Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

Phil Sharp was a friend. He was a writer and he had just gone through a divorce with four kids.

I was going through a divorce with one kid. I was having a very difficult time.

I said, how did it go with the divorce? He said, fine. I said, fine? He said, yeah, it was simple.

We had four kids. I have one. I'm going through a hell. He said, all she wanted was my Joan Davis free runs.

He had written and conceived the Joan Davis show, which was a major show.

And he just gave it the ray runs and he was free.

At which moment I decided I have to do a situation.

Norman Lear didn't just do one sitcom, but in the 1980s he'd made the genre his own. Then he quit. It's Bullseye.

Coming up, Norman Lear, by 1975 he was responsible for six network sitcoms all running simultaneously.

All in the family, Sanford and Son and Maud all worrying their networks with storylines about race and abortion. Sound stressful?

I think there is stress and there was joyful stress. And every single problem to show or episode or whatever, the wind up was a performance in front of a live audience and laughter.

Then later, Riz Ahmed. He's an actor and a rapper. He's in the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One.

It's a gig that he dreamed about getting when he was a kid. And now it's a British Pakistani actor.

It's one he's grateful isn't tied to a skin cover.

You get these stages of representation sometimes of minorities or groups that aren't that visible.

First of all, you get the stereotype, which is like the shopkeeper, the terrorist, the cab driver.

Then you get the stuff that takes place on ethnicized terrain, but it kind of subverts those dominant narratives maybe.

So that's like four lions or road to Guantanamo that I did. And then you get to this point where you're just a guy and you can be playing anyone.

I'll talk to Riz about playing terrorists for laughs and also just like in general, what's it like to be in a Star Wars movie? That's coming up later on.

Plus, I'll recommend my favorite very, very, very weird show on television. That's all coming up on Bullseye. Let's go.

My first guest is Norman Lear. He's not just a guy who created sitcoms. He's a guy who redefined what sitcoms could be.

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