Sanford

Redd Foxx was the star of Sanford and Son. Here he reprises his role as Fred Sanford without his son, Lamont. He has a new partner played by Dennis Burkley. His character is white, overweight sidekick but he's quite funny at times. The other characters include a wealthy widow, Evelyn Lewis, played by Marguerite Ray who does a great job. Lawanda Page comes back to torment her brother-in-law as Aunt Esther. The show was your typical sitcom from the early 1980s. Sadly, sitcoms are no longer in abundance nor are they packaged to be funny anymore. Redd Foxx was enormously funny and outrageous at times without being offensive to the audience regardless of your skin color. I was pleasantly surprised to see this show which must have been under my radar back when it first aired on television. BET has brought it back to new audiences who will rediscover Redd Foxx's wit and comedic genius.

This was just another example of trying to revisit history with disastrous results. Sanford and Son was truly a classic, but N.B.C., which was desperate for ratings at the time thought it would be a good idea to bring back America's favorite junk man. However, missing were Lamont, Grady and Donna. Esther, Rollo and Bubba were there as well as a new girlfriend named Eve as well as Eve's upper crust family. Also new to the cast was Cal, a friend of Lamont's who worked with him in Alaska, which was where Lamont had supposedly moved to work on the pipeline. But still, it was not the same and it truly was a shame to see how far the mighty had fallen. The thing that really killed the show was that it simply lacked the dynamic relationship between Lamont and Fred and the chemistry between Fred and the rest of the cast was just not the same. Too bad N.B.C. had to destroy a once great character.

Why is this series so hard to come by? These further adventures of Fred Sanford was just as good as the original series, I thought the show would pick up with the return of Aunt Esther & Grady but the 26 episodes of this series was actually very entertaining especially with Cal replacing Lamont!

This spinoff of sorts was a weak attempt to continue to the success of Sanford and Son. Lamont Sanford's character had taken a job elsewhere and his friend Cal took the place of Fred's partner in the business. Fred also had a new girlfriend, a rich Beverly Hills matron (it was never explained what happened to his fiancee, Donna, from the previous show). His new girlfriend had a mother who disapproved of Fred being a junkman from South Central LA. Aunt Esther was also still on hand to exchange insults, but the magic that had made the earlier show a classic was just not there.

This show was missing Lamont for one very simple reason. Note that even on this site, there is no reference to the "made for TV" show this actor did, in which he plays a gay man. The movie sucked to be honest, but it was an attempt, way ahead of it's time, to show that there are more gay people among us than, at the time, we wanted to believe. It was effective, but the show just sucked. But, at a young age I learned 1 out of3 men has had an "alternative experience". So while the rest of the world might want to forget it, I never did. I always look at that 3rd person with suspicion now! LOL, that's a joke, calm down! Anyway, after doing this made for TV movie, the attempt to make a comeback of the Sanford and Son show with Lamont was not possible. He was now a labeled man. It was NOT OK for a man in Hollywood to play a gay guy yet. So His career died on the vine and the attempt at a comeback for the show did too, because Lamont, as bland as the character may have seemed, was the perfect straight man to Redd Foxx.