975-1978) Jay Hammer (1978-1979)
Opening theme	"Movin' On Up"
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	253
Production
Running time	approx. 0:30 (per episode)
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	January 18, 1975 – June 25, 1985
Links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

For the South Park episode of the same name, see The Jeffersons (South Park).

The Jeffersons was an American sitcom broadcast on the CBS network from 1975 through 1985, lasting 11 seasons, and a total of 253 episodes. The show focused on an upper middle-class African American husband and wife, George and Louise Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford). It was a spin-off from All in the Family. The character of Lionel Jefferson (Mike Evans) first appeared on that show's 1971 premiere. His mother Louise appeared soon afterwards during All in the Family's first season and father George was introduced during the third season. When The Jefferson's was first proposed to Sanford, she was reluctant to leave All in the Family for a spin-off that she felt probably would not be successful. The producers told her they would replace her if she did not do it.^{[citation needed]}

While most of Norman Lear's other shows remained sharply political in tone throughout their runs, The Jeffersons evolved into more of a traditional sitcom, relying more on the characters' interactions with one another rather than explicitly political dialogue or story-lines.

The Jeffersons improved ratings for CBS, ruling Sunday nights from September 1979 until December 1984, when the show moved to Tuesday nights. It reached the Nielsen Ratings's top ten in its first season and was in the top ten again for three seasons in a row from 1979 through 1982. During its eighth season, The Jeffersons was the number three show on network television, behind only Dallas and 60 Minutes.

Over the course of its run, the show aired during prime time on five different nights — Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

CBS did not give the show a proper series finale, and did not tell the actors that after the June 25, 1985 episode, "Red Robins", that the series was cancelled. Hemsley found out that the show was canceled by reading it in the newspaper.^{[citation needed]} The cast, bitter that they never got a chance to say goodbye, reunited years later in a stage play based on the sitcom.^{[citation needed]} As of 2007, The Jeffersons still aired in syndication on channels such as TV Land.

Sanford and Hemsley both won Emmies for their roles in the show in 1981.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Two-Part Episodes 3 Plot inconsistencies 4 Broadcast History 5 Studio tapings 6 DVD releases 7 Trivia 7.1 Set design 7.2 Theme song 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Synopsis

The main characters were George Jefferson, Louise Jefferson, and Lionel Jefferson. George was the owner of a chain of seven dry cleaning stores. He and his wife lived in a luxury high-rise apartment building on Manhattan's Upper East Side, to which they had moved from a working-class section of Queens where they had been Archie Bunker's next-door neighbors on All in the Family. On January 11, 1975, Edith Bunker said goodbye to Louise, George and Lionel, while they were moving.

Also on the show was the interracial couple, Helen Willis (Roxie Roker— mother of singer Lenny Kravitz) and Tom Willis (Franklin Cover), and their two children, Jenny Willis Jefferson (Berlinda Tolbert) and Allan Willis (Jay Hammer). Jenny dated, then in 1976, married Lionel. Allan was rarely seen until the fifth season. Jenny and Lionel had a baby daughter named Jessica Jefferson (Ebonie Smith), who was born in 1980, during the show's sixth season.

At the end of the first season Mike Evans left to write episodes on Good Times. From the second to the fourth seasons Damon Evans portrayed Lionel Jefferson. During that time, Lionel was seen less frequently, and Jenny was seen more. In the sixth season, Mike Evans returned for two more seasons. After that time Mike Evans returned as Lionel Jefferson on special occasions. His final appearance was on the February 5, 1985 episode, in which Lionel and Jenny decided to get a divorce, which threatens the relationship between Helen and Louise.

The Jeffersons also featured Zara Cully as George's ever catty mother Olivia Jefferson (referred to as "Mother Jefferson"); Marla Gibbs as the Jeffersons' wise-cracking maid, Florence Johnston (who would later have her own spin-off show Checking In); Paul Benedict as the bumbling, dimwitted English neighbor, Harry Bentley (who worked as a Russian-language interpreter at the United Nations and who would occasionally suffer back spasms that could only be cured by George walking on his back); and Ned Wertimer as Ralph, the smarmy building doorman.

The keys to the popularity of The Jeffersons were its having black actors in lead roles, its portrayal of a successful black family, and its confrontational humor — although at the time, some complaints were made about the stereotypes that the show allegedly purveyed. Roker and Cover portrayed network television's first regularly-appearing interracial couple in which one partner was black.

