Television producer Norman Lear poses for a portrait in New York City Oct. 12, 2016. (OSV News photo/Lucas Jackson, Reuters)
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(OSV News) -- Jesuit Father Patrick J. Sullivan and Robert Beusse were not intent on launching an early battle in the culture wars when they met with CBS President Robert Wood the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 1972. They were simply out to prevent a summer rerun.
Father Sullivan had been named the director of the Division for Film and Broadcasting of the U.S. Catholic Conference the year before (having previously served as the leader of its predecessor, the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures). Beusse, a former radio executive, was the lay secretary of communications for the USCC.
In their hastily scheduled get-together with Wood, the duo asked that the network not re-air a two-episode arc of the new situation comedy, "Maude." This spinoff of TV's top-rated "All in the Family" featured a fiercely feminist title character who, during the installments under discussion, decides to have an abortion.
Collectively titled "Maude's Dilemma" the brace of half-hour shows struck not only Father Sullivan and Beusse as one-sided propaganda but many others as well. Indeed, Wood's interlocutors said that, in making their case, they spoke on behalf of 48 million Catholics in the United States.
At the time, TV networks, program producers and advertisers -- as well as Catholic leadership -- were in tacit agreement about the status of primetime entertainment. Such programs were understood, metaphorically, as so many invited guests making their way into the living rooms of families who had gathered around the electronic hearth.
Before the rise of cable television, broadcasting meant just that: broad casting.
So it was a matter of unusual moment that, in episodes airing Nov.14 and 21 -- and written by Susan Harris, who would later create “The Golden Girls” -- Bea Arthur's affluent and outspokenly liberal character Maude Findlay should learn from her doctor that she was pregnant at age 47. (Arthur herself was two years older.)
Against the backdrop of her settled life in the Westchester County suburb of Tuckahoe, New York, where she lived with her fourth husband, Walter (Bill Macy), and Carol (Adrienne Barbeau), her divorced adult daughter from her second marriage -- as well as Carol’s young son, Phillip -- Maude agonizes over the news.
She's not a young woman making an impulsive decision. Maude believes she is too old to raise another child. Yet she resists Carol’s reminder that, although Roe v.Wade lay two months in the future, abortion was already a legal option in the Empire State. Among other factors, Maude wants to get Walter's assent.
When Carol tells her, "You don’t have to have a baby," Maude tartly retorts, "What'll I do, trade it in for a volleyball on 'Let’s Make a Deal'?"
At the end of the second episode, she learns from Walter that he’s not interested in having a child, either. (He's spent most of the two episodes considering a vasectomy before deciding against it). Maude has her husband's approval. As they embrace, he tells her, "In the privacy of our own home, you're doing the right thing."
Although the word abortion is seldom used in the dialogue, Carol reminds her mother that, "When you were my age, abortion was a dirty word. It's not anymore. Now, you think about that."
When "Maude" producer Norman Lear died Dec. 5 at 101, virtually every obituary mentioned these provocative episodes, and there were columns devoted to them and his stand on free speech. As a creator of sitcoms renowned for their characters' involvement with real-world issues, particularly racism and sexism, Lear had altered viewers' expectations of the genre.
He also had a comedy writer's healthy disdain for institutions and authority figures. With network TV was at its peak of influence, Lear was able to share his values widely and make a significant cultural impact via "All in the Family" and its progeny (along with "Maude," "The Jeffersons") -- as well as other series such as "Sanford and Son," "Good Times" and "One Day at Time."
In fact, being the figure behind three of the top five ranked TV shows in 1972 made Lear very powerful indeed. Given the number of viewers his programs attracted, he was obviously not someone CBS wanted to antagonize.
As a result, the initiative undertaken by Father Sullivan and Beusse may have been doomed to mixed results from the start. Although what was then the U.S. Catholic Conference (which was combined with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2001 to form the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) mounted a "Maude" boycott effort, it was only somewhat successful.
The pressure was never aimed at Lear, but rather at the network, affiliates and sponsors. Only two CBS stations, both in Illinois, refused to air the episodes in November, and TV Guide reported that many viewers in those markets complained about that.
