TV and the Evolution of American Culture with Norman Lear

Neil deGrasse Tyson looks at the relationship between television and American culture, with the help of writer and producer Norman Lear, author Saul Austerlitz, and co-host Chuck Nice. Plus, Bill Nye remembers “All in the Family.”

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. We're featuring my interview with Norman Lear. Norman Lear, the legendary TV writer and producer, perhaps best known for creating All in the Family back in the 1970s. So I've got as my comedic co-host Chuck Nice. Chuck, always good to have you here on StarTalk.

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  Thank you.

• 0:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tweeting at ChuckNiceCommon.

• 0:45Chuck Nice?

  At ChuckNiceCommon.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How you doing, man?

• 0:47Chuck Nice?

  How are you, buddy?

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. You feeling sitcom-y?

• 0:50Chuck Nice?

  You know, I kind of always feel sitcom-y. You know what I mean? Like, I wake up and there's a laugh track to my life. Some people have a soundtrack to their life. I have a laugh track to my life.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you turn it up if nobody's laughing?

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, any discussion of sitcoms in America? I need somebody who's an expert on it. I didn't even know such a person existed in this land.

• 1:16Chuck Nice?

  Well, it ain't me.

• 1:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It ain't you, buddy, sitting right to your left. And it is Saul Osterlitz. Saul, welcome to StarTalk.

• 1:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Saul, you wrote a book called Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes, from I Love Lucy to Community.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And these are like your favorite shows throughout?

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a mixture of some of my favorite shows and some shows like Gilligan's Island. I've watched more episodes of Gilligan's Island than anyone else should ever have to. I'm definitely an expert now.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is this something you boast about? This gets you dates at the bar, right?

• 1:48Speaker 02

  A combination of pride and shame, I guess.

• 1:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the best kind, actually.

• 1:53Chuck Nice?

  Was Gilligan's Island good? Or did it just have to be in the book? Like, from your professional opinion, like-

• 2:01Speaker 02

  It's really bad.

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  It's really bad. It's really bad.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Really bad.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we all know the theme song, so-

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something was good enough about it to just work its way into our soul.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  And it's kind of representative of a particularly bad era in television.

• 2:18Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 2:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. We'll get back to you on how bad all of our childhood was.

• 2:24Chuck Nice?

  Not to mention, it actually killed the three-hour tour industry as well.

• 2:32Chuck Nice?

  Just leveled it.

• 2:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, who's the king of the sitcom?

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Gotta be Norman Lear.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gotta be Norman Lear.

• 2:39Chuck Nice?

  That makes sense.

• 2:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who invented an entire genre from which we never looked back. And he wasn't just a regular old TV producer, he produced shows that like, made you think in ways no one made you think before. Putting real issues in topics. He came by my office at the Hayden Planetarium, and I snared an interview with him. Norman Lear, all 92 years of him, check it out. Sir.

• 3:06Chuck Nice?

  Sir.

• 3:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for coming.

• 3:08Chuck Nice?

  I'm happy to be here.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thanks, and you are, I cannot believe you are 92. That means you've seen everything. So you were born before quantum physics was discovered.

• 3:20Chuck Nice?

  I was.

• 3:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Someone told you that? Here's the stuff you were born before.

• 3:24Chuck Nice?

  I was going to the refrigerator before the airplane.

• 3:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not before the airplane, I got, I know my history well enough for that.

• 3:30Chuck Nice?

  But before there were planes in the sky, cause when, when uh-

• 3:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before there were jet, before it was a common way to get around. So you were born before Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, before quantum physics was discovered, before the expanding universe was discovered, before Hubble- The Man.

• 3:47Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 3:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not, not the top, The Man, discovered that there's more than one galaxy in the universe. You know, we live in the Milky Way, and you look out, and there were these fuzzy things, and people thought they were just fuzzy things, and Hubble showed that these are actual other galaxies, island universes unto themselves. You were born before all of this. So, what is that, what, you've seen everything? What is that, what is it-

• 4:12Chuck Nice?

  But know so little.

• 4:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At some point, so, so, so, I, we'd like to believe that folks who have seen everything have it, carry some wisdom and some insight.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Here's the, here's the truth of it.

• 4:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 4:28Speaker 03

  At eighty-eight and eighty-nine, uh...

