S1.E01: Pilot

[Whimsy]

Lawrence returns home and announces he's quitting the seminary to go off and "save the world." Times are changing and this family will never be the same.

[Snow Apple]

It took me a bit to warm up to the show but by the end, I'm all in.

One little thing I enjoyed seeing was the can of juice with the two holes punched in. Ahhh memories.

[rollacoaster]

8 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

It took me a bit to warm up to the show but by the end, I'm all in.

One little thing I enjoyed seeing was the can of juice with the two holes punched in. Ahhh memories.

I missed the can on the show, but totally remember those in real life. 

[EtheltoTillie]

I enjoyed this. Definite parallels with the wonder years—and that’s not a bad thing. I love Mary McCormack and the guy from Southland who plays the dad. 

[SmithW6079]

1 hour ago, Snow Apple said:

It took me a bit to warm up to the show but by the end, I'm all in.

One little thing I enjoyed seeing was the can of juice with the two holes punched in. Ahhh memories.

I'll admit, the trailer of the dad shirtless getting his haircut prompted my viewing of the pilot, but then I got drawn into it. I really liked the dad's talk with the oldest son, and absolutely loved his line about his dad scratching at the earth but how he wanted his sons to reach for the stars.

I don't believe there is a Catholic boy around who didn't think about becoming a priest at one point or another. I know I did for a little while, and it was a big deal for a family to have a priest in the family.

The boys were surprisingly well-defined, but I wonder in a cast that large if they can become individuals rather than remain characteristics. I'm kind of partial to the second-oldest redhead son (with the secret girlfriend) and the snitch brother. Not quite sure if the main character is strong enough to stand out.

The juice cane with the two holes was a nice touch. I totally remember that. And when you wanted to shake it up, you had to hold both holes closed.

[breezy424]

I liked it better than I thought I would but....it seemed more sixties than early seventies.  Maybe I heard wrong but seat belts had been invented and were around for a while by 1972.  And...we had a TV with a remote for years by 1972.  I'll give the show a chance but don't know if I'll stick with it.

[jumper sage]

I hated it.  It is the era I grew up in.  I lived in a predominately Italian/Polish city.  The dad was a jerk, the mom not much better and the boys were ill mannered and mean to each other.  Why was someone sleeping under the table when they could have just doubled up some the the little kids?  I don't recognize anyone from that era.

They got the house right and the kitchen phone and other long lost oddities.  I was looking forward to this but I won't watch again.

Edited October 17, 2018 by jumper sage

[Suzysite]

6 hours ago, breezy424 said:

Maybe I heard wrong but seat belts had been invented and were around for a while by 1972

They were definitely in most cars by then, but as I recall we just shoved them into the seat cracks and never used them. 

This seemed like a 70s Catholic version of The Goldbergs to me.  And a little less funny.

[Snow Apple]

1 hour ago, Suzysite said:

They were definitely in most cars by then, but as I recall we just shoved them into the seat cracks and never used them. 

Yeah, we didn't start wearing seat belts until it became the law in the 80's.

My family's tv was black and white. Remote control? What are we? Made of money?

[sigmaforce86]

8 hours ago, breezy424 said:

 Maybe I heard wrong but seat belts had been invented and were around for a while by 1972.  And...we had a TV with a remote for years by 1972.  I'll give the show a chance but don't know if I'll stick with it.

Cars had seat belts but there were no seat belt laws.  We never wore them and didn't have to and they were just lap belts (at least in the backseat).  My parents had a rule about them - I remember family vacations in '76, '77, '78 where we didn't wear them until Dad hit the on ramp to the highway, then Mom would turn around and tell us to put on the seat belts.   That was the family rule, belts used when on the highway but even then it wasn't strict, we could lay down on the seat to nap without belts or if Mom passed sandwiches and juice back (no fancy restaurants and if Dad wanted to make good time no stopping at the picnic area either!) we could take them off to eat.  And I know by the late 70's or even first few years of the 80's we were still riding in the trunk area of the station wagon on day trips when the whole family came along because that was the only place we and the cousins fit.

