"Sons of Tucson," which premieres Sunday on Fox, is not ground breaking comedy, but as far as sitcoms go, it is a family pleasing fish out of water tale that takes a completely implausible situation and makes it work with the earnest efforts of the cast, writers and the intentions of it.
Sons of Tucson, courtesy of FOX
Created by TV newcomers Greg Bratman and Tommy Dewey, three young brothers are left behind by their white collar criminal dad, who has left them money and a way, somehow, to fend for themselves.
Enter anti-hero and loveable slacker Ron Snuffkin (Tyler Labine) who poses as their dad for a negotiated fee.
"Tucson" executive producer Justin Berfield (who played oldest son Reese on "Malcolm"), show-runner Matthew Carlson and director and executive producer Todd Holland, whose other credits include "The Larry Sanders Show" and "Wonderfalls," have pulled together a bit of a suburban "Three Muskateers" story where the kids band together and call the shots.
Ron Snuffkin is a jocular sporting goods store clerk living in his car and in debt to a loan shark. His paths cross with the seemingly adorable Gunderson brothers, living on their own after their father "... stole from the rich and gave to some other rich who he later stole from again, but not as much," says oldest child Brandon, played by Matthew Levy.
You get the idea, the kids somehow are still together and in a real home, ready to resume life while real dad cools his heels in the big house.
Enter our Ron, who catched the eyes of the three little kids who smell opportunity, and to the added delight of the boys, seems a perfectly malleable mark.
"Sons of Tucson" premieres Sunday, March 14 at 9:30/8:30c on FOX.
Monsters and Critics participated in a conference call with "Sons of Tucson" executive producer, Justin Berfield, and series star, Tyler Labine, who plays Ron Snuffkin on the show.
Tyler, are you related to Hockey great Leo Labine?
T. Labine That’s correct. Yes, I’m related to Leo Labine. I didn’t know him, but our … show, Pete Dowd, he’s a hockey fanatic, and when I first told him that I had a great-uncle who played in the NHL, he printed me off oodles and oodles and oodles of information about him, and it was pretty interesting. He was actually quite famous. He played with Bobby Orr, and they called him the hammer. Yes, he was actually a pretty influential hockey player. … battered and bruised, but yes, he was kind of awesome, and that’s all I know about Leo Labine.
Justin, talk about the crew who came to Sons of Tucson from Malcolm in the Middle?
J. Berfield: Visually 'Tucson' is going to look similar to Malcolm because of our fantastic director, Todd Holland. He directed the pilot of Malcolm. I think he directed 8 out of the first 26 episodes of Malcolm, so obviously, he set the tone and the look and feel of Malcolm in the Middle, but we’re not trying to recreate Malcolm in the Middle anyway.
The reason why we brought a lot of the people from Malcolm is, especially when you’re working with kids, time is extremely important, and that’s a group of people that worked together for seven years straight, and they all know what to do and the timing needed to get it done.
You can’t say enough about that when you’re on a TV show with kids. You want everything to run as smoothly as possible because, especially with Ben Stockham who plays Robby, you only have him on set working hours like four hours a day, and if he’s in three or four scenes, everything has got to be running smoothly, and so that’s why we brought on everybody from Malcolm, not only because they’re the best if not some of the best in the business at their jobs, but because they all have a short-hand knowledge with each other, and they just work together great.
Tyler, what do you make of the name Ron Snuffkin?
T. Labine: With a name like Ron Snuffkin immediately a few nicknames spring to mind, like snuffleupagus, snuff’s enough, can’t get enough of the snuff. You just think in little self-referential nicknames, and it sort of lends itself to you figuring out the character, of being a little bit …, little bit neurotic.
What was it about the show and the premise and the character that appealed?
T. Labine: Well, initially, it was obviously the writing and then the name as we just went over, but the writing for the pilot was great, and it definitely grabbed me right away, and obviously, the character is an amalgam every sort of great slacker character that I’ve ever played, that I’ve loved to play and have never been able to flesh out and turn into a three-dimensional character, and these guys have taken that sort of character and put him right in the forefront and made him a real human being. I really appreciated that, so I grabbed onto that right away, too.