The archived files of the USCC at The Catholic University of America in Washington fill in the history and provide a glimpse at how public outrage worked decades ago at the non-impulsive speed of typewriters and phone calls -- before cable stations, the internet and social media.
Besides letters to Wood from Catholic lay leaders, not much else occurred initially. Supreme Knight John W. McDevitt, of the Knights of Columbus, for one, did not mince words. "The sophisms of the abortionists are about as dearly appreciated by millions of American families," he wrote, "as is rat poison in Halloween candy."
Two unrelated events subsequently energized opposition. On Jan. 22, 1973, the Supreme Court's Roe decision legalized abortion on demand nationwide, spurring the pro-life movement on for the next 50 years.
And in March, CBS canceled the highly rated "Bridget Loves Bernie," a sitcom about an interfaith marriage (Jewish-Catholic) harshly criticized by Jewish groups and rabbis who believed it trivialized their beliefs.
So organized outside pressure was shown to work. It had knocked off a Top 5 show just as in 1971, it had nixed the Frito Bandito, a stereotyped cartoon mascot used to sell corn chips.
The initial USCC objection, as Father Sullivan wrote to Wood two days after the meeting mentioned above, was the "contrived and unethical presentation" of Maude's pregnancy plus the "one-sided perspective" in which "the pro-life point of view" -- meaning that abortion involved the death of a human being -- was not present.
In addition, the USCC didn’t think "controversial social commentary" belonged in the context of a sitcom. The criticism would expand to mention that the program's 8 p.m. air time -- considered a slot for family programming such as "The Waltons" -- was too early for such a topic.
For his part, Wood wrote to William Moon, president of the Holy Name Union in Rockville Centre, New York, that he did not think the episodes “espoused a pro-death position.” Moreover, refusing to re-air the episodes would have violated contracts with Lear and the advertisers, so Wood could not have granted that request in any case.
According to Father Sullivan's account, Wood conceded that CBS "might have erred." But in 1973, Wood vigorously denied ever saying that when he told The New York Times that it "would suggest we made a mistake the first time around."
But what could not be canceled could be made toxic.
After the FCC turned down a request for equal time on CBS under the fairness doctrine, the USCC switched tactics. Right up to the week of the first rerun of the episode on Aug. 14, 1973, Catholic dioceses, parishes and groups – including the Knights of Columbus – were being urged to call their local affiliates and write to the show’s corporate sponsors.
There was an additional boycott effort launched by a Virginia-based mass-mailing outfit, Stop Immorality on TV (its list of "objectionable" programs included Carol Burnett’s seemingly innocuous variety show). But Catholic activism was seen as taking the lead.
The result: All of the program’s corporate sponsors withdrew their ads. Pepsi-Co, Alberto-Culver, American Home Products, General Mills, the Pharmacraft Division of the Pennwalt Corporation, Mennen and finally JB Williams (distributor of personal care products) -- once executives there learned they were the lone sponsor left.
Alberto-Culver (hair and skin products) took the unusual additional step of announcing that it had directed its advertising agency not to place ads on programs on which "abortion or deviate sex" were treated facetiously in a comedy program.
Thirty-eight of the 200 CBS affiliates refused to air the reruns. Another five pushed the broadcast past 11 p.m.
Additionally, for the first time since the initial broadcast of "All in the Family" in January 1971, CBS inserted an opening warning: "As she contemplates the possibility of abortion, you may wish to refrain from watching it, if you believe the broadcast may disturb you or others in your family."
Lear was left to complain, "This proves there's a certain degree of cowardice in the American business community."
The controversy might have dented profits slightly, but it only increased audience interest. CBS estimated that 65 million viewers saw all or parts of the episodes in both airings, while there were 24,000 letters of objection to the network.
Arthur’s later comments were reflective, not angry.
"If I had disagreed, we wouldn’t have done it," she said at a New York luncheon of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1974. "But if it was presented now, I don’t know."She acknowledged both the volume of mail and that she had read some of it. "But only a few were really hate letters. Most of the mail was genuine concern, and opposition."
"Maude" moved to a later time slot on the CBS schedule in 1974 and stayed on the network until 1978. The abortion episodes were included when the series entered syndication. - - -Kurt Jensen is a guest reviewer for OSV News.