Modern Family: Difference between revisions

[[File:modernfamily_7069.png|frame|One big (straight, gay, multi-culturalmulticultural, traditional) happy family.]]

'''''Modern Family''''' is an [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] sitcom that centers on three families:

And finally, Mitchell & Cameron (Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet<ref>who won an Emmy for this role in 2010</ref>), a gay couple who recently adopted a baby, Lily (Jayden & Ella in seasonsSeasons 1 &and 2, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons from Season 3 onwards).

When it began its first season, ''Modern Family'' quickly reached both critical acclaim and very high Nielsen numbers, becoming one of the best new comedies of 2009. Because of this success, the program has become the flagship title of [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]'s Comedy Wednesdays along with ''[[Cougar Town]]'' and ''[[The Middle]]''. ''Modern Family'' is currently running on its third season.{{outdated}}

* [[Absentee Actor]]: Ariel Winter missed several episodes in seasonSeason 2 for unknown reasons (some people think it's because she's under 14 and therefore subject to child labor laws - Nolan has been absent for quite a few episodes too for what many suspect the same reason).

* [[Agony of the Feet]]: Gloria, wearing high heels in "Disneyland", although she refuses to admit it.

** Tracy, Mitchell's girlfriend from high school. She even names this trope in S1Season Ep131 Episode 13, when Cameron asks if Mitchell had a beard in high school, and she replies, "You're looking at her."

* [[Beard of Evil]]: One gets drawn on Manny while he's asleep at a slumber party. {{spoiler|He keeps it, and [[Disproportionate Retribution|sets the drawer's bike on fire]].}}.

* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: Phil in S2Season Ep22,2 Episode 22 "Good Cop, Bad Dog", where he and Claire decide to swap on being the stricter parent and the nicer one. When Alex and Haley don't clean the bathroom as he told them to, it results in him [[Understatement|getting a little upset]].

* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]]: Claire, at the end of "Me? Jealous?". After Phil has been proved right that his new business partner, Greg Kinnear, isn't flirting with her because he kisses ''everyone'', even his own son, on the lips as a routine greeting, Claire gets Phil jealous anyway by laughing at Greg's jokes.

* [[Book Dumb]]: In contrast to her underperformanceunder-performance in school, Haley has proven to be quite the strategist.

** In "Fizbo,", Haley sets a scorpion free to stop Dylan from talking to a zoologist. At the end during her camera interview, we see the scorpion in the background on her dresser and we hear her scream over the end vanity plate.

*** They were in a montage it could have been chronologically at the same point. This Troper seems to remember him wearing the same shirt. (although this might be because it is part of a work out outfit).

*** And they appeared again in the 2ndsecond episode of seasonSeason 3 at the end of the episode where Cam and Mitchell are working out post-juice fast.

'''Cameron''': Well, apparently, some maniac went crazy at the mall and attacked him with "Oasis for Men". }}

** In the 2ndsecond season Valentine's episode, Jay does a spot-on impersonation of Gloria's exaggerated accent (which involves "Yay" and "Meeetch").

** He does it again in "Disneyland".

* [[Call Back]]: Many in the seasonSeason twoTwo finale "The One That Got Away".

** The third-season finale, "Baby on Board" reveals that Luke hid Haley's college-acceptance letter because he didn't want her to leave. [[The Stinger|Underneath the closing credits]], he shares with his parents all the other mail that he'd been hiding, most of which relates to events in other episodes that season.

* [[Call Forward]]: Played ironically during the stinger for "Lifetime Supply". It consists of the [[Game Show Appearance]] where Phil won the title amount of razor blades. During it he talks about his in-laws' marriage as something that he admires, one that will last forever. By the show's first season, they will already have been divorced for a while.

'''Phil''': I think you did. I get that I wasn’t your first choice to marry Claire, but it’s been 18 years, and there hasn't been a day when I wasn't a loyal husband to your daughter and a great dad to your grandkids. So if we still got a problem now it’s your problem. }}

** In "Good Cop Bad Dog,", Mitch tells the camera that the only gay cliche he allows himself is loving [[Lady Gaga]]. [[Hypocritical Humor|Then he immediately uncrosses his legs]].

** When introducing Lily to the family Cam holds her up alaa la ''[[The Lion King]]'' with "[[Elton John|Circle of Life]]" blasting in the background.

