A Fan Favorite All In The Family Scene Was Completely Improvised
In the "All in the Family" episode "Gloria Sings the Blues" (March 2, 1974), Archie (Carroll O'Connor) wakes up Michael (Rob Reiner) so that they may leave for a fishing trip. In his usual cantankerous fashion, Archie berates Michael for sleeping in and begins to explain the importance of leaving on time. Michael idly puts on his shoes ... but something is awry. Archie stops Michael, noticing that he has put a sock and a shoe on his left foot before putting a sock on his right foot. Archie is perturbed. This faux pas will not stand. "Don't you know," he says, "the whole world puts on a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe?" Defensively, Michael says "I like to take care of one foot at a time!"
They then have a whole conversation as to whether or not "sock-sock-shoe-shoe" is "correct," or if "sock-shoe-sock-shoe" is correct. It's a nitpicking conversation about a completely insignificant piece of footwear etiquette, but it becomes hilarious over how passionate Archie and Michael get on the matter. What if there was a flood? Would you want one shod foot to hop on, or two evenly protected sock feet? The bit ends with Archie realizing that they were supposed to be in a hurry.
According to a 2020 interview Reiner had with Sirius XM, that entire scene was improvised. This was in the fourth season of "All in the Family," and Reiner had developed a good comedic chemistry with O'Connor, allowing them to simply ramble for several minutes about a sock and a shoe. Because "All in the Family" was filmed before a live audience, the laughter is genuine, and the actors were able to time their performances accordingly.
Sock-sock-shoe-shoe, or sock-shoe-sock-shoe?
Reiner said that, even decades after it aired, fans will approach him saying that the sock-shoe scene remains their favorite "All in the Family" moment. He recalled the bit well, relating the dialogue. Reiner said:
"Most people come up to me — after over 200 shows! — they'll say the scene I remember most is when you and Archie discussed how you put socks and shoes on. We had this scene that just happened. It was improvised. I was I was putting my socks and shoes. He walked in and he goes 'What are you doing?' This was all improvised. He said 'What are you doing? You don't put your socks and shoes on like that. I says 'What are you talkin' about? He says 'You don't put a sock and a shoe and a sock in a shoe! You put a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe!' [...] And we just improvised the whole thing."
Watching the scene, it's hard to tell that it was improvised. Reiner and O'Connor speak in a quick, extemporaneous fashion, but they speak with such clarity and confidence, that one might swear that it was scripted. Reiner went on to explain how they shot "All in the Family" in front of a live audience, and how, by the end of the series, everything clicked. Each member of the central cast was, by that point, so savvy at reading each other and so comfortable with their characters, that improvisation became natural for them. Indeed, Reiner recalled an instance in the show's eighth and final season when everyone was able to invent an entire scene on the spot.
Season 8 comforts
Reiner first wanted to lay out the filming structure he went through for eight seasons:
"This was really extraordinary. We had become such a tight unit after 8 years. What we do is: every Friday night we take the show in front of live audience. We'd do a show at 5:30, and then we do some notes, then we'd get another audience in and we'd do another one at 8 o'clock. We'd take the best of both shows, cut them together, and put it on the air."
This led to a very dear moment where the four lead actors of the show — Reiner, O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, and Sally Struthers — were able to make something up on the spot after the live audience gave a notoriously bad reaction. Reiner doesn't say what episode it was specifically, but given the naturalness he touts, it might be hard for even the most hardcore "All in the Family" fans to spot. Reiner said:
"After the 5:30 show one time, the first act, the first half of the show, it died. I mean nothing. It was just a bomb. The four of us got together and started improvising an opening act. The first act. And the writers are writing it down and we're scribbling it, and we learned it. And we went in front of the 8 o'clock show, and we just did it. And it worked. That is something I'll never ever forget because it only works after 8 years [with] that tight a group."
It makes one wonder how often other TV shows inserted improvised moments. Probably more than we think.