Modern Family Characters, Ranked.

This is a completely biased, personal ranking of Modern Family characters from least favorite to most favorite.  Your corrections, in the form of comments, are welcome.

The “Send them to Mandy-Land*” category

*-“Mandy-Land” refers to the unexplained disappearance of Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly) from The West Wing following the 1^st season.

12) Manny Delgado

Manny is by far the worst character on this show.  His faux erudition and breathy whininess are completely unfunny to me.  His whole character is wildly unbelievable – it’s like the show’s producers wanted to create a real-life Stewie Griffin, but without the matricidal tendencies.  In fact, they went so far in the other direction, he’s a giant mama’s boy, babied by Gloria, in an odd, Oedipal relationship.  There are people who will readily admit that Manny is their favorite character, presumably because he is a grown up trapped in a boy’s body, and his love of the finer things is a foil to his stepfather, Jay Pritchett’s rough-around-the-edges lack of couth.  These people are communists.  Manny is a young Norman Bates, before he gets into the Tourism and Hotel Management program at UCLA in five years.

11) Joseph Pritchett

This is Gloria and Jay’s newborn.  He does nothing at all on the show, and he only does one thing on this list: serve as an example that a set piece is better than Manny.  Someone should smash Manny like Jay smashed his pan flute a few seasons ago.

10) Lily Tucker-Pritchett

Lily is like a less annoying Manny.  She serves solely to be a joke dump for the writers, which is fine, because she says ridiculous things, and even wanted to be gay because her fathers are gay, which was one of the more touching storylines of the season.  The reason she is so much less annoying than Manny is that she is never asked to hold up an entire storyline, whereas Manny is tasked with carry the weight at times, a task at which he routinely fails.

9) Gloria Delgado-Pritchett

Gloria was, at one point, in the top five of this show.  Her funniest bits were based in her heavy Colombian accent, her loud voice, and the Lucy/Desi interactions she would have with Jay where she had some ‘splaining to do.  Even though I could see them coming from down the street and around the corner, it served as a nice role reversal from the tried-and-true marital strife juxtapositions made popular on I Love Lucy, to which these are an obvious callback (yes, I realize, Ricky Ricardo was Cuban.  I’m just a wild racist for lumping all peoples with heavy Spanish accents together.)

Role Players

8) Mitchell Pritchett

Mitchell is always good for a one-liner (Cam: It’s my faux-bacon.  Its faux-con.  Mitchell: It’s faux-kin’ disgusting) and for his role as the oddly heteronormative male on the show, despite his lack of physical coordination (though, he and Clare were, at one point, pairs figure skaters, with Mitchell in the female role – being lifted by Clare.)  His hyper competitiveness belies his lack of athletic ability, and his logical, right brained approach to everything makes for a great odd-couple pairing with Cam, but the character of Cameron is a scene stealer, and even the acerbic wit of Mitchell pales in comparison to the volume and melodrama of his partner Cameron.

7) Hailey Dunphy

Sometimes, all you need is a good, dumb character.  Hailey is Phil and Clare’s eldest daughter, who has gotten by on just her looks up until this point.  She is tired of failing her parents and being embarrassed by her own mistakes, but still isn’t very bright.  Her misunderstanding of false cognates, incessant use of malapropisms, and general airheaded demeanor can play for an episode, as she bumbles her way through things, but a full arc with her can feel tiresome as you wonder how a nineteen year old can be so casually ignorant of her own lack of intelligence. She needs to be paired with a smart boyfriend that would seemingly be better suited for Alex, rather than dopey Dylan.

6) Jay Pritchett

The problem with Jay is that his character has a ceiling.  He/Ed O’Neill is the everyfather to the demographic that watches Modern Family.  Resistant to change, probably more conservative than their children, and confused by technology, Jay is the rough-hewn American Male who, by and large, wants to avoid offending anyone, wants to be with the ones he loves, and wants people to let him be.  He tries to fix things and often times gets the ratio of persistence-to-care wrong, but his heart is in the right place.  He’s also good as the bumbling straight man to Gloria’s ball of energy, a la Lucille Ball.

