I really, really loathe most family sitcoms. I’m on board with the According to Jim haters’ club we’ve got going on CliqueClack (although now that it’s canceled, there goes the fun), and let’s just say that I’ve never even watched an episode of … wait — are there even any family sitcoms on anymore? Regardless….
I completely adore the pilot of Modern Family. I even watched it twice and would gladly go again, and I almost never do that. I’d actually hesitate to even call Modern Family a sitcom. In fact, I think there’s a whole lot of spoofing going on, which makes me adore it even more.
Wikipedia refers to it as a mockumentary, and I’d agree with that. It’s so tongue-in-cheek, and you really have to listen to everything. I picked up so many things the second time around that were priceless, so you really don’t want to miss any of the irreverent fun. And yes, it got even funnier. Give it far, far more attention than you would while watching According to Jim.
Let’s start with the dad of the three kids, Phil (Ty Burrell), married to Julie Bowen‘s Claire. I love this guy. He’s every ’80s and ’90s sitcom dad rolled into one, from Bob Saget’s Full House geek dad to Alan Thicke’s Growing Pains super dad. Heck, I even got a bit of Paul Rudd’s character from Knocked Up in there, but I really, really got Eugene Levy’s American Pie dad. He’s hilarious.
There’s actually not a weak character in the bunch, although Claire is no Carol Brady and Ed O’Neill’s Jay is definitely not the classic patriarch.
I don’t want to give any of the funny stuff away, but let’s just say you’ll never look at some things in quite the same way again. Examples:
Finally, there is such a great twist at the end (or maybe I just haven’t read enough about this show and you all know it already) that makes me look forward to future episodes. I have not anticipated a half-hour show like this for some time, like maybe decades. Although Community is right up there….
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Aug 05, 2009 @ 16:00 EST5EDT
