The 1974 All In The Family episode “Gloria Sings The Blues” featured Carroll O’Connor’s Archie trying to get Rob Reiner’s Michael up early for a fishing trip. The two end up passionately arguing about whether one has to wear both socks first, followed by shoes, or shod one foot in a shoe and sock before tending to the other.
Michael says he likes “to take care of one foot at a time” after Archie berates him, saying, “The whole world puts on a sock and a sock and a shoe and a shoe.” They both have a back-and-forth on what’s correct until Archie figures they are running late. Interestingly, the act was unplanned, as revealed by Reiner decades later.
The “sock and shoe” conversation was improvised
During a 2020 interview with Sirius XM, Reiner revealed that the “sock and shoe” scene was improvised and happened naturally since he had developed a comedic rapport with Carroll by the fourth season. Being a live show, the audience’s laughter was genuine, and the actors managed to time their performance. “We had this scene that just happened. It was improvised. I was putting on my socks and shoes. He walks in and says, ‘What are you doing?’ This was all improvised,” Reiner recalled.
The unexpected scene became a fan favorite, and people often approached Reiner to rave about it even many decades later. “Most people come up to me — after over 200 shows! — they’ll say the scene I remember most is when you and Archie discussed how you put socks and shoes on,” he said. “We just improvised the whole thing.”
Reiner, who is also a filmmaker, admitted that the central cast members of All In The Family were so well acquainted that improvisation came easily to them. He recalled how, in the eighth and final season of the show, an entire scene was made on the spot in front of the live audience, and everything went on smoothly regardless. “This was really extraordinary. We had become such a tight unit after 8 years,” he reminisced.
Reiner on a moment when he, Carrol, Jean Stapleton, and Sally Struthers quickly made an unplanned pivot when the viewers gave a bad reaction, “The four of us got together and started improvising an opening act—the first act. And the writers are writing it down, and we’re scribbling it, and we learned it,” he said. “That is something I’ll never ever forget because it only works after 8 years with that tight a group.”
