Phil Mushnick

Phil Mushnick

TV

One ‘Family’ I’m happy to watch

Fans of ABC’s “Modern Family” — reruns to appear on Ch. 5 starting Sept. 23 — by now realize, even if they don’t, that the show’s unheralded champs are its editors, directors and hands-on producers who know when to get in and get out.

Nothing that’s written to be cute, clever, funny, silly, slapstick, sad or ironic is left to linger. Either you get it or you don’t. The show doesn’t wait for you; you have to keep up. Next!

The only lingering scenes are effectively focused on the face of Phil Dunphy — played by Ty Burrell — as we contemplate his hilariously fractured interpretations of life, liberty and his convoluted pursuit of happiness.

And therein lies much of its success and genius. “Modern Family” is one of those sitcoms that has succeeded in defiance of modern TV strategies, those that first and foremost seek to attract and return nitwits, those who would confuse “Operation Repo” “Horny Housewives of Hallandale” (made ya look!) and other scripted and staged “reality” shows with real.

“Modern Family” is genuine situational comedy, in no need of scene-transitional music to guide you from house to house or day to night, or a laugh track to help you get it.

Best of all, it thumbs its nose at conventional TV wisdoms that would first arouse Americans’ lowest and simplest visceral senses as the surest way to win their hearts, minds and sustained viewership.

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Among the twisted pleasures in life is trolling for news that’s reported as fact while, at the very moment it’s reported, you can see and/or hear that it’s wrong.

For example, when stuck in crazy traffic on the Jersey-side approach to the Lincoln or Holland Tunnels is a great time to cruise the radio dial for what are claimed to be up-to-the-minute traffic reports. It’s then when you hear that the “inbound is experiencing only minor delays.”

Sometimes, you even hear that what you’ve been stuck in for the past half-hour is the suggested alternative route to avoid a 20-minute delay elsewhere. Yeah, come join us.

Then there’s the weather, which on radio is often reported in absolute terms although you’re either standing in, sitting in or looking at a contrary absolute.

At 1:20, Thursday afternoon, Aug. 22, a cloudburst was soaking Manalapan, NJ. At that moment, all-news WCBS 880AM reported that the only rain in the region was over Jersey’s Teterboro Airport — 50 miles away. Hmm.

OK, so cloudbursts, like erroneous absolutes, happen. But here was the kicker:

WCBS was in its all-news mode at that moment because the Yankee game it was scheduled to broadcast from The Bronx was in a rain delay! Nurse!

Then again, when compared to all the false positives the national media have reported about the Arab Spring — the triumph of pro-democracy populism throughout the Islamic Middle East — what’s a little rain where it’s not raining?

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Every time I tune to the “CBS Evening News” anchored by Scott Pelley, I get a “Captain Kangaroo” flashback. Did I brush my teeth after every meal? Was I kind to animals?

He reads the news as if he’s a Sunday school teacher — slowly, pointedly, often dramatically — and as if we’re impressionable 8-year-olds, and not particularly bright ones.

His molasses-paced, emphasis-enriched, interpretive narrations are insulting, especially given that those inclined to watch the evening news shouldn’t need too much help.

Forest fires that are consuming thousands of acres in Colorado and California are frown-faced bad things? Who knew? The financial collapse of Detroit is a sad thing, thus should be spoken about in a slightly hushed, funeral-home voice? Thanks.

It has been explained that Pelley delivers the news in a “nuanced” style. If by “nuanced” that means addressing viewers as a legion of dopes, he certainly does.