stealers wheel

The preseason hype for the very funny "Modern Family" got me to create season passes for ABC's Wednesday comedy lineup but it is "The Middle" that has won me over. I'm not taking anything away from "Modern Family." It's got a great combination of clever dialogue, outrageous characters and uncomfortable Phil moments. I just find "The Middle" to be more relatable.

Sometimes it's as if the writers of "The Middle" have a hidden camera trained on my family. They had a Christmas episode about the mom's solo with the church choir that hit close to home. As my wife and I were watching "American Idol," I got a text message from my daughter that said, "make sure Mom watches 'The Middle' tonight!" I was recording both shows, so I paused "Idol" and switched to "The Middle."

For the first ten minutes or so, we wondered what had prompted my daughter's text message. The episode seemed to center on Brick's participation in a spelling bee and Sue's overlooked birthday. Once the Hecks began their road trip to Chicago, we knew.

A few years ago, at a big birthday party for my mother-in-law, my wife got our kids and all their cousins to sing the same song that the Hecks sang in tonight's show. It's something about an Austrian going yodeling. That wasn't all. Their side trip to the World's Largest Oak Tree Stump was slightly reminiscent of my family's side trip to the World's Largest Ball of Twine. I suspect that the writers based the oak stump on the World's Largest Sycamore Stump in Kokomo.



I wrongly assumed that people who missed the show tonight could watch it online tomorrow. A message at Fancast.com says that full episodes are unavailable. The best I could find is a one-minute scene about the tree stump.