The Jeffersons underwent numerous subtle changes as the 1970s moved into the 1980s. George Jefferson toned down his explosive temper and his bigoted diatribes. In fact, George developed a closer friendship with Tom as well as Florence in the later years of the show. Unlike many other series which run for such a long time, The Jeffersons did not have a special series finale episode, as CBS did not announce the show's cancellation until after production for the 1984-85 season had been concluded.

The buoyant theme song from The Jeffersons, "Movin' on Up" (composed by Jeff Barry and Ja'net DuBois of Good Times fame and sung by DuBois), found new life in the 1990s and 2000s in a number of television commercials and other references: for example, in Will Smith's song "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" (Now they give it to me nice and easy/Since I moved up like George and Weezie); and in "Whoa Now", a 2002 chart single by Baltimore rapper B Rich, which was built on a sample of "Movin' On Up". Hemsley and Sanford reprised the characters George and Louise Jefferson in the late 1990s in the final episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where they purchase the family's Bel Air home.

The high-rise apartment building shown in the opening credits of The Jeffersons is located at East 85th Street and Third Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Currently, the show is distributed by Sony Pictures Television. It is rated TV-PG.[1]

[edit] Two-Part Episodes

Main article: The Jeffersons two part episodes

The Jeffersons had many two part episodes, either over two consecutive weeks, or aired as an hour long episode.

[edit] Plot inconsistencies

• In an early episode Louise remarks that George's father had talked to her about the Jefferson family African roots; a later episode reveals that George's father died when George was about nine years old.
• In the same early episode Louise remarks that she was the daughter of a janitor; in a later episode George meets Louise's father, who was a train conductor who had deserted his family.
• In the sixth-season episode "The First Store", it is revealed that Jefferson Cleaners' first store opened in 1968 on the same day that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. (The episode first aired on April 6, 1980, two days after the twelfth anniversary of Dr. King's death.) However, the 1968 date contradicted a 1971 episode of All in the Family, in which Lionel says that his parents had just gone into the cleaning business, opening a store with a disability settlement George had received from an injury he sustained while working as a janitor. A 1978 episode of The Jeffersons supports the 1971 date; in that show, George Jefferson dreams of the future year 1996, which includes the twenty-fifth anniversary of "Jefferson Cleaners" (1971) and the twenty-second anniversary of the Jeffersons' moving uptown (1974).
• This may not be an inconsistency, however, because in "The First Store" George turns down a bank loan because the bank won't lend him money to open a store in Harlem. Instead, he sells his car to open a run-down store. So a "grand opening" of the first fancy "Jefferson Cleaners" with a disability settlement in 1971 may not be inconsistent with the opening of Jefferson's first store in 1968.
• In a third-season episode, Louise informs George that Florence's mother is dead. But in a fourth-season episode, Florence's mother and father come over to the Jefferson's apartment for a visit.

[edit] Broadcast History

PRIMETIME:

• January-August 1975: Saturdays — 8:30 p.m.
• September 1975-October 1976: Saturdays — 8:00 p.m.
• November 1976-January 1977: Wednesdays — 8:00 p.m.
• January 1977-August 1977: Mondays — 8:00 p.m.
• September 1977-March 1978: Saturdays — 9:00 p.m.
• April-May 1978: Saturdays — 8:00 p.m.
• June-September 1978: Mondays — 8:00 p.m.
• September 1978-January 1979: Wednesdays — 8:00 p.m.
• January-March 1979: Wednesdays — 9:30 p.m.
• March-June 1979: Wednesdays — 8:00 p.m.
• June 1979-September 1984: Sundays — 9:00 p.m.
• January-March 1985: Tuesdays — 8:00 p.m.
• June-July 1985: Tuesdays — 8:00 p.m.

DAYTIME:

• February 1980-September 1981, Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.

Source: TV.com

[edit] Studio tapings

• Season 1: CBS Television City (1975)
• Seasons 2-7: Metromedia Square (1975-1982)
• Seasons 8-11: Universal City Studios (1982-1985)

[edit] DVD releases

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released the first 6 Seasons of The Jeffersons on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. It is expected that the remaining 5 seasons will be released at some point.

