I guess the idea was to show how being like that is wrong, as he did tend to get put into his place. But I rarely got to the resolution.
I remember a commercial for "All in the Family" that aired a lot. It showed Archie Bunker reading through a list of... I think it was political candidates for something. He reads the names out loud, and they're all names with clear ethnic backgrounds. One is Hispanic, one is Italian, one is Japanese, and one is Anglo. Bunker says "Hmm, a Spic, a Whop, a Jap, and a regular American." Lots of laughs. I'm sorry, but that was supposed to be funny?
Am I oversensitive to it because I'm a minority and have actually lived with racism and prejudice? Definitely. I guess I can see the "Ha ha, he's such an idiot" humor there, but the problem is that even if the idea is to ridicule Bunker, there were undoubtably people going "Yeah, and...?" because they don't see the problem in the first place.