But with the character’s fashion flair, Broadway career and generally odd demeanor, some didn’t hail the breakthrough.
#TIME OUT CORNER FOR A BAR SIGN TV#
(Dell, the show’s best known star, was one of the original Dead End Kids on Broadway and in the subsequent 1940s film series, leading to a successful stage and TV guest-star career.) Panama, seen only occasionally, was the series’ chief calling card, if any, given the novelty of his appearance. Produced by TV-and-nightclub comedian Alan King, the comedy was mediocre summertime viewing at best, featuring a low-wattage cast. “Judging Books by Covers,” airing in February 1971, featured a visit to the Bunker house by Mike and Gloria Stivic’s flamboyant neckerchief-wearing friend Roger, whom Archie Bunker dismisses as a “fairy.” (Roger’s sexuality is never made official.) But Archie’s intolerance is put to the test later in the episode at favorite-watering-hole Kelsey’s when he’s faced with the possibility that macho bar-pal Steve is himself gay. In fact, against a backdrop of a growing gay-rights movement sparked by 1969’s Stonewall Rebellion, the fifth episode of the groundbreaking sitcom dared to make homosexuality the subject of an entire episode. Less simple for the time was that one of its barflies was out gay set-designer Peter Panama (played by the veteran character actor Vincent Schiavelli) - a small but bold sign of changing times.ĭisney’s ‘Lightyear,’ Which Includes Same-Sex Kiss, Banned in Middle Eastīut then TV began to become more real in the 1970s, in large part due to the arrival of “All in the Family” in 1971. (The other was blue-collar comedy “The Super,” co-created and co-produced by Rob Reiner, then co-starring on “All in the Family.”) Its premise was as simple as its title, focusing on the nightly life at Grant’s Toomb, a New York City bar run by Harry Grant (Gabriel Dell). With the two came the (slow) linking at last of a largely until-then dismissed part of culture with the business of entertainment media.Ī tavern-set ensemble sitcom along the lines of “Cheers,” to come a decade later, “The Corner Bar” was one of a pair of summer replacement shows that ABC introduced back-to-back on June 21, 1972. Because the series, which premiered 50 years ago this week, introduced the first out gay person seen on a regular basis on an American TV show. Few remember the short-lived 1970s sitcom “The Corner Bar” and fewer still can recall one of its characters.
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