As for TV's - we did have a color TV but no remote, even when we first got cable we didn't have a remote we had the cheap box with buttons.  All we had was the spin dial; but we were spared demands to get up and change the channel; us kids weren't allowed to change the channel because Mom decided we spun it to hard and would break it.

And this may be why I liked the show.  Haven't found a new sitcom yet this year that I thought was really funny.  This one I think I can relate to because I was the age of the younger kids in the year it's set.  And our family was Irish Catholic.  They had me in the beginning when they said the son was to be a Priest and so & so's family had 12 kids and only managed a Nun.

They are a little stuck in the 60's which I blamed on Mom & Dad not letting go of the past but not sure if that's the case or if the writers/set designers are getting the era wrong.   I'm definitely going to watch it again.  If I had any criticism they need to tone down the Mom a bit, there's a fine line between running the house so the boys don't destroy it and being rude and bitchy and she's flirting on the edge if not outright crossing it; if they don't balance her a bit she's going to start to grate on the viewers I think.

[Whimsy]

57 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

Yeah, we didn't start wearing seat belts until it became the law in the 80's.

My family's tv was black and white. Remote control? What are we? Made of money?

Same.  Us kids WERE the remote control!

[Phebemarie]

Maybe it has a 60s vibe because it's set in 1972.  

Is the baby a boy, too?  

[Janie430]

I wanted to like it, and I liked some aspects of it, but the way the mom was talking about Eddie and why any girl would like Eddie was mean, and strange.  I mean, no wonder he hid her if this was what her reaction was going to be like.  

[proserpina65]

2 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

Yeah, we didn't start wearing seat belts until it became the law in the 80's.

My family's tv was black and white. Remote control? What are we? Made of money?

Same here.  "When I was a kid, we had to walk all the way across the room to change the channel." - me, all the time.  First remote we had was for a vcr in the mid-80s, and it was attached with a cord.

My family and most of our friends had old cars, so not all of them had seat belts.  And I remember riding in the backs of station wagons and pickup trucks all the time.

I thought the first episode was okay.  Not great enough to make a huge effort to watch the next one, but if I remember when it's on, I'd probably tune in again.  Helps that I had no real expectations going in.

Edited October 17, 2018 by proserpina65

[fredfreddy44]

I liked it.  I grew up in a family like that, just the younger half though (Catholic, 4 kids born between 62 and 71). 

I remember the 2 holed cans of Hawaiian punch.  Those were a treat.  We mostly got the powdered drink mix to make red drink (what we called fruit punch).

[MaryMitch]

I think they did a good job in introducing the characters. I don't know if we "met" all the kids, but there are a LOT of them, and they all seemed to have different personalities, which is good.

[Giuseppe]

Jeez, every damn promo I saw for this show, I had it in my head that it was Sean Astin playing the dad, and I was going to watch mostly for him because I've had a big crush on him since "Toy Soldiers". It wasn't until I started watching and saw the name Michael Cudlitz in the credits did I have an OMG moment and realize that it was him, and not Sean Astin, lol (in my defense, they do kind of resemble each other). Worked out well, though, because I love Michael Cudlitz, too so I was still excited to watch.

Seemed funny, but I'll probably have to watch it again because I really was half-paying attention despite wanting to actually watch. I wanna spot the can with the two holes...I totally remember that, too.

I also wonder how they're going to be able to distinguish/develop all 8 kids without some getting lost in the shuffle. Reminds me of the old show "Just the Ten of Us" that spun off Growing Pains.

[Whimsy]

2 hours ago, Phebemarie said:

Is the baby a boy, too?  

Yup!  Eight boys!!

[spacefly]

1 hour ago, Giuseppe said:

Jeez, every damn promo I saw for this show, I had it in my head that it was Sean Astin playing the dad, and I was going to watch mostly for him because I've had a big crush on him since "Toy Soldiers". It wasn't until I started watching and saw the name Michael Cudlitz in the credits did I have an OMG moment and realize that it was him, and not Sean Astin, lol (in my defense, they do kind of resemble each other). Worked out well, though, because I love Michael Cudlitz, too so I was still excited to watch.

