Another thing I realized throughout the course of watching the series is that, while many people can badmouth the Sitcom format until the cows come home, sometimes the stars align and we receive unto us something actually good. Sanford And Son, the story of a father and adult son team of antique (read: junk) dealers trying to get through life without dying in squalor, is such a show. Desperation always seemed to be the main course of Sanford and Son, as the titular characters tried time and time again to pawn off their little bits of crap in order to not die of starvation, possibly rickets. And trust me, honest businessmanship accounts for roughly 2% of all dealings in the world of Sanford and Son, which seems to be an insurance fraud-based economy. Not a single episode goes by where someone isn’t wearing a fake neck brace while drinking Wild Turkey from the bottle.

The format was fairly consistent up until Season Four, wherein contract disputes resulted in a Sanford-less Sanford And Son – Foxx clearly deciding to pull a Chrissy. I know that Sanford And Son came before Three’s Company, but who wouldn’t want to pull a Chrissy? I certainly want to pull a Chrissy.

Oddly enough, these shows hold up rather well as they focused on the relationship between Lamont and transient turned sidekick Grady who, in the season four premiere episode, manages to feed an entire bushel of marijuana to the local police. These episodes might be derided by purists (yes, there are Sanford And Son purists), but their genial nature was enough to encourage roughly twelve different spin-offs – all of them failures, sad to say.

And while it isn’t a perfect television show (even when taking the time period into account), it’s frequently successful – and it’s all thanks to Redd Foxx. Now, Lamont’s frequent reaction to father Sanford might be a picture perfect example of the Straight Man, it’s Foxx as Fred Sanford that seals the deal – but that should be obvious, right? Curmudgeonly to the point of self-destruction, wildly bigoted, prone to domestic violence and always drinking some sort of dime store liquor out of what can only be assumed is a plastic tumbler, it was Foxx’s hangdog expression that really sold the asshole as a loveable guy. And it was Foxx who continued to sell the material even as it grew more ludicrous and repetitive in the later seasons – what wacky situation is going to happen this week that will require Fred to dress up in a magician’s costume? Buy the DVD to find out, dummy.

Presentation
Nothing will be said about the packaging, as it’s been gone over in a million other reviews for the series – and I know how you all are checking every review of Sanford And Son - The Complete Series to make absolutely sure it’s worth purchasing, so let’s concentrate on the audio/video presentation: it’s awful. The ‘70s was not a pretty time, and the footage contained on these discs present this fact loud and clear: shot on tape, put into a wet canister, sent to the bottom of the sea where said canister was ravaged by sea salt, manatees and Elder Gods, only to be unearthed and broadcast on television, we have just about every tape issue one could think of outside of VCR tracking errors – distortion, color bands, bleeding, flaring, if you can’t think of it, it’s probably here. You can’t expect much from the series, and you get it in spades.

Audio is much better however, though you’ll have to jack up the volume to hear anything, only to be blown out of your goddamn seat by the contemporary Sony Pictures tag that is pasted at the end of every single episode. What an obnoxious jingle.

Extras
You get nothing, dummy.

The Bottom Line
While the last two or three seasons could be described as “expendable at worst,” buying the first few sets alone would match, if not succeed the sexy, sexy price of this full series box set – clearly everyone is a winner in this case. The choice is easy.