Modern Family: The Untold Oral History of One of Television's Groundbreaking Sitcoms by Marc Freeman

4.35 AVERAGE

lakecake's profile picture

lakecake's review against another edition

4.0
I won a copy of this book through Goodreads Giveaways.

I’m not the world’s biggest Modern Family fan, though I watched the first couple of seasons in syndication when I was on maternity leave and there are jokes from those seasons that I still tell 7 years later. However, this book really makes me want to joe watch the whole show in whatever magical streaming world that it exists in and become the world’s biggest Modern Family fan. Every person here comes through as so genuine and talented and devoted and thoughtful, though certainly not perfect, that I want to feel like I was a part of it, even as a late-arriving audience member. I flew through this book’s 400+ pages because it was so entertaining and easy to read. I highly recommend this to Modern Family fans, old and new.
biiaanccca's profile picture

biiaanccca's review against another edition

5.0
emotional funny informative fast-paced
I loved this book. It was jammed packed with information and fun tidbits.

Parts I Liked: 

I laughed at the dig towards Full House. Jeff Morton had said kids were a big part of Modern Family, and then after there was a little blurb that said “Not sitcom children, though, as in strikingly articulate, precocious stereotypes defined by brainless, repetitive catchphrases like "You got it, dude." I never realized some people did not find enjoyment in little Michelle’s catch phrase!

I liked the background on where the characters names came from. For example, the daughters of the Dumphy family came from Steven Levitan’s daughters Hannah and Alexa. In fact, a lot of the characters names came from the crew of Modern Family’s personal lives.

I will say I do agree with Christopher Lloyd’s opinion on the naming of the female Dumphy children. It would have annoyed me too that the co-creator of the show I am working on named two of the characters after his children without running it by the other co-creator. As well as the fact that he did not acknowledge it for many, many years.

During the section where they were discussing how they wanted the intro to be, there came a point where there was one possibility that the Dumphy family would be the focal point. This ended up getting scrapped because all three families are supposed to be equal. I find it ironic that the cover of this book gives more picture space to the Dumphy family than the other two families. Another thing I am happy that never got past the initial suggestion was Sarah Hyland wanting her character to be pregnant and get her own picture frame in the intro. I think three families was perfect for the show, although at times there would be multiple episodes in a row without having a story based on a certain character. Trying to fit storylines for four families consistently would make the show less interesting to me.

I liked the interesting tidbit that originally the man behind the camera was suppose to be a Dutch filmmaker. “When he was a kid, Geert Floortje had been a foreign exchange student from Holland who came to America and lived with the Pritchett family for a semester. After a year, he moved back to Holland and became a filmmaker. But he always stayed in touch with what he referred to as "my American family." That family eventually branched out to form new families. He thought that would make a cool documentary.”

Another intriguing fact I found out was that Sofia Vegara had a part to play on this show from the very beginning, although she had to wait three years before finally getting paid for it!
 

I thought it showed Ed O’Neill’s true character that he was willing to take less than what he normally receives for a salary because he believed this was going to be a hit show.
 

When I read that Julie Bowen’s had actually put Modern Family as #2 on her list, beneath another show she was hoping to be in, I felt her devastation. After all, if the show she put as #1 wanted her, she would be legally obligated to do that show. Luckily it worked out in her favor because she had the right person on her side who was able to get her out of the contract.

I felt sad for young Ty Burrell reading how strapped for cash he was, knowing how scary it is to be low on money. He had hired a taxi, not knowing he was going to pass the studio test. However, from that point going forward it was going to be two hours until they got to CBS for his reading. He asked the taxi driver to wait, potentially requiring his help to drive him there. I mean, can you imagine asking a taxi driver to wait 2 hours for you? 2 hours of a taxi driver not working, sitting around for one fare is a big loss.

