tek's rating: ½

Sons of Tucson, on FOX
IMDb; Sitcoms Online; TV Tango; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; iTunes; Vudu

Okay, there are these three brothers, Brandon (13), Gary (11), and Robby (8) Gunderson (the actors are 16, 13, and 9, cuz, you know, everyone on TV is older than who they're playing). Anyway, the kids are living on their own, since their mom left long ago, and their dad recently went to prison. They have a nice place to live and apparently plenty of money (their dad, a banker, may not exactly have been honest, but he was clearly successful), but unfortunately for them, they live in a world that requires them to have parental supervision. They don't want to be split up or put in foster care, or anything. So, what they do is look for some loser they can hire to play their dad, whenever people (like school authorities, or whatever) need to meet their parent. The guy they end up with is Ron Snuffkin, and all I can think to say about him is that he's played by Tyler Labine (if you know him, you pretty much know Ron). I've seen him in several things, and he's always really funny, so he's the main reason I watched this show.

However, the kids are rather interesting, in their own right. The youngest, Robby, is kinda crazy, but cool, and really funny and sarcastic, a major troublemaker, kind of violent at times. Gary is the most mature, sensible, and intelligent of the bunch (certainly more so than Ron), but also always stressed out. The oldest, Brandon, is sort of a creative-thinking optimist, things usually seem to go his way, so he's fairly laid-back, doesn't really take anything too seriously.

Anyway, Ron ends up moving in with them, so he'll be on call to play their dad whenever they need him. There are times when he seems to genuinely care about them, and vice versa. Sort of. But mostly he's just using them and they're just using him, and they don't really like him. And vice versa. And of course, they have all the power in the relationship, and usually don't let him in the house; they make him live in the shed. Um... I should also mention Ron has a friend named Glenn (Joe Lo Truglio, who I'd later get to know on Brooklyn Nine-Nine), who has an overbearing wife named Angela. She doesn't like Ron, so she doesn't want Glenn hanging out with him; she also resents Ron having kids when so far, she and Glenn haven't been able to conceive. (Glenn knows the kids aren't really Ron's, though I don't recall how they were explained to Angela.) Anyway, not sure what else to say, except the show is really funny, quirky, wacky, and had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it got cancelled after just four episodes (a few more got burned off in the summer). Definitely a shame. But looking back on it, I don't miss it much.


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