Archie Bunker three-year old Gloria with her. The inspiration for Archie Bunker was Alf Garnett, the character from the BBC1 sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part", on which "All in the Family" was based. When first introduced on "All in the Family" in 1971, Archie is the head of a family consisting of his wife Edith (Jean Stapleton), his adult daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers), and his liberal son-in-law, college student Michael "Mike" Stivic (Rob Reiner), with whom Archie disagrees on virtually everything; Archie frequently characterizes Mike as a "dumb Polack" and usually addresses him as "Meathead" because, in Archie's words, he is
Archie Bunker while Archie had been forced to drop out of high school during the Great Depression to help support his family. Archie does not take advantage of the GI Bill to further his education, although he does attend night school to earn a high school diploma in 1973. Archie is also revealed to have been an outstanding baseball player in his youth: his dream was to pitch for the New York Yankees. He had to give up this dream when he left high school to enter the workforce. His uncle got him a job on a loading dock after World War