Amid the current political upheaval in Thailand, capped by
the military coup d’etat of May 22, this is the optimal time to examine why Chang
and Eng Bunker, the original Siamese twins, would have made an even better
Archie Bunker than Carroll O’Connor. Sure, O’Connor earned four Emmy Awards and
a Golden Globe for his timeless and beloved portrayal of Archie Bunker, who,
in turn, helped make All in the Family one
of the most culturally significant programs in television history. America
laughed for a decade at Archie’s convoluted logic, malapropos and mannerisms,
his equal-opportunity bigotry, and his big-hearted narrow-mindedness—all of
which mirrored a nation struggling with its own hypocrisy and neuroses by
finding the right way to reflect all that was wrong with America.
Still, Chang and Eng Bunker, twin brothers conjoined at the
chest by a large segment of cartilage, seem even better suited to the role.
Born to Chinese parents in Siam (present-day Thailand), in 1811, the brothers
found worldwide celebrity exhibiting themselves on tour as the “Siamese twins” (even
rating a mention in the Guinness Book of
World Records a century later as the source of the term). The Bunker twins
later immigrated to antebellum North Carolina, becoming successful plantation
owners—and slave owners, oddly enough, in view of the similarly low status of
“Orientals” in that age—as well as naturalized U.S. citizens. Proving more
desirable than many “single” men, they fathered twenty-one children between
them—literally between them, considering the logistics involved—and died in
1874.
For a show called All
in the Family, what could have been more familial than conjoined twins sharing
the lead role? Especially with the ability to call Edith a dingbat and Mike a
meathead in stereo? Perhaps even opting for the comedic drama of one
brother a hard-line, war-hawk conservative and the other a bleeding-heart,
pinko-commie liberal, verbally battling each other between orders to Stifle yourself! and moans of Aw, geez, huh? (Their inevitable problems
with American enunciation hardly would have been worse than Archie’s butchering of the
English language.) I don’t know if the Academy of Television Arts &
Sciences would have awarded each brother his own Emmy, presented the two of them
with a single prize, or, most likely, bestowed the twins with two individual
statuettes soldered together, but Chang and Eng surely would have carted off
during the series’ run an armful of them—carried with each lending one arm, of
course.
During that narrow, 100-year window between Chang and Eng’s
death and the mastering of special effects that now might allow twin Thai actors
as talented and charismatic as Carroll O’Connor to appear conjoined—or, in lieu of expensive technical wizardry, at least
have them share an XXXXXXXXXXXXL shirt—we certainly were fortunate that
O’Connor gave the world Archie. But in a medium in which twins have long been
prized both as a source of comedy and conflict, Change and Eng Bunker—the first
of their kind, on the first show of its kind—would have yielded twice the
laughs.
Boy, the
way Yul Brynner played
Years on
Broadway Mongkut stayed
Thais
like us, double we weighed
Those
were the days
And you
knew Siamese twins
Didn't
quite move like Errol Flynn
Messrs.,
we could use a man
Like Naresuan the Great again
Like Naresuan the Great again
Didn't
need no coup d'etat
Everybody
smiled through Buddha
Gee,
Bangkok was Shangri-La
Those...were...the...dayssssss!
(Chang puts
stogie to mouth with available hand as Eng leans head on Chang’s shoulder)
(Image of Archie Bunker copyright CBS.)
