Was Malcolm in the Middle one of the best sitcoms of the decade?

Lately myself and the wife have been DVR'ing a few re-runs of this show and I've been a little surprised by how good I'm finding it to be. It was always marketed as kind of a family sitcom with a lot of mischief, but it's actually a pretty dark comedy (or at least, it really turned into one). Like, every character in the family is basically depressed and narcissistic in some way, and seem to get more damaged as time goes on. I know the plots are pretty predictable - first impressions are always wrong, the family never quite triumphs, and nobody really ends up changing. But I found the writing to be pretty good besides that and right now I think it's definitely one of the first-tier sitcoms of the decade. I mean, it's not as good as say, Arrested Development, but the writing is sometimes on the same level. Anyone else feel the same?

the overacting destroyed this show imo

have you seen the ending with the big reveal behind Malcolm's destiny?

basic contemporary family sitcom formula = dad is a dreamer, an arrested adolescent; mom is the sensible one, the glue that holds family together; and kids are basically decent but prone to mischief. interesting how MitM darkens (as you say) but never really subverts or even questions this basic structure. mom and dad fulfill their assigned roles, but are driven from within in ways that make them weird islands that the children can only ever observe. social behavior as the interaction of individual pathologies. i never got totally on board with the show, but enjoyed it here and there. smarter and funnier than most network TV of the early 00s.

but omar OTM. it almost always oversells itself. too cute, too madcap, too pointedly clever, too "crazy."

"but never really subverts or even questions this basic structure"

did you watch the last episode where this structure was revealed to be a sham?

did like the episode about "kid charlemange."

never saw the series conclusion. so no. what's the big reveal behind malcolm's destiny?

SPOILERS, but everything the family did to malcolm was a conspiracy to mold him into the perfect future President of the United States. they were all in on it.

haha i had forgotten about that. i always loved episode where malcolm goes bowling and we see what happens when his dad takes him vs. what happens when his mom takes, sort of a Melinda & Melinda type thing.

huh (xpost)

http://images.craveonline.com/article_imgs/Image/St-Elsewhere-finale.jpg

classic-est moment: crotchety babysitter bea arthur tango'ing to "fernando" with the youngest kid

I never saw the ending either, so I'm not sure how they wrapped everything up. I know they suggested that Reese would go into the military but that's as far as I have seen. BTW I do agree about the overacting, I've always felt that it kind of made them like a cartoon family, but the characters do have a lot of depth to them. I definitely like how they point out the similarities between the kids and the parents without making it too obvious or heavyhanded.

and hey, if nothing else, this show introduced the world to Frankie Muniz!

Has he really done anything since?? I heard that Reese is now doing production work but I don't think the kids were really talented actors.

haha that was kinda the joke

just googled him, found some images I didn't need to see ( http://twitpic.com/3pfgz7 !!!) and a basically-depressing twitter:

Chatroullete is pure comedy....
about 14 hours ago via Twitter for Android

find that picture more hilarious than depressing. that's exactly what he should look like circa now.

kinda hated this show

anyway: I liked the show a lot, but at the same time I remember being kind of reserved about it — not sure why, but it felt like a 'guilty pleasure'. possibly just narcissistic desire to destroy the wise-cracking smart kid in the TV

yeah the overacting made it unwatchable, which i blame more on the creative decisionmakers than the actors based on what i've seen of them elsewhere, breaking bad especially natch.

t contenderizer: yea okay but you didn't see this one first:
http://blog.kaushikbiswas.org/wp-content/uploads/Frankie-Muniz-Elycia-Marie-2.jpg

yeah the overacting made it unwatchable, which i blame more on the creative decisionmakers than the actors based on what i've seen of them elsewhere, breaking bad especially natch.

― omar little, Wednesday, January 12, 2011 2:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, even down to the set design and stuff they were going for a v. different aesthetic for a sitcom--i just didn't think it worked at all.

xp also note that the mustache pic is INSIDE A CHIPOTLE RESTAURANT and he posted it to twitter with the comment "Hell yes!!" only he messed up and typed "Help yes!!" and then corrected it a second later

i never found their mansion of a house to be believable for a family living on a store clerk's salary.

the sense of humor was really weird, and the characters were all totally unpleasant in a way that was for me not fun to watch, whereas something like seinfeld had unpleasant characters who were a blast. actually MITM even had its own "newman" type character iirc?

smh at all those ppl in LA eating at chipotle

help yes!

and yeah that other picture is awful

i never found their mansion of a house to be believable for a family living on a store clerk's salary.

The dad had an series of office jobs (the main one being for a faux-Enron outfit).

they were supposed to be poor, though, right?

there were three boys in one room...

And I didn't think the house was really that big. Two bathrooms, two bedrooms, kitchen...basically a 70s-80s single story tract home.

The thing about them being poor came from having so many kids. They did a flashback ep where they showed the family devolving from serious yuppies to white trash as each son was born.

*The Middle* is so Malcom In The Middle they should have called it *Malcom In*. but i like the middle. and malcom in the middle. but i might like married with children best of all. and i like the cast of malcolm in the middle. unlike some shows i think they were actually trying to appeal to kids as well as all you arrested development slacker-types. which is why it was cartoony. i think.

i keep spelling malcolm wrong. im typing too fast.

haha that was kinda the joke

well yeah I get that, I just thought he was some kind of teen celebrity for a while, last I heard he is now going bald and bought a bunch of racecars, damn that makes me feel old (approx. Frankie's age)

Wait, what?

It is also revealed that Dewey, Reese and Malcolm, no matter what, had to look out for each other due to them all sharing a secret - knowing they tricked their mother into thinking she had cancer in order to have her sign bad report cards without properly looking them over. They all referred to it as a "nuclear option," since any of them could have used the evidence to bring down all three if pushed too far. Knowing they will never need this bond since everyone is going their separate ways, they opt to burn the X-Ray which contained the true results of Lois' exam, and bestow the honor upon Dewey, knowing he'll soon be the oldest of the children at the house. Dewey doesn't actually destroy it (just the cardboard cylinder that contained it), due to the sentimental value it holds, and Francis has to narrowly save it from reaching Lois, and tries to blackmail him, but Dewey counters the blackmail and promptly gets the X-ray back.

My favorite episode of Malcolm In The Middle is the one where the dad flips out and starts painting this giant Jackson Pollock-esque mural in the garage, and eventually it's some kind of astonishing masterpiece (which of course the audience never gets to see), but he's layered so much paint on that it's like six inches thick and peels away in a massive slab and collapses on top of him. Also, the more you watch the show, the more you can see that it's not that big a stretch for Bryan Cranston moving from the dad to Walter White on Breaking Bad. The flashes of psychotic rage are very much the same.

http://image.xyface.com/image/e/artist-erik-per-sullivan/erik-per-sullivan-347906.jpg

awwww...

they all look nice!

http://www.officialjustinberfield.com/images/home_04.jpg

http://www.malcolminthemiddle.co.uk/images/erik16.jpg

Yeah most of my favorite plotlines involved the Dad. The one where he gets into speed-walking was hilarious. Such a weird and obscure sub-culture to make fun of but I'm glad they did. The episode where he gets framed in an Enron-type scandal was great. I loved that seemingly his only source of joy came from playing hooky with the kids.

they should have a show where lois and hal are dead and all the kids live together in one house. as adults. i would watch that. and they are all on drugs.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2409/2145384584_757f7a3c69.jpg

i just saw cider house rules thinking it was a recent release and thought dewey had the emmanuelle lewis perpetual toddler disease

I never could watch this show because they were all so hard to look at. Has there ever been an uglier cast?

Seinfeld (minus Elaine of course)

this post:

they should have a show where lois and hal are dead and all the kids live together in one house. as adults. i would watch that. and they are all on drugs.

― scott seward, Wednesday, January 12, 2011 7:56 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark

just made me make this face:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2409/2145384584_757f7a3c69.jpg

also this

unlike some shows i think they were actually trying to appeal to kids as well as all you arrested development slacker-types. which is why it was cartoony. i think.

never imagined Dewey would grow up to be Danny Bonaduce w/ a fauxhawk

it definitely started as a more kid-oriented show. as the kids grew up (probably around season 3) they shifted their focus

...to german nudity subplots?