'''Cameron:''' Oh. }}

* [[Cannot Spit It Out]]: Phil can't bring himself to tell Mitchell he's fired as the agency lawyer in the third-season episode "Tableau Vivant'". Doubled down since Mitchell can't bring himself to say that he doesn't really like the job and would rather quit.

* [[Catch Phrase]]: Jay's "Of course you did".

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: {{spoiler|The bar of soap and the sharpie in "Unplugged."}}.

** At the beginning of "Door to Door", Mitchell reminds Cameron that the social worker is coming for their adoption homestudyhome-study later that day. After tension over Cameron's tendency to make a mess when cooking or playing with Lilly generally leads to a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] finale where Mitchell calls Cameron on his bluff to make a mess himself by spraying whipped cream faces on himself and Cameron, and otherwise messing up their apartment, the social worker shows up at the very end of the episode.

* [[Christmas Episode]]: The fall finale of Season 1, EpEpisode 10, "Undeck The Halls".

** And the fall finale of Season 3, "Express Christmas".

** Two [[ChristmasValentines Day Episode|ChristmasValentine's Day episodes]] ("UndeckMy theFunky HallsValentine" and its second-season sequel, "ExpressBixby's ChristmasBack", the highest-rated episode of the first two seasons).

* [[Cutaway Gag]]: In the Season 2 finale, "See You Next Fall", Jay is talking about his Botox. He then mentions the doctor that tried to make his balance better. Cut to the Dunphy house, where Jay is trying to show Claire his new and improved balance, that is, until Phil bursts through the door and knocks him over.

** Played straight with Claire, Phil, and Jay. The Season 3 premiere, "Dude Ranch" reveals that this is the reason Phil treats Dylan so well, because he went through the same issues with Jay.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Alex and Mitchell.

** In the first two seasons, Lily very frequently looks like she would be this if she could talk. Check out her reactions to her daddies (particularly Cam). She gets a nice glance-aside in the Mother's Day episode of seasonSeason twoTwo.

*** In an early seasonSeason 3 episode, Stella the dog gets one of these, too.

* [[Didn't Think This Through]]: In "Caught In The Act", after the Dunphy kids walk in on [[Primal Scene|Phil and Claire having sex]], they get their parents a good lock for their door. The problem? Said lock is very loud, enough to be heard throughout the house, and basically informs the kids every time their parents are about to go at it.

* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: S1In Ep17,Season 1 Episode 17 "Truth Be Told", Luke calls Alex a "dork-to-dork saleswoman," for which she actually fails to come up with a comeback to. That is, at least, until she proceeds to convince him that he's actually adopted.

** Another example is when, during a slumber party, Manny's friends doodled on his face while he was asleep. Jay suggested that Manny get even by pranking them back, and he did. How? {{spoiler|By setting his friend's bike on fire.}}.

* [[Distracted by the Sexy]]: Near the beginning of "Hit and Run", Jay has a hard time pitching his redesign for closets his company makes to his new boss. At the end of the episode, he takes the same redesign but lets Gloria pitch it. The boss changes his tune and doesn't even bat an eye to the redesign.

* [[Dragged Into Drag]]: Luke, at the end of "Me? Jealous?". Apparently, it's something Haley and Alex had both done to him more frequently when they were all younger.

* [[Ear Worm]]: In-universe, in S1Season Ep04,1 Episode 4 "The Incident". Dylan sings a [[Intercourse with You|rather explicit song]] that he wrote for Haley called "In The Moonlight" to the entire family. While they're initially horrified, the next morning, every one of them is singing the song to themselves.

* [[Emo Teen]]: Dylan.

* [[Ensemble Cast]] -: So much so that the show has had Emmy nominations for every adult actor but all in the supporting category.

* [[Forbidden Fruit]]: In S1Season Ep1 Episode 12, "Not In My House," after Claire mistakenly believes Luke has been looking at porn online, not knowing it was Phil, Phil uses that as his cover story and explains Luke's behavior to Claire using this mentality.

{{quote|'''Phil''': Breasts are like these scary, mystical things that he's drawn to like [[The Lord of the Rings|Frodo to Mordor]].}}

** S3Season Ep01,3 Episode 1 "Dude Ranch" has this overlap with [[Dating What Daddy Hates]] when Jay tells Claire not to try keeping Haley from seeing Dylan because it will only drive her into his arms faster.

* [[Former Teen Rebel]]: Claire.