Cover Art	DVD Name	Release Date	Additional Information
	The Complete First Season	August 6, 2002	Includes all 13 episodes from Season 1.
	The Complete Second Season	May 13, 2003	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 2
	The Complete Third Season	April 12, 2005	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 3.
	The Complete Fourth Season	October 11, 2005	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 4.
	The Complete Fifth Season	August 15, 2006	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 5.
	The Complete Sixth Season	March 27, 2007	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 6.
	The Complete Seventh Season
	The Complete Eighth Season
	The Complete Ninth Season
	The Complete Tenth Season
	The Complete Eleventh Season

[edit] Trivia

(Some entries from IMDb)

• Isabel Sanford was 21 years older than Sherman Hemsley. This was the largest difference in ages between a woman and man playing a married couple on a sitcom.
• In syndication, the fifth season episode "A Bedtime Story" (#5.15), a show about sexual characteristics, is often edited to remove the adult content or not broadcast at all.
• The name of the building in which the Jeffersons live is Colby East.
• Louise has an older sister named Maxine who ran away from home several years earlier when she became pregnant. She eventually moved to France where she worked as a singer.
• On All In the Family, George mentions that he has a brother-in-law. This brother was never mentioned on The Jeffersons.
• On All in the Family, George has a brother named Henry (played by Mel Stewart). Henry never appeared on The Jeffersons, but he was referred to when Gary Coleman (Diff'rent Strokes) appeared on the episode "Uncle George and Aunt Louise" during Season 4 as Henry's son Raymond.
• The character George Jefferson was ranked #44 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" (June 20, 2004 issue).
• When the show started, George constantly referred to Tom as a "honky". After a few seasons, Hemsley asked the writers to stop using the word, because he felt that the characters were friends and that George would not use a racial epithet toward a friend. When the writers refused, Hemsley mumbled the word whenever the script required him to say it, forcing re-shoots. Eventually the writers stopped.
• After she died in 1978, Zara Cully's name continued to appear in the credits for the rest of the season. Her name was removed after the 1977-78 season. In the first episode of the 1978-79 season, the death and funeral of Mother Jefferson were mentioned as events that had occurred several months earlier.
• Isabel Sanford and Sherman Hemsley made 2 memorable appearances on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in character; the first, in 1995, was notable because "George" was called out by "Weezy" for making fun of her asthma with her nickname. The second, in 1996, had the Jeffersons (and Florence) buying the house where the characters lived, beating out the Drummonds from Diff'rent Strokes on a bid for the house. Coincidentally, both the Jeffersons and the Drummonds were products of Norman Lear's various production companies (TAT/Embassy.)
• In 2005 during Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball, Mariah Carey sang the The Jeffersons theme song.
• In 2006, MADtv included a skit, "The Jeffersons 2006", that was based on The Jeffersons. The skit included the characters of George and Louise Jefferson, the Jeffersons' maid Florence Johnston, and their neighbor Harry Bentley.

[edit] Set design

• The balcony windows and doors were fitted with a special non-reflective material used in television to simulate real glass without the glare of studio lights. Most Norman Lear shows can be seen using this special effect.
• There was a hard-to-see, decorative entry fence that establishes the foyer.
• The picture on the Jeffersons' desk by the telephone changed in every episode. It alternated between shots of Louise, George, George and Louise together, Lionel, and Mother Jefferson.

[edit] Theme song

Ja'net Du Bois and Jeff Barry co-wrote The Jeffersons' theme song, "Movin' On Up." Du Bois sang the song, as well as the end theme song of the show.

[edit] See also

• Jeffersons supporting characters

[edit] References

• Newcomb, Horace (Ed.). (1997). Encyclopedia of Television. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers: Chicago. ISBN 1-884964-26-5.

[edit] External links

• The Jeffersons at the Internet Movie Database
• Jump The Shark - The Jeffersons
• The Jeffersons on TVLand.com

The Jeffersons
Characters:	George Jefferson | Louise Jefferson | Lionel Jefferson | Olivia Jefferson | Florence Johnston | Jeffersons supporting characters
Episodes:	List of The Jeffersons episodes
Related Series	All in the Family | Maude | Archie Bunker's Place | Gloria | 704 Hauser | Good Times | Checking In

All in the Family
Main characters:	Archie | Edith | Gloria | Michael
Recurring characters:	Joey | George Jefferson | Louise Jefferson | Lionel Jefferson | Henry Jefferson | Stephanie Mills
Episodes:	List of All in the Family episodes
Related Series:	Maude | The Jeffersons | Archie Bunker's Place | Gloria | 704 Hauser | Good Times | Checking In

Shows produced or created by Norman Lear

704 Hauser · a.k.a. Pablo · A Year at the Top · All in the Family · All That Glitters · All's Fair · America 2-Night · Archie Bunker's Place · Fernwood 2Nite · Good Times · Hot L Baltimore · Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman · Maude · One Day at a Time · Sanford and Son · Sunday Dinner · The Baxters · The Jeffersons · The Powers That Be