I was so happy to see Michael Cudlitz, I used to love Sean Astin (Goonies/Memphis Belle) but some of his rants have turned me off him.  The do resemble each other as long as they are not standing next to each other, Sean is 5'6" and Michael is 6'2".

[rhys]

Any explanation as to why 'all right' is misspelled?

[peacheslatour]

Sean Astin will always be Samwise Gamgee to me.

2 hours ago, rhys said:

Any explanation as to why 'all right' is misspelled?

The Kids Are Alright is a Who song written by Pete Townshend. It's the same reason the other thread is called I Can See For Miles, another Who song.

Edited October 17, 2018 by peacheslatour

[marymon]

The Clearys

Mike - dad, Peggy - mom, Lawrence (20) -ex-priest (seminary student) looking for himself, Eddie (18?)- put upon 2nd son a bit angry, Frank( (16?) - the goody two shoes snitch.  Joey  (14) - the con artist charmer. Timmy (12) - the narrator/ middle child looking for attention. William (10) - Timmy's charge?, Patrick (6/7?) -???. and baby (infant)

Edited October 17, 2018 by marymon

[71dude]

I liked it. Hopefully they'll follow a timeline and tone down the yelling - and the characters won't turn into ridiculous cartoons like another once-great ABC family did. They did a nice job of distinguishing the boys, though the one looks too much like the one from The Real O Neals.

[mojoween]

11 hours ago, sigmaforce86 said:

If I had any criticism they need to tone down the Mom a bit, there's a fine line between running the house so the boys don't destroy it and being rude and bitchy and she's flirting on the edge if not outright crossing it; if they don't balance her a bit she's going to start to grate on the viewers I think.

Heh - start?  She was awful.  I found myself enjoying the show a lot more in scenes she wasn’t in.

One thing I hate is when writers get cutesy with things that are anachronistic to the time, like Michael Cudlitz’s line that Watergate was “phony news.”   

Also, did people say to take a chill pill in 1972?  I thought that was an 80’s thing.

I was the remote control in my house too!  The first TV we had with a remote was around 1984.

I missed seeing the two hole punch can.  You could make a real mess of things if the back hole was too big.

I set the DVR for this and will keep at it. I do wish, however, that there wasn’t ANOTHER show with a narrator.  It’s getting tired.  Also this show doesn’t really seem to need it.

[Starchild]

19 hours ago, jumper sage said:

I hated it.  It is the era I grew up in.  I lived in a predominately Italian/Polish city.  The dad was a jerk, the mom not much better and the boys were ill mannered and mean to each other.  Why was someone sleeping under the table when they could have just doubled up some the the little kids?  I don't recognize anyone from that era.

They got the house right and the kitchen phone and other long lost oddities.  I was looking forward to this but I won't watch again.

As a child of the 70s I was also looking forward to this. It seemed to be promoted as general 70s nostalgia. But it's a pretty specific family configuration; I'm not Catholic, and we were two sisters rather than eight brothers. So with a stronger focus on the family characters than the environment (which is as it should be), I'm not finding much here to identify with. I'll give it another episode or two but I don't see myself sticking with it.

[2727]

It was more "wry smiles" for me than "real laughs" but I enjoyed it. The characters were entertaining and I look forward to getting to know them more. I loved the parents.

I'm also watching The Conners so it rounds out the 8pm hour nicely.

[Ilovepie]

I think the funniest parts of this were shown in trailers and previews, so it’s hard to evaluate, but tonally, I like it enough to try a few more episodes. My favorite was the brother saying there was cat poop in the sand box when his brother was shoving his face in it - such a sibling thing to do!

Was I the only one who thought the words “Dolphin Smooth” when the mom was shaving Michael Cudlitz?!?

[Yeah No]

16 hours ago, Phebemarie said:

Maybe it has a 60s vibe because it's set in 1972.  

That and I thought maybe because the family is middle class and may not have the money to update their house, especially with all those kids.  I was 13/14 in 1972 and I knew a lot of kids whose houses were still decorated like the 1960s (or 1950s if they were poor enough).

5 hours ago, mojoween said:

Also, did people say to take a chill pill in 1972?  I thought that was an 80’s thing.

