‘Sanford and Son’ at 50: TV series was ‘double-edged’ Black sitcom pioneer

Redd Foxx (left) and Demond Wilson are shown in a scene from the NBC sitcom “Sanford and Son.” | NBC/File

LOS ANGELES — When Demond Wilson heard that Redd Foxx was going to star in a TV sitcom, the actor brushed it off as a joke.

Foxx was a killer stand-up comic, with a trademark raunchiness that Wilson figured to be a nonstarter for the timid broadcast networks that were television in 1972. It was the eve of cable, and the rise of streaming was decades away.