All in the Modern Family
The WSJ has a great article about Modern Family; here are some of the highlights:
What do you call a mother of three, naked under her trench coat that gets caught in a hotel escalator just as she randomly bumps into her father and his much-younger Colombian wife whose 11-year-old son is trying to woo a girl with the help of his uncle, his uncle’s partner and their adopted Vietnamese baby daughter, who was dressed by one of her fathers in one of his feather boas for Valentine’s Day?
The new face of network-television family comedy.
…
The strong appeal stems, in part, from the many different types of characters for many different types of Americans to identify with. “The whole show is a send-up of contemporary culture, a mirror of the contemporary American family and something of an amalgam of many different sitcoms that came before it,” says Richard Dubin, a former TV writer who is now a professor at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
…
The writers dig into some of the tensions between straight parents and gay children that emerge even within the realm of relatives that love and mostly accept each other’s lifestyles. Jay cares about spending time with his son’s partner, but when the chosen activity is racquetball, he worries about being in a locker room with a gay man, telling the camera documentary-style, “I mean, for me it’s a locker room. For him, it’s a showroom.” When Cameron runs into Jay and his friends outside a restaurant, Jay introduces Cameron as a “friend of my son’s.”
“They have been so smart in the portrayal of what it means to be gay in a family that tries but sometimes fails to be totally welcoming,” says Jeffrey Richman, a writer who has worked with Messrs. Lloyd and Levitan on sitcoms like “Frasier,” and is gay.
…
In 2008, Messrs. Levitan and Lloyd were coming off a high-profile failure in “Back to You,” a workplace sitcom with big stars: Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. Friends since they worked together on the staff of “Wings,” the writing partners would meet at their office and casually bat around ideas, telling tales about their wives and kids. “We were licking our wounds and we would just end up telling funny stories about what happened that weekend at home,” Mr. Levitan says.
Late that summer, they pitched the idea to Twentieth Century Fox Television, which wound up producing the show (and, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.). Mr. Levitan described a (slightly embroidered) incident when he went into his eldest daughter’s room to tell her to shut off the computer and go to bed, then heard a voice from the computer say, “Nice boxers, Mr. Levitan.” (She was Skyping with a friend.) This resurfaced in an episode of “Modern Family” when Claire, played by Julie Bowen, finds herself, in undergarments, getting ogled by her teenage daughter’s boyfriend who is hanging out in the daughter’s bedroom, via video chat.
Read the rest of the story on The WSJ.
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MODERN FAMILY vs. PARENTHOOD
Will Parenthood become the family of choice for the TV audience? Will you stick to Modern Family or finally discover “The Middle” ? With the end of the Olympics in sight, which family will win your heart?
Here is some info about the new family “Parenthood”:
It was once a feature film and then a television series that was quickly canceled but a decade and a half later inducted into the “Brilliant but Canceled” series. Now NBC is giving it a go once again. Brought to millions of televisions across the country (or so the network hopes), Parenthood features an all-star cast of television veterans who are playing one big, happy, colorful and somewhat dysfunctional family.
More info about Parenthood at Star Pulse.
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Modern Family Ratings
A hard night for Modern Family with two reruns; Modern Family should do better with a new episode next week.
On a night with no firstrun scripted programming, CBS did the best at 9 p.m. with “Criminal Minds” (1.8/4, 7.3 million). That bested ABC’s “Modern Family” (1.7/4, 4.5 million) and “The Middle” (1.4/3, 3.5 million), along with an anemic “Gossip Girl” (0.2/1, 0.6 million) on the CW.
At 8 p.m., earlier airings of “Modern Family” (1.2/3, 3.9 million) and “The Middle” (1.4/4, 4.0 million) topped CBS’ “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (1.1/3, 4.4 million) and “Gary Unmarried” (0.9/2, 3.4 million). The CW’s “Life Unexpected” (0.4/1, 1.0 million) also struggled.
Source: Variety
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Dunphy-pedia – Keeping It Real
To keep you busy until the new Modern Family episode on March 3rd, here is a new Dunphy-pedia:
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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’ in Australia
Modern Family was just included in the “Top TV to watch in 2010″ list of the Australian magazine Brisbane Times. Here’s what they say about Modern Family down-under:
Modern Family (Ten)
Concept: The foibles of an extended American family, including neurotic siblings (she has an excruciating husband and wild kids, he has a gay partner and adopted baby daughter), their dad, his new Colombian wife and stepson, are captured in a documentary.