{{quote|'''Claire''': Your kids don’t need to know who you were before you had them. They need to know who you wish you were, and they need to try to live up to that person. They’re gonna fall short but better they fall short of the fake you, than the real you. }}

** S1In Ep04,Season 1 Episode 4 "The Incident", Claire and Mitch's mother, Dede, tells Haley how she went through a similar experience with Claire and Claire's former boyfriend, Ricky, that Claire is going through with Haley and Dylan, telling Claire that "[[Call It Karma|Karma is a funny thing]]".

** S1In Ep08,Season 1 Episode 8 "Great Expectations", Jay knows how Haley tries to escape the house from having the same experience with Claire (and Mitchell).

** S2Season Ep03,2 Episode 3 "Earthquake", has this as one of the sub-plots. After getting into a conversation with a plumber about parenting, the plumber reveals he disliked his son because he saw his younger self in him, and this is the same with Claire and Haley.

** In S2Season Ep08,2 Episode 8 "Manny Get Your Gun", the opening scenes for all three families show Claire, Mitch, and Jay having the same opening dialogue: "Let's go let's go let's go let's gooooo"

** S3Season Ep01,3 Episode 1 "Dude Ranch" reveals that the reason Phil treats Dylan so well, despite Claire hating him, is because Phil went through the same issues with Jay and Claire.

** S3Season 3 Episode Ep02, "When Good Kids Go Bad" does this twice. The first is with Lily having the same possessive tendencies as Mitch, and the second is Jay having the same obsession with proving himself right as Claire which is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] at the end after Jay has the same reaction Claire had earlier upon proving herself right, to which the rest of the family responds with a big "Oooohhhhhh".

** As of the middle of seasonSeason 1, Alex is clearly winning.

** S1Season Ep05,1 Episode 5 "Coal Digger" has this as a plot point. It's revealed Claire originally thought Gloria was a gold-digger when she started dating Jay but had come to realize Gloria's sincerity by the point the show started. Gloria wasn't aware of this until this episode, however, and Claire {{spoiler|still has to jump in the pool in her good dress to apologize}}.

** S3Season Ep08,3 Episode 8 "After The Fire" plays with both types. Luke and Manny are being harassed by a group of Type 1's. They stop when Alex approaches them, [[Shaking Her Hair Loose|lets her hair down]], and tells them to cut it out which they gladly do because they're infatuated with her. As she tells a disbelieving Haley, "You have your fans. I have mine. [[Future Loser|Someday, your fans are going to work for my fans]]."

* [[Homage]]: To ''[[The Godfather]]'' with Cam singing "Ava Maria" at a formal wedding, intercutinter-cut with Mitchell destroying the house in slow motion as he tries to kill a pigeon.

* [[I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!]]: Subverted and played straight in Season 3's "[[Christmas Episode|Express Christmas]]". While [[Product Placement|shopping at Target]], Haley uses this technique to acquire Lily's gift.

* [[Improbable Aiming Skills]]: Apparently Gloria can do some impressive things with a BB-Gun, and can do them [[Gangsta Style]].

'''Gloria:''' Oh please, [[Badass Boast|I could have unbuttoned your shirt]]. }}

* [[In Love with Love]]: Manny.

Maybe that would heal you, heal you on the inside }}

** In "Regrets Only", Alex catches Haley faking having a job as a waitress, and convinces the family to have dinner at the restaurant. But she makes the mistake of gloating to Haley first, and {{spoiler|Haley is able to fake the job until an incident erupts that she claims got her fired}}. And ironically, she would have inevitably been caught without Alex doing anything; she'd made a deal with her parents to earn half the payment on a car, faking it by holding onto the same sixty dollars each day, and would have been screwed when the time came to produce all the money.

* [[Kidanova]]: Manny, at least in his own mind.

* [[Kids Prefer Boxes]]: Luke is like this. One year, they decided to just give him a box for his birthday. Unfortunately, they put it in a nice bag and he spent all day playing with the bag.

** When Phil's dad visits {{spoiler|and brings a dog with him, Luke ends up in the dog's cage, presumably because he was playing with it.}}. Spoilered to save the sight gag.

** No, he's technically only had ten birthdays. He has still been alive forty years, making him forty years old. Mitchell tries repeatedly to explain this to him in the episode, to no avail {{spoiler|until the end.}}.

*** At the end of the episode, she makes a batch of cupcakes the family tries and as soon as she leaves the room they call for Poison Control.

