I’ve come to expect a certain level of cleverness and sophistication from Modern Family, the Emmy-winning comedy with some of the best writing and acting on all TV. So I was a bit confused (in a good way) by the show’s most recent episode, “The Musical Man.”
The humor seemed particularly juvenile, and a lot of the jokes were dirtier than usual. Sure, there was the advertisement on Phil’s minivan that made it look like Claire and Haley were prostitutes, but Cam’s inappropriate mouth also provided some off-color jokes that aren’t what you might expect from Modern Family.
I’m not criticizing, just observing. I still laughed a lot over all the absurdity. To help explain, here are five of the dirtiest, lewdest jokes from this week’s episode.
Wet Dreams
Cameron (to Mitchell, for not supporting him): “Why do you have to throw a wet blanket on my dreams? You do it all the time and you know what I end up with? Wet dreams.”
The Van
Phil wanted to promote his real estate business with ads on his family’s minivan featuring his family. The result was what looked like a moving ad for a pair of prostitutes. Check it out for yourself:
The Phone Call
With the new ad on the minivan, Phil got plenty of phone calls from men interested in hiring Claire or Haley, but he thought they were calling about buying a house. The result was an inspired one-sided phone call where <i>Modern Family</i> brilliantly pulled off the fact that you could have an entire conversation about hiring an escort and make it sound like you’re asking about a house (as in, “Does the carpet match the drapes?).
Sondheimizing Kids
While directing the school musical, Cameron got overly involved in wanting to teach them all about the musical greats like Stephen Sondheim, prompting him to say that one day the kids will all talk about how he “Sondheimized them.” This joke was a bit of a stretch and, to be fair, felt a little forced. It was more like something Arrested Development‘s Tobias Funke would say (you might remember that he was a part analyst, part therapist, coining the new term, analrapist).
“We Love the F Word”
As soon as I saw the kids hold up the letters on stage spelling out “We Love the World,” I knew something bad was going to happen, but even I wasn’t quite prepared for the big finale where the “D” went missing and the school’s logo (a giant “F”) came down after “the,” creating a rather unusually crude message for a school play: “We Love the ‘F’ Word.”
So what did you think? Was Modern Family particularly racy? Did you enjoy the dirtier jokes or do you think the show is too classy for this kind of humor?
(Image and videos courtesy of ABC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