How do the kids dole out the money? Your character negotiated a $400/week salary or $350 depending on who’s paying. How do they have the money? Explain that to me.
J. Berfield: Well, we don’t really say for sure exactly how they have the money, but in our minds we sort of figured that they have a stack of cash that they have somewhere in the house that as they need it they go out and disperse it for whatever needs they have.
T. Labine: What I’ve always put together in my head is that the dad in an attempt to sort of keep his kids out of foster care or social services when he was in jail for this white collar crime was clever enough or stupid enough to leave his children, yes, exactly as Justin just said, a big stack of cash so they can stay out of trouble and go to their house in Paloma Ridge or in Tucson ….
Tyler, kids are annoying. Which one of the three is the most annoying to your character, Ron Snuffkin?
T. Labine: Definitely Gary, the middle kid, he’s like, and this isn’t saying that wives everywhere are annoying, but very typically he’s the counterpart to Ron. He’s sort of the wife or I’m the wife. I don’t know what the … exactly because it’s very confusing, but definitely we’re butting heads the whole series. Yes, power struggle with a 13-year-old, lots of fun.
How many episodes are we going to see for the first season?
J. Berfield: It’ll be 13 including the pilot.
What is it that attracts Ron aside from the money into agreeing to the situation and sticking with it for as long as he does?
T. Labine: That’s a good question. I think initially, yes, the money is the big allure, but then I think it’s money only, actually. There’s nothing deeper about Ron wanting to go join with these kids and help them out.
It’s just the money, and he thinks it’s going to be temporary as well, but I think the allure of future money coming in is the thing that keeps him there, and then there are times with Ron I think this sort of reluctant paternal figure sort of starts to take shape in Ron, and I think he starts to learn from the boys, and he starts to sort of feel needed from these children what he hasn’t had in his life. He hasn’t felt that anybody really needs him for anything. I think that could become a big draw for him, too, and also just a place to stay.
What knowledge will Ron try and instill in the boys?
T. Labine I don’t know. I think Ron’s a bit of a dummy. Well, he’s not a dummy. He just may not have the most sage words of wisdom for these kids, but that’s what I’m saying. I think it’s this sort of reluctant responsibility. It’s this reluctant father figure thing that’s coming out of Ron that I don’t think he even really knew that he had.
He doesn’t really, I don’t think he even recognizes when he is being quite responsible, and it’s hard to pick out moments that are actually responsible in the show because, like I said, it’s sort of like the blind leading the blind. It’s basically them just trying to stay out of physical harm, so anything else that helps them out is sort of gravy, the bonus. I don’t think Ron is capable or set to impart any wisdom on these children.
Where does Ron draw the line, or does he even want to sketch one?
T. Labine I don’t know. Justin, do you want to take one?
J. Berfield I don’t know if there’s really anywhere that Ron does draw the line.
T. Labine Yes, it’s definitely sad to say. Look at what he’s doing. The only thing that keeps him from being completely despicable is the fact that he is sort of, as you get to know Ron and you get to know the boys, you see that maybe there is something inside of Ron that’s awakening that’s sort of enjoying this responsibility, but as far as where does he draw the line with what he won't do, I think as long as he’s not going to kill anybody, as long as nobody’s going to get really badly hurt, he’s up for it. He’s game.
Tyler, tell us a little bit about your experiences shooting the pilot and maybe some of the challenges to stepping into this role initially for you?
T. Labine Yes, shooting the pilot was amazing. It was so much fun. It was one of those instances where you get so much more out of the process than you expected.
I learned a ton from working with these kids. It was amazing, and I learned sort of one of those very invaluable lessons is how to stop being such a thinking, like, in my head actor working with children.
It was my refresher course. It was sort of just doing it. Someone just pushes you in and you swim. … unjaded and not so hypercritical of themselves, and you find yourself having genuine fun and really getting sort of authentic performances out of them, and it’s infectious, and it was really, really fun to do with those kids. That was sort of my favorite thing about it. There were some downsides, but it was very, very fun.