I thought the same thing, but when I searched online I found out that the expression has been around longer than that.  It probably didn't migrate to my part of the country until the '80s.  Or maybe that's a continuity error.

5 hours ago, Starchild said:

As a child of the 70s I was also looking forward to this. It seemed to be promoted as general 70s nostalgia. But it's a pretty specific family configuration; I'm not Catholic, and we were two sisters rather than eight brothers. So with a stronger focus on the family characters than the environment (which is as it should be), I'm not finding much here to identify with. I'll give it another episode or two but I don't see myself sticking with it.

I hear you on that.  I'm certainly not against watching a show about people different from me.  I do it all the time, but somehow this seems so extreme as to create a little discomfort in me.  I don't mind that they're Catholic, I'm Protestant and grew up around a lot of Catholics, even went to a Jesuit university, but do they have to start out of the gate with a zillion sons and no daughters and one in the seminary to boot?  Wow, that's pretty specific.  I would have liked a couple of girls at least.  And I knew guys in college that went into the seminary so it's not like I couldn't relate to that in general.  I just couldn't get into it here.  

And so much commotion and yelling all the time - I'm sure they're going for realism but I was an only child and can only take so much of that.  And what's up with the wildly inappropriate comments/insults from the mother?  Even my own "women's lib" mother wouldn't have acted like THAT back then.  I found it hard to take, even off-putting.  It made me wonder if she needs medication!  I was hoping for more of an affectionately humorous tone from this show.

I'll give it a chance, though.

[txhorns79]

Quote

I thought the same thing, but when I searched online I found out that the expression has been around longer than that.  It probably didn't migrate to my part of the country until the '80s.  Or maybe that's a continuity error.

This reminds me a lot of the Mad Men forums.  One person would insist that something a character in the show said was anachronistic because they didn't remember it being said when they were alive during that time period, and another person would point out the phrase was much older than the original commenter thought it was.     

[Snow Apple]

I read an article that the show is loosely(?) based on the producer's childhood which is why the "main" character is the middle son and why all the kids are boys. He was one of eight brothers.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Snow Apple

[ashleylm]

I liked it a lot, and thought the details and the tone were spot on (I was 7 in 1972).

Quote

Maybe it has a 60s vibe because it's set in 1972.  

Yes!  How many of our homes today look like they were decorated in the-latest-trends-for-2018?  In my case we have the bones of a 1999 build (kitchen cabinets, moldings, etc.), the colours from a 2008 redecoration, furniture from 1890 through 2010, with a lot of it circa 2001 when we upsized and needed more things.  Aside from a few throw pillows and an Amazon echo, there's nothing to reflect the current zeitgeist.  Most people don't entirely redecorate their home every three years just 'cause.

[possibilities]

I don't care if they're happy. I just want them near.

[Yeah No]

11 minutes ago, ashleylm said:

I liked it a lot, and thought the details and the tone were spot on (I was 7 in 1972).

Yes!  How many of our homes today look like they were decorated in the-latest-trends-for-2018?  In my case we have the bones of a 1999 build (kitchen cabinets, moldings, etc.), the colours from a 2008 redecoration, furniture from 1890 through 2010, with a lot of it circa 2001 when we upsized and needed more things.  Aside from a few throw pillows and an Amazon echo, there's nothing to reflect the current zeitgeist.  Most people don't entirely redecorate their home every three years just 'cause.

Hah, sounds like my house.  My kitchen is from 2006, and my living/dining room furniture dates back to the early 90s through 2014, depending on the piece.  Of course I did it in a neutral palette so that throw pillows and window treatments can be updated from time to time.

[peacheslatour]

I inherited a lot of antiques from both grandmothers. I also have some mid century stuff. I don't think anything in my house is from the twenty first century. Maybe the draperies and some kitchen stuff. And even that is designed to look retro.

Edited October 18, 2018 by peacheslatour

[SmithW6079]

10 hours ago, Snow Apple said:

I read an article that the show is loosely(?) based on the producer's childhood which is why the "main" character is the middle son and why all the kids are boys. He was one of eight brothers.

