Remembering ‘Family Ties’ and How the Show Made Michael J. Fox a Star

Along with battle between the ‘60s and the '80s, the core of the show was all about love.

The basic concept of the show was to draw a comparison between the more liberal 1960s/70s and the far more conservative 1980s. The contrast would come from the parents, who fit the former category, and their three kids — particularly their son — who represented the latter. In an interview with Today, Michael J. Fox commented on the premise, “You have a kind of an understanding [then], in a way, that we're struggling for now. You can't joke about the schism between the left and the right. It's so, so angry and it's so charged. And we dealt with it like it was just a generational thing and love could conquer it. There was an understanding that could be reached."

The show was supposed to be about the parents.

As originally conceived by Gary David Goldberg, the intent of the series was to focus on Steven and Elise Keaton, and them dealing with the world around them and their children. Concurred Michael Gross in an interview with MediaMikes.com, "It was supposed to be about the parents and quickly became a show about the kids, most particularly Alex P. Keaton, played by Michael J. Fox. So the producers themselves had different ideas about the characters going into it, and had no idea that the show was going to take the turns that it did. For Steven, it took another couple of seasons before they found what they wanted."

The changing dynamic on-screen didn't change the relationship between the actors.

In an interview with the Archive of American Television, Michael J. Fox notes that the nature of situation comedies is that you're always looking for the break-out character (think Fonzie on Happy Days or Jaleel White on Family Matters). "I was lucky enough to be the guy at that time," he said, "and maybe brought some things to it. But it was mostly about the character. He was such a clever character. It's one of those things where you create a character, get it up walking and talking and you’re, like, ‘Oh my God, all we have to do is feed this thing and he grows and grows and grows.' Consequently, I kept getting more stuff every week, funnier stuff, bigger parts.”

When this started to happen, he adds, Meredith and Michael Gross felt some misgivings and even some confusion, but, to their credit, he notes, they never made him feel uncomfortable about it. “I know they were concerned not so much about there being a shift to the other character, but a very real concern that their characters not be neglected. That their characters didn’t become kind of stooges or set-up people, which I think to their credit and Gary’s they never did. They were always fantastic characters. But it would be silly and naive of me to say they were fine with it. I’m absolutely sure they had conflict with it, and some problems with that turn of events. On the other hand, the audience was laughing; you can’t deny that."

Matthew Broderick was almost cast as Alex P. Keaton.

That's right, the first person who auditioned for the role of Alex — and immediately nailed it — was future Ferris Bueller himself, Matthew Broderick. As Gary related to the Archive of American Television in an extensive video interview, "After Matthew read for the part of Alex, I said what any intelligent person would say: 'Get him a pen; let’s make a deal.' Then that deal fell through. I think Matthew just got a sense of what other opportunities were out there in New York and he didn’t want to go to California to do the show." Although Gary was initially against the idea of casting Michael — he didn't like the performance the actor gave in his first audition — he was eventually persuaded to see him again and realized that Michael was perfect.

Michael J. Fox got his — and Alex Keaton’s — comic timing from his brother.

As Michael explained in his interview for the Archive of American Television, "I was basically just playing my brother, who was the smart [aleck] in our family, and was so much smarter than everybody else. I never understood the concept of timing, but I knew my brother was so funny that you'd wait for what he had to say. Comic timing, I realized, was just my brother who was so funny at the dinner table that you'd wait for what he had to say. He'd put his glass of milk down, and from the minute he took the glass away from his mouth, you waited for what he had to say. Later on that all became a part of Alex."

Mallory Keaton wasn't designed to be as dopey as she became.

If you start watching Family Ties from the beginning, you can see a change take over the character of Mallory Keaton as played by Justine Bateman. She went from someone who could hold her own against brother Alex, to someone who never quite seemed connected to the moment. "It actually came out of working with Mike (Fox)," she told Variety, "because initially she was not written like that. She was just kind of a normal sister. And they would write these digs that Alex had on Mallory — just regular brother-sister digs — and the number of reactions you can play to that; you can be annoyed, you can roll your eyes, and then I’d get to a point where I’d just pretend it was a compliment. The writers saw that and went, 'Oh, if she thinks that’s funny that’s so great.' So we just started going in that direction. If you look at the pilot and then the first two or three episodes, Mallory is just… normal. In fact, they have a line in the pilot where Alex brings a girl home to have dinner with the family and she says, 'I really love helping people, and I really love cheerleading.' And I say, 'Oh, kind of like an Albert Schweitzer with pom-poms.' What Mallory became, of course, she would never have a line like that."

Michael J. Fox met his future wife on Family Ties.

