In a warning to viewers, CBS ran a disclaimer before airing the first episode (which disappeared from the screen with an exaggerated sound of a toilet flushing):
The program you are about to see is All in the Family. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices, and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show, in a mature fashion, just how absurd they are.
All in the Family was notorious for featuring language and authentic epithets previously absent from American television, such as "fag" and "fairy" for homosexual, "yid" and "hebe" and "that tribe" for Jews, "spic" for Hispanics, "mick" for Irish, "dago" and "wop" for Italians, "polak" for Polish, "" for Chinese, "Jap" for Japanese, "" for southeast Asian, and "spade", "spook", "jig", and "jungle bunnies" for blacks. In a few instances, "goddammit" was uttered. In the episode "The Draft Dodger", Carroll O'Connor delivers an angry line during the taping as: "I don't wanna talk about that Goddamned war no more!" However, the network ordered that O'Connor dub over the audio before broadcast, so that the line is changed to "I don't wanna talk about that rotten damn war no more!" while the original line is clearly visible on the actor's lips. Yet, CBS did not object three years earlier when, in the not-so-controversial "We're Having a Heat Wave" (#4.3), as Mike is screaming "Watergate! Watergate! Watergate!" at Archie during an argument, O'Connor delivered Archie's reply as: "Knock that off, God dammit!" The line not only aired that evening and was never deleted in syndication, but it provoked an exchange with Edith where she objects to his swearing, to which Archie explains that the term "God dammit" is biblical and, therefore, okay. It was also famous for being the first major television show to feature the sound of a flushing toilet; it became a running gag on the show. As typical of people with a Brooklyn accent, Archie and Edith would pronounce "toilet" as "terlet".
