Michael Casimir "Mike" Stivic is a fictional character played by Rob Reiner on the 1970s American television sitcom All in the Family.

The character of Michael Stivic is an Americanized version of the British original: Till Death Us Do Part's Mike Rawlins, the Trotskyist "Randy Scouse Git" who arouses the passionate ire of his conservative father-in-law Alf Garnett.

For the American version, the Trotskyist angle is drastically softened: Michael Stivic is a social liberal and somewhat of a leftist, but does not adhere to any form of communism.

When All in the Family begins, Michael is married to Gloria and shares a bedroom with her in the home of her parents, whom he addresses as "Ma" and "Archie" (or "Arch"), while focusing his efforts on earning a college degree in sociology.

He shaves his beard for his wedding with Gloria, but keeps his mustache afterwards (on rare occasions later in the series, however, he would sport a clean-shaven look) and wears his hair well below the collar.

In the show's early years, conflicts between left-leaning Michael and his bigoted father-in-law Archie Bunker are exacerbated by the characters living under the same roof.

[2] When the neighboring Jefferson family leaves the neighborhood, this allows Michael and Gloria to rent the house from patriarch George, finally giving the couple a home of their own.

She frequently intervenes to try to defuse tensions between her husband and son-in-law, though she also occasionally takes Mike to task for initiating unnecessary arguments with Archie.

She explains that Archie dropped out of high school to help support his family during the Depression and he resents the fact that Michael has the chance to attend college and advance his education.

It is revealed in the season eight episode "Gloria and Mike Meet" that in 1969, Michael's dedication to humanitarianism was galvanized in order to weaken support for newly elected President Richard Nixon.

This is evidenced when he objects to having his appendix removed by a female doctor and when he reveals himself to be a sore loser when playing a board game called Group Therapy with his family and neighbors.

George Jefferson, however, later makes a guest appearance at his former residence when the Stivics start preparing for their move to California and meet with him to give notice that they will no longer be staying in his house.

It is explained on the show that Michael left his wife and young son Joey (then played by Christian Jacobs) to live in a California commune with one of his students—whom Gloria described as "the homecoming queen, a girl named Muffy"—and is in the process of going through a bitter divorce.