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Press Tour: Can ABC Revive the Family Comedy?

Sat., Aug. 8, 2009 10:53 AM PDT by Jennifer Godwin

BOB D'AMICO/ABC

Good morning TV fans! We're at the Television Critics Association press tour this morning, gathering news about the Alphabet's upcoming series. First up, we've got the wonderful Modern Family, and then Patricia Heaton's The Middle. Read along...

Modern Family: There is no TV justice if Modern Family doesn't turn into a big hit. The cast, which includes the likes of Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Julie Bowie, Ed O'Neill and Sofia Vergara, is awesome, and show runner Steve Levitan (Just Shoot Me) is clearly a prototypical TV boss.

Where does the funny come from? Real life. The relationship between ol' man Ed O'Neill and foxy Sofia Vergara, for example, is inspired by Levitan's observation that, "There are fathers in my daughter's classes are in their 70s or their 80s, and there are these stairs at the school and we would watch them trudge to this orientation event, trudge, trudge, trudge." Ed's character, see, is supposed to be living on his own terms at this stage in his life, but is going to have to continue trudging along to the beat of Vergara's character's drum.

But the show isn't just going as easy as stealing from real life—the comedy mojo of the actors is key, and as Levitan says, "I think comedy is harder than drama. To play comedy well, you have to play drama well, and then a layer of comedy." With likes of Bowen and O'Neill in the cast, Modern Family should be able to pull that off, easy.

Modern Family premieres Sept. 23 at 9 p.m.