I would never have believed that Ty Burrell ever could have blown his auditions, and that he almost did not get cast because of it. 232 other actors were brought in because  ABC absolutely did not want him. Burrell had to wait twelve weeks to hear he secured the part! Twelve weeks of not auditioning for other roles because he so desperately wanted this part. Burrell effortlessly acts, so to believe that he was not always at his best is shocking.

I love the actors that played Mitch and Cam. Jesse Furgeson and Eric Stonestreet look like everyday people, not models out of a magazine. In fact, Jeff Greenberg and his husband Lars were one of the prototypes for Mitchell and Cam.

I laughed out loud reading one blunder Ty Burrell made. At the time, the Modern Family crew was airing on ABC, so Burrell made the assumption they were filming at ABC too. (Well, he was wrong.) He ended up renting an apartment within walking distance. Burrell came into work bragging he could walk to work, but was later informed he had an hour-plus commute for filming at Fox, leading to the early end of his lease.

Another interesting fact I learned was about Julie Bowen. She was very very pregnant when they shot the pilot. 7 months in fact. Bowen told how her face looked pregnant. She said it looked like she got lip injections because they were so puffy, and that her boobs were ginormous, and that caused the internet sharks to start writing she got plastic surgery. Well, I learned they had a simple fix for hiding Bowen’s pregnant belly. “The Baby Blocker”, aka Nolan Gould! His head and shoulders was at the perfect height to stand in front of Bowen’s belly, thus hiding it. He would have this added responsibility for the entire pilot and and all the photo shoots. When not using Gould, the camera operators would use different angles to hide her belly, while they would also give Bowen props to hold in front of her like laundry, pillows, etc.

Something that I really appreciated about the show was that they kept it hidden that these three families were intermingled. I remember watching the first episode, and was confused on what these families had to do with each other. I just thought that each family was independent and not related to the others. So you can imagine my shock when I got to the end of the pilot episode. On that note, I cannot believe that ABC wanted to take that surprise from the watchers and instead promote it before the show aired. Like what? What could they positively have gained from that??

I liked that this book had pictures. They were informative and also entertaining, showing behind the scenes moments. I appreciated that there was a chart breaking down each family— a picture giving a general idea of what they wanted everyone to look like, and a written description. (Thankfully they changed the idea for Mitchell’s character!)

Christopher Lloyd does not sound like a great person to work with. He was quoted as saying “I’m too old and rich for this shit”, and “I don’t know what else to do, I don’t have hobbies”. He sounds like an extremely cynical and uninteresting man to me. You are probably a millionaire, yet you cannot think of a single hobby to pick up? How does a person have no interests?

It is also shocking how shocking how badly Lloyd and Levitan did not get along. Like it came to the point that they had to split the work to keep the disagreements under control. One week one co-creator would have the writers room, while the other supervised the onstage episode, and then they would swap every week. The next year, they exchange odd episodes for even and even for odd. That way, each got the opportunity to do season premieres and season finales every other year.

I found it unsettling to read how much the Hiller twins hated being on the Modern Family set. I feel like their mother should have pulled them off the set if they were truley so miserable. It is one thing to put a child who can speak for themselves into acting, but to put infants? Infants who do not understand why they do not know any of the people around them, infants who do not understand why there are bright lights on them, and big scary cameras in their faces. I was glad to read Modern Family did not ask back the twins for a third season.

I enjoyed the chapter on how schooling worked for the minors. For instance I learned that Nolan graduated high school at 13(!!!) and is a MENSA member. It was sad to read all the milestones the kids learned later in life than they should have. Like how Ariel only learned how to ride a bike and swim because she needed to do that for a scene. It also was sad to me the teenagers on the show would learn certain things because they needed to do it for a scene, rather than doing it at their own pace. Ariel and Rico got their permit because they needed to drive in a scene. Rico rode a roller coaster because he needed to do it for a scene. I love that Ariel decided she wanted to try a real high school, thus getting all the experiences that come with that. Also, that Aubrey was thinking she wanted to try a real high school too.