I really think this show is very funny. I laugh like a goon every time I see an episode.

love the episode where they are stuck in the huge traffic jam and they all have their dreams crushed in various ways (Malcolm with dream girl, Dewey with ice cream, etc).

some of these plot descriptions are pretty lol.

loved Hal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tXcPc1uZXY

<3 Hal roller boogie

it was a good-natured show and i think the people on it were really talented. they did it well. the thing that sometimes pulled it down for me was the focus on malcolm's geekiness and inner life and school stuff when all i really wanted was the anarchy of hal and reese or even lois and chaotic family stuff in general. the francis military school/alaska/wife thing did this too sometimes. didn't even really need it. though sometimes it could be funny.

I have enjoyed this show both when it first aired and rewatching it here and there on syndication as of, like, 2 years ago. Generally good stuff, though, especially in later seasons, they're not afraid to recycle tropes.

cuz really malcolm least funny thing on show. though very realistic. as far as kids go.

lois's friend, the guy who was on ellen's sitcom, he had one of my favorite episodes with the helper monkey. love that one.

i think the cartoonish sets and overacting are both necessary

the helper monkey

Yes! This episode is golden.

always thought Cranston was a beast on this show, totally unsurprised but delighted at his career since then

The episodes with Cloris Leachman as the grandmother are all pretty funny, especially the one where she is doping the family and her husband to be.

reese: you show me a man with pride and I'll show you a man with limited options

i liked this show pretty well. didnt really grate too much for me & i thought the family dynamic was realistic

i mean, the mood it capture was realistic -- obvi it was rather cartoonish in other ways

might have been a decent show without frankie muniz and his charaacter

honestly more annoying to me were the simultaneous stories about the older brother & his new wife in alaska & their entirely unrelated plot adventures

oh right I forgot about him yeah get rid of him too

but the other two brothers, cranston and kaczmarek were pretty good! they deserved better

kaczmarek felt like the most authentic mom in tv history

this show was really not v good

wtf wikipedia says muniz now attempting a career as a racecar driver?

apparently he was also in a 2007 movie with harvey keitel and haylie duff called 'my sexiest year'

my friend & i were the only two ppl in the theatre for our midafternoon showing of 'agent cody banks' back in two thousand w/e. got super drunk on peach schnapps and made fun of hil duffy's acting iirc

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/2272/frankiemunizkd5.jpg
http://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Celebrity+Locker+Room+Presents+Star+Night+6caPPnbdFMGl.jpg

I feel like this guy might have a charlie sheen-like life ahead of him

unlike some shows i think they were actually trying to appeal to kids as well as all you arrested development slacker-types. which is why it was cartoony. i think.
seems otm to me — it's hard to trust my judgment tho cuz I was still basically a kid (tween? when did this show start?). but maybe that's what felt slightly 'off' about it? that it was still in some measure just as much a "kids' show" as an "adults' show"

this is OTM. i loved this show as a young teenager, not only because my best friend had an older brother and a younger brother who got into all sorts of mischief, but because it had these moments of adult humor that were truly refreshing for a bookish nerdy faggot adolescent like myself.

also, totally used to imagine Reese naked all the time when the show first came out. then i stopped watching television and started having sex. ok.

This show was brilliant. Always <3'd Hal. Also, the episode where Reese does this huge plan - involving making a proper mix tape, etc - with the sole purpose of touching this prematurely-developed teen girl's boobs - genius.

"Cats are nocturnal creatures. They prefer the night. Then again, so do coyotes. And feral dogs. And devil worshipers."- Hal

This show was rad. fuck the haters.

honestly more annoying to me were the simultaneous stories about the older brother & his new wife in alaska & their entirely unrelated plot adventures

I liked those parts if only because I found the wife super gorgeous, but that might be due to my own weird taste in woman more than anything. I did find it entertaining that he married a woman who had a lot in common with the mother who he claims terrorized him his entire life.

kaczmarek felt like the most authentic mom in tv history

― iatee, Thursday, January 13, 2011 2:34 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this

I never could watch this show because they were all so hard to look at. Has there ever been an uglier cast?

― Moodles, Wednesday, 12 January 2011 20:40 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

considering a 'non-joking suggest ban' here

can't be bothered to see if it's on Youtube but I think the scene where a dude in the carpark approaches a heavily made-up Lois because he thinks she's a hooker is my favourite

Remember when Kaczmarek held out for more money and there were a few episodes where she was absent? Has there been any other recent tv stars who have pulled this? I remember it being a common thing in the 70s, but I can't recall any in the past 20 years.

