The new NBC sitcom "The Fighting Fitzgeralds" may offend some people, which wouldn't be unusual for a TV show. What is unusual is that it won't offend them with off-color jokes and questionable language — it will offend them the way "All In the Family" did three decades ago.
In a time when political correctness seemingly reigns supreme, "Fitzgeralds" plays to some extent off Irish-American stereotypes. There's a moment in tonight's premiere (7:30 p.m., Ch. 5) in which one Fitzgerald brother explains to his father his reasons for taking another to the neighborhood bar.
"He's sad. It's happy hour. We're Irish. You do the math," says Terry (Chris Moynihan).
If that offends anybody, well, that's fine as far as Brian Dennehy — who stars as family patriarch Mr. Fitz — is concerned.
"I'm sick and tired of this tiptoeing around. Everybody is bending . . . over backwards these days to try to be politically correct," Dennehy said in a phone interview with critics. "I fight it at every turn. I'm sick of it. I hope we offend some people. And I certainly don't mind if I offend a bunch of Irishmen, because they should be offended, me being one myself."
Not that the show is particularly offensive. Yes, it's an Irish family. And, yes, there are jokes about drinking and priests and nuns. But the show's creators and executive producers — independent filmmakers Edward and Brian Burns — say that "The Fighting Fitzgeralds" is based on people they knew growing up in Queens, N.Y. (where the sitcom is set).
"We kind of grew up in an Irish- and Italian-Catholic neighborhood," Edward Burns said. "There was a bar around the block from the house we grew up in. It was sort of the neighborhood bar. I don't think it's necessarily Irish-specific for most working-class towns to have a neighborhood bar. The fact that we came from an Irish family is why we wanted to write a show about an Irish family. But the bar side of it is just the idea of the neighborhood watering hole — no different than the idea of the bar in 'Cheers.' "
(The Burns brothers created the show and co-wrote the pilot script, but they've largely turned it over to executive producer Phoef Sutton, a veteran of "Cheers," and are acting more or less as consultants because of their busy film careers.)
And, while this is familiar to them, this isn't exactly their lives.
"I don't think it's from our family so much as the world we grew up in," Brian Burns said.
Dennehy does, however, play a retired New York City fireman who paints; the Burnses' father is a retired New York City policeman who paints (and several of his paintings can be seen on the set of "Fitzgeralds").
"None of this is autobiographical," Ed said. "If it were, our dad would never talk to us again.
"We pulled pieces of about five different dads from our friends. And, quite honestly, once Brian Dennehy was cast, Brian brought a lot of his own stuff to it. He's an Irish-Catholic guy from Long Island like us. And he kind of turned that character into Mr. Fitz."
Mr. Fitz is the widowed father of three sons. The oldest, Jim (Justin Louis), is a hard-working gym teacher who's living at his father's house with his pregnant wife, Sophie (Connie Britton of "Spin City"), and young daughter, Marie (Abigail Mavity). Son No. 2, Terry (Moynihan), is a wise-cracking, underachieving bartender.
And, as the series opens, youngest son Patrick (John Patrick Walker) has just lost his girlfriend, quit his job as a Wall Street broker and wants to move back home to find himself.
Needless to say, Mr. Fitz is not pleased. And he isn't shy about expressing his opinions, frequently opining that his sons are "morons."
This is a loud family, but it is also a loving one — albeit more in the fashion of the Bunkers than the Cleavers.
"We wanted to try and create an honest family and then, hopefully, be funny as well," said Ed Burns, adding that they didn't want it to be set-up, punchline kind of humor. "We wanted it to be more like 'All in the Family' — conversational humor. And a lot of times the humor will come out of wrestling with or discovering some real issues. So I don't know if the show will tackle the same kind of political stuff that 'All in the Family' tackled, but probably will tackle a lot of social stuff.
"But it's 30 years later. It's a different time."
If Dennehy — who is also credited as a co-executive producer — gets his way, though, "The Fighting Fitzgeralds" will be a lot like "All in the Family."
"I've been yelling for the last six months that it's time to revisit that phenomenon," he said, calling it "probably the greatest television show that was ever on American television."
"But I think it may be time for somebody to revisit the phenomenon, if you will, of a guy in his 60s who has believed the world to be a certain thing and, over the past 30 years, it has become something else. Which, of course, our world has. And he ain't so sure it's all for the best."
What "Fitzgeralds" has going for it is, in large part, Dennehy.
"I think the great actors are the ones who take what you've written and elevate it to a level that you didn't even know the material was capable of going to," Edward Burns said. "We would just do a simple table reading . . . and the guy has such strength and such a presence. And not many people can pull off that big, tough thing and also that sweet, more sensitive thing. At least for me, I was just kind of blown away by him."
"Plus, he's so good he forces you to do your best," Brian Burns added. "You can't sort of cut corners in the writing with him because he exposes it quickly."
And Dennehy is hoping to expose the flaws of political correctness.
"Now, I know there are all sorts of extremely sensitive toe out there that nobody wants to step on these days, but I think it's time not only to step on them but to go around and stomp on them deliberately," he said. "And I would hope that we would move in that direction."
Next week, "The Fighting Fitzgeralds" moves to its regular time slot — Tuesdays at 7 p.m., on Ch. 5.
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com