Till Death Us Do Part is a British television sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1965 to 1975. The show was first broadcast in 1965 as a Comedy Playhouse pilot, then as seven series between 1966 and 1975. In 1981, ITV continued the sitcom for six episodes, calling it Till Death.... The BBC produced a sequel from 1985 until 1992, In Sickness and in Health. Created by Johnny Speight, Till Death Us Do Part centred on the East End Garnett family, led by patriarch Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell), a reactionary white working-class man who holds racist and anti-socialist views. His long-suffering wife Else was played by Dandy Nichols, and his daughter Rita by Una Stubbs. Rita's husband Mike Rawlins (Anthony Booth) is a socialist "layabout" from Liverpool who frequently locks horns with Garnett. Alf Garnett became a well-known character in British culture, and Mitchell played him on stage and television until Speight's death in 1998. The series became an instant hit because, although a comedy, in the context of its time it dealt with aspects of working-class life comparatively realistically. It addressed racial and political issues that had been becoming increasingly prevalent in British society. Mitchell imbued the character of Alf Garnett with an earthy charm that served to humanise Alf and make him likeable. According to interviews he gave, the fact that some viewers overlooked Alf's racist views and regarded him as a "rough diamond" disappointed Speight. The show captured a key feature of Britain in the 1960s — the public perception that the generation gap was widening. Alf, and to a lesser degree his wife, represented the old guard, the traditional and conservative attitudes of the older generation. Alf's battles with his left-wing son-in-law were not just ideological but generational and cultural. His son-in-law and daughter represented the younger generation. They supported the aspects of the new era, such as relaxed sexual norms, fashions, music, etc. The same things were anathema to Alf and in his opinion indicative of everything that was wrong with the younger generation and the liberal attitudes they embraced. Alf was portrayed as the archetypal working-class Conservative. His two primary passions were football and politics, though his actual knowledge of either was limited. He used language considered unacceptable for television in the 1960s. He often referred to racial minorities as "coons" and similar terms. He referred to his Liverpudlian son-in-law as "Shirley Temple" or a "randy Scouse git" ("Randy Scouse Git", as a phrase, caught the ear of Micky Dolenz of the Monkees, who heard it while on tour in the UK and used it as the title of the group's next single — though their record label renamed it "Alternate Title" in the UK market to avoid controversy), and to his wife as a "silly [old] moo" (a substitute for "cow" which was vetoed by the BBC's head of comedy Frank Muir). However, Michael Palin writes in his diary for 16 July 1976 that Warren Mitchell told him that "silly moo" was not scripted, "It came out during a rehearsal when he forgot the line 'Silly old mare'." Controversially, the show was one of the earliest mainstream programmes to feature the swear word "bloody". The show was one of many held up by Mary Whitehouse as an example of the BBC's "moral laxity". In a demonstration of Speight's satirical skills — after a successful libel action brought against Speight by Whitehouse — he created an episode, first broadcast on 27 February 1967, in which Alf Garnett is depicted as an admirer of Whitehouse. Garnett was seen proudly reading her first book. "What are you reading?" his son-in-law asks. When he relates that it is Mary Whitehouse, his son-in-law sniggers. Alf's response is "She's concerned for the bleedin' moral fibre of the nation!" The episode ends with the book being burnt. Missing black and white episodes Some of the show's 26 episodes from series 1–3 that were videotaped in black and white and broadcast between 1965 and 1968 no longer exist; they were wiped by the BBC during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Currently, most material from twelve episodes still survives, with one episode on the original tape and the rest on film or domestic formats. The surviving 1960s B&W episodes are: "Arguments, Arguments"; "A House With Love in It"; "Intolerance"; "Peace & Goodwill"; "In Sickness and in Health"; "State Visit"; "Alf's Dilemma"; "Till Closing Time Do Us Part"; "The Phone"; "The Blood Donor"; and "Aunt Maud". Sequences exist from: the pilot episode; "The Bulldog Breed"; "A Wapping Mythology (The Workers' King)"; and "The Puppy".[citation needed] more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Death_Us_Do_Part #ClassicTV #BritishTV #AlfGarnett #NostalgicTV #TVSitcom ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwuPZnx4Bco