5) Clare Dunphy

Clare, and her competitive, type-A, wet blanket personality are normally the character everyone hates on comedies.  They tend to be the smart woman paired with the dopey guy, constantly shooting down ideas (think Deborah on Everybody Loves Raymond) and being the “Adult” on the show, with nary an imperfection in sight.  Instead, we know that Clare is unwittingly high strung, which often causes problems for her, we know that she is terrible at giving gifts (Spandau Ballet for Phil’s Anniversary gift?), and we know that she has an unhealthy level of schadenfreude for her young mother-in-law, Gloria.  She’s also great at giving those knowing looks to the camera, and feeling like she is the only one in the middle of Hurricane Dunphy, what with Luke and Phil’s shenanigans, and the constant sisterly bickering between Alex and Hailey, yet, she often causes her own problems by trying to set traps and prove points by letting others fail, many times with unintended consequences/results.

The Sneaky Good Character

4) Alex Dunphy

This may be a controversial pick.  Alex’s character is one that people might identify as annoying, because she is kind of the Jeannie Grey “know-it-all” brat who is overlooked by her attractive sister and loudmouth brother, but her character lives and dies on the notion that she is the smartest, in terms of book smarts, member of her family, and is well aware of it.  She has a level of humility that comes from the attention Hailey gets for her looks, so her humor lies in exasperated mutterings of incredulity about the blissful idiots around her.  At times, it’s clear she wonders how she could have come from her parents, especially when her two siblings lost badly at the genetic lottery.  She doesn’t fully connect to either parent, though she appreciates her father’s doting affection and child like sense of wonder, and her mother’s grit and drive to be the best.  Secretly, Alex’s character, when she matures, will be the best person to come out of this show, and her closest family member is Jay – a caring, soft spoken character with more brains than sense at times.

The Cream of the Crop

3) Cameron Tucker

From the first episode, when Cameron came out with Lily in his arms to the opening of “Circle of Life”, wearing an African Tribal shawl, it was going to be hard to beat him for comedic value.  Cameron is an odd amalgamation of parts.  He is the flamboyantly gay member of his partnership with Mitchell, and with his clearly overweight frame, one would think unathletic, yet he was the starting Center on the University of Illinois football team, which was a wonderful addition to the character.  On game days, despite not being the more competitive of he and Mitchell, he is by far more knowledgeable about sports, and more athletic.  A great early scene between he and Jay was when Cameron encouraged Jay to get his hands up under Cameron’s crotch to receive the snap.  Cameron’s shrieking and melodrama, as well as his friendship with the more oddly named tertiary characters (Pepper, Longinus) without acknowledging the ridiculousness of their names has made him the loveable lout whose level of annoying drama is drowned out by his need to make everything a matter of intense drama.  He is also prone to setting up Mitchell’s amateurish, acerbic one-liners.

2) Luke Dunphy

I was surprised to find Luke this high up in a strong cast, but as the character has progressed, he has grown from more than just the “weird kid” and into more of the misunderstood son who, with his immature father, egg each other on.  He’s not particularly bright, but he is someone who is always having fun, has a wild imagination, and still thinks Dad is cool.  He has some of his best moments with Mitchell. Considering he is a Pigpen-esque boy, without much interest in either sex romantically, he doesn’t ever consider his Gay Uncles, though it would be hard to think he’d be against them, considering how close his family is, yet he is rarely paired with Cameron and Mitchell for storyline purposes.  However, when he and Mitchell blew up the bird feeder in Montana, and when Luke trained Mitchell to play handball, I had some of the most genuine laugh-out-loud moments (It’s okay, you can close your eyes now.  We’re off the court. *slaps the water bottle out of Mitchell’s hand* YOU’RE NEVER OFF THE COURT!!)   The problem with this character is, as he grows older, for it to be a realistic character, he’ll have to stop thinking Dad is cool for a while, which will be difficult, considering how closely written the two characters are.  He’ll also have to start liking girls, and I can’t imagine legitimate attempts where Luke dates will be all that entertaining.  Still, if anyone can do it, the Modern Family writers can.

Number one, and it’s not even close.

1) Phil Dunphy

I am Phil Dunphy.  This list was unfair from the beginning.  Phil wants to always have fun in life, and is always making the jokes.  He also desperately wants to be the “cool dad” and connect with his children in a New-Agey way. He doesn’t really connect to his father in law, but he has a great relationship with his own father, which, one can see the direct correlation between father and son in their interactions. He is like a more responsible Michael Scott.  He doesn’t go for the crude joke, just the immature ones.  He is also far more interested in using his humor and bad puns to keep things light.  I cannot think of a single story line featuring Phil that wasn’t at least a 7 out of 10. Even the Hulu Plus bumper image of Ty Burrell pointing at the screen, giving a thumbs up, and pointing again makes my wife and me laugh every time we see it.