He adds that they’d be better off if Fred and his pal, Bubba, hadn’t bet money at the racetrack.įred says that he sees the race track money as investment, albeit one that didn’t pay off, and he suggests that they sell the best thing they have in the junkyard. “We’ve got 30 bucks between us, and we’ve got bills here that total over $200,” Lamont says. So Fred and Lamont are trying to pay bills for their salvage yard, and things are not going well. In 1992, with only about a dozen or so episodes filmed, he died of a heart attack while rehearsing the show. After Sanford and Son, he did a number of projects, nothing close to as successful as his 1970s series, but his last show, The Royal Family, with Della Reese, was a bonafide hit. Foxx became big in the 1950s as a stand-up comedian, playing the nightclub circuit. Before Sanford and Son, Wilson had a memorable turn as a robber in an episode of All in the Family, and after Sanford, he was in two more short-lived series: Baby… I’m Back (1978) and The New Odd Couple (1982-1983). Lamont and Fred, played by Desmond Wilson and Redd Foxx. I’m not saying that these are always deep monetary lessons in Sanford and Son, but you can find some gems, and I think one of the best examples comes in the episode, “The Big Party,” which aired in 1973.
Moreover, as it featured a father and son running a junkyard in a part of town that had seen better days, it was a show that offered a lot of financial tips since Fred and Lamont were always trying to scrape by. Like much of their television audience across the country, these were two people trying to eke out an existence like everybody else. The Sanfords had a lot of admirable qualities (Lamont’s affection and love for his dad, and Fred’s for his son, while not as evident in the beginning, really shines through in this series), but they were relatable to just about anyone. Carroll’s Julia Baker, for instance, was a role model, somebody anyone should aspire to be. That’s not to take away from the roles by black actors in sitcoms that came before them. Fred Sanford and his son, Lamont, were fully realized human beings that everybody could relate to.
Sanford and Son was revolutionary for a lot of reasons. And that, in a nutshell, is the all too short history of sitcoms starring black actors up to 1972.
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