The feud between the generations was a popular TV theme in the 1970s, and now the interactions and frictions between Gen Z, Gen X, millennials and boomers are all over our screens once again. Why does the generation gap continue to make us laugh – and can the laughter help to heal the rift? More than 50 years ago, television producer Norman Lear did something radical: he created a sitcom that held up a mirror to the US's yawning generation gap, All in the Family. This groundbreaking 1971 show