I found it interesting that Sarah Hyland was rooting for the Haley-Andy storyline too. Adam (Andy) ended up going to work on a different show so that storyline could not work out.

My favorite part of the book? Reading Ty Burrell was moving to Utah with his family. He no longer needs to hustle to survive, and can choose when he wants to work. I love that for Ty because he worked so hard for this show.

More Sections I Liked  

I reading enjoyed on Aubrey Anderson-Emmons. 

Things I learned
  1. There were two set of twins that played baby Lilly. The first set had a growth spurt and were recast, and the second set had regular tempur tantrums and a disdain for the Modern Family set 
  2. The rules on how long minors can work on a production set 
  3. Baby Aubrey constantly played with Sofías breasts 

I really enjoyed learning about Ed O’Neills Book of Acting 
(some tidbits)

  1. Rule 1: Is There Any Reason This Scene Can’t Be In A Car?
Sitting scenes are a major excitement for actors, plus in Ed’s case, he would be in shorts and flip flops with his coffee below the frame

   2. 
Rule 8: When You’ve Shot A Scene For A While And The Director Says’ “Let’s Go Again,” Always Ask, “Where From?”
When there would be a reset, if Ed had done the same scene over and over he would go too low in volume or too big on the take, indirectly telling video village they have enough takes
(Side note: what is it with the producers wanting to do more takes then what they need? Like wanting Sara Hyland to do another take of the same scene which meant walking back up a hill, on a very bad day when she was in pain     
    3.  
Rule 9: If There’s Food In The Scene, Always Be Finishing Your Last Bite
Ed would just be pretending putting food in his mouth

Behind the scenes info that in the scene where:

  1. Claire and Ed are on the roller rink, only Julie had skates on because Ed did not want to wear them. Ed would be noticeably taller if he had them on
  2. In season 3’s “Egg Drop,” Claire slipping on the eggs Luke was dropping was not scripted
  3. In season 2’s “Earthquake” Nolan actually ran into the wall. There was a tiny foam pad on the wall to lessen the blow
  4. In season 1’s “Travels with Scout” Nolan actually ran through twenty screen doors

One thing I really enjoy is that in this series a lot of the plot lines came from the cast and crew pitching the ideas, it was not all made up. To me it makes the scenes even funnier.

Pitches from real life moments:
  1. Lloyd getting rid of their families old Land Cruiser filled with memories
  2. Lloyd coming home sometimes and finding some random person waiting in their kitchen that his wife had brought home to talk about some idea
  3. Leviton’s son going through an awakward phase with taking pictures with weird smiles
  4. Zuker’s wife dressing up for the EMT’s
  5. Richman accruing tickets on his dads car causing his dad to be arrested
  6. Plonsker’s girlfriend selling her worn shoes
  7. Richmond spilling wine on the rug at his friends place and then covering it, and then later winning an Emmy for that episode and his friend finding out fifteen years later

I learned sooo much about Sarah Hyland which I loved because she was my favorite actress on the show! 

  1. Hyland has been acting since she was four
  2. When Hyland was a teen going through puberty, she actually had to go to theatre because when your face is breaking out they do not want your face super close up in a film or on TV
  3. Hyland had also graduated high school in New York, carrying a nearly 4.0 GPA
  4. When Hyland started the show she was actually eighteen, but since she looked so young she got to play the part of a sixteen year old
  5. The reason the character of Haley was always leaning on something (was because it was painful to stand up on her own)
  6. Hyland’s battle with fighting her failing kidneys: (a 20 on a pain scale of 1-10, shaking, running very cold)
  7. How getting a kidney transplant affected Hyland’s body, giving her a KUPA, thus making her insecure people were going to body shame her
     
  8. How Hyland had to juggle dialysis and filming
  9. The reason Hyland was in some episodes less was to give her time to heal
  10. Finding out Hyland had to push a car in neutral while in heels, while when she was off scene she would use crutches, later finding herself crying in the bathroom
     
