The major broadcasting networks can come together on very few things. Recognizing the staggering achievement of Norman Lear is one of them. (Negotiating against writers and actors during hot labor summer was another.)Â CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, and the CW are planning to honor the producer and screenwriter with a simulcast on-air memorial card Wednesday night. The card will run at 8 p.m. ET and PT.
In memoriam cards are typically added to individual shows, not across a whole network. When Matthew Perry died, for example, Max added a memorial to the beginning of Friends episodes. But Lear touched far too much of TV for just one show, or even network, to bear the tribute alone. Lear’s issue-focused sitcoms revolutionized all of the “big three†networks in the 1970s. He made All in the Family for CBS, Sanford and Son for NBC, and Live in Front of a Studio Audience for ABC, on which he worked with Jimmy Kimmel. If you want to pay your respects with streaming, Pluto TV will run marathons of All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, and The Jeffersons starting at 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday.