Saturday, April 13, 2013

Modern Family Runs the Boston Marathon


Somewhere under this shell of my skin lives a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm.  If you gave him a face, it would look like Iggy Pop:


Of course, if you followed me for a day, you would know that I lead a life of the suburbia dad, and it looks a little more like Phil Dunphey:


Yep.  Phil Dunphey is pretty much my idol as I try to become the coolest, dorkiest dad ever. In the words of Phil, “I’ve always said that if my son thinks of me as one of his idiot friends, I’ve succeeded as a dad.”

So, while I wait for my next novel to be released (you didn't hear? click here)  I'm working on a script for Modern Family where they end up running the Boston Marathon.

 Here's the rough draft:

It starts when Luke tries a magic trick that goes terribly wrong and sets Manny's hair on fire, and he ends up bald. In order to make him feel better, Jay shaves his head, yet then gets stuck trying to convince the rest of the world they both don't have cancer. 


Meanwhile, Claire is feeling inferior after not getting elected to City Council, and wants to do something Big, and decides to train for the Boston marathon. Phil tries to be supportive but says stupid things such as: "You can't be fast and pretty, look at Gloria." or  "You're still our hero, no matter how long we have to wait for you at the finish line."

Claire challenges him saying "Oh, you can sell property, but when it comes to running over real estate, I got you beat." 

It's On!

They only way they can gain entry into the Boston Marathon without running a qualifying time is to raise funds for a charity, so Mitch and Cam agree to help. It should be easy for them to cash in on the pseudo-cancer victims, Jay and Manny.  

After weeks of trying, they have only raised 76 dollars.

Alex is excited to go to Boston so she can visit Harvard and MIT, and this triggers Mitchell and Cam's idea to tell their circle of friends they're raising money to travel to 'Boston' to be extras in a movie. It's the sequel to "Good Will Hunting," starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and it's called:  

"Wicked Smart and Coming out, How Do You Like Them Apples?" 

So, Phil and Claire get on the historic bus ride to the Boston Marathon start at Hopkinton.  Phil is so excited and nervous he's ready to wet his pants over every bump so yells "Fire" to make the bus stop so he can get out to pee.
While running the marathon, Phil is cruising on 3:15 pace until he runs into his daughter, Haley, posing as a Wellesly girl and kissing everyone. Phil decides to intervene.






Claire passes and is way ahead, heading up heartbreak hill and agonizing in pain. Her dad Jay is there to cheer her on, and he screams, "Come on Claire, this is the easy part, you're almost finished!" and this completely deflates her so she sits down to cry.



 Phil catches up, sits next to her, tells her she's always been the fast one, and then carries her as far as Fenway and buys two half price tickets to watch the Red Sox since he heard it's Jackie Robinson day and he wants to finally see the great one in person. They both DNF.


Luke, dressed as Paul Revere, parachutes from the Citgo sign, bandits the race, and finishes first in the under 14 division. Iggy Pop has run the whole course with no water and is not far behind.



I'm going to need some help with this script, obviously.
I've not done them all, but I've done many, and there's no place like here

4 comments:

protometal @ clippinalong.blogspot.com said...

Any blog post with a line from Raw Power gets five stars from me!

Cait the Arty Runnerchick said...

hahaha...okay, so i JUST got into modern family (i'm so lame and i kno i'm late, but i'm hooked!) so i'm sure some of the hilarity of this post is lost on me, BUT who can we talk to about getting this one underway??
PS- phil is just too funny

Char said...

I'd watch that.

Kathee said...

Love it!

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