Gotta' hand it to ABC for putting together a strong comedy block on Wednesday nights.
From "The Middle" to "Modern Family" and the fairly new "Mr. Sunshine", ABC is clearly the place to turn for laughs on a tough "hump day".
I've already written about what an underrated show I feel "The Middle" is. I am a comedy snob and won't watch too many of them because of it, but Patricia Heaton is strong as the mom and all three kids are funny because of their peculiar ways.
The show is so good it makes a car dealership humorous, and has even rejuvenated the career of ex-SNL'er Chris Kattan. Doris Roberts does a turn as one of the kid's math teacher, and the scenes with her and Heaton are as comedically "tense" as they were when the pair were on "Everbody Loves Raymond".
Ed O'Neill often went for the easy jokes on "Married with Children", but on "Modern Family" he digs deeper and the comedy is much richer for it. Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy is the corniest, but funniest character on the show...a scene of him crying with his daughters is priceless.
Matthew Perry has been surprisingly terrific on "Mr. Sunshine", where he manages a sports arena and deals with all kinds of quirky co-workers and mascots. Unlike Matt LeBlanc, Perry has proven he can carry a series though he also has better material to work with.
I hope this series lasts, as long as it doesn't fall back on the easy sexual innuendo, or worse, "humor "of other shows. It's not humorous or clever when they do...it really isn't.
By the way....a great place to catch these shows and many others is tvandvideoguide.com. For the price of two weeks of cable, or less you get more programming than you can ever possibly watch.
Its sports programming alone challenges that of DirecTV, or other satellite/cable offerings for less than pennies on the dollar....check out the banner above for more info.
Thanks for reading and gn......
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