That’s the heart of it: My shows were not that controversial with the American people. They were controversial with the people who think for the American people.

When we went on the air, I didn’t want to be interrupted for an act-one curtain.

It was very important to me that Archie have a likable face, because the point of the character was to show that if bigotry and intolerance didn’t exist in the hearts and minds of the good people, the average people, it would not be the endemic problem it is in our society.

The American people may not be the best-educated, but they’re very wise at heart.

But it also became the experience, or was the experience, of the writers who were attracted to this kind of humor. They’re all men or women who come from the same kind of experience in their own lives.

In the area we’re discussing, leadership begins on Madison Avenue, on the desks and in the offices of people who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying what will get them ratings.

You’re in the business – when you’re a writer, producer, director – to get ratings.

I guess because the shows were activist in their own way – the marriage of my public activism and my career activism, you know – people understand me very well. They also understand there’s a very strong bipartisan part in all of this.

It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared – we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring – the more they cared, the harder they laughed.

Life goes on pretty much the same way. I’ve been working on a couple of films on the side. You may see some more. You may even see another television show.