• 4:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Way back when you were younger.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  When I was younger, yeah. Uh, that didn't occur that much. It's when one turns ninety, suddenly, one is supposed to have a great deal of wisdom. We don't change. Everybody else changes. I now get applause, standing up.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  And everybody assumes I'm wise. Nobody assumed I was wise at eighty-eight, eighty-nine, I swear. Ninety is the secret number.

• 5:00Chuck Nice?

  That's very cool.

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Norman Lear's got a biography out, autobiography called Even This I Get to Experience. And, uh, that came out last October, so it was great just getting him in my office. I got more clips to come.

• 5:11Chuck Nice?

  I just love the fact that, one, Norman Lear drops by your office. Like, how cool is that? And, two, that you are probably the only person to ever interview him, who starts your interview with, "Damn, you are old."

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He took it well, I think. He, he took it well.

• 5:32Chuck Nice?

  "Why are you not dead?"

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what's interesting for me is, he pioneered content on sitcoms, and putting in material that previous sitcoms wouldn't come near. And I, I will get back more on that a little later, but I, when I think of content that people might have been afraid to put in today, I look at shows like The Big Bang Theory. It's all science in there, front to back, up and down the middle. It is the geekosphere, the geek culture, manifest through the lives of scientists, PhD scientists, and that was surely a taboo, if not scary, topic for writers in the day. And, uh, what, do you, how do you feel about, what, what does that mean for producers to say, "I'm gonna do something no one has done before"?

• 6:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That takes some gonads, right, to, to pull that off?

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Definitely. Although, at the same time, The Big Bang Theory is a very traditional kind of sitcom with a laugh track, and it, it feels very conventional in a way, but the scientific aspect is definitely something a bit different.

• 6:35Chuck Nice?

  And there are a lot of science jokes in that sitcom.

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:39Chuck Nice?

  You know, I've, I've watched it a couple of times and I have to say that they're not shy about uh, broaching the subject of science in where they make jokes that it's real science that they're making a joke about.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you guys, each of you, back, let's go back to the seventies when Norman Lear made his mark. How, how old were you Chuck? Were you born yet?

• 7:00Chuck Nice?

  No, I was groovy.

• 7:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were groovy?

• 7:02Chuck Nice?

  That was my, that's my age back in the seventies, groovy baby.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How, how big was your fro? That's how we measure it.

• 7:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I was born in the seventies.

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were born in the seventies, okay. And, and you, were you a participant in the seventies?

• 7:13Speaker 02

  I was born in the late seventies.

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the late seventies, so most of what you wrote about is from history books.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I caught up with that in reruns and TV land.

• 7:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The reruns, okay, so you didn't get to feel it in the moment.

• 7:24Chuck Nice?

  And, and listen, I'm feeling you right now.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, so uh, can you comment on, on shows that are rich in social commentary? And the risk that the producer takes in that, is there?

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's interesting, Norman Lear really pioneered in that sphere. You know, the shows from the nineteen sixties in particular were very bland, very domestic. And Norman Lear really blew that up. Um, a show like All in the Family premiered and it did all of the things that TV was not supposed to do. To be topical, to be adventurous, to be daring.

• 8:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not supposed to do means no one thinks you can make money doing it. It's all about money, right?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Right, and being scared of, of really engaging with the issues of the era. So, shows like All in the Family and MASH and the Mary Tyler Moore Show, all of which premiere pretty much in the same two-year period, are suddenly tackling Vietnam and civil rights and feminism in a way that had never really happened.

• 8:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So somebody had to say, this is a topic deserving of even a sitcom, not just a documentary. Exactly. Right, and so, I, we, we can wonder what could motivate someone to do this, right? That's, that's... Absolutely. Like I said, this is... Because it doesn't make sense if you think about it. It doesn't make any sense at all, given the other shows on at the time, or that created the legacy of sitcoms, like I Love Lucy, or, but some of my favorites of the day were like Green Acres, and other sort of crazy shows that have nothing to do with any social conditions at all. And deliberately avoid any social conditions. Yeah, in fact, they deliberately avoid. Yeah. Like, like most of the shows today. So, given how audacious such a step is, it makes you wonder what could have possibly motivated him to break the mold.

• 9:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out, back in my office.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  What was motivating, uh, me, just life, you know, what, what we and our families were living. We talked about what was happening with our kids, what was impacting them in the greater culture.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but you have to think that somebody wants to watch that. And before your programs, TV then, and often now, was an escape for people, so they didn't have to think hard thoughts, right? I mean, so the audacity is saying, "This is real, and I'm gonna show it back to you."