From a creative standpoint in your job with the show, what maybe have you enjoyed so far working on Sons of Tucson would you say?
J. Berfield I think I just enjoyed because for so long just purely being in front of the camera you never got to see the whole process of developing an idea for a script all the way through to filming it, and for me just being to especially from the pilot where back in 2008 we were developing this little inkling of an idea and then just selling it, it’s just been eye-opening for me. I’m just so excited to be part of something from the very beginning.
For me personally for once, and I love the whole casting process because I’ve been in those rooms on the other end of the camera, and now I get to sit behind the camera and sort of make …
T. Labine: Judge.
J. Berfield: Yes, judge.
T. Labine: We love it.
J. Berfield: It never gets old. A lot of the other guys are, like, we’ll sit out this casting session. I want to be in every single one. I love the whole process.
How did the idea of the show come about?
J. Berfield: The idea came up from our creators, Tommy Dewey and Greg Bratman. They brought this idea to us way back when, and we just sort of developed it from an idea to scripts.
Finally, we took it to Fox because I had some relationships there obviously, and they purchased it from us. It was exciting. It was like our first scripted show that we sold as a company at J2, and we couldn’t be happier with the people that we’re working with and the two guys that wrote it.
What show if you could find a show, a sitcom or whatever to compare it to from the past, what one would it be?
J. Berfield: Visually and maybe tonally, everyone’s going to compare it to Malcolm, but I think story wise you can’t really compare it to any show that’s been out there. It’s a truly unique concept, and we’re excited that Fox and everyone has a vision to see this through because on the face of it, it is kind of crazy.
It’s kind of out there, but they were behind it from day one. It’s not really a concept that comes up too much in the show, and it sort of naturally weaves its way into every script, so it’s not like if someone tunes in four episodes into the season that they’re going to be lost. It’s really easy to catch up on it.
What does Ron learn from the boys?
T. Labine: I could create many things, but I think overall it’s sort of this reluctant paternal figure starts to come and take shape in Ron that he really didn’t know that he had, but I think he starts to relish it and starts to take sort of a bit of pride in the fact that he thinks he actually might be a pretty good dad, but … it just looks like a mess.
It’s not exactly a Norman Rockwell painting. I’ll put it that way. He’s doing the best he can, but I think that’s the one thing he takes away the most is that maybe he actually is pretty good at this parenting thing.
What was it like on the first day of the set with the kids, and what was it like the last day of the pilot? That’s for both of you, too, so you too, Justin.
J. Berfield: I think for us on the behind-the-camera guys for us the first day is the most stressful day of all because everything you’ve worked for comes down to this one moment, and it all begins right then and there, and the last day, our situation is different because we had a chance to shoot the pilot, and then we got to redo it after some recasting, so I guess the first pilot when we ended it was sort of like a breath of fresh air.
We thought we’d finished. Everything went well. Everything went according to plan, and from then on you just immediately, for us, you get one moment of a breath of fresh air, and then immediately we’re in editing, so it really didn’t end for us until two months later.
T. Labine: For me it was excitement to start, and then when we finished it was elation. When we initially shot the pilot, I couldn’t believe what we did. What did that in, Justin, eight days?
J. Berfield: Yes, eight days.
T. Labine: Eight days from the initial pilot shoot and a very ambitious script and working with children, there were many potential pitfalls, and we seemed to jump over all of them and have a really good time doing it.
Tyler, how do you react to some critics comparing you to a Jack Black type?
T. Labine: I would never intentionally try to emulate another actor, especially not one that’s famous and famous for his shtick as Jack Black. I think it’s a nice comparison.
I’m a little tired of it because I’ve been acting for about 22 years, and I’ve sort of formulated my own sense of humor before I even knew who Jack Black was, and it just so happens that he got there before me I think. It’s a nice comparison.
I could imagine being compared to a lot worse people, but if anything I tried very hard to buck back in the other direction, but this town likes to slap labels on people, and that’s the one I’ve been stuck with.
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