 

16 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I'm certainly not against watching a show about people different from me.  I do it all the time, but somehow this seems so extreme as to create a little discomfort in me.  I don't mind that they're Catholic, I'm Protestant and grew up around a lot of Catholics, even went to a Jesuit university, but do they have to start out of the gate with a zillion sons and no daughters and one in the seminary to boot?  Wow, that's pretty specific.  I would have liked a couple of girls at least.  And I knew guys in college that went into the seminary so it's not like I couldn't relate to that in general.  I just couldn't get into it here.  

But it's the creator's story to share as he wants. If he has no sisters and had seven brothers (one of whom was almost a priest), then that's the story he's telling, not someone else's just because its specificity troubles some viewers. That's like saying, "Why does the family in 'Fresh Off the Boat' have to be Chinese? I'd like it better if they were Cuban." Eddie Huang is sharing his story of his family (of course, he hated how ABC developed it & dropped out from involvement).

[festivus]

My parent's decorated our house when they bought it in 1963 and the decor was not changed at all until 1982 and even then we still kept a lot of the old stuff. I think I was looking at the house and the stuff and going yep, more than I was actually watching the show. The show was alright, I'll keep watching for now. The mom did say some mean shit but then I thought about my neighbor that had 5 kids and she said some mean ass stuff to them.  She still does actually. 

Edited October 18, 2018 by festivus

[Rockstar99435]

On 10/17/2018 at 7:05 AM, Janie430 said:

I wanted to like it, and I liked some aspects of it, but the way the mom was talking about Eddie and why any girl would like Eddie was mean, and strange.  I mean, no wonder he hid her if this was what her reaction was going to be like.  

The mom was trying to scare off the girlfriend. Like she tells the dad later in the episode, all the boys are going to leave home and she wants to keep them as long as she can. If Eddie gets a girlfriend, he'll try to leave. But when the girlfriend started sucking up to her, she changed her mind.

I liked the part at the end when the mom starts talking about how the kid with the part could get hit by a car and "as long as no one sees it, who could say if he fell or was pushed Joey." And then Joey responds that someone needs to point him out. 

[MagicCat]

I was ten in 1972 not catholic, no brothers, but I loved the whole, very accurate, 70's vibe.  Yes - cars had seatbelts but we mashed them down into the seat because they were really uncomfortable to sit on.  My friend's family got a tv with a remote in 1978 and we thought they were the richest people in town.  We didn't need one because we had my sister. 

They had me at Lawrence walking down the aisle to the strains of Cream's "In a white room with black curtains" with every girl in the place watching him walk. I thought they were going to make him some kind of hell raiser and troublemaker but I was glad he turned out to be just a nice kid trying to find himself.  He would have been considered very good looking in 1972 and I also figured out that AJ was a girl.  Loved the old priest and his inappropriate bingo calling.

Didn't much like the mom.  She came across as kind of dim.  I especially hated the whole "I don't care if they're happy.  I just want them to be near".  Damn she has eight of them - let some spread their wings.  My only has been itching to run off the the Southwest since the day she was born and I am okay with her going if it makes her happy.  I know they were going for sentimental but it came across more like suffocating. 

Liked the dad a lot.  I liked that he wasn't angry about Lawrence leaving the seminary - he just wanted him to shoot for something worthwhile.  

I will give it a few more watches.  The characters I like will probably make up for those I don't and I appreciate the dose of childhood nostalgia

[Rockstar99435]

If it's 1972, aren't the oldest two boys in danger of the draft? You'd think the dad would use that a reason to keep the oldest kid in seminary/college. (I absolutely loved their conversation in the car about his dad digging in the dirt vs his kids reaching for the stars and don't think they needed to change any of that. But I just watched the This Is Us episode about Jack's brother being drafted and it seems weird the draft didn't come up here. Maybe the mom? It could tie into her fear and desire to keep the boys home.)

Edited October 19, 2018 by Rockstar99435

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

On 10/16/2018 at 10:13 PM, breezy424 said:

I liked it better than I thought I would but....it seemed more sixties than early seventies.  Maybe I heard wrong but seat belts had been invented and were around for a while by 1972.  And...we had a TV with a remote for years by 1972.  I'll give the show a chance but don't know if I'll stick with it.

