Redd Foxx and LaWanda Page had been friends since childhood, and she was his first and only choice to play Esther, Fred's sister-in-law. Producers wanted to fire Page due to her inexperience on-camera, but Foxx threatened to quit the show if Page was fired.
On the show, Lamont Sanford and Rollo Lawson are best friends. In a 2015 interview with ILoveOldSchoolMusic.Com, Demond Wilson said Nathaniel Taylor never liked him, and they hadn't seen each other since 1977. Wilson said he and Taylor appeared to have good chemistry on-screen because they were high most of the time.
This show held the same time slot for its entire run: Fridays at 8 p.m. on NBC.
Redd Foxx was a huge fan of the 1930s vocal group The Ink Spots, and sang many of their songs on the show. The rights were so expensive NBC refused to buy them. Foxx paid for them out of his own pocket.
Throughout the series, whenever Lamont threatened to move out, or things did not go Fred's way, he would clutch his chest and fake a heart attack, shouting variations of "Hear that, Elizabeth? I'm coming to join you!" That running gag was blamed for Redd Foxx's death, from a heart attack, while filming The Royal Family (1991). When he complained of chest pains, no one believed him until it was too late.