Trivia / Family Ties

• The Cast Showoff: In later seasons, Jennifer. In earlier episodes, Elyse.
• Completely Different Title: The show was titled Blomsterbørns børn ("Children of Flower Children") in Denmark, Fem i familjen ("Five in the Family") in Sweden, and Quem Sai aos Seus in Portugal and Brazil (an ironic reference to the expression "quem sai aos seus não degenera", a rough equivalent to "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree").
• Dawson Casting:
  • Michael J. Fox was 21 when he was cast as 16-year-old Alex.
  • Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross in the first season's opening titles. They're shown playing Steven and Elyse as young hippies in the '60s but look very much like middle-aged adults with '60s hairstyles (or a bad wig in Steven's case).
• Easter Egg: In "Don't Kiss Me, I'm Just the Messenger," Skippy's nightstand prominently displays a picture of Gerald Ford. This is a sly reference to Skippy's role - both in this episode and elsewhere - as the good-hearted, fundamentally decent Bumbling Sidekick to the often conniving, manipulative, morally corruptible Alex, who idolizes Richard Nixon.
• Friendship on the Set: The main cast have described how well they got along during the show as "Cliched" and remain friendly decades later.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Despite playing a staunch Republican, Michael J. Fox has endorsed Democratic politicians due to his advocacy for stem cell research.
• Out of Order:
  • The penultimate episode of Season 2, "Diary of a Young Girl," makes reference to Elyse having taken a job outside the home at an architecture firm. However, it was not until the season finale, "Working at It," when Elyse actually took that job at the firm.
  • The two-part episode "It's My Party" (where Jennifer turns 13) was made for the fourth season, but delayed and not shown until the end of the fifth season. This was quite noticeable since Andrew, who was now being played by a much-older Brian Bonsall, was back to being a newborn baby and Alex's girlfriend Ellen is back even though she had already broken up with Alex when she moved to Paris. The producers had originally wanted to show it for season 4, but NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff initially vetoed it, claiming that the episode's main plot, in which Jennifer joins a clique to better fit in at school and starts acting defiant both at school and at home, made Jennifer seem too nasty.
  • The season 3 episode "Designated Hitter" wasn't aired until season 4. This is evident in Justine Bateman's hair. In the fourth season, Bateman introduced her shorter hairstyle but "Designated Hitter" has Bateman sporting her longer hairstyle from the third season.
  • The season 3 clip show "Return of the Native" had the biggest gap, it didn't air until the end of season 6! The episode makes reference to Jennifer's boyfriend from "Designated Hitter" which was supposed to air before this one (it didn't air until season 4, see the above entry). The episode that was supposed to come after it, "Matchmaker" (originally meant as the third season finale), aired at the end of season 4 along with fellow season 3 episodes "It's My Party", parts 1 and 2.
• Real-Life Relative: Justine Bateman's father, Kent Bateman, directed an episode.
• Recycled Script: Two clip shows used the exact same framing device, the Keatons share stories of their past embarrassments and conflicts with Alex's girlfriend (Ellen in one episode, Lauren in the other).
• The Red Stapler: "Mallory" as a name for girls owes its entire existence to this show, since it was basically a surname up to that point. Tellingly, it didn't even crack the top 1000 for baby girl names in the Social Security database until 1983, but quickly rose to #83 by 1986. Justine Bateman was also responsible for a Colbert Bump for "Justine" as a name. It made the top 200 in the Social Security girls' names rankings for the first time in 1987.
• Revival by Commercialization: As a recurring musical motif for the Alex/Ellen relationship, the show used "At This Moment", a minor 1982 hit by white Soul singer Billy Vera (who had a big following in Southern California) and his band The Beaters. In response, it was re-released in late 1986 and hit #1 on the American charts.
• Romance on the Set: Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan, who played Alex and Ellen respectively, got married in real life. However according to Fox's autobiography Lucky Man, the two actors did not start dating until sometime after Family Ties concluded its run, as Pollan was already dating Kevin Bacon, while Fox was dating Nancy McKeon. Fox did have a crush on her, though.
• Screwed by the Network: After the show's fifth season, NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff moved the show out of its comfortable post The Cosby Show time slot on Thursday nights to Sunday nights for its final two seasons, where the ratings declined and never recovered. In an aversion of the trope, however, Tartikoff did not actually want to move Family Ties out of its Thursday night slot and only did so at the insistence of Bill Cosby, who wanted the slot freed up for his spinoff show A Different World.
• Star-Making Role: For Michael J. Fox.
• Throw It In!:
  • Between filming of Seasons 2 and 3, when actress Meredith Baxter became pregnant in real life, it was decided the Keatons would have a fourth child.
  • Michael J. Fox added the P. in Alex P. Keaton as an ad-lib in his audition, and the writers loved it and kept it.
• Troubled Production: Minor for this show, but an example of how this trope can bleed over into different productions. Fox was the original choice to play Marty McFly in Back to the Future, but scheduling conflicts led to casting Eric Stoltz instead. Stoltz was famously fired several weeks into production and they begged to find some way for Fox to take on the role. The solution was essentially Fox doing Family Ties during the day while filming Back to the Future at night and on weekends. For several months he operated on three hours of sleep, and he recalled running around the Family Ties set trying to find his camcorder prop, which was for Back to the Future. This actually led to some Enforced Method Acting that benefitted Fox for Back to the Future, allowing him to sell scenes where Marty was tired a lot better than intended.
• Underage Casting: In one of the odder bits of TV sitcom trivia, Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney were both born on the exact same day (June 21, 1947), which meant they are just under 14 years older than Michael J. Fox (born June 9, 1961), who plays their son.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Matthew Broderick was the producers' choice to play Alex, while Ed O'Neill was the first choice to play Steven.
  • The main focus of Season 3 - as hinted in the last two episodes of Season 2 ("Diary of a Young Girl" and "Working at It") and the Season 3 premiere, "The Gambler," was intended to be Elyse working outside the home and the changes which happened to the family as a result, including Alex, Mallory, and Jennifer taking on more responsibilities. This changed when Meredith Baxter Birney returned from the summer break pregnant, and it was decided to work that into the show. As a result, planned episodes were rewritten, to give the older kids and Steven a different reason to reorganize their lives.
  • Sonia Curtis, whose character Amy dates Skippy for two episodes, has said that she and the show runners discussed a potential seven episode arc and a Skippy-centered spinoff.
  • The cast wanted to end the show with the entire Keaton family dying in a plane crash. They absolutely didn't want to do a reunion show in the future.
• Word of Dante: In March 2008, Gary David Goldberg wrote an essay for The New York Times speculating about what Alex Keaton's political beliefs would be now. Goldberg said that Keaton, as a "true Conservative Republican", would probably no longer feel comfortable in the Republican Party of the late 2000s, "a party whose legacy will include Terri Schiavo and Hurricane Katrina, (and) waging war against science." Goldberg said that Keaton would have supported McCain in 2000, but no obvious candidate in the 2008 race. He also said that he and Michael J. Fox have different ideas about Keaton's current career; Goldberg thinks Keaton is a pro bono lawyer for the Children's Defense Fund, while Fox believes Keaton is finishing a prison sentence.
• You Look Familiar: Michael David Wright first appeared in "Diary of a Young Girl" as Mallory's date while Timothy Busfield played Alex's best friend Doug in a couple of episodes ("Little Man on Campus" and "Best Man"). The producers later brought them back to play young versions of Steven and his best friend Matt for the flashback episode "My Back Pages".
  • Character actors Robert Costanzo and Alan Blumenfeld both appeared throughout the show's history multiple times as different characters. Costanzo in five episodes and Blumenfeld in seven.