Line #20 YMMV/FamilyTies


1	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The episode "Truckers" starts with a cold open of the family depressed about the fact that Bush won the election and are now afraid that Alex will rub it in their faces. The election is never referenced again throughout the episode. This is because the actual episode was filmed before the election was over but the producers still wanted to show the family's reaction to the results so they filmed the scene separately and attached it to the episode shortly before it aired.
2	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Mallory's Creator/SylvesterStallone-inspired boyfriend Nick became extremely popular. NBC even planned a spin-off for him, but cancelled it since they were worried his absence would hurt the parent show.
3	* FanPreferredCouple: Alex Keaton's pairing with his first big love Ellen Reed continues being far more intensely popular with the fandom than his pairing with his endgame love interest Lauren Miller was. Fans ultimately thought the chemistry was way better between Alex and Ellen with a big part of that being that Creator/MichaelJFox and Creator/TracyPollan [[RomanceOnTheSet met on set, fell in love and got married in real life]]. Another is that most fans didn't really seem interested in Lauren either, even with a young Creator/CourteneyCox playing her.
4	* FridgeBrilliance: In the episode "Say Uncle," we learn that Elyse's brother (Uncle) Ned has developed a drinking problem. Early in the episode, after she says he's going heavy on the beer, she tells him she wants to talk to him, which is a proposal to find a new job. The way Ned reacts at first means he thinks she's going to nag him about being an alcoholic.
5	* GrowingTheBeard: In the most objective sense possible. In Season 1, Steven is clean-shaven, but from Season 2 on, he has a beard. It is also worth noting the first half of Season 1 (including some episodes taped earlier but aired later, such as "Suzanne Takes You Down") are almost entirely Steven-and-Elyse focused, but from "The Fugitive, Part 1" and "Part 2" on, the series becomes increasingly focused on the kids, particularly Alex and Mallory. By Season 2, [[BreakoutCharacter Alex]]-driven episodes are the norm, with Mallory taking a distant second, and Steven-and-or-Elyse-driven episodes being only slightly more common than Jennifer-driven ones.
6	* HarsherInHindsight:
7	** Watching the Keatons preach to Uncle Ned about his alcoholism is kind of hard to watch after Michael J. Fox and Creator/MeredithBaxter admitted they both had drinking problems.
8	** [[YetAnotherChristmasCarol The second season Christmas episode]] shows a flash forward to thirty years in the future and it's mentioned that the economy isn't doing well. This was made in 1983, and 30 years later the economy was still recovering from a recession.
9	** In the Season 4 episode "How Do You Sleep?" Alex is suffering from insomnia which keeps his awake for over a week, leading him to say, "This is unbelievable. I've forgotten how to sleep! What's next? I'll forget how to breathe, how to eat, how to walk, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking how to calculate simple interest]]? [[WhatHaveIBecome WHAT IS BECOME OF ME?!]]" It's much less funny when you realize extreme insomnia ''is'' an early symptom of Parkinson's disease, which eventually ''does'' make all the other things - except, perhaps, calculating simple interest - more difficult. Also, given the original airdate of this episode (December 1985), it was either shot during or immediately after production of ''Film/BackToTheFuture1''. It was later revealed that Fox had to shoot both BTTF and ''Family Ties'' simultaneously due to NBC refusing to release him from his commitments to the latter, with Fox having very little sleep during that period, which actually [[EnforcedMethodActing came across in the film]]. Having Fox shoot an episode where he starts going crazy from exhaustion in that time almost sounds like a cruel joke.
10	* HeartwarmingInHindsight: The FanPreferredCouple actually did get married after all, as Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan began dating some years after the show had finished its run and eventually got engaged. They're still married to this day.
11	* HilariousInHindsight:
12	** The episode "Have Gun, Will Unravel" sees Steven and Elyse consider and then debate on purchasing a gun for home defense after a burglar breaks into their home, something both ex-flower children would previously find unthinkable. And then literally the day after he finished playing Steven, Creator/MichaelGross began portraying GunNut CrazySurvivalist Burt Gummer in the ''Film/{{Tremors}}'' franchise, who shows a monster what happens when it breaks into the wrong rec room.
