My Wife and Kids

Sitcom that aired on ABC, starring Damon Wayans. The show is about Michael Kyle and, well...his wife and kids.

Featured some clever comedy writing, but all in all was a very standard Dom Com.

"Michael: So your name is "Floyd Floyd"? Tillman: Yup yup."
 * Achievements in Ignorance: When Junior's test papers come back with a perfect score he starts acting genuinely smarter. Later in the episode it's cleared up he didn't even get his own name correct on the paper, but the paper he helped Claire with was still an A+ and the climbing frame he put together himself was still built perfectly.
 * When Micheal tells Junior that his infant son makes him smarter it actually seems to work, to the degree that Micheal can turn his sons intelligence on and off mid sentence by taking his hand off the baby's head.
 * Absurdly Youthful Mother: Jay,
 * Tisha Campbell-Martin is about 13 years older than the actor who played her eldest child, but then it was a Teen Pregnancy, even if the age gap was larger by about 5 years.
 * The Ace: Tony. He saved children from a burning orphanage after his first date with Claire.
 * Aloha Hawaii / Vacation Episode
 * An Aesop: One episode introduces a friend of Michael's (played by Mos Def) who has become paraplegic since the last time they saw each other. Michael acts like he's not capable of taking care of himself, and eventually his friend calls him on his behavior and says that he wants to be treated the same as everyone else and not like he's half a man.
 * At the Opera Tonight
 * Benevolent Boss: Michael is friends with the workers at his shipping company at treats them kindly, but still reminds them that he's the boss.
 * Big Brother Instinct: One episode featured Junior befriending a group of jerkasses who take advantage of him and pick on him. Because they're cool, Junior refuses to stand up to them...until they started hitting on his younger sister.
 * Black and Nerdy: Franklin.
 * Bratty Half-Pint: Kady, especially in the final seasons.
 * Bratty Teenage Daughter: Claire.
 * But Not Too Black: Averted by Claire's original actress.
 * Catch Phrase: Averted in Season 1. After that, it was open season...
 * Michael had "Ehhhh... No." whenever someone made an idiotic suggestion and he felt like giving them false hope, and a Running Gag was Michael dragging out the "Ehhhh..." part or coming with increasingly creative ways to drop the phrase. Eventually adopted by the rest of the cast.
 * In later seasons, Claire had a a ditzy giggle and Jay had a high-pitched cackle.
 * Franklin (and later, Michael) had the habit of making a particularly bad joke and then following it up with "Any-who...", with a slight elongating of the "any" much in the way of "ehhh.....no".
 * Child Prodigy: Franklin
 * Cool and Unusual Punishment: In order to stop Jay and his sister from fighting, Michael starts singing "Oh Canada" badly and with the wrong lyrics: "Oh Canada, I love you Canada!/You gave us bacon! You gave us hockey!"
 * When Jay and Kady fall ill, Jay asks Michael to take Kady to see a physician. Faced with Michael's unwillingness to do so, Jay threatens to kiss Michael (and infect him along the way). That gets Michael on the move quickly.
 * Cut Short: The series ended in a cliff hanger, due to cancellation. Word of God says that had the series continued, would come back . Considering that, it's probably for the best that it was canned.
 * Cute but Cacophonic: Jay has an... interesting laugh.
 * Dead Pet Sketch: An episode has Michael accidentally kill Kady's pet hamster. She stays completely oblivious until told about it.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: In one episode Michael meets Jay's psychology professor, Floyd F. Tillman (played by James Avery). Turns out the F stands for "Floyd".

"Michael: It's even better live!"
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Michael tries to get Junior thrown out of the house for drinking all the milk. Subverted though, in that he needed an excuse to throw him out because Junior got a tattoo and wasn't able to punish him for it.
 * The Ditz: Claire in later seasons. Claire's boyfriend Tony as well.
 * Dojikko: Claire. Really emphasized in the home movie episode where she destroys the tape of her getting hurt, declares it's the last time they'll ever see it... and then trips as she storms upstairs.

