Michael Stivic

Michael "Meathead" Stivic is Archie Bunker's live-in son-in-law, a graduate student married to Gloria and camped out in Archie's house while he finishes his degree. Long-haired, earnest, and politically liberal, he argues civil rights, feminism, and Vietnam across the dinner table, needling Archie's prejudices with the confident righteousness of a man sure he's on history's right side.

The show needs someone Archie can call a meathead without the audience agreeing, and Rob Reiner plays Michael's certainty with just enough self-satisfaction that his politics land as correct without him seeming likable for it. He's the necessary irritant, the son-in-law every bigoted father-in-law deserves, and the sparring keeps both men honest.