'' was an '' and ''
60 Minutes '' in popularity.
The main characters were
George Jefferson , played by
Sherman Hemsley , and Louise "Weezie" Jefferson, played by
Isabel Sanford . George Jefferson 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''). Their son, Lionel, a college student studying to be an electrical engineer, was first played by
Mike Evans who left the show by the second season to work on the TV show ''
Good Times '' with co-creator
Eric Monte . Lionel was then played by
Damon Evans from 1975-78, then Mike Evans returned in 1979 and stayed until the end of the series.
Another of the stars of ''The Jeffersons'' was
Roxie Roker (
Lenny Kravitz 's mother), who played Helen Willis, opposite
Franklin Cover as Tom Willis and their daughter Jenny Willis, (played by
Berlinda Tolbert ) who dated and in 1976 married Lionel, and later became pregnant, giving birth to their daughter, Jessica (played by
Ebonie Smith ). The fact that Helen Willis was an African-American woman married to Tom, a white man, was a source of great irritation to George Jefferson. The characters Tom, Hellen and Jenny Willis (like the characters George, Louise, and Lionel Jefferson) were also originally introduced on
All In The Family . The Willis' first appeared in a
1974 episode (season 4, episode 20) of
All In The Family , titled "Lionel's Engagement". However, in the
All In The Family episode, Tom Willis was portrayed by
Charles Aidman , Hellen Willis was portrayed by
Kim Hamilton (21 years Mr. Aidman's junior!), and Jenny Willis was portrayed by
Lynne Moody (Only 4 years Ms. Hamilton's junior!). By the time "The Jeffersons" pilot aired in January,
1975 , all three characters had been recast with the actors best associated with the roles of Tom (
Franklin Cover ), Hellen (
Roxie Roker ), and Jenny Willis (
Berlinda Tolbert ) joining the cast.
The show also featured
Zara Cully as George's mother Olivia Jefferson (referred to as simply "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 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 show were its having
African-American Actor s in lead roles, its portrayal of a successful African-American family, and its confrontational humor, although at the time, some complaints were made about the
Stereotype s that the show allegedly purveyed. Roker and Cover portrayed network television's first regularly-appearing
Interracial couple in which one partner was African-American.
The show underwent numerous subtle changes as the
1970s moved into the
1980s . George Jefferson's
Afro vanished, and he 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 's song "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" (''Now they give it to me nice and easy/Since I moved up like George and Weezie''). 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. Both Hemsley and Sanford reprised their Jefferson roles on episodes of
Will Smith 's TV series
The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air .
Currently, the show is distributed by
Sony Pictures Television . It is rated
TV-PG .
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- 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 1982: Sundays — 9:30 p.m.
- September 1982-December 1984: Sundays — 9:00 p.m.
- January-March 1985: Tuesdays — 8:00 p.m.
- June-July 1985: Tuesdays — 8:00 p.m.
Source: TV.com
The first four seasons are available on DVD in Region 1 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
- Newcomb, Horace (Ed.). (1997). ''Encyclopedia of Television''. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers: Chicago. ISBN 1884964265.
In 1982, episode 184 marks the first episode to be produced by
Embassy Television .
