My Funky Valentine

"My Funky Valentine"
Modern Family episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 15
Directed by	Michael Spiller
Written by	Jerry Collins
Production code	1ARG16
Original air date	February 10, 2010
Guest stars
David Brenner as himself Reid Ewing as Dylan Andrew Borba as Principal Balaban Ariane Price as Pamela Bruno Oliver as Tom Mickleson Mieko Hillman as waitress Rylee Fansler as Fiona Jackson Odell as Ted Durkas
Season 1 episodes
2009–2010 "Pilot" "The Bicycle Thief" "Come Fly With Me" "The Incident" "Coal Digger" "Run for Your Wife" "En Garde" "Great Expecations" "Fizbo" "Undeck the Halls" "Up All Night" "Not in My House" "Fifteen Percent" "Moon Landing" "My Funky Valentine" "Fears" "Truth Be Told" "Starry Night" "Game Changer" "Benched" "Travels with Scout" "Airport 2010" "Hawaii" "Family Portrait"   Season 2 →
Episode chronology
← Previous "Moon Landing" Next → "Fears"

"My Funky Valentine" is the fifteenth episode of first season of Modern Family. It premiered on ABC on February 10, 2010.

Plot

Phil and Claire are arranging their Valentine's date at their usual restaurant, but after being shocked by Dylan's present for Haley, they decide to instead spending the night at a hotel and indulging in role playing. Meanwhile Mitchell and Cameron break their valentine date, because Mitchell has a case that he has been working on for weeks. Jay and Gloria will go to a Comedy club where David Brenner is performing.

Phil poses as Clive Bixby, a visiting businessman and Claire as Julianna, a local house-wife. The two meet at a bar and he "picks her up", she goes to the bathroom and comes back wearing her coat with no clothes underneath. As they preparte to go upstairs she gets her coat stuck in the escalator, which she cannot take off. The situation turns worse when they begin running into a lot of acquaintances from work and school, all of whom suggest that she take the coat off.

Meanwhile Mitchell comes back home with no Valentine's spirit since his client decided to settle before he had any chance at giving one of his best speeches. Manny arrives since Cameron agreed to look after him, which seems to lift Mitchell a bit but it soon goes south when they see that Manny is terribly depressed because he wrote a Valentine for a girl, but someone else took the credit. So they go to the restaurant where Manny had arranged for his date confronts her about the true authorship of the poem. Mitchell then defends Manny by using the speech he was going to use from the case which makes Cameron happy. Unfortunately, the girl still likes the other boy, because he says he had the feelings, but did not know how to express them.

At David Brenner's show he starts insulting Jay's age compared to Gloria's which makes him angry so he leaves and Gloria comes to comfort him. As they leave to go salsa dancing, which was Gloria's first choice for the Valentines, they find Phil and Claire with Claire still stuck in the escalator. Gloria helps Claire out (because it has happened to her before, as she states) and then Jay and Gloria leave and Phil and Claire go upstairs into their hotel room. The next morning it turns out that Phil still managed to make a disaster of Clive and Julianna's rendez vous by spilling oil all over the place, which he confesses during a phone conversation with Claire which is heard by the entire family in the van's hands-free system.

Cultural references

The title is a reference to the song My Funny Valentine. Jay mentions David Brenner was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Reception

In its original American broadcast, "My Funky Valentine" was viewed by 10.11 million viewers with a Nielsen rating of 4.2/11 matching with the previous rating high from Fifteen Percent and The Pilot and helping it come second in its timeslot after American Idol, and making it the most viewed episode on ABC Comedy Wednesday helping ABC come third for the night after CBS and FOX.^[1] The episode ranked 13th in the 18-49 rating with 5,438 million viewers from that rating watching and ranked 23rd in the total viewership for the week.^[2] The episode got positive reviews. Robert Canning gave the episode a 8.6 saying it was "Great" and "the three storylines from "My Funky Valentine" had a lot of laughs. The episode continued to prove Modern Family is the best new comedy of the season."^[3] Jason Hughes of TV Squad gave the episode a positive review saying that "Again, it's those genuine little moments that help the audience believe in these characters, and believing in them makes the situations they find themselves in that much funnier."^[4] Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A- saying that "It may not be the freshest idea in the world, but I haven't laughed this hard at a sitcom in a long time." and that "Nothing new about these storylines. But it's not about the situation -- it's about the comedy. And what we have here are comic actors playing characters -- especially Mitchell, Cam, and Phil -- that can make everything old new again."^[5] Lesley Savage of Entertainment Weekly gave the episode a positive review saying that "How is it possible that this show gets funnier every week? I mean, you would think that it would have to plateau at some point, but the last few episodes have just gotten better and better. While I thought that last week was ultra-quote worthy, this week’s Valentine’s Day-themed episode may have just topped it.^[6]

References

1. ^ Robert Seidman (2010-02-11). "TV Ratings: American Idol Still Strong, The Middle, Modern Family Rise". TV By the Numbers. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/02/11/tv-ratings-american-idol-still-stong-the-middle-modern-family-rise/41716. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
2. ^ Robert Seidman (2010-02-17). "TV Ratings Top 25: Olympics and American Idol Battle For Weekly Supremacy". TV By the Numbers. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/02/17/tv-ratings-top-25-olympics-and-american-idol-battle-for-weekly-supremacy/42196. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
3. ^ Robert Canning (2010-02-11). "Modern Family: "My Funky Valentine" Review". IGN TV. http://tv.ign.com/articles/106/1068519p1.html. Retrieved 2010-01-21. 
4. ^ Jason Hughes (2010-02-11). "Review: Modern Family - My Funky Valentine". TVSquad.com. http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/02/11/modern-family-my-funky-valentine-recap/. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 
5. ^ Donna Bowman (2010-02-10). ""My Funky Valentine" : Modern Family". The A.V. Club. http://www.avclub.com/articles/my-funky-valentine,38106/. Retrieved 2010=03-11. 
6. ^ Lesley Savage (2010-02-11). "'Modern Family' recap: Caught in the act". EW.com. http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/02/11/modern-family-recap-caught-in-the-act/. Retrieved 2010-03-11. 

External links

• "My Funky Valentine" at ABC.com
• "My Funky Valentine" at the Internet Movie Database
• "My Funky Valentine" at TV.com