https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE4W3yHwGgw
Tonight at 9:30p on CBS’s The McCarthys Ronnie (Tyler Ritter) tells his mom (Laurie Metcalf) that he can’t watch The Good Wife with her because he needs to go over basketball plays with his dad (Jack McGee). Let’s just say, she doesn’t take to him skipping out her too well and the rest of the family suffers because of it. Their suffering is our reward just like this sitcom about a typical Boston family.
The Good Wife has been an intricate part of the show, just like basketball, so does the show’s creator, Brian Gallivan, love the legal drama as much as the character he created about himself does? He told me on a conference call, “I’m obsessed with it, and my mother is too.” Sadly because they are on different coasts and timezones, they don’t get to watch as he puts it, “It’s my favorite show on television, maybe even above the McCarthys.” At that point Tyler Ritter, who plays him, was not that happy about his boss’ confession and you can’t blame him. Although he quickly got over it and understood why he feels that way. You know, since in a way he needs to get in to Brian’s brain in order to do his job, so he knows what he is thinking.
As I mentioned the show is based on Gallivan’s family, but how much of it is like his real family. He said, “It is based on my life, it’s loosely inspired by my family. They require me to say that. Jokingly, I think, I don’t know. It can be tough. And you know, a lot of the basics are true.” So what are those basics? He explained, “I’m sort of the one gay son, I actually have more siblings, I have three brothers and two sisters in real life, so the characters are sort of a mixture of qualities and quirks from my real siblings scattered about. And my dad was a very successful high school basketball coach in Boston, and three of my siblings coach basketball, and I didn’t.”
How do they feel about the show now that it is airing their third episode tonight? He shared with us, “They love it. They’re so excited and they’re, they love Tyler, they think he’s great and they love everybody.” Then he concluded their reaction by saying, “So they’re having a blast. And of course, making it somehow connected to basketball even when it doesn’t.”
And here’s a basketball reference from me, The McCarthy’s a slam dunk. So make sure to watch it tonight and every Thursday at 9:30p on CBS.
