Perhaps the best example of this bond between father and son occurs in the episode in which a friend from Fred's past shows up and claims to be Lamont's real father. After hearing the news, Lamont tells a tearful Fred that he is "the only pop I've ever known" and as far as he is concerned, it will "always" be Sanford and Son. (In the humorous twist that closes the episode, it turns out that the friend had actually slept with Aunt Esther, thinking she was her sister Elizabeth.)