But Mr. Lear also had his failures. In 1975, his sitcom “Hot El Baltimore,” set in a run-down hotel and based on a play by Lanford Wilson, ran for 13 weeks on ABC. After a few more short-lived shows, his hot streak ended in the mid-1980s. Some later projects — among them “704 Houser” (1994), about a black family living in Archie Bunker’s former home — aired for only a few weeks; Others never got off the ground.
Work to the end
Despite Mr. Lear had his hand on the television. In 2003, he helped write a few episodes of “South Park,” which was then “All in the Family.” (The show’s creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, have said that Eric Cartman’s bile-spewing character was partly based on Archie Bunker.)
In 2009, Mr. Lear developed a series about professional wrestling for HBO, although it was not picked up. Over the years he has been writing “Who Dead?” for his proposed series about retirees in Southern California. That changed in 2017, when NBC committed to making a pilot, but a year later the network declined to pick up the show.
Working in his 90s, Mr. Lear also executive produced a new version of “One Day at a Time,” a Latino family-centered series for Netflix. The series debuted in 2017 to rave reviews and ran for three seasons.
In July 2021, on his 99th birthday, TBS announced it was developing a reboot of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” starring Emily Hampshire, with Mr. Lear as an executive producer. The show had not yet begun production, but at the time of his death Mr. Lear was also involved in other projects, including an animated version of “Good Times”; “Who’s boss?” A restart of; and a sitcom starring Laverne Cox and comedian George Wallace about a man who discovers his adult son has changed.
In May 2019, Mr. Lear and Jimmy Kimmel hosted a TV special in which episodes of “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons” were recreated live by an all-star cast, including Woody Harrelson as Archie Bunker and Jamie Foxx as George. Jefferson. The special was produced as part of a deal Mr. Lear, Mr. Kimmel and others signed with Sony, which included the option to remake and create reboots of his past shows. A second special, recap episodes of “All in the Family” and “Good Times” aired that December; Thirdly, two Mr. Lear’s production remakes of “The Facts of Life” and “Diff’rent Strokes” will air in 2021.
