Two of the most revolutionary shows to hit American television screens returned for an all-star revival that has been resoundingly praised by critics.
'Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons' won Wednesday night's ratings, as well as hearts across the country, with a cast that included Jamie Foxx, Woody Harrelson, Wanda Sykes, Marisa Tomei, and Kerry Washington.
And while the special may have revived episodes that were more than 40 years old, their tackling of issues including race, class, and sexism still felt as prevalent as ever.
Scroll down for video
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons won Wednesday night's ratings, as well as hearts across the country, with a cast that included Jamie Foxx, Woody Harrelson, Ellie Kemper, and Ike Barinholtz (all pictured)
The revival featured an episode each from the two revolutionary shows, and featured Jennifer Hudson singing The Jeffersons' iconic theme song Movin' On Up
The only change made to the episodes was the bleeping of the N-word.
Norman Lear, the producer of both shows, gave the live audience and viewers at home a similar warning that CBS ran before the original episodes aired all those decades ago.
'The language and themes from almost 50 years ago can still be jarring today,' the 96-year-old said as he sat on a replica of Archie Bunker's famous armchair. 'And we are still grappling with many of those issues.'
And that became clear not long after Tomei and Harrelson sat behind a piano to sing 'Those Were The Days', just as Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton's Archie and Edith Bunker did before every episode of All in the Family.
Wednesday night's All in the Family revival episode came from season four, in which Archie must attend the goodbye party for George Jefferson's brother Henry.
Just as O'Connor did in the 1973 episode, Harrelson's Archie referred to one of his African-American neighbors as 'colored'.
Later in the episode, Archie complains that he doesn't get along with Henry, who was played by Blackish star Anthony Anderson on Wednesday night.
While the special may have revived episodes that were more than 40 years old, their tackling of issues including race, class, and sexism still felt as prevalent as ever. Pictured is the original All in the Family cast (from L-R): Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, Carroll O'Connor, Sally Struthers
Pictured is the original The Jeffersons cast (From L-R): Berlinda Tolbert, Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford, Franklin Cover, Roxie Roker and Marla Gibbs in 1977
His daughter Gloria, played in the revival by Ellie Kemper, then reminds him that the Jeffersons are some of the family's 'closest friends'.
'Their closest friends are still shrinking heads in Africa!' Archie declares, bringing a 'low hum of uneasiness' to the studio audience, according to an Entertainment Weekly critic.
But that tension didn't last long, thanks in part to Foxx's
