The Jeffersons

The Jeffersons was an American sitcom broadcast on the CBS network from 1975 through 1985, lasting 11 seasons, and a total of 253 episodes. The show focused on an upper middle-class African American husband and wife, George and Louise Jefferson (Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford). It was a spin-off from All in the Family. It is tied with Fraiser as the longest running spin-off in television history. The character of Lionel Jefferson (Michael Jonas Evans) first appeared on that show's 1971 premier. His mother Louise appeared soon afterwards during All in the Family's first season and father George was introduced during the third season. George was the owner of a chain of seven dry cleaning stores. He and his wife lived in a luxury high-rise apartment building on Manhattan's Upper East Side, to which they had moved from a working-class section of Queens where they had been Archie Bunker's next-door neighbors on All in the Family. On January 11, 1975, Edith Bunker said goodbye to Louise, George and Lionel, while they were moving. Also on the show was the interracial couple, Helen Willis (Roxie Roker— mother of singer Lenny Kravitz) and Tom Willis (Franklin Cover), and their two children, Jenny Willis (Berlinda Tolbert) and Allan Willis (Jay Hammer). Jenny dated, then in 1976, married Lionel. Allan was rarely seen until the fifth season. Jenny and Lionel had a baby daughter named Jessica Jefferson (Ebonie Smith), who was born in 1980, during the show's sixth season. The Jeffersons also featured Zara Cully as George's ever catty mother Olivia Jefferson (referred to as "Mother Jefferson"); Marla Gibbs as the Jeffersons' wise-cracking maid, Florence Johnston (who would later have her own spin-off show Checking In); Paul Benedict as the bumbling, dimwitted English neighbor, Harry Bentley (who worked as a Russian-language interpreter at the United Nations and who would occasionally suffer back spasms that could only be cured by George walking on his back); and Ned Wertimer as Ralph, the smarmy building doorman.