I do like it but it may just be the relief that it isnt the 30th two and a half men of the day on comedy central. Theme tune makes me want to kill myself though.

one of They Might Be Giants' best later songs!

I loved this show but fell out of the habit of watching it. I didn't know about the end-of-series reveal but wow did it make me lol.

kaczmarek felt like the most authentic mom in tv history

I basically agree with that, I mean all the cartoony stuff aside she really kind of nailed the subtleties of it. I grew up with two brothers so yeah a lot of that stuff was kind of familiar to me. Especially since she's from Wisconsin like me and definitely has the same Midwestern accent.

theme song was totally otm for this show. this show was funny though all i can remember right now is the episode where hal for some reason became addicted to running things over with a bulldozer (?)

I have fond memories of this show and wouldn't mind watchnig it again - is it out on DVD?

Only the first series, apparently the music was too expensive for latter.

this show made me irrationally angry.

I wonder who the best sitcom or movie mom of all time is?

like I think lois in this is pretty awesome, but so was the mom from home alone, and jill from home improvement.

"Has there ever been an uglier cast?"

night court cast

home improvement cast

dear john cast

markie post ~alone~ yanks night court from that list

so even though I think she was the most authentic mom of all time, there def was an aspect of watching her do her mom thing that was more uncomfortable-uncomfortable than uncomfortable-funny

The episode in which Lois gets fined for a driving offense is like the platonic ideal sitcom episode.

Yeah, that one was amazing. I especially liked the terrified look in Hal's face when he finds out that she actually committed the offense, and how the kids finally found out that their mother is not infallible. Great episode

This show was rad. fuck the haters.

I totally second this by the way.

Uh-oh

Frankie Muniz lives in Phoenix? weird.

http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2007/09/03/va1237265002675/Brian-Bonsall-5637814.jpg

Dude was also in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109287/

12-year-old Preston Waters is tired of his pain-in-the-butt brothers and stingy parents. One day, a rich but convicted money launderer by the name of Quigley nearly kills him in a parking lot and gives him (by mistake) a blank check. So Preston boots up his computer, makes out the check for one million dollars cash money, comes up with the pseudonym of "Macintosh" and starts to spendin'. But Quigley wants his money back -- it was supposed to be cashed by another man with a blank check and handed back to Quigley. Can Preston keep up the facade? Will Quigley and his goons get their money back? And will Preston learn how valuable money really is?

Part of the 1990s Post-"Home Alone" Kids' Movie Wish Fulfillmentcore genre.

fun fact: 60% of all kids movies between 1992-1995 were about precocious middle-class kids coming into a ton of money. It was proto-Social Network.

I feel like this guy might have a charlie sheen-like life ahead of him

Yep yep looks like it's already starting

The difference is that I can't see him scoring another sitcom now. In fact most of the later seasons of Malcolm kind of emphasized how generally unlikeable he was. I wouldn't be surprised if he winds up broke in a couple of years (in the most awesome way, of course)

I can imagine him getting another show at some point. He wouldn't have to play a likeable character.

Yeah but the question is can he really act? I doubt that Dewey would get another role and Reese already moved on to production work.

What's Francis up to these days?

I think Muniz got into some twitter beef with people a while back and eventually retorted that he made bank and doesn't have to do anything? I was kind of amused but don't remember who he was arguing with.

xp no idea but I'm surprised he didn't get more work. He's easily the most photogenic of the bunch. I was floored to find out his older brother is Hyde from That 70's Show...but now I definitely see it

Not only is Hyde his brother, Francis & Donna (Laura Prepon) were an item.

Aren't the Masterson brothers scientologists? (ugh trivia)

Yeah they are. I remember reading an interview w/Danny where he talked about how tight he was when he was a teen with the Giovanni & Marissa (Mrs. Beck) Ribisi. Shades of 70s Show, he said he fell out with his family and crashed with them for awhile when he was starting his acting career.

The plot thickens

"I don't want to make a big deal because I am a celebrity," Muniz tells the operator. "I don't want there to be a big deal. I don't want any charges -- I just want her to stop throwing stuff!"