Star factor: Married With Children’s Ed O’Neill is the name you’ll recognise but the show’s breakout stars are Jesse Tyler Ferguson (gay son Mitchell), Ty Burrell (“I’m the cool dad” brother-in-law Phil) and Rico Rodriguez (dad’s new stepson, Manny).
Verdict: A gentler twist on the discomfort of The Office and Arrested Development, dark enough to entice, not so dark it intimidates and gentle enough to hit its mark as a commercial comedy. An absolute winner.
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Modern Family March 10th – 1.17 “Truth Be Told”
We know that you can’t wait for March 3rd for a new episode of Modern Family, but in the meantime here is ABC’s promo photos and synopsis for the March 10th episode, coming to us from TV over Mind:
THE TRUTH COMES OUT, ON ABC’S “MODERN FAMILY”
Guest Starring Judy Greer (“27 Dresses,” “13 Going on 30“) as Phil’s Ex-girlfriend, Denise.
“Truth Be Told” – After reconnecting on Facebook, Phil invites his old high school girlfriend (guest star Judy Greer) to drop by the house, but this friendly visit quickly turns into trouble. Meanwhile Jay accidentally kills Manny’s beloved pet turtle, then goes to extremes to cover his tracks, and an overworked Mitchell finally stands up to his boss, on “Modern Family,” WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 (9:00-9:30 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network.
“Modern Family” stars Ed O’Neill as Jay Pritchett, Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy, Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy, Sof’a Vergara as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell Pritchett, Eric Stonestreet as Cameron, Sarah Hyland as Haley Dunphy, Nolan Gould as Luke Dunphy, Ariel Winter as Alex Dunphy and Rico Rodriguez as Manny Delgado.
Guest cast include Judy Greer as Denise and Bruce Altman as Mr. Jennings.
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WGA Awards Backstage Report – Modern Family
The team from ‘Modern Family,’ led by Steve Levitan, revealed that his characters are Hawaii-bound for the show’s freshman finale. “It won’t be about Hawaii,” Levitan explained. “It’ll be about a family on vacation.”
Levitan says that ‘Modern Family’ won’t be seeing a lot of celebrity cameos. “We like our cast,” he said. “We get approached more and more every week by people who want to do the show. We’re so flattered, but we want to keep it on check and not do too many guest stars. Our cast can do no wrong in my eyes. Only when it’s exactly right do we want to bring someone in.”
Levitan made two trips to the press room during the evening. His team won for New Series and Levitan picked up a solo statue for Episodic Comedy for writing the show’s pilot. (The latter award tied with an episode ’30 Rock,’ titled ‘Apollo, Apollo.’)
Source: AOL Television
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Why Modern Family Is So Great?
Some of the actors of Modern Family tried to answer this question on Fresno Bee:
Sarah Hyland, suggests that the show has attracted such a large following because viewers see similarities between characters on the show with their own relatives. “There’s either that flamboyant uncle or that weird dad or the hot family member who everyone wants to be with but no one can. It’s just a somewhat exaggerated version of everyone’s lives,” Hyland says.
Bowen says it’s less complicated. “We are not curing cancer here,” she says. “We’re just talking about ordinary things in a funny way.”
A lot of the ordinary things in the scripts come directly from the cast. That happened when Bowen talked about how her husband once wired their entire house for cameras and ended up leaving holes in the walls. She got to watch her TV husband make the same mess.
Vergara offers the her explanation for why “Modern Family” has succeeded where so many other new comedies have failed.
“It’s a perfect storm. It’s a combination of things like the writers, the actors and the characters,” she says. “And, we are having so much fun on the set that I think you can see that.”
Why do you think Modern Family is so great?
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Young Artist Awards Nominations – Modern Family
The kids of Modern Family, Rico Rodriguez, Nolan Gould and Ariel Winter were nominated for OUTSTANDING YOUNG PERFORMERS IN A TV SERIES in the Young Artist Awards.
Will need to wait till April 11th for the results.
BTW: didn’t they forget baby Lily?
Here is the full nominees list in this category:
OUTSTANDING YOUNG PERFORMERS IN A TV SERIES
“iCarly” – Nickelodeon
Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress, Jeanette McCurdy, Noah Munck
“Stormworld” – SPACE
Calum Worthy, Andrew Jenkins, Valentina Barron
“Modern Family” – ABC
Rico Rodriguez, Nolan Gould, Ariel Winter
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Going to a wedding?
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