In Popular Culture
The Bicentennial Minute achieved a high cultural profile during its run and was widely referenced and parodied. For example, in the All in the Family episode "Mike's Move" (originally broadcast on February 2, 1976), the character Mike Stivic responded to a typical monologue by his father-in-law Archie Bunker about the history of American immigration and the meaning of the Statue of Liberty with the sarcastic comment: "I think we just heard Archie Bunker's Bicentennial Minute." Another Norman Lear-produced sitcom, Sanford and Son, featured series star Redd Foxx parodying the Bicentennial Minute.
Country music also used the Bicentennial Minute as a source of humor. The radio program American Country Countdown and the television program Hee Haw each had a feature called the "Bicentennial Minute" during 1975-1976. Both features were similar: then ACC-host Don Bowman and Hee Haw star Grandpa Jones gave a monologue featuring a humorously fractured historical "fact" about figures from the American Revolution and the colonial era.
A sketch on The Sonny and Cher Show aired in early 1976 featured guest star Jim Nabors portraying British King George III, offering a comic rebuttal to the always pro-American Revolution Bicentennial Minutes. The CBS daytime game show Match Game had questions posed to contestants in this form as well throughout 1975 and 1976.
Read more about this topic: Bicentennial Minutes
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