All in the Family broke ground in its depiction of issues previously considered unsuitable for a U.S. network television comedy, such as racism, antisemitism, infidelity, homosexuality, women's liberation, rape, religion, miscarriages, abortion, breast cancer, the Vietnam War, menopause, and impotence. Through depicting these controversial issues, the series became arguably one of television's most influential comedic programs, as it injected the sitcom format with more dramatic moments and realistic, topical conflicts. The show was an American version of an earlier British show, the BBC sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part", with Archie Bunker modeled after his British counterpart, Alf Garnett. "All in the Family" is
Archie Bunker sprinkling "incest" (incense) on their congregation, whereas he referred to incest itself as "committing 'insects' in the family". Archie repeatedly called Richard M. Nixon "Richard E. Nixon". By the show's second season, these had become dubbed "Bunkerisms", "Archie Bunkerisms", or simply "Archie-isms". The actor who played Bunker, Carroll O'Connor, is Irish Catholic, and Norman Lear modeled the character on his Jewish father, but Bunker's own ethnicity is never explicitly stated, other than identifying him as a WASP; over the course of the series, he mocks or belittles not just most minorities (including blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, Jews, and Asians), but also