"Vanessa: I got you something to play with while I'm gone. Junior: Vanessa, I already have that. (grabs fooseball handle) See, I told you I already have this."
 * Duck Season! Rabbit Season!: The scheme Jay used to trick Michael into letting Claire (as a sophomore) going to the senior prom. Michael even says, upon realization, "Wait a minute, you Bugs Bunny'd me!"
 * The Fundamentalist: Tony.
 * Gag Penis/Bigger Is Better in Bed: Implied with Michael. In one episode Jay paints a picture of him in the style of Michelangelo's David, and a friend puts it in her art gallery. When it's unveiled, a woman standing next to Jay says "Holy moley, how do you find time to paint?!"
 * Genius Ditz: Junior has shown himself to be quite bright when the chips call for it, and he's a very talented cartoonist.
 * In later seasons, he's more or less at extreme levels of stupidity, although an episode focuses on the idea that is a trigger for otherwise unseen levels of intelligence. Also, it's hinted that his flash cartoon parodying his own family might become a hit.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: In "They Call Me El Foosay", Vanessa blindfolds Junior to surprise him with a fooseball table. This dialogue occurs.

""My ding-ding!""
 * Groin Attack: One of Michael's favorite home movies is Junior catching himself in his fly.

"Junior: Okay, I admit it. I accidentally ordered Star Whores on Pay-Per-View last night.
 * Hot Mom: Jay after her Season 2 makeover, and.
 * Hypocrite: Several examples.
 * Jay taking offense to Michael calling their therapist, openly stating they only call him when she has a problem with Michael. When Michael decides that since pays for the therapist, they're seeing a different one; Jay gets upset & immediately starts complaining when the new therapist takes Michael's side instead of hers, Eventually, they find an impartial therapist.
 * Michael saying he won't punish Junior for getting a tattoo, then kicking him out of the house when he finds out Junior drank all the milk, and again when Jay points out that her husband has an earring that his own father didn't exactly approve of.
 * In a later season, Jay decides that all the couples should play a game where they have to answer personal questions about their partner to see how well they know one another. All the men get their questions wrong, and after the women storm off the men realize that the women had yet to answer any questions, so they convince them to return so they can answer the men's questions. When they do, all the women get their answers wrong and forgive their partners for getting their questions wrong... except Jay, who refuses to forgive Michael for getting his question wrong even when she got hers wrong.
 * Improbable Parking Skills: Junior, trying to show his dad how he can drive responsibly and that he's maturing, parallel parks his car perfectly in less than a second.
 * Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Tony. Or at least he tries to be. Way too hard.
 * Jerkass: Michael throughout (and how), plus Jay in later seasons.
 * Lethal Chef: Claire. One episode has Franklin trying to help improve her cooking... and it doesn't quite pan out.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Michael.
 * Michael forced Junior to live in the garage for around about two seasons, as he had kicked Junior out of the house. By the time he was allowed to move back in, Michael had converted his son's room into his own play area and didn't want to give it up.
 * Eventually, Junior was joined by in "The Remodel", which led to him asking Michael if they could convert the garage into an apartment. An entire episode was spent doing that, after which Michael tells Junior he can move back into the house purely so he can take the remodeled garage for himself. And everyone else just went along with this.
 * Magic Feather: In one episode, Michael convinces Junior that as long as he's holding, he's a genius. When Junior starts being an Insufferable Genius, Michael reveals that it's a Magic Feather, explaining that his own father did the exact same with him in the past.
 * Nepotism: Averted in one episode. Junior comes to help Michael at work and starts bossing around his employees on the grounds that being the boss's son means he's the second-in-command. Michael ends up putting Junior through some demeaning jobs like scrubbing the toilet to teach him that he isn't the boss, and that you should treat you employees with respect.
 * The Other Darrin: Claire after Season 1 (by Jennifer Freeman, who looks nothing like Jazz Raycole) because of a plotline dealing with teen pregnancy. Her friend's teenage pregnancy. Lampshaded in the Season 2 premiere. Also, Junior's girlfriend was played by Meagan Good in Season 3 and Brooklyn Sudano from Season 4.
 * Pac-Man Fever: In the episode "Quality Time", Michael gets hooked on a video game. We never see the game in question (and judging by the few lines of dialogue referring to it, it's not a real game) and whenever Michael plays it, he mashes the buttons on the controller and wiggles the joystick around wildly non-stop.
 * Parallel Porn Titles:

Michael: Accidentally?

