Mike responds to Archie's "What Makes American Great" comment by calling it Archie's Bicentennial Minute. The Bicentennial Minute was a series of segments commemorating the American Bicentennial, which aired on CBS from 1974 to 1976.
In the scene in the office of the personnel manager, Mr. Crenshaw, Mike threatens him by saying, "I just feel like hitting something: melons. Crenshaw melons." Crenshaw melons are actual fruit resembling cantaloupe. Later in the series, Mike decks a man who fights with Gloria on the subway but takes a much more guilty pacifist attitude (although Mike didn't actually hit Crenshaw).
Gloria's televised protest outside the store is the only true exterior scene on "All in the Family", although it could've been taped inside of a shopping mall.
Carol Burnett is an uncredited Officer Johnson who joins the picketing outside of the department store.