Those are indeed impressively long hours for a restaurant/ tavern like Archie Bunker's Place. A person could get totally sloshed there until the rooster crows, that is, if the liquor inspector wasn't around.
I recently tuned into this Thanksgiving Special of Archie Bunker's Place on YouTube, but only because Mike and Gloria made "special guest star" appearances in it. The old formula of the arguing and confrontational situations reared up again once the Bunkers and the Stivics were brought together for Thanksgiving, but it was on a weaker level.
Archie sure has mellowed ever since this show got rebooted from it's original All In The Family premise and then reformatted into Archie Bunker's Place. This time around Mike has a troubling reason why he lost his job back in California and that secret is kept from Archie, until of course, the issue is exposed during the turkey dinner.
Mike got arrested for joining a nude protest over a nuclear power plant being built over a nude beach. He even admitted to having his picture taken in the newspaper when it happened. Did that sit well with Archie? Of course not. The sparks fly once he finds out, but the wicked and angry bickering that should've developed does not ignite like it once did in All In The Family.
Archie's more of a mellow guy this time around and doesn't rant and scream like he used to during the early years in the Bunker household. It's understandable he'd reign himself in due to having kids present like his grandson and niece, but after they're sent upstairs so the adults could continue arguing, it doesn't make much of a difference.
The bigotry and ignorance Archie used to have has been tamed down a lot once he got integrated into a more "multi-cultural" environment. He's more accepting this time of issues that were once guaranteed to set him off like a rumbling volcano.
He more or less acts sarcastic towards Mike's indecent dilemma and isn't fully raging like he once was like the time that draft dodger once sat down with the family for Christmas dinner. This is a more subdued Archie which clearly showed that the fire that once was lit under the original show was no longer there.
I found this two part episode to be weakly written and not as funny as its predecessor, "All In The Family". It was great though that the Stivics were reunited with the Bunkers for another one of their classic showdowns, but the energetic sparks are missing this time around. It wasn't like it used to be. Archie Bunker's Place was indeed a shallow version of how it once was under the original show. Things really changed and it wasn't for the better.