* [[Light Feminine and Dark Feminine]]: As Alex's supposed tomboyish-ness is an [[Informed Ability]], Alex seems to be a light feminine (cares about grades, pleasing others, wants to buy a doll in one episode) to Haley's dark feminine (more interested in guys, popularity.).

** Subverted in "Treehouse", when a woman to whom he's pretended to be straight in order to win a bet that he could get her phone number {{spoiler|later tells him she knew all along that he was gay; she just wanted to have a gay male friend to confide in. He isn't at all flattered by this, and tells her as much}}.

* [[Man Child]]: Phil.

* [[Mathematician's Answer]]: In the seasonSeason 3 premiere, Dylan goes missing in the wilderness near Jackson Hole. When Haley gets within shouting distance of him, he's [[Cloudcuckoolander|characteristically unhelpful]].

'''Dylan:''' Wyoming! }}

* [[Meganekko]]: Alex (although in the third-season finale, "Baby on Board", she makes a point of attending her first prom without her glasses).

* [[Menstrual Menace]]: Played absolutely straight in "Leap Day,", to the point that some viewers called the show on [[Unfortunate Implications]].

* [[Mistaken for Racist]]: Phil wears a shirt that says 'If you ain't white you ain't right'.' This is because he was on Team White at family camp. He is later confused as to why an African-American taxi driver seems rather disgruntled while unloading their bags.

** In "Starry Night", Cameron is talking about [[Ivy League for Everyone|Columbia and Brown University]] and a lawyer friend of Mitchell's, and says "I wish that tart would go back to Columbia and take her weird, little Brown friends with her" right as Gloria walks by.

** S3Season Ep08,3 Episode 8 "After The Fire", shows that this also applies to Cameron and Gloria.

'''Mitchell:''' [[Waxing Lyrical|That sounds like a country song]].<br />

'''Cameron:''' And that song would be called "The Greatest Woman That Ever Lived".<br />

''(pause)''<br />

'''Mitchell:''' [[Captain Obvious|Cam loves his mom.]] }}

* [[Nerds Are Sexy]]: In S3Season Ep08,3 Episode 8 "After The Fire", Haley is flabbergasted that a group of nerdy teenage boys worship Alex:

* [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]]: In a seasonSeason twoTwo episode where Cam and Mitch think that being a gay couple with an Asian baby will get them into a good pre-schoolpreschool only to get beat out by...

'''Mitch''': Did not see that one coming. }}

** In the Season 1 finale, "Family Portrait", Alex and Manny are at basketball game, while the kiss-cam on the scoreboard is going around.

'''Alex''': Touch me, and there will be blood }}

* [[Not What It Looks Like]]: In "Our Children, Ourselves", Mitchell sees an old girlfriend ([[24|Mary Lynn Rajskub]]), with whom he once had a tryst before he came out, in the mall accompanied by what appears to be a child with red hair. He frets that without realizing it he fathered a child by her, and Cameron persuades him to buy a gift and meet the boy. However, when they finally do, {{spoiler|it turns out that he's a [[Little People|little person]] who's married to the former girlfriend}}. This sets up more [[Cringe Comedy]] when the gift Cameron and Mitchell bought turns out to be {{spoiler|a baseball glove}}.

* [[Playing Both Sides]]: In "The Last Walt", Haley gets Gloria to let her have a pool party at their house while she and Jay are out by telling her her uncle will chaperone. When it's actually time for the party, Haley tells Manny he's the chaperone (Itit [[Out-Gambitted|backfires]] somewhat when Manny takes that role seriously).

** The show got this again in seasonSeason 3, when Cameron & Mitchell went to see {{spoiler|a violent movie, only to accidentally end up in a theater showing}} ''[[The Muppets (film)|The Muppets]]'' (despite that movie not actually being out yet). Despite Disney producing the film, and Eric Stonestreet &and Rico Rodriguez having cameos in it, the creators swear Disney did not pay them to promote the film <ref> however, an ad for the movie did air during the episode, so you be the judge</ref>.

** A definite product placement in the episode "Express Christmas",: Target is mentioned by name and its logo is prominently shown in the shopping scene. And unlike the iPad episode, money definitely changed hands as Target received a promotional credit.

* [[Put on a Bus]]: Dylan takes a job in Jackson Hole in the seasonSeason 3 premiere.

