Those Were The Days was the second of three pilots shot by creator Norman Lear

Norman Lear

Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...

 in what would eventually become All in the Family

All in the Family

All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...

. The first pilot, Justice For All

Justice For All (TV pilot)

Justice For All was a television pilot shot in 1968 for the ABC network. This was Norman Lear's first attempt at what would eventually become All in the Family. The script, written by Lear, was based on the British show, Till Death Us Do Part...

was rejected by ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 in 1968, so Norman Lear changed the script slightly from the original pilot as well as some of the actors. Chip Oliver was brought in to play Archie's son-in-law, whose name was changed from Richard to Dickie. Candice Azzara now played Gloria in the second pilot. The actor who played Lionel remained the same. This pilot shot in 1969 was again rejected by ABC and was never shown on television until TV Land

TV Land

TV Land is an American cable television network launched on April 29, 1996. It is owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, which also owns Paramount Pictures, and networks such as MTV and Nickelodeon...

in 1998 as part of an All in the Family marathon.