• 9:41Speaker 03

  You know, my father went to prison when I was nine years old. People are buying the furniture in the house. My father is in prison, and my mother, and some strange fool puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "You're the man of the house now." Now, that's sad as could be and funny as hell. I'm the man, twelve years old, I'm...

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this is during the Depression.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  And this is during the...

• 10:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I do my math right. You're born in 1922, you're nine years old, it's 1931.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, height of the...

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At twelve years old, yeah, 1933.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So, I think I must have started...

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you're a twelve-year-old man.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  I, I must have started at that point to see the humor in the hu- in the human condition, 'cause there's a lot of that.

• 10:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, I always wondered, what must have gone through Norman Lear's mind to turn sticky social issues into things that are just hilarious, making everyone laugh? We'll find out when we come back.

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk from the Hall of the Universe. We're featuring my interview with Norman Lear, the incredible TV producer, 92-year-old Norman Lear, who lived through the Depression, who saw World War II. He was active in World War II as a soldier. And it makes you wonder, how does this influence someone's life, someone's plight, someone's sense of humor even? So I was just wondering, what mental process empowered him to make people laugh over things that might otherwise sound like tragic topics? Let's find out.

• 11:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How did you make people laugh? Because that's a secret recipe. I don't know what that is. How did you do that?

• 11:32Speaker 03

  That few people can do something doesn't make it a secret. Edith trying to tell her neighbor.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Edith Bunker.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Edith Bunker on all the family trying to tell her neighbor that she may have breast cancer, that she, Edith, may have breast cancer. That's a very serious moment. But we know Edith, and we know she can't say the words. Not because she has the problem, but because breast is a word people don't say in polite company, and Edith's mine.

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Certainly not in the 1970s.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Certainly not. Well, she'd be the same Edith today if they were writing her, but certainly not in the 1970s. And the other woman, who we know and the audience is going to find out, has had breast cancer and has been through it and has no problem. There's no hilarity to be had there, but there is amusement and laughs. And so, and those laughs are heartier and warmer because the audience is caring a great deal about the outcome.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I hadn't thought to think about it that way. If you're invested in...

• 12:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you care, then it's a different kind of laugh than if it's just hilarity. Right, that's, that's a brilliant distinction there.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  And we went for those kinds of laughs. The audience were involved in a serious problem with these people. And when they were called on to laugh out of the other guy's frustration and, and, uh, and fear, fear, uh, it, it made it more, the humor more tender and as a result funnier.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What a guy, man. Wow. Yeah, Saul, is there a difference between funny then and funny today?

• 13:26Speaker 02

  I think that the kind of topicality that we are practiced, uh, is not as much in evidence today. Uh, it's really fallen away. It's been replaced by a different kind of comedy, which I think is equally sophisticated, but is more self-referential, more comedy about comedy, uh, and less invested in the kinds of tangled and thorny social issues.

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's a comedy about comedy? What do you mean? I don't, I don't know.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Something like Community or 30 Rock, uh, shows that are very much about the process of making comedy, that are about sitcoms about sitcoms.

• 13:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, okay.

• 14:00Chuck Nice?

  A mise en son type of vibe.

• 14:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mise en son?

• 14:04Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 14:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What, what?

• 14:05Chuck Nice?

  That's something I ordered at a French restaurant. Bunson, I don't know. Uh, but yes, like the, uh, the, the scene within the scene, that's what we're looking at now, you know?

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 14:15Chuck Nice?

  Well, cause we're already in on the joke. We already know.

• 14:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Chuck, how do you make difficult stuff funny?

• 14:21Chuck Nice?

  You know, I don't, and, uh...

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does that mean you can't make it funny or you don't handle difficult stuff?

• 14:27Chuck Nice?

  No, I don't, I don't really, you know, actually, no, I do. Uh, you know, the thing that you have to do is not talk about the difficulty, you talk about what surrounds it. So, you know, uh, for instance, uh, before my father died, he was in the hospital and I knew he was gonna die. And I did jokes about, uh, my dad being in the hospital, but I never talked about him being sick. So that's kind of how you do it.

• 14:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there's an orbit distance.

• 14:54Chuck Nice?

  There is. There is an orbit distance.

• 14:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why can I use that phrase?

• 14:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Permission to...

• 14:59Chuck Nice?

  I love how you bring science into anything. Even my dying father. You find a way to bring some science into it.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got an orbit. Okay, so that's an interesting... So you find something that's in arm's reach of the tragedy.

