. >> reporter: it was when a young director stephen spielberg was filming jaws.t a time where tv shows were addressing social issues. >> reporter: mash. >> they can have mine. i would be glad to keep my legs crossed until after the war. >> reporter: the anti-war movement. >> i would like to know why, the last associate producer before me made $50 a week more than i do. >> oh, because he was a man. >> reporter: on "mary tyler moore" the role of women and almost everything controversial on "all in the family". >> everypicture i have seen of god is white. >> maybe you were looking at the negative. >> reporter: together those three shows made saturday night on cbs sometimes called the greatest night on television. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ and in 1974, new artists like linda ronstadt and the eagles were releasing break-out records. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> l.a. in the early 70s was a time and place where just enormous skill and pop culture mastery came together. >> intersome part of me resists idea that that was the peak of my creativity. >> reporter: it's not that it was the peak of your creativit

we've given at the national archives and our records of achievement, we have honored people like stephen spielbergks who have done hollywood versions of history that help people really learn history, who might not sit down and read a book. it gets people into that tend to pay attention and you hope that they will dig more deeply. so this is a hollywood version, octaviano spencer and her courage and tenacity and shows how to build a business, but it's not a history lesson. >> fair enough. and i think, great quote from that evening, was that he shot the birth, he was never going to give up that rhyme, even though it's completely historically inaccurate. so sometimes you don't let a good story again in the way. >> so the first question which i think has come several times, does she really steal the formula? >> oh god, so it's complicated. the formula had been around for centuries. it's in medical textbooks, pharmacists, it was really very simple at a time when many people didn't have indoor plumbing. people didn't watch their hair very often, they had really bad dandruff and i will go into details, b