Junior: I meant to order I Know Who You Did Last Summer!"

"Michael: "Spank that donkey"? Why would I want to spank that a- (Eureka Moment, runs off after her)"
 * Parental Favoritism: Michael with Kady. Lampshaded in a number of Season Two episodes.
 * Parody Sue: Betty White played a one-shot character that was an obvious parody of Mary Poppins.
 * Pet the Dog: It's clear that Michael truly does care for his family, despite his Jerkass behavior.
 * Poor Man's Porn: Junior escaping to the bathroom with increasingly supposedly non-sexual magazines, the height of which was an issue of a monthly cooking magazine.
 * Prom Baby: Junior. According to Michael, this is why Jay missed her high school prom.
 * Pungeon Master: Michael.
 * Real Life Relative: Michael's brother & sister were played with Keenan & Kin Wayans, Damon Wayans's older brother & younger sister. Two of his sons also played Junior's friends.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: An interesting version — Damon Wayans' kids were on the writing staff in later seasons, so various plot points (such as ) occurred because it had just happened to the writers.
 * Played straight when Jay was missing for the first part of Season 2, due to the actress taking maternity leave. Handwaved as Jay's mother having had an accident, so Jay had left to take care of her.
 * Rebus Bubble: In one episode, Michael attempts to help Jay study for a psychology test using what he calls "Psy-Kyle-ogy" (for example, Lion + Shaquille O'Neil = Rorschach). Unfortunately this causes her to fail the test, so she hands him one that says "Booty on lockdown". Later, when he convinces the teacher to give her a re-test and she passes, she hands him another and walks off.

"Junior: What are you doing? Michael: I ain't erasing anything!."
 * Screaming Birth: Vanessa giving birth to her baby (with some help).
 * Screams Like a Little Girl: Michael. Want proof? Watch him meet LeBron James.
 * Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Wanda to Michael.
 * Small Name, Big Ego: Jay is convinced that she's a lot smarter and more attractive than she really is.
 * Standardized Sitcom Housing
 * Strictly Formula
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: After Michael discovers he taped over the video of Kady's first steps by accident and Junior walks into the room.


 * Take a Third Option: One episode has Jay feuding with Michael's sister (played by Vivica A. Fox). When they demand to know who he'd save first if they were drowning, his response ("I'd probably kill myself trying to save both of you") is what makes them calm down and start listening to him.
 * Teen Pregnancy: Jay was pregnant with Junior during her senior year of High School. Claire's friend in Season 2, and later on Junior's girlfriend.
 * Took a Level In Jerkass: Michael.
 * Tsundere: Jay, a rare case considering she's, well, married.
 * Volleying Insults: Michael and Wanda communicate with each other this way.
 * Who's on First?
 * Who Would Want to Watch Us?: In the final season, Junior comes up with an idea for a TV show called . The premise is essentially his life, albeit flip flopped with him being promoted to the breadwinner whilst his parents are instead mooching off him. Cartoon Michael has a giant head and is obsessed with get-rich-quick schemes, while Cartoon Jay's ass is its own separate character. Named Rufus.
 * Your Head Asplode: In Season 5, Tony's stern religious beliefs begin conflicting with his sexual desires for his girlfriend Claire to the point that he couldn't be around her and do even the most mundane things. To deal with this, Claire decides to stand in front of him completely naked until he's so desensitized to her that they can go back to how they were before. Tony promptly freaks out and his head explodes, and then it turns out that it was just his imagination, since Claire comes down stairs fully clothed, leading to Tony running away screaming.