• 15:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That gives you more comedic latitude. Is that a fair way to put it?

• 15:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, absolutely. And the fact is that pretty much everyone knows somebody who's been sick. So instead of talking about the person and their sickness, I find a way to relate that experience, because that's really what comedy is, is you're relating experiences.

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what we really want to know from Norman Lear is, how far can you take it? What's the limit of the comedy that you will reach for when we come back?

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this starts off, we've been talking about the impact of sort of edgy sitcom comedy as pioneered by legendary TV producer Norman Lear. And in particular, something that he did that I don't know that people did much before. He managed to create comedy folded and woven within the feelings that he was able to bring out from you for the characters that he portrayed. So the fact that you cared about the characters enabled a whole other level of comedy to be reached for. Let's check it out.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the 1970s, we were, there was high inflation. The women's liberation movement was emerging right on the heels of the civil rights movement. And so then you have like Maude, right? I mean, that was a very strong character.

• 16:44Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And plus there are issues you dealt with like menopause. Who does... That's, that's on date, that's...

• 16:53Chuck Nice?

  My mother, my aunts, my daughters, they all deal with it.

• 16:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what, so this, so the message here is that we need to take creative people and just expose them to every problem in the world, because then they'll turn it into something that the rest of us can embrace and react to.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  You know, it's simpler than that. We don't have to take them and expose them. They live and they are exposed.

• 17:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, but we don't, we're afraid to talk about it. We're afraid maybe no one else has it. We don't know how, we don't really understand our feelings. We need someone to interpret our feelings for us. Isn't that, that's what you do as an artist.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  I'm thinking about the interpreting our feelings. I, I think more catching them or, you know, seeking to catch them, not interpreting them. They interpret their feelings. I'm, I'm thinking about that. This is not a casual answer. When you say interpreting their feelings.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and I see that President Clinton gave you a National Medal of the Arts. What was in the citation for that? Did they, did they, did they care in particular for that?

• 18:02Speaker 03

  Reflecting society in the television shows.

• 18:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reflecting, yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Helping people to understa, well, I guess you say interpreting is not far from helping people understand.

• 18:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you like my word, interpreting?

• 18:16Speaker 03

  Yes, it's, I'm rethinking that.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is awesome. Man, you know, let's take a specific example. In Maude, she and her husband discussed whether or not she should have an abortion. And in another episode, Edith wants to invite her African-American neighbors over for dinner.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  Ah, geez, that's dingbat.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Much to, so, so these are, these are frontier issues.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think what's interesting is that we end up not so much just talk, it's not just an episode about abortion. It's an episode about a character that we care about, a character that we know really intimately, like Maude. Thinking about having an abortion. And instead of there being an episode of All in the Family that's about integration in some sort of arid way, it's an episode about how is Archie Bunker going to respond when an African American sits down in his armchair? So it's really bringing it home, making it very domestic.

• 19:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In his favorite armchair.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  In his favorite armchair.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, yes, yes. So is there anything today that's that edgy? Or have we, have we touched all the edges and there are no edges left?

• 19:22Speaker 02

  I don't think a network sitcom could have an episode about abortion today without people being up in arms about it.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we've regressed?

• 19:28Speaker 02

  In some ways, yes.

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there are levels here. You can imagine influencing the viewer, but how about influencing people who then influence others? And there's a multiplier effect. So let's see Norman Lear's reaction to knowing that you can affect people and other people who those people affect themselves. Let's find out. So it's one thing to influence the public. It's another thing to influence people who then continue to influence. And I read that Trey Parker, one of the creators of South Park, was influenced by the irreverence of your storytelling. And we might not have had South Park. It's certainly not.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  They wanted to do, they loved Archie Bunker. And they decided to do Archie Bunker as a, as a small boy, Cartman. And they have said, you can find.

• 20:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that. There it is.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 20:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So who would, I didn't know that.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  I did not know that either.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, did you, did you?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  No, that was new to me also.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, you didn't know this?

• 20:30Speaker 02

  No.

• 20:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Snap.

• 20:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You might go back and get the next edition of your book.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just find out. Um, so.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  See, but that, that lets you know, though, back to what we were talking about, the changes. See, you can be irreverent when you're animated. All the animated cartoons are completely and totally irreverent.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Family Guy.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Like Family Guy, The Simpsons, South Park.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They'll do stuff human people can't do.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Cannot do.