  11. Hyland had a chest port she could not get wet
     
  12. After Hyland’s second kidney surgery, she went back to work after about a month of recovery, instead of the recommended recovery of three months
  13. How Hyland wore a waist trainer everyday the rest of the season until she could get surgery to fix her protruding stomach

General Things I Learned:

  1. Sofia struggled with English jargon and would often just throw random words in her lines
  2. Rico Rodriguez had to go to diction lessons because he was actually very hard to understand
  3. Modern Family won the Emmy Best Tv Comedy five times in a row!
  4. Modern Family was the most successful sitcom coming out of the gate
  5. Ed O’Neill was not as cuddly with Stella off screen as on screen. She was a working dog, she was not the cuddly type
     
  6. How to spot a fake car driving scene: flat looking cars, poorly lit backgrounds, and cars disappearing and reappearing
  7. The Modern Family crew only agreed to do the episode in Disneyland if they would not be censored
  8. It was originally pitched Mitch and Cam would adopt an African American child
  9. Shelley (Dede) was suppose to be in Mitch and Cam’s wedding episode, but she said she was not available for some mysterious reason
  10. The Modern Family crew had a bad reputation with keeping women writers
  11. The cast and crew did not like working with Shelley, she struggled to get her lines down
  12. How the different families shot on different days so everyone did not have to work five days a week
  13. Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen performed most of their own stunts
  14. The behind the scenes info on how the cameraman performed the “Texas Switch” when Haley had to hit Phil with her car

My Cons:

At times I struggled to understand what was being said by whichever person was speaking. It was spoken in a way that was hard to comprehend so sometimes I did not know what was being said.

I do at times think the people speaking in the book were weirdly sexualizing certain people.. like when they posted the picture of Sarah Hyland dressed as a tooth fairy from season 4’s “Career Day” with the caption “Sarah Hyland as the tooth fairy we all wish we had as kids”. What? What does that even mean? Another instance was Eric Stonestreet saying he related and understood with baby Aubrey playing with Sofías breasts.. again very weird to me.
ankies's profile picture

ankies's review against another edition

5.0
Wow wow wow.

I'm going to start off by saying if you are a huge and I do mean a huge Modern Family fan then you must, please do yourself a favor, and read this book. I listen to the Audiobook but wow.

The book is told out of everyone's perspectives with writers, creators, and crew having a say somewhere.
I found it really fascinating how they struggled to cast certain characters and how fizbo was really Eric Stonestreet aka Cam creation when he was a child and teenager. How Ty Burrel was the master at physical comedy, that Nolan actually graduated high school at 13, and that Sophia's accent actually got more defined as when she started,

Look I am really happy I gave this a shot and learned so much.

I give this 5 out of 5 stars.

rrabas's review against another edition

5.0
Love this show, loved this book.

megs_s's review against another edition

4.0
funny informative lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

aedgeworth27's review against another edition

4.0
Basic take away from this: fantastic show, super toxic work environment.

hoss53's review against another edition

5.0
funny medium-paced
sarahsbookstack's profile picture

sarahsbookstack's review against another edition

5.0
What can I say about this? It's hard to do a review....I loved seeing behimd the scenes. I love the formatting that was used. You get a lot of input from certain aspects of the show from the cast and crew. It's a huge book but I found myself really huge chunks of it with no time at all seeming to have passed.


I admit fully that I wasn't a Modern Family viewer until Season 5 I believe. I just remember my husband and I hearing them winning all these Emmys all the time and along "Can it really be that great? Maybe we should try it out cuz people rave about it" and we ended up just loving it!

I think fans of the show will appreciate this read.
read_watch_sarah's profile picture

read_watch_sarah's review against another edition

5.0
So detailed and comprehensive. A great read for TV fans!!

civreader's review against another edition

4.0
Full review here: http://civilianreader.com/2020/07/02/quick-review-modern-family-by-marc-freeman-st-martins-press/