** [[The Bus Came Back]]: Dylan returned in "Disneyland" at the end of seasonSeason 3.

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Alex plans on giving this to her classmates as her valedictorian speech at her grade school graduation {{spoiler|but decides not to at the last second}}.

** Fixed for about two seconds in Season Two;:

*** It seems to particularly annoy Phil as he comments on it more than the others. Happens multiple times in the seasonSeason 2 finale.

'''Claire:''' ...she did. }}

* [[Sequel Episode]]: In "Bixby's Back", the second-season [[Valentines Day Episode]], Phil and Claire decide to ditch a boring restaurant by resuming the same roles they played in the first-season V-day ep,episode "My Funky Valentine".

* [[Serious Business]]: In "Leap Day,", it seems like the show exists in some bizarre world where February 29th of a leap year is a national holiday, complete with no school or work.

** Jay's repeated "it's not fair" after his ebook reader is broken is a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episode "[[Cruel Twist Ending|Time Enough At Last]].".

** Luke says it would be cool if their plane crashed on the island from ''[[Lost]]'', while Claire then looks into the camera with a shocked look. The actress who plays Claire also played Jack Shepard's wife on ''Lost.''.

** There are a couple to [[Angela Lansbury]] early in seasonSeason twoTwo, as well as Phil's "[[Murder, She Wrote|Good times she wrote]]" in "The Old Wagon".

* [[Significant Reference Date]]: The episode ''"Leap Day''" aired Feb 29, 2012.

* [[Standardized Sitcom Housing]]: The Dunphy house.

* [[Strangers on a Train Plot Murder]]: "Strangers On a Treadmill". Mitchell even references the movie by name and suggests using the movie's plot as a solution for him and Claire to break bad news to their significant others. And much like the movie {{spoiler|one party doesn't go through with it.}}.

* [[Straw Vulcan]]: In "Lifetime Supply", Jay and Manny go the horse track with Manny's father, Javier ([[Law and Order|Benjamin Bratt]]). Jay chooses his horses based on the information in the ''Daily Racing Form''. Javier bets on a horse because "I looked him in the eyes, and he told me this would be his day"." Guess who wins? To add insult to injury, Jay chooses a horse this way and ''it'' wins ... only to be disqualified.

* [[Teen Pregnancy]]: In "Regrets Only", Haley lies to her parents about being a waitress at a restaurant, so when they have dinner at her restaurant, she has to fake the job, which she does by getting a table out of view of her family's table and orders whatever the family has ordered. When her server gets suspicious of how much she's ordering, she uses being pregnant as an excuse.

* [[Throwing Out the Script]]: Season 2 finale has an inversion: a sincere speech {{spoiler|(Alex's mean-spirited valedictorian speech) gets thrown out in favor of a bunch of lies}}.

* [[Transparent Closet]]: Alex's prom date in "Baby on Board.".

* [[Twerp Sweating]]: Done unintentionally by Phil to Dylan in S1Season Ep03,1 Episode 3 "Come Fly With Me". Dylan is sitting (uncomfortably) on the couch with Phil, waiting for Haley, watching baseball. Phil makes a comment about one of the players being "stuck at second base forever, and thinking about trying to steal third, which is just a terrible idea" then turns to him and asks how things are going with Haley. Claire, in the background, seems pleased to see Dylan squirm awkwardly.

* [[Uranus Is Showing]] : Averted in the episode "Starry Night", where {{spoiler|Mitchell got sprayed by a skunk while star gazing with Manny and Jay}}. Any other eleven-year-old would made fun of him with a reference to Uranus, [[Wise Beyond Their Years|but what did Manny say]]?

* [[Waxing Lyrical]]: In "See You Next Fall", Haley tells Alex that the best way to give a speech is to use song lyrics and to use the lines "[[Journey (band)|don't stop believin']]" and "[[PinkP!nk|get this party started]]".

** S1Season Ep03,1 Episode 3 [[Frank Sinatra|"Come Fly With Me"]], has Phil trying to be friends with Jay at Claire's request, as well as be accepted by Jay. Jay responds by eventually [[Crowning Moment of Funny|flying a toy airplane into Phil's face.]]

** In the Season 3 premier, "Dude Ranch", Phil finally gets tired of Jay mistreating him and [[Calling the Old Man Out|stands up to him]]. Despite Jay finally seeming to get it and this being a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for Phil, he's [[Aesop Amnesia|immediately back]] to needing Jay's constant approval [[Snap Back|after the episode]].