• 21:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Because you can't sue a cartoon, I guess.

• 21:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me ask you, what's the most influential sitcom on your life?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  In my life?

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, on your life.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Uh, I guess Seinfeld.

• 21:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Seinfeld, is that right? Okay. Are you a native New Yorker?

• 21:12Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I grew up in Los Angeles.

• 21:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. Whoa, okay, and how about you?

• 21:16Chuck Nice?

  I'm Maude.

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 21:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes, because I am now married to an aging woman going through menopause.

• 21:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. People who have really influenced others.

• 21:31Chuck Nice?

  I'm in so much trouble.

• 21:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People who influence others, I always want to know what other forces influence them. And I ask that of Norman Lear, and we're going to find out when we return on StarTalk.

• 21:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. You know, Norman Lear pioneered sitcom television, but I'm a science person, so I always like to know, has science touched people's lives in any way, even in subtle ways? And I wanted to see, knowing that Norman Lear lived through and observed the space program and the moon shots, I wanted to know, did this touch him in some way that otherwise influenced his life? Let's find out what he says in my office.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we landed on the moon, given how much you had seen, how impossible was that in your mind? Your state of mind, was it, we landed on the moon, anything is possible? Because you used to think it was impossible? Is that?

• 22:39Speaker 03

  I think I was more an observer who was fascinated to the point of thrilled by the reaction I was observing in the world around me.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Almost anthropologically seeing?

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Yes, more, I guess I being more the scientist observing it than the individual.

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Participating in the celebration itself.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  But in in my book, I that's a kind of a theme.

• 23:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, in in in his autobiography, it's even this I get to experience, he talks all about how this happens. And so I always wondered how things affect you. What's going around going on in life and in society, what force science might have on you. And it can affect you, I think, even if you're not conscious of it. And for I just, for example, in what's the number one sitcom today?

• 23:35Chuck Nice?

  The Big Bang Theory.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Big Bang Theory, and I think there's we have a relationship with that. Even even if you don't know anybody like that, their characters are entertaining, though they be caricatures. They're entertaining. And so what kind of audacity did it require to pitch a show on science? When no one else was doing it, no one else had ever done it. What does that take?

• 23:57Chuck Nice?

  I have a theory that they didn't say it was a show about science. They lived on the name alone, The Big Bang Theory. And the people in Hollywood like, I like it.

• 24:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, you think it was just.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that's your theory?

• 24:14Chuck Nice?

  No.

• 24:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so science has changed over the years and can influence you in different ways. And I was just curious how the changing landscape of science might have influenced Norman Lear. So let's find out what he said.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  But you know, we're living at a time where I'm hearing from kids in college and kids about to go to college. And from the people around them that

• 24:42Speaker 03

  you have to go into business to make money. And making money is where it's at. I say that wanting to convey the greatest disappointment. Science, which was at a bigger premium, it seems to me, ten years ago, is diminishing along with a lot of along with medicine and a lot of other things as a as a a career in interest for young people. Because hedge funds and investment and real estate and so forth.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  Deliver so much more money, so much, with so much less, uh, education.

• 25:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a brain drain from one field to another. From the fields that could be shaping our future, to fields where people just get rich. But at some point, they're getting rich off of industries and innovations that somebody has to be engaged in on the other side of that fence.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, but those are like pebbles on the beach, you know, if you walk on the beach, you'll pick them up, they're there.

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, the reason why I'm laughing because Isaac Newton has a very famous quote where he refers to pebbles on the beach. Can I share with you? I can only paraphrase it.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "Sometimes I feel like a child, picking up pebbles on the beach, keeping one that is more shiny than the other, when the ocean of undiscovered truths lay before me."

• 26:15Speaker 03

  That's great, it says it. All the truths are out there to be found, yeah.

• 26:22Chuck Nice?

  Wow, that was profound.

• 26:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, Newton is a profound guy.

• 26:27Chuck Nice?

  You know what, something tells me he is.

• 26:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying.

• 26:31Chuck Nice?

  Something tells me Isaac Newton is a little bit profound.

• 26:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just saying. So, can you reflect on TV's attitudes towards science over the years?

• 26:39Speaker 02

  I think popular culture in general has gotten a more positive attitude towards science recently, away from the kind of doom and gloom of scientists causing doomsday or blowing up the world.

