Dan Fogelman is an American screenwriter and producer who is most notable for his works on ‘Cars’, ‘Tangled’ and ‘Crazy, Stupid Love’. Personally, however, I believe that Fogelman mastered his craft with the series ‘This Is Us’, an almost perfectly crafted family drama that explores all the complexities of a family dynamic. The strangest aspect of Dan Fogelman is that he also created the 2012 sitcom ‘The Neighbors’ a show about aliens living in a New Jersey cul-de-sac. Whilst on the surface ‘This Is Us’ and ‘The Neighbors’ seem universes apart (pun intended), both shows share many similarities (despite a massive quality shift). ’This is Us’ wouldn’t exist without the creation of ‘The Neighbors’ as batshit as that may be.
The Little TV shows that could
Dan Fogelman’s unwavering faith in ‘The Neighbors’ is borderline inspiring. Enduring countless pitch meetings for his ‘high concept’ alien sitcom was no easy feat. Fogelman even threatened to never do television until ‘The Neighbors’ was picked up and put on the air, luckily ABC came to the rescue and placed it in their ‘Modern Family’ timeslot. Similarly, ‘This is Us’ had rocky foundations, initially finding life in a film script about intertwined octuplets. Before the script was picked up by a film production company, 20th Century Fox Television picked it up for an eight-figure deal. Due to the nature of television Fogelman had edited his script down, including whittling the story down to triplets. However, Fogelman’s dream was once again filled with distrust from the networks, this time FOX had worried about the series not being grippy enough and might fail to find an audience. FOX sold ‘This is Us’ to NBC and once it started airing garnered mass critical and audience acclaim.
Different but we’re the same
When I first learned this little unknown alien sitcom that I was watching was written and created by Dan Fogelman, the man who helmed ‘This is Us’ I was frankly astonished and dumbfounded. ‘This is Us’ is one of my favourite television shows of all time and (you didn’t hear this from me but…) I pretty much cried in every episode (not an exaggeration). To compare and contrast ‘This is Us’ to ‘The Neighbors’ is downright absurd and makes no logical sense. The two series are completely different shows with an honestly huge leap in quality, But Dan Fogelman is the glue that sticks these shows together. The major similarity between the two series is that fundamentally both shows are dissections of the family unit. Whilst ‘The Neighbors’ uses high-concept comedy to fully explore the depths of the family concept by having aliens trying to learn the minutia of the family experience, whereas ‘This is Us’ is a majority drama that deeply examines what it means to be related through a set of unconventional triplets exploring themes such as shared experiences, adoption, and chosen/unchosen family.
Looking Past the Surface
On the surface ‘The Neighbors’ is a relatively stock standard single-camera sitcom despite the whacky concept. I didn’t love the series; however, it was enjoyable enough to keep me entertained (like every sitcom). The quality of the show's story and writing were nothing to be desired at first glance, it's goofy, it’s corny, and the acting is pretty good over-the-top sitcom acting (but that’s not saying much). However, after learning ‘The Neighbors’ was created by Dan Fogelman my narrative eyes gleamed the series from a different perspective. The Inspiration behind ‘The Neighbors’ was sparked by Fogelman visiting his mother inside her gated community. Fogelman reflected on his mother’s situation inside the community and realised despite being able to touch the neighbouring houses from the bathroom window, his mother had no idea who she was living around. This concept had captured Fogelman’s imagination and he wondered ‘what if all my mother’s neighbours were aliens?’ The seemingly silly sitcom presents itself as a simple 'fish out of water story' however, it can be viewed as more of a magnifying glass on family norms and the social constructs we build around ourselves. By utilizing a singular human family surrounded by a neighbourhood of disguised aliens, Fogelman creates a world where every societal norm can be challenged and critiqued as the humans are there to explain their sometimes-irrational ways of life. Ultimately this is all played for gags as it’s an extremely accessible joke style to overanalyse and exploit our strange human rituals and more so to boil it down to its simplest components.
Creature of habit
Whilst writing this and exploring Dan Fogelman’s catalogue, I can create a full picture of the screenwriter. Fogelman is downright obsessed with the family unit and often writes about it. I believe his family magnum opus revealed itself in ‘This Is Us’. You couldn’t have ‘This Is Us’ without a majority of Fogelman’s back catalogue. ‘Cars’ is all about chosen family and more importantly, the character of Lightning McQueen mirrors Kevin Pearson’s fall and rise from grace in ‘This is Us’. Even though ‘Tangled’ is just ‘Rapunzel’ it is once again about chosen family, love, and going outside of comfort zones, which (while not as extreme) can be seen inside the character of Kate Pearson in ‘This is Us’ and their tumultuous relationship to their mother. Now ‘Crazy Stupid Love’ whilst also heavily about family Fogelman played his secret little “and they were related card” in both ‘Crazy, Stupid Love’ and the pilot episode of ‘This Is Us’. If ‘The Neighbors’ is a satirical takedown of the absurdly ritualistic nature of human family units then ‘This is Us’ acts as a heart-warming celebration of all the same themes.
Conclusion
Fogelman was actively conceiving ‘This is Us’ while working on ‘The Neighbors’ during his time at ABC. ‘The Neighbors’ allowed Fogelman to put a magnifying glass into ‘the family’ that hadn’t been fully explored in his other projects. This deep dive and new appreciation for family value alongside his prior obsession with family units propelled Fogelman to create one of my favourite shows. Somehow ‘The Neighbors’ a frankly run-of-the-mill, high-concept, a corny, sitcom about aliens can be seen to be directly responsible for one of the most touching insights into a family that has ever been produced on television.