Julia Jacobs

Right.

But he wanted to be like his father, just like his father.

And he didn't shy away from that either.

He told another story that when his father at one point encouraged him to differentiate himself, he suggested, you know, what other name would you want to take on?

What would you want to change your name to?

And Rob said, what if I changed it to Carl?

Wow.

He embraced this desire to be like his father.

He was a teenager on the set of The Dick Van Dyke Show, learning everything he could about entertainment.

And, you know, eventually he got into theater.

He struck out on his own.

And his first major television role, he was cast by Norman Lear, his father's friend.

And this was for the sitcom... From Television City in Hollywood.

All in the Family.

It was a defining television show of the 1970s for the way it put generational conflict on display.

This was a time when members of the silent generation, like the show's patriarch, Archie Bunker, were really grappling with the youth counterculture that stemmed from the 1960s and the anti-war movement.

And Rob Reiner's character was this guy named Michael Stivick.

He was a leftist, a pacifist hippie, and he was really the avatar for that younger generation.

And a lot of the show's comedy came from this back and forth between Archie Bunker, the conservative father-in-law to Mike Stivick, who he calls... You are a meathead.

A meathead, dead from the neck up.