• 26:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's always the scientist's fault. But in the sixties, we had My Favorite Martian.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and we had I Dream a Genie.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That one, one of my favorite shows ever.

• 26:58Chuck Nice?

  Because they were astronauts, or because of the genie?

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's why, because of the astronauts. Yeah, it was a sensitive time in my hormonal development that that show happened to come along. All I can think of is how much of an idiot he is, that there's this woman, a genie he can do anything with, and he doesn't.

• 27:14Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he's distracted by his astronaut career, I guess.

• 27:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, because we all know the first wish that most of us would have is, "I want two more of you." Two more genies who look just like you.

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, so would you agree that things are improving? Have a little more confidence than Norman Lear had in this comment?

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you can look at a film like Interstellar, which has a really positive outlook on science, and the scientists are the heroes of the film, and...

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're fully fleshed out characters with emotions and families, and, and their husbands and wives and children and grandparents.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Exactly, they're not just sort of Doctor Strangelove figures.

• 27:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, or wire-haired people with lab coats that you only address when you need an answer, and then you leave them behind, not caring if they've ever been in love, or whether they actually have genuine personalities or characters.

• 28:02Chuck Nice?

  Wait a minute, scientists feel love? Get out of here!

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, do you, do you see a, a, a, a bright future for more science in sitcoms, given the success of The Big Bang Theory?

• 28:13Speaker 02

  I think in some ways The Big Bang Theory is likely to be one of a kind. It's, it's hard for me to imagine a way that another sitcom is going to be as science.

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How could you possibly say that? When there's uncountable numbers of doctor dramas, lawyer dramas, cop dramas? Now you're gonna say there's one science program, and you can't think of others?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  I would love to see more, but I'm guessing that network executives are likely to say, "Well, The Big Bang Theory already covered that, so I don't know if we're gonna go back there again."

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When was the last time you said, "Oh, we already had a doctor program 10 years ago, we're not gonna have another?" No, no, they're the great imitators.

• 28:45Chuck Nice?

  Something's telling me you should've just said yes.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Can I change my answer?

• 28:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, can he change his answer? No, you're too late.

• 28:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we know Norman Lear helped change and mature our attitudes as television viewers, and he did that in this period of time where there were, he had lead sitcoms that had spin-off sitcoms, The Jeffersons, Maud, and the like. But, what's he up to lately? He's 92 years old, is he still at it? Yes, he's still at it. And, when he came by my office, I had to say, "What, what you been doing lately?" You'll find out after the break. We'll see you in a moment on StarTalk.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk. From the Hall of the Universe, the American Museum of Natural History. Chuck Nice, like I said, is always good, haven't you? Saul, you're an expert on sitcoms. I didn't even think that was a thing to be. And you are that. So great to have you here. Because our topic of interest, this whole show has been Norman Lear. All 92 years of him. And we know him from his pioneering sitcoms decades ago. But I wondered what he had been up to lately. And he told me, he founded an organization called People for the American Way. And I thought I'd heard about it, but I didn't know quite much about it.

• 30:05Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, because that sounds very Republican, super PAC.

• 30:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's find out what he means by People for the American Way.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  I did a 60-second commercial, PSA, in reaction to the proliferation of evangelicals on television, mixing politics and religion. Then it had a working stiff on a piece of factory equipment, clearly with a hard hat. He's looking in the camera and he says that he and his wife and his kids sit around the kitchen table, talking politics. And they disagree about a lot of things. Now come ministers on the radio and television telling you and telling them that they are good Christians, or bad ones, depending on their political point of view.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  So he winds up saying, "There's got to be something wrong when anyone, even a minister, tells you you are a good or a bad Christian, depending on your political point of view. That's not the American way." And I took it to Father Hesberg at Notre Dame. And he just thought the piece I had made and the guy saying what I just said was terrific. He said, "You know, you're going to find, Norman, that mainline church leaders will agree with you, but in addition to what you're saying politically, there's something else that's troubling them and me." And I said, "What is that, sir?" He said, "The way they torture scripture."

• 31:37Speaker 03

  And those words lived big in my head.

• 31:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's interesting because he did that in the 1980s. That's when that organization was founded. I don't remember religion being a topic in any of his sitcoms, was it?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Not quite so much.

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not so much.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Archie Bunker is obviously an equal opportunity bigot. So a lot of his jibes are at various members of religious groups.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Mostly the Jews.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so what, do you think that was taboo back then?