Some tv sets  had a wired remote control for the old  radial type tuner controller back in the 60's ? . Most people couldn't afford the luxury  that type of technology  back then. Somewhere in the early 70's the remote controls worked wirelessly through IR ,much like today. I bought a tv set around 1981 and  even then, a IR remote control added at least_ 50-75  bucks to the cost of a new tv set. 

Edited October 19, 2018 by One4Sorrow2TooBad

[possibilities]

As I recall, no one could fathom why anyone would need a remote, because how hard is it to walk a few steps? And how lazy are we, to not want to get up and change the channel, anyway? At least in the house I grew up in. I distinctly remember the loud "don't be lazy!" conversations.

Of course, now I have a panic attack if I can't find the remote, so I am a thoroughly modern woman.

[Ilovepie]

32 minutes ago, possibilities said:

Of course, now I have a panic attack if I can't find the remote, so I am a thoroughly modern woman.

On all of the tv's now in my house I have no idea how to change the channel without the remote, so the remotes are golden in our house. Shoot, it was almost a full scale meltdown when the roku remote died - we were all like "how are we going to use the tv now?!???"

[Snow Apple]

There were only about six channels back in the day so getting up was no big deal. You just left it on your show (commercials and all) until it was over and then changed it if you have to.

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

So true Snow, back in the  60's , most of us only got 3 VHF stations,  ABC, NBC, CBS and possibly a PBS station. Eventually in the late 60's we started to get 1 or 2 UHF stations.  With so few channels available,  there really wasn't a great need for a remote,lol. 

[MagicCat]

And we had to get the TV guide in the Sunday paper so we would know what was on!  Cartoons were only on Saturday morning. The Brady Bunch was on Friday nights.  Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett were Saturday nights.  And it sucked when Ed Sullivan was on because that meant the weekend was over. 

[peacheslatour]

17 hours ago, MagicCat said:

And we had to get the TV guide in the Sunday paper so we would know what was on!  Cartoons were only on Saturday morning. The Brady Bunch was on Friday nights.  Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett were Saturday nights.  And it sucked when Ed Sullivan was on because that meant the weekend was over. 

So were M*A*S*H and The Bob Newhart show. I know this because I was usually grounded on Sat. Night. ;-(

[lucindabelle]

Loved it! 1972 DID look a lot like the 60s. Just look at any yearbook. And most of the kids are teens or preteens so have spent most of their lives in the 60s. It actually always bugged me That everything on TV looks so much like the year in which it is sad because in real life who among us replacees our entire wardrobe or redecorate our house every year? I buy a few pieces of clothing every year but then again I also have jeans and dresses that are 10 years old. Some rooms in my house or updated, but some really haven’t changed much in 20 or 30 years. That’s true for everyone. Even my car is three years old by now!

Edited October 22, 2018 by lucindabelle

[CountryGirl]

It's early but I already have a soft spot for this show.

[marypat57]

I am the oldest in an Irish Catholic family of 8.  I have 6 younger brothers and a younger sister.  We grew up in a smallish house  with 4 bedrooms and  only 1 bathroom.  I was in high school before I knew that people read magazines in the bathroom.  It was an interesting time.  

Our tv (black and white of course) did not have a remote.  We just got up, walked across the room and turned the knob.  The knob became so loose that the only way we could tune in a channel was to fold a plastic tupperware cup and wedge it against the uhf dial.  We only had 1 set until I was in my 20s, so you can imagine the disagreements.  I think about that now when I have  2 tvs in my 1 bedroom apartment.

We were strictly milk drinkers and my parents drank Fresca  or Tab.

We never replaced the stainless steel cabinets and countertops that were original to the home.  When she wanted to redo the kitchen, mom 'antiqued' the cabinets.  After that, she would buy contac paper and cover them.  

Thanks fof letting me ramble on....

This  show brings back a lot of memories.  I'm going to watch it again.

[Samsnee]

Is there really only one female in this show and she’s the usual wet blanket mom? All the promos just shows boys.