Actress Tracy Pollan played Alex’s girlfriend, Ellen Reed, on season four of the series. That season ended with the duo breaking up, but Tracy and Michael met again on the set of his 1988 film Bright Lights, Big City. The two, who felt a connection during Family Ties, began dating and, in July of that year, they were married. Still together 30 years later, they’ve had four children: Sam Michael (1989), twins Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances (1995), and Esme Annabelle (2001).

Courtney Cox was a girlfriend first before she was a 'Friend.'

For the last two seasons of the show (1987-89), Courtney Cox (she was on this little sitcom you probably never saw called Friends) played psychology major Lauren Miller, who initially finds Alex a fascinating subject for her study of overachievers. They pretty quickly fall for each other and become a couple. One got the sense that they would eventually be moving down the road toward marriage, but then — pretty inexplicably — Alex finds himself drawn to music student Marty (Jane Adams) and kisses her, sending he and Lauren down the road to breaking up instead. Watching events unfold, it just didn’t make any sense — there was zero chemistry between the actors or characters. But, hey, the writers must have seen something that we missed.

In an interview from the time with Bryant Gumbel and MSNBC, Courtney offered her feelings about joining the show: "It was like the first day of school; I was so nervous. I really wanted to do my best job and not step on anybody’s toes, but they’re so nice. Every person on the show is great, they accepted me. It's wonderful. Michael’s the greatest person to work with, because he's really sweet and he cares a lot about the show."

Added Gary in his Archive of American Television interview, "I loved Courtney. I'd seen her in that Bruce Springsteen video [for "Dancing in the Dark"]. She had not done a lot of comedy, but I just thought, 'Just look at this girl. There’s something magic about her.' It’s a bit of a chance and, at the beginning, it was hard for Courtney, because she was coming into this world of really accomplished people. But she did great."

Tina Yothers seems to have mixed feelings about the show's legacy.

No matter what Tina Yothers has tried to do in her life, whether it be acting or music, the shadow of Family Ties looms large, though it’s not like she looks at it as a burden. She has, however, accepted that it’s part of every interview she does no matter how many years later it is. "It definitely opens a lot of doors," she related to The CelebrityCafe.com. "As far as the media is concerned, I do have to allow them to talk about it, which is something I’m completely proud of. I wouldn’t shoot anything down, because they wanted to mention it. It’s not like it was a horrible time in my life, or something I’m not proud of or should be ashamed of. I’m very proud of the show and it’s meant a lot to a lot of people, including myself. But I am Tina Yothers and I’ll never be anyone different."

Tom Hanks showed off his dramatic acting chops during his appearance on Family Ties.

Tom Hanks guest-starred on several episodes of the show's first two seasons as Uncle Ned (Elise’s brother), who, it turns out, is wanted by the FBI for embezzlement and has also become an alcoholic that is bottoming out. At one point, he drinks a bottle of vanilla extract. This character was an early glimpse at an occasionally dramatic Tom rather than the goofy guy he had been playing on TV at the time.

You might've forgotten, but there was a Family Ties TV movie.

Airing just a couple of days before the fourth season premiere of the series, NBC broadcasted the TV movie Family Ties Vacation. In it, the family takes a trip to England, where Alex — having won a summer scholarship — takes classes at Oxford University, but must cope with the fact that he simply doesn’t fit in. At the same time, Mallory develops feelings for his dorm roommate, William Clive-Hopkins (played by John Moulder-Brown). The Keatons also find themselves involved in "international intrigue."

The show made its presence known when it came time for awards season.

Between 1986 and 1988, Michael J. Fox won three Emmy Awards in the category of Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series; the show also won 1987 Emmys for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Technical Direction. Michael won the 1989 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series, and the 2008 TV Land Award for Character You'd Pay to Do Your Homework for You.

There was an Alex P. Keaton reference in Spin City.

Humorously, in the final episode of Michael J. Fox’s subsequent series, Spin City, his character, Mike Flaherty, has moved to Washington, D.C. where he became an environmental lobbyist. In the course of doing so, he encounters (off-screen) an "uptight Republican senator" going by the name of Alex. P. Keaton.

So why did Family Ties end when it did?

Family Ties was still a hit show when it ended its run seven seasons in, so the question many have wondered is why? Gary explains that a lot of it had to do with the fact that Michael’s contract was coming to an end, and he didn’t want to push the actor to return given his "sterling" behavior over the past seven years. They’d all made a lot of money, he added, and as a writer he’d clearly done what he intended to do with those characters and the show. "What happens with success is odd," he muses. "The audience becomes too easy. Creatively you want to change, you want to stretch, but the audience wants the same thing. They want you to mention money and cut to a close-up of Alex. They wait for that moment, but that tension is hard to maintain. So it becomes a question of keeping it fresh and exciting for you, and yet still provide the audience this ritual experience that’s so satisfying to them. It was also getting harder to come up with ideas. We were benefitting from the fact that we had the natural growth cycle of the family, but it seemed like we’d done it."

And they'd done it very, very well.