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 most white ethnic groups as well, including the English, Germans, Irish, and Polish. Archie, a Christian belonging to the Episcopalian denomination, often misquotes the Bible. He takes pride in being religious, although he rarely attends church services and constantly mispronounces the name of his minister, Reverend Felcher, as "Reverend Fletcher". (When Edith inevitably corrects him, he dismisses the error with "Whatever".) He is a compulsive gambler, who, in earlier years, frequently lost his entire weekly paycheck in poker games, as related by Edith in 1973 episode "Archie the Gambler"; he quit only when Edith threatened to leave him, taking then