• 32:10Speaker 02

  I think it was taboo in the same way that a lot of the other topics that All in the Family and some of his other shows tackle.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but he tackled him, but it wasn't taboo. Apparently it's too taboo for him to tackle until later on when all the shows were done and he takes on a whole other political angle.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  No, there are some pretty funny jokes on All in the Family about religion.

• 32:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like what? Give me one.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Well, I mean Archie is talking about how he's respects the Bible and he respects it so much that he doesn't want to ever go to church, you know, so Archie himself is...

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Archie Bunker reasoning, the logic of Archie Bunker, yeah, yeah.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  You know, he doesn't want to have anything to do with the local priest. It's, it's too much of a good thing while at the same time he's lecturing, you know, various people in his household about what the Bible does or doesn't say.

• 32:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but, but in no time is there conflict talked about between religion and any other emergent philosophies or even science, of course, that, that no one has even gone there yet.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, let's, let's go back to my interview with Norman Lear and just talk more, a little bit more about religion and politics.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Find out what he tells us.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't see any problem with them making their religion a big point of why they're, they would get elected if that is who they're representing. So, I, my issue as a scientist is if someone tries to take a religious philosophy and then create legislation based on that, because then the legislation affects everybody, no matter your religion, and then there's, you end up overstepping sort of the privacy of, and the sanctity of a belief system.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Well, that's what happens in my belief when God gets in the public square. My sense, and perhaps the next thing I want to do is a Sunday morning, uh, non-sectarian...

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Church service that celebrates our common humanity.

• 34:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's kind of what secularism is, right? I mean, a little aspect of it.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Yes, but it's not really discussed. Like, a lot of things are not really discussed. God wants, I don't want to do away with God or anybody's specific method of prayer or belief, but it belongs here. Like, no two thumbprints, no two snowflakes, no two peoples compact with the Almighty, the deity, God. It's the same. Inarticulable. It's so much the belonging of each of us. Keep it there. Keep it there, keep it in the family, keep it in the church.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  In the public square, we celebrate that river of reverence that nurtures all of us. That's a message. That's one more message I'd like to hear, that crowd.

• 34:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, we're going to tackle one of my favorite subjects of them all: the cosmic perspective on StarTalk.

• 35:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back on StarTalk, from the Hall of the Universe, here in New York City, the American Museum of Natural History. So, of course, we know that TV can shape our entire view of the world, affect our emotions, our actions, maybe even how we vote. A person who's an expert, not only in comedy, but also on the role of television in influencing our lives, is a good friend of mine, Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Let's find out what he has to say about this topic.

• 35:42Bill Nye?

  American Museum of Natural History, sir, if you would.

• 35:46Bill Nye?

  So Norman Lear created television that we had never seen before. You know, the saying is, "Our media reflects society." Like, whatever's going on in society, you're gonna see it in our media, in our newspapers, in television shows. But Norman Lear gave us something to think about in every one of those shows. I remember the scene in "All in the Family," when Archie Bunker has a beer, Sammy Davis Jr. takes a sip of it and hands it back to him. And Archie Bunker has to decide whether or not he's gonna take a sip from a black man's beer. Woo! And everybody knew the implications. Like, this is... Why wouldn't he sip it? I mean, we're all humans, we're all in this together, but somehow we feel that we're different from each other.

• 36:28Bill Nye?

  So Norman Lear took three centuries of injustice and slavery and crystallized it for you to evaluate in just 30 seconds. I mean, that is not easy to do. But Norman Lear did it on show after show, week after week, year after year. You've got to respect that. Way to go, Mr. Lear! You changed the world! Bring on the light.

• 36:58Bill Nye?

  God, can't you believe the way people drive in this town?

• 37:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We've been featuring my interview with Norman Lear. He came by my office, and I said, "Let me nab him for some interview time," and we did. I generally carry with me a cosmic perspective, how I think about the world and how it all fits together. And one of the things I worry about is how people can take the knowledge we have of the universe and cherry-pick it in ways that serve only their private interests, or their political, cultural, social, religious interests. And so I wondered, is there a way that the creativity of Norman Lear can be brought to bear on solving this problem? Let's find out what he told me.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Can I tell you how I talk about it?

• 37:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How?