^^Such a Malcolm response.

haha, can totally imagine those lines said in increasingly exasperated/tearful 14-year-old-malcolm voice

More Malcolm-esque comedic bad luck

someone needs to start a frankie muniz commits suicide thread if this keeps up

Who the hell goes by "Frankie" anyways.

he should just change his name to Malcolm.

i knew a frankie in high school
cholo, cool as fuck. went by frank later, didnt fit imo

I feel like frankie is a name that only works for people under 15 and frank is a name that only works for dudes over 35, and so he's stuck in 'in the middle'

Oh let's hear it for Frankie
Oh Frankie Frankie
Oh Frankie Frankie

http://www.celebitchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/muniz.jpg

that's our Frankie

Ah, hes just a little bitter and confused cos his dad has started cooking meth.

he's kinda rockin a jesse pinkman look if you look real closely

how much do you think the kid from Two and a Half Men made???

muniz is an idiot but that's a pretty good zing

nice work if you can get it

Two and a Half Men kid makes 250,000 an episode. Yikes

#occupytwoandahalfmen

if 2.5 men was cancelled after 3-4 seasons there's no way that kid finds more work, but man good for him, sick life

tempted by 'who is a more dispiriting pos frankie muniz or half man' poll

that would be a half man landslide

true, taking iHeartMtnDEW as yr twitter handle is p gross

what's wrong with the half man ?

Muniz had 'mini-stroke' the other day

he really seems like a dude who should not have access to money

http://i.imgur.com/c4N5c.png

http://i.imgur.com/9uHeSUP.png

:/

http://people.com/tv/frankie-muniz-memory-loss-malcolm-in-middle/

I guess it's cool that he gets to essentially watch all of Malcolm in the Middle for the first time again, it's a good show

he's such a weird guy. like how he shrugs it off as just some weird thing but it's clearly a major brain injury related thing

well goddamn that is fucking sad

it is very sad. he doesn't remember being on malcolm in the middle, which was 7 years of his childhood?!

life is unfair

i mean obviously the concussions and car crashes and 9 strokes (??) probably caused it but still, wtf. what happened to him playing drums. i remember watching a clip of him playing drums, he was really good

forget drums, whatever happened to him trying to buy the Clippers?

He has forgotten the drums. That's the whole point.

memento in the middle

(srsly tho wtf take care big man)

welp

https://i.redditmedia.com/ROY3wv_B9JbzkEXEmTheGrAH_dJ-PsfUMFftaJsAJjc.jpg?w=600&s=08d2d630fc67faf67ffb04bacd0c0518

Who's the lump on the right? Arpiao?

yeah

just noticed this is from 2014 tho

I'll go out on a limb and assume that the enthusiasm behind that handshake still stands three years later. Assuming he even remembers having met Arpaio.

well yeah, that's a big if

Life is unfair

I arrived home from my uncle's funeral to find 4 of my 5 story brownstone home under 3 feet of water. Everything I own, destroyed. Every wall, piece of artwork, personal photos, furniture... All because my cat accidentally turned on a sink a few days ago while we were gone.

— Frankie Muniz (@frankiemuniz) November 15, 2018

^ livin' la vida sitcom

Damn...

leaving a cat alone for several days is cruel so lol

The guy is obscenely rich. He couldn't hire a catsitter or get the poor kitty into boarding for a few days?

maybe he forgot he had a cat

doesn't he have severe brain damage? CTE?

Regardless, he has a five story brownstone.

Can't believe it: my carpet is completely ruined, and all because my stupid dog had to go and die at some point in the month and a half since I was last home.

New profile pic of @lizzo and me. Credit to Strawberry_cherub on Instagram. pic.twitter.com/LAsa6U4Vzl

— Frankie Muniz (@frankiemuniz) September 27, 2019

were you wondering what to do tonight ?

did you want to watch a full hour of craig clips ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr3ohfYPjTg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADN9mhG9Xtw

The episode where Craig is all beat up and his helper monkey is trying to kill him is pretty darn funny.

No mention of Christopher Lloyd having the best guest star appearance in a tv show.

Been thinking about Cloris Leachman on this as Lois' mother, and one of the most savage putdowns in network TV history when she described Lois as "the one with the imbecile factory between her legs".

Oh WHOA!!! Yes. Incredible line

this line still pops into my head all the time

https://i.imgur.com/Ze5OwDH.png