Outside of National Comedy Center, Jamestown, NY
A special exhibit celebrating Norman Lear’s storied legacy in comedy and civic engagement is now open at the National Comedy Center.
2024 marks the first modern election absent the legendary comedy producer and writer who passed in December 2023 after dedicating his life’s work to championing all Americans’ right to equal participation in the democratic process—starting with the right to vote.
Lear’s contributions are being honored with an installation inside the Comedy Center’s galleries and in an online companion exhibit, both featuring rare archival materials and curated excerpts from Lear’s sitcoms.
Original artwork by Shepard Fairey will be featured courtesy of People for The American Way’s Artists for Democracy campaign, which was founded by Lear in 1981.
Lear’s groundbreaking sitcoms, including All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, and Sanford and Son, not only entertained 120 million Americans each week, but put forth a vision for how dinner table debates, neighborhood organizing, and showing up at a local polling place were the accessible—and meaningful—bedrock of American democracy.
The exhibit can be experienced in the National Comedy Center’s galleries in Jamestown through 2025 and online at ComedyCenter.org/Lear.
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