VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: The Jeffersons’ Star Marla Gibbs She Wishes She Could Redo ‘Aunt Jemima’ Episode

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Actress Marla Gibbs shared her favorite episode from her classic sitcom The Jeffersons—and the one she’d do over—in her new uInterview.

The Jeffersons, a spinoff of the smash hit show All in the Family, ran from 1975 to 1985 and followed an African American couple (played by Isabel Sanford and Sherman Hemsley) who move to a luxury high-rise apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and adjust to their newfound affluence after being raised in a working-class neighborhood in Queens. Gibbs played the family’s maid, Florence, starting in 1975, beginning at the age of 44. Gibbs was nominated for an Emmy five times for her role.

Gibbs reflected on her favorite episodes. “Of the 200 hundred shows, I don’t really have a favorite moment on The Jeffersons,” she told uInterview founder Erik Meers. “There were shows I loved… the Billy Dee Williams show we did – that’s the one that stands out a lot. I got to do a lot of different stuff on there, I really liked that.”

The episode she would most like to change involved her comments about housekeepers in the so-called “Aunt Jemima” episode. “They worried that [the episode] was like a disrespect for the maids, which I understand, and I think if I had known, then I would have changed my mind at the end of it. Instead of ‘Dumb me,’ I would never have said ‘Dumb me,’ you know, working for a ‘dumb master.’ So ‘dumb master’ was OK, but not ‘dumb maid.’ So that really did resonate because of the theory that it looked like disrespect.”

Gibbs currently stars in filmmaker Kim Callaway’s short film Mildred 4 A Million. The short features Mildred (Gibbs), a great-grandmother who attempts to connect with her granddaughter by getting a million followers on TikTok.

For more from Gibbs, check out the rest of the interview.