13	** In the episode "Birthday Boy," Steven is out of town at a conference for Alex's 18th birthday. Alex's friends want to take him to West Virginia, where the legal drinking age at the time (this episode airing on January 5, 1984) was 18 years old, but Elyse refuses, and Alex says, "If Dad were here, ''he'd'' let me go." In the very next scene, Alex's friends show up to take him to Wheeling, and one of them is played by Crispin Glover. Almost 18 months to the day later, on July 3, 1985, ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' was released, in which Glover played Michael J. Fox's father. So not ''only'' would Alex's "dad" have let him go, he would have taken him there and bought him a round.
14	** At the beginning of the episode "Heartstrings," Alex is celebrating George Bush's win. He tells Andy that he was born under Reagan, Bush was elected, and that he'd have a Democrat-free childhood. UsefulNotes/BillClinton was elected four years later.
15	** At the end of "They Can't Take That Away From Me", after having just broken things off with Lauren and Marty (or more accurately, they with him, saying to him ''exactly'' what he intended to say to each of them), Alex storms into the dressing room to get changed for the graduation ceremony, then looks upward asking, "What's next? The plague? Locusts? Democrats in '92?"
16	** In the episode "Margin of Error," Elyse has a B-plot where she's designing an interfaith chapel. Her description of it at the end bears a remarkable resemblance to the layout of TabletopGame/TheTempleOfElementalEvil.
17	** In part 2 of "O'Brother", Steven and Elyse bemoan the fact that most of their friends' marriages have fallen apart including two couples in which the wives both came out as gay. Meredith Baxter, who was married and had children with David Birney at the time, would later come out as gay.
18	** In the 1984 episode "Love Thy Neighbor", Jennifer expresses interest in buying tickets to a double-header between the Cleveland Indians and the Seattle Mariners, only to be informed that there were 35,000 available tickets. The joke, of course, was that the Indians and Mariners were terrible and wouldn't draw flies to one of their games. Eleven years later the Indians were in the middle of a 455 consecutive home sellout streak--and played the Mariners in the 1995 American League Championship Series.
19	** In more of a meta example, the show had Steven working at a television station in Columbus, Ohio, where Paramount eventually owned real-life television station WWHO (now owned by Deerfield Media and operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group).
20	* HollywoodHomely: A bespectacled Daphne Zuniga as Alex's nerdy love interest Rachel in two episodes from the second season.
21	* MisaimedFandom: Alex became an icon among conservatives, to the point that UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan said ''Family Ties'' was his favorite show, even though the audience was never intended to seriously agree with his political views. It's just that Michael J. Fox was so likable.
22	* {{Narm}}: The hour-long episode "A, My Name is Alex" was critically acclaimed and even earned the show an MediaNotes/EmmyAward, but there's no denying that it sometimes comes across as a glorified after-school special complete with Michael J. Fox hamming it up for a straight hour. Even more narmy, since Alex's "best friend" Greg was [[RememberTheNewGuy never seen or mentioned before that episode]], so the viewers can't really relate to Alex's reaction to his death.
23	* RetroactiveRecognition:
24	** Creator/CourteneyCox had a recurring role as Lauren Miller, Alex's girlfriend.
25	** In addition to creating ''Family Ties'', Gary David Goldberg served as co-creator and executive producer of ''Series/SpinCity'', which starred Michael J. Fox for the first four seasons.
26	** Michael J. Weithorn wrote 26 episodes. Weithorn is best known as creator and executive producer of ''Series/NedAndStacey'' and as co-creator and executive producer of ''Series/TheKingOfQueens''.
27	** Susan Stevenson wrote 19 episodes. Stevenson is best knows as co-creator and co-executive producer of ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'', credited under her married name, Susan Borowitz.
28	** Bruce Helford wrote five episodes. Helford is best known as creator and executive producer of ''Series/AngerManagement2012'' and co-creator and executive producer of ''Series/TheNormShow'', ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'', and ''Series/TheGeorgeLopezShow''.
29	** Barbara Hall wrote an episode. Hall is best known as creator and executive producer of ''Series/JoanOfArcadia'' and co-creator and executive producer of ''Series/JudgingAmy''.
30	** Jace Richdale also wrote an episode. Richdale is best known as co-creator and executive producer of ''WesternAnimation/TheOblongs''.
31	** Kate Boutilier also wrote an episode. Boutilier is best known for co-developing ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp''.
32	** Season four episode "My Tutor" features a very young Creator/RiverPhoenix portraying a math tutor of Alex's who has a crush on Jennifer.
