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Looking for some quality comedy entertainment to check out?
Who better to turn to for under-the-radar recommendations than comedians?
Ubach brings a wide-eyed mania to even the wine-drunk sleepiest characters (looking at you,Judge Jeanine).
Ubach has also done lots of voiceover work, so she knows cartoons.
Thats why when she saysF Is for Familyis her newSopranos,take notice.
The Netflix show, created byBill Burr, lasted for five seasons of highly specific Boston nightmare.
The show is based on Burrs childhood, warts and all.
Those warts included racism, drinks, and racist drunk driving with kids in the front seat.
In spite of the cynicism, love is the foundation of the comedy, she says.
It is all heart at the core of the show.
Heres whyTeds Alanna Ubach saysF Is for Familyis a perfect love letter to the 70s.
Ill be back in about ten minutes.
Im going to go smoke a cigarette.
So I would come out with rentals ofI Spit on Your GraveandSummer LoversandSid and NancyandWhen a Stranger Calls.
My father wouldnt ask any questions.
What is this cover?
You are not allowed to watchI Spit on Your Grave.
I mean, thats what happens when you have immigrants for parents.
My sister convinced my family to buy her a moped when she was 14.
She said, Dad, yeah, you’re able to be 14 and ride a moped.
Well put it under your name.
Say youre buying it and I can ride a moped to school.
Of course, she crashed it the first week she had it.
But I mean, those were the perks of having immigrants for parents.
One of the many.
My mom was obsessed with avocado green and Louis XIV furniture.
Because it made us lookrico, right?
We lived in the Mexican Beverly Hillswhich was Downeyback in the 70s.
It was a no-no!
I wonder what it is about fake grapes.
Do you remember those?Oh wow.
Was anything roped off in your house?
Our living room was roped off.
I was not allowed to go in there as a little girl.
What do you think the show gets from being set in the past?
This was all pre-internet.
We didnt have information at our fingertips at any given moment.
People who wanted to talk to you gave you a phone call.
There was something called a landline.
We had pay phones and pagers.
Its basically a walk down nostalgia lane.
Its a love letter to the 1970s.
And like Norman Lear, in spite of the cynicism, love is the foundation of the comedy.
It is all heart at the core of the show.
Thats kind of whatTedis doing for the 90s too.Absolutely, 100 percent.
And I think its one of the most unique comedies thats ever been made, in my humble opinion.
How do you feel about Bill Burrs decision to basically play his own dad?
Thats got to be a mindfuck.Oh sure.
Its either your mother or your father.
Speaking of becoming my mother, at first this show was too mean for me.
Thats a classic my mom thing.
And we were loud.
So profanity, to me, is just music in my ears.
My ears sort of perk up and think,Mom!
Dad!Its so familiar to me.
My parents werent particularly conservative or religious.
We were Christmastime Catholics, as my mom used to call it.
And when I asked her Mom, where did Santa come from?
shed look at me and say, Nordstrom.
So that was the kind of family I had.
We were very flamboyant.
So the dirtier, the more vulgar, the more crass and garish, the better.
But my family was a rec-room family.
What kind of family were you?
Your living room was off-limits.
I would say we were more of a dinner-table family.
I didnt know food could taste as good as it tastes until I ate a meal at Dennys.
This show has some really heavy hitters in its cast.
Thats really what makes it so wonderful: The hilarity comes from the hyperrealistic delivery of very absurd dialogue.
That can only really be done by these A-list actors.
You dont think about a cartoon being naturalistic.Right?
And then all of a sudden youre like,I just binge-watchedF Is for Family.
My God, this is my newSopranos.
A little bit less mayo on the sandwich.
How do you figure out how to gel into that authentic loving, sometimes frustrated family dynamic?
How hard is it to find that alchemy as an actor?Everyone has a family.
And you know what?
If people tell you that they were raised by this wonderful, functional household, theyre lying.
You just have to say family.
You dont have to say dysfunctional.
So by the time we were filming, it was sort of second nature to me.
But Bostonian, that is one heck of a challenging accent.
This show is obviously set during fictional Mark Wahlbergs childhood.
Whats it like being stuck into a period piece for a whole series?Its so much fun.
Im 48 years old.
I was a teenager back in the 90s.
I was obsessed with what socks I was going to wear and frozen yogurt.
To see Giorgia Whigham as myself back then is so much fun.
Oh, I remember those Doc Martens with the floral dresses.
And I mean, talk about sense memory.
Her name was Sister Mary, and she taught catechism class at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Downey.
Sister Mary found the joy in everything.
She had a very soft-spoken voice, and we could barely hear her when she was teaching the class.
I grew up in an emotional war zone, so Sister Mary, to me, was an alien.
There was Susan Bennett.
I think the hair says it all.
