American TV legend Norman Lear’s new Netflix show, sitcom reboot One Day at a Time, has a Latin flavour
The producer who gave us Archie Bunker is back, aged 94, with an update of groundbreaking1970s sitcom that finds universal humour in story lines about family life, bigotry, sexism and mental health
Rita Moreno explains the immediate allure of joining Netflix’s update of the 1970s sitcom One Day at a Time, which goes live today.
“Two words: Norman Lear,” the Oscar winner says, recalling how the TV legend, known for producing groundbreaking hits such as All in the Family, Maude and Good Times, recruited her for a new version of the comedy, which ran on the CBS channel in the United States from 1975 to 1984.
“He said, ‘I want you in my sitcom.’ I said, ‘OK.’ And then I said, ‘What is it?’ “ Moreno says. ”What? I’m not going to be interested in a Norman Lear project? Please!”
The original One Day, which starred Bonnie Franklin, Mackenzie Phillips, Valerie Bertinelli and Pat Harrington Jr., focused on a divorced mum – unusual for TV at the time – and two daughters living in the American city of Indianapolis. The new version centres on three generations of a Cuban-American family in Los Angeles.
Lear, 94, sees universal humour in the family’s doings, which include Cuban references and traditions and snippets of Spanish that will be easy to understand in context. “I emphasise the common humanity. To laugh at them and live with them for a half hour is to share in their humanity.”
Moreno, a native of the US Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico, says the focus on a Latino family, a group more common in the real world than on TV, “is very relevant to our times. And now that we’re going into a new [presidential] administration, I think it’s going to be even more relevant.”
