I would say that Archie and Edith barged in on Gloria and Mike in the middle of an afternoon delight (my apologies to David Rose for using that term), except it wasn’t actually the afternoon. That itself was the sticking point for CBS and Lear on the episode, as the latter explained to the New York Post in 2021:

“Archie’s very first line is, ’11:30 on a Sunday morning?’ The network wanted that line out. Why? Because he’s talking about 11:30 on a Sunday morning and it implants a picture in the audience’s mind. I remember thinking, if the line comes out, I’m going to be in trouble from then on with the silliest things. So that was our first disagreement. I said, ‘If you don’t play that line, I won’t be in tomorrow.’

“It wasn’t until the show went on the air in New York, three hours earlier [than California] and someone from my family called and said that it was [kept] in.”

This wouldn’t be the last time “All in the Family” ruffled feathers. Throughout its run, the show tackled subjects such as sexual assault, menopause, infidelity, homophobia, and discrimination in all its shapes and forms, along with the Vietnam War, Watergate, and other major real-world events (so much so to earn the ire of Richard Nixon, himself a matter of discussion on the series more than once, and not in a flattering way). Yet, through thick and thin, viewers lapped it up. It wasn’t just the jokes, either; an emotional payoff to a dramatic situation was just as likely to get an explosive reaction from the show’s live studio audience as a zinger or a funny exchange was. 

Lear, as it turned out, was right after all.