33	** Creator/TimothyBusfield plays Alex's friend Doug in a couple of season three episodes before going on to a lengthy career, largely kickstarted by ''[[Series/ThirtySomething thirtysomething]]''.
34	* TearJerker:
35	** Alex's breakdown after his friend is killed in a car accident.
36	** The mother of Mallory's friend who committed suicide lashing out at ''Mallory'', [[WrongNameOutburst calling her by her daughter's name]] and revealing that she's been unintentionally (or not) using Mallory as a substitute.
37	** In "Remembrances of Things Past", Steven dreamed when he was a kid to a moment where he said something bad about him which he didn't mean. He woke up, Elyse asked what's wrong, he tells her that he said many bad things to his dad while growing up. He starts crying, [[PartingWordsRegret saying it's too late to take them back]]. Elise comforts him.
38	** In a two-part episode where Alex finds himself having to choose between Lauren and another young woman to whom he's become attracted, Alex realizes that he doesn't have a future with either girl and gently breaks it off with both of them, allowing all three to move on with their lives.
39	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: If there was ever a show that reflected America under the Reagan administration, ''Family Ties'' is it.
40	** Republicans at the time saw Alex P. Keaton as cool and hip, no doubt due to Michael J. Fox's performance. Cut to 2016: With America still living under the shadow of 9/11 and the Great Recession, race relations becoming more problematic, and the Republican Party's continued controversial attempts to pander to fundamentalist Christians, it's quite possible that most conservatives would now view Alex as a liberal, and the Democratic parents would probably be viewed as Communists. WordOfGod seems to defend this: in one of his [[https://web.archive.org/web/20180329094617/https://garydavidgoldberg.com/blog/2008/02/wwakd_what_would_alex_keaton_d_1.html last blogs]], written during the 2008 Presidential Election, creator Gary David Goldberg believed that Alex would not fit in with modern-day Republicans, would become a registered Independent, and would consider voting for UsefulNotes/BarackObama because of his Recession-related fiscal reforms.
41	** If the radical politics of Millennials and Zoomers (fueled by the Great Recession) are anything to go by, Alex would certainly not fit in with the Alt-Right and the 'liberal' parents would not fit in with modern-day leftists, either.
42	** The same can be applied to generational conflict, since Baby Boomers like Steven and Elyse would become known for being "conservative" demographics while Gen-Xers like Alex would be known for "liberal" stances, especially during and after [[UsefulNotes/BillClinton Clinton Presidency]].
43	** As a young man in the 1980s, Alex would be enamored with the yuppie lifestyle. But with the Great Recession hurting the prospects of young people, most people Alex's age today wouldn't be inclined to like yuppies.
44	* UnintentionallySympathetic: You'd be surprised the number of times the audience was actually ''not'' meant to agree with or sympathize with Alex in a certain situation, but did anyway due to how charming and likable Michael J. Fox was in the role.
45	* ValuesDissonance:
46	** In the early Season 1 episode "Summer of '82," 17-year-old Alex has a relationship with a woman who is a college student old enough to buy wine. (Back then, the legal age to buy anything other than low-alcohol-content beer in Ohio was 21.) Elyse puts up token resistance to the age difference, but Steven is all for it. ([[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale One felony is averted]] due to the age of consent in Ohio then and as of 2020 being 16, but still...) However, not even Elyse objects when Alex tells her and Steven the student served him wine, which was contributing to the delinquency of a minor even back then.
47	** In the Season 2 episode "Double Date," Alex, as chair of the committee, and his date Rachel decide to have a Southern plantation ''[[Film/GoneWithTheWind Gone with the Wind]]''-themed prom. [[FromBadToWorse As if that weren't enough,]] a prominent climbing rope hanging in the gym as they decorate it for the prom looks ''exactly'' like a lynching noose.
48	** As stated under UnintentionalPeriodPiece, Alex's conservative views would seem rather moderate compared to the more reactionary views of the Republican Party in 2020. It's telling that even Michael J. Fox admitted that he could never see Alex supporting UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump.
49	** In the season 2 episode "Tender is the Knight", Alex and Mallory's childhood friend Carrie was meant to be a refreshing depiction of a young woman who is independent, liberated, sexually confident, and goes after what she wants. However, through a modern lens, she comes across as slightly off-putting. She's forward, pushy, and amuses herself by sexually harassing Alex even though he's clearly uncomfortable and feels threatened.

Context YMMV / FamilyTies