It’s All Relative – How ‘Modern Family’ Became TV’s Best Comedy
California Chronicle has a story about Modern Family and its creator Steven Levitan. We really liked this quote from him:
One of the show’s strengths is that everyone has a different favorite character. “Someone will come up to me, he might be a big, burly trucker, and you think he’s going to say he likes the Ed O’Neill character. But he’ll say, ‘I really like Mitchell,’” the gay character played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson. “And I’ll think, I did not expect that from you. I get that all the time.”
Here is another important news:
Levitan and Lloyd will do 24 episodes this season, and then age the family naturally for next season. After producing iconic series like “Frasier,” which ran for 12 seasons, the prospect of doing the same with “Modern Family” is daunting, to say the least.
“It makes us feel like we’re at the base of K-2,” Levitan says. “We’re just trying to make it to the next destination. I think the show has legs, but we’re going to take it one season at a time.”
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“MODERN FAMILY” – FEBRUARY 17
THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM, ON ABC’S “MODERN FAMILY” — Rerun
“Fifteen Percent” – Mitchell plants the seed in Jay’s head that he thinks one of Jay’s old buddies, Shorty, might be secretly gay. Jay doesn’t believe it for a second… except for all the questionable signs he now keeps noticing.
Meanwhile Gloria gives Manny’s date a makeover and Claire faces off with Phil’s universal remote, on “Modern Family,” WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17 (8:00-8:30 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network. (Rebroadcast: OAD: 1/20/10)
Guest starring Chazz Palminteri (“The Usual Suspects,” “Analyze This”) as Shorty.
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Modern Family, Episode 10 – “Fizbo”: Cameron the clown
The 10 best lines from last night’s episode of Modern Family based on EW (in descending order):
10. “Let’s tuck our pants into our socks.”
9. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t need it. An extension cord works pretty good.”
8. “I used to have a machete, but times have changed.”
7. “People are gonna stare. They’re not used to seeing one clown in a car.”
6. “Girlfriend’s gonna get stung!”
5. “I’ve tried everything to get her attention. Opening doors, having a milk sent over in the cafeteria. Nothing’s worked.”
4. “A gift card? Who hurt you?”
3. “She can’t go 10 minutes without her boyfriend’s tongue in her mouth. It’s like he’s feeding a baby bird.”
2. “Let me know if you get low on supplies. I’ll make a quick run back to the 1950s for you.”
1. “I am brave. Roller coasters? I love ‘em. Scary movies? I’ve seen Ghostbusters like seven times. I regularly drive through neighborhoods that have only recently been gentrified. So yeah, I’m pretty much not afraid of anything.”
And some review from Alan Sepinwall:
The highlight of “Fizbo” was, of course, Fizbo himself, and how seriously Cam/Eric Stonestreet threw himself into the part. Every time I think that the contrast of Cam’s gregarious nature and Mitchell’s more introverted, judgmental qualities is going to get old, we get a hysterical talking head like the one where Cameron outlined the four types of clowns, followed by Mitchell creating the marvelous assembly of words that is “weird gay clown uncle.”
Rico Rodriguez continues to be wonderful as Manny. The character doesn’t know how to tell the Interrupting Cow joke (or its funnier/more aggressive spin-off, Interrupting Starfish), but Rodriguez can even find a way to make Manny’s sad bouncing funny. (Gloria being ogled by the dads was more predictable, but when you put Sofia Vergara on a show with a bouncy castle, some things just have to happen the way they’re gonna, I suppose.)
We got a more sarcastic side of Phil than usual (I liked him offering to go on a supply run to the 1950s to get Claire some more crafts), which then nicely offset his pathological clown fear.
A very funny, very satisfying episode, and one that’ll hold me until the next new one in two weeks.
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1-on-1 with…MODERN FAMILY’s Eric Stonestreet
Jim Halterman has an interview with MODERN FAMILY’s Eric Stonestreet. Here are some of the questions he asked:
Jim Halterman: How are you getting used to all the attention that the show is getting and, more importantly, that you’re getting?
Eric Stonestreet: The one thing I was taken by surprise by was how fast it was. We were on one week and it went from people looking at me and thinking they saw me somewhere or I went to school with them to now people definitely quickly know me as Cameron from Modern Family, which is amazing and I was pretty blown away by how fast it works.
JH: Are people assuming you are Cameron?
ES: [laughs] When you meet me I think it’s pretty clear that I’m pretty different from Cameron but we’ve had conversations about that. I don’t care if people think I’m gay. People ask me all the time ‘Aren’t you worried about people thinking you’re gay?’ If I was worried about that I wouldn’t be doing the character. There are actors that may not want to do this character for that reason but I don’t happen to be one of them. I joke around and say that I was more worried that people would think I was a killer because I killed three people on TV last year. [laughs]
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Does Modern Family stereotypes a gay couple?
Marconi Calindas from The Examiner asked today whether Modern Family stereotypes a gay couple:
Yet the question is about the inclusion of a gay couple, which one of them is part of the “modern” family, whether the new show is stereotyping gay men in our society. The gay couple played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet actually are not the physically typical gay men portrayed in most TV shows that are drop dead gorgeous, coming out of a perfume or denim jeans print ads. This couple is one of the “common” gay couples in the world: one being overly healthy and one with facial hair. The gay couple adopted an Asian baby and now is struggling to pass parenthood.
One blogger calls the series stereotyping the gay couples with baby adoption, neatness, argyle cashmere shirts, flamboyant dance moves, snootiness, Meryl Streep and Costco virginity among many others. Getback.Com says “Although on the surface Mitchell and Cameron seem like cliches, they also have an understated, genuine quality in their relationship that keeps them from being gay caricatures.”
Is that stereotyping?
Perhaps it’s the creators Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd’s (“Frasier,” “Just Shoot Me,” and “Back to You”) objective in the first place as they can’t put all the different gay stereotyped characters in the show.
The best thing here is that the show finally has brought back gay characters on mainstream TV after the demise of Will and Grace and Queer As Folk.
What do you think?
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Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson on “The View”
“Modern Family” stars Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson were on “The View” today. They play a gay couple who recently adopted an infant from Vietnam. The story hits home with Jesse; he’s a professional and active gay man . Eric is “openly straight” and had hoped doing the show would get him a lot of girls. He said he gets calls, but mostly from “burly men”.
Jesse uses three names “so the bastards who made fun of me in high school know who I am”. Jesse wants to dress as Lady Gaga for Halloween.
Source: The View Watch.
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Going to a wedding?
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