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Cheers & Jeers: Modern Family --- Send in the Clowns!

Cheers to Modern Family for once again proving it's the greatest show on Earth.Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine.In the midst of a creatively uneven third season, ABC's Emmy-winning sitcom rallied with its funniest episode in ages. Not since Chuckles bit the dust on The Mary Tyler Moore Show has a clown's funeral led to such uncontrollable laughter. The death of an esteemed joker led to a hilariously ill-fated ...

Bruce Fretts

Cheers to Modern Family for once again proving it's the greatest show on Earth.
Want more Cheers & Jeers? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine.
In the midst of a creatively uneven third season, ABC's Emmy-winning sitcom rallied with its funniest episode in ages. Not since Chuckles bit the dust on The Mary Tyler Moore Show has a clown's funeral led to such uncontrollable laughter. The death of an esteemed joker led to a hilariously ill-fated reunion between Cam (Eric Stonestreet) and his bitter ex-birthday-party partner Lewis (the riotous Bobby Cannavale). Turns out their rift, as Cam so memorably put it, wasn't "seltzer under the bridge."
Cannavale wasn't the episode's only standout guest star: Ellen Barkin was also a scream as a cutthroat real-estate rival who nearly screwed Phil (Ty Burrell) out of a multimillion- dollar listing. All this, plus a priceless Fonzie/Ponzi pun from Gloria, a handful of classic Manny one-liners and a gaggle of perfectly executed spit takes. As Chuckles might've put it, "a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants."
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