• 37:53Speaker 03

  My sister, some years ago, she was complaining about something in her community. And I said, "Well, why don't you write a letter to the mayor, or the alderman, or the councilwoman?" And she said, "Well, I'm Claire Lear, I'm not Norman Lear." So I called her back a couple of days later and I said-

• 38:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's saying she would not possibly have the influence that you would.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Yes, she would have the name, you know, and the influence. And I said, Claire, and this is a prayerful woman, a woman who thinks about these things. I said, Claire, we are living on a planet among which there are, they tell us, there are billions. In the universe of which they tell us there could also be billions. And this has been going on for who knows how long. Can you get your fingers close enough to measure the difference of the influence of any two of us or the importance of any two of us?

• 38:55Speaker 03

  You being one individual on a planet of a billion and a universe of billions? And, well, but, but you couldn't do better than well, but. Because that is, I see it so clearly that way. And-

• 39:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's in part what we call a cosmic perspective. It's the bigger view.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Yes, and I think about that.

• 39:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where everything is in context, of the size and scale and time and everything. Let me ask you, Saul, do shows like his just make people laugh? Or do they actually empower people to then take responsibility for changing society?

• 39:35Speaker 02

  I think they definitely empower people. I think what's interesting is that the sitcom, from the very beginning, has been a very domestic medium, about the home, about the family. And what Norman Lear and some of the other innovators of the 1970s managed to do was they took that domestic form and invested it with some of the hot-button issues of the time and made those personal as well.

• 39:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is any evidence that people changed after this?

• 40:00Chuck Nice?

  I think there's some evidence that television in general, not just sitcoms, but it changes people's perspective. But with sitcoms, you look at Modern Family. Don't you think that that has had something to do with the way that we view people's-

• 40:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or is it just a reflection of what we already know is out there?

• 40:19Speaker 02

  I think it's a mix. I think it depends on the show. I think it's always falling behind and catching up and jumping ahead. I mean, you mentioned Modern Family, but I think a show like Will and Grace really managed to push the issue of...

• 40:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I forgot about Will and Grace. That counts as a sitcom, I guess.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely.

• 40:34Chuck Nice?

  Definitely, yeah.

• 40:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, not a drama.

• 40:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and I think that that definitely had some influence in the way that we thought about gay people and their relationship to society in general.

• 40:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 40:47Chuck Nice?

  You know?

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, sitcoms come into our house, so the people who star on sitcoms are like our surrogate friends. So I think encountering a gay person on a regular basis, even on TV, begins to change people's attitudes in a way that other things aren't necessarily able.

• 41:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's encouraging because the characters on The Big Bang Theory, they're all caricatures of what they represent. But I'd like to think that everyone wants to look for a geek friend at that point that they bring to the party, right?

• 41:16Chuck Nice?

  By the way, I'm just saying I'm available.

• 41:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me see your geek card. You know, so Norman Lear is 92 years old, and I did not want to end my interview with him without asking him for words of wisdom for us all. Let's find out.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Somebody told me this once. I was fussing around trying to say something like this, an answer to a question in front of some people. And a rabbinic-looking guy, he was, I was younger, he was older, came up to me afterwards. He said, "Mr. Lear, I want to try to tell you in short what you took so long trying to..." He was criticizing me in the sweetest way. And he said, "A man should have a garment with two pockets. And the first pocket should be a piece of paper on which is written, 'I am but dust and ashes.' I am that proverbial grain of sand on the beach of life. And the second pocket should

• 42:15Speaker 03

  be a piece of paper on which is written, 'For me, the world was created.'"

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Well, few things have resonated so clearly, cleanly with me. Well, I mean, what was Neil Tyson born for if not for this moment? And this moment is for me. The fellow holding the camera doesn't know it, but he was born to be here now for me. And obviously, I was born 92 years ago to be here for all of you.

• 42:56Chuck Nice?

  Wow. I'm confused. My jeans have five pockets.

• 43:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm reminded of a quote similar to that. I think it was by Mark Twain, who said, "The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you learn why."

• 43:13Chuck Nice?

  Whoa.

• 43:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And my guests, my co-host Chuck Nice tweeting at Chuck Nice Comic.

• 43:19Chuck Nice?

  That's right, Chuck Nice Comic.

• 43:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Saul, thanks for coming on. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. You've got the book, A Sitcom History in 24 Episodes From I Love Lucy to Community. I'm gonna buy that now, because I didn't even know you could do that. Please do. And of course, Norman Lear, his autobiography, Even This I Get to Experience. This has been StarTalk, the collision of science and pop culture from the Hall of the Universe at the American Museum of Natural History. And as always, I bid you to keep looking.