"Grounded for Life" has to be one of my favorite comedy shows of all time, just because of the random and hilarious situations that the various eccentric and unique characters seem to always wind up in. The youngest son Henry swallows a lizard. The father Sean dresses up as an old grandmother because he can't change a flat tire. A cat gets buried in the grave designated for the mother Claudia. All this is normal for the dysfunctional Finnerty family, an Irish-Catholic family living in Staten Island, NY.The acting is also very good--the actors all act believably like a real family. The characters all have their own personalities and quirks, from the brooding Uncle Eddie to Sister Helen who seems to show up in the strangest spots. This is sounding pretty old, but I also like the fact that the actresses who play Lily and Claudia are both really pretty and are not a size 2. These are REAL people, not just skinny stereotypes. My personal favorite happens to be Brad, the son of the Finnertys' next-door neighbors the O'Keefes and Lily's boyfriend for part of the series.Also, GFL is plain FUNNY. The dialogue is witty, and watching all the characters talk and interact on screen is hilarious. The episodes are also presented in clever ways--they usually start off with the family members discussing some type of problem, and then the events leading up to this are revealed through flashbacks. It is a refreshing and interesting way to watch a show.GFL is still one of the few shows that can make me laugh out loud, and will always remain one of my personal favorites. Definitely check it out on ABC Family. :) Love it!

I am a HUGE fan of this show. It is hilarious with very well developed characters. Sean, the tries-hard-to-be-cool-but-really-hasn't-got-a-clue father, and husband to Claudia who is always one step ahead of Sean and the kids' antics. Sometimes she can be fooled, only to figure it out (or have it made blatantly obvious to her through inconsistent stories.) Lily, the ticking teenage time bomb about to explode any second. Just trying to be cool, she is forever getting herself into embarrassing situations. (Unknowingly falling drunk on alcoholic apple cider and calling up a boy and inviting him over. Only to meet him at the door in hideously applied makeup while her Uncle Eddie comes home and upon seeing Lily's state kicks the boy out, thinking he got her drunk to take advantage of her.) The two youngest members of the family, Jimmy and Henry are constant trouble makers. With their naturally inquisitive minds, trouble seems to follow them wherever they go. In later seasons, puberty brings a whole new set of problems for the boys.Then we have the happy go lucky mooch Uncle Eddie, Seans' brother. He always has far fetched ideas on how to make money, or how to get his brother and family out of a predicament. These ideas always go totally wrong and fail miserably through misjudgment and miscalculation. He constantly takes advantage of the family by using their home for wild parties while they are away, or living in their basement for 2 weeks without them knowing.Brad the next door neighbour and Lily's on again off again boyfriend is not very intelligent, and totally clueless. He is quite immature which gets him into awkward situations. Even though he is dating Lily, he has a crush on Mrs. Finnerty, which he at one point believes she wants him too, only to find out he is completely wrong.The shows format is very unique with the telling of the story in a series of flashbacks through different points of view. Usually the point of view of the person it happened to in the way they THOUGHT it happened originally. Usually these flashbacks are very far fetched, which makes for a comedic scene. Then as the story is talked out more and details are figured out the flashbacks are shown in the way the situation REALLY happened.I enjoy the show because it shows an American family in the new millennium going through situations that can happen to anybody but usually are embellished by the characters. I also like seeing that they picked characters that look real and not supermodel types. Someone said before about Claudia "finally TV has a beautiful woman that is not under 106 lbs." This goes for Lily too. She is not a rail thin size 0 which is refreshing. Both actresses are absolutely beautiful. Also, Sean is not some totally ripped, Calvin Klein underwear model type guy. He has a bit of a beer belly and a (major) 5 o'clock shadow thing going on. These people are real. I love how each character has their own brand of humour. From facial expressions, to tone of voice and diction. I rate this show a 10 and recommend it to anyone.

Started out on FOX, became a hit, canceled by FOX, rescued by WB, dropped by the WB, syndicated by FOX Family.... this wonderful, funny show has been struggling for a long time for the respect it deserves. It's not a bad show; it's actually quite under-appreciated, but then, only the fans seem to love it. It had a revolutionary style that started with the end and then flashed back on the events that got them there. The back story was that Donal Logue, the happy go-lucky husband, and Megyn Price, the hot-looking wife, were teenage parents trying to get by with their demurely sexy daughter Lynsey Bartilson and feuding sons, Griffin Frazen and Jake Burbage (who mysteriously vanished but still spoken of just before the last season). Their lives were tested by the idiot brother, a possible shady character who didn't understand why he was always in trouble, played by Kevin Corrigan; Richard Reihle, the widowed father with out-dated parenting tips and Bret Harrison, the kind of nerdy and socially-inept neighbor kid with the hots for the daughter. The show had a surprisingly winning formula and the stars all had excellent chemistry, but very little faith by the networks. Riehle, the consummate character actor, even left to co-star in ABC's short-lived hit, "Married to the Kellys," and even faithfully returned for the last episode while the youngest son remained inexplicably and noticeably missing, something that was never explained (did Burbage's parents ask for more money? we may never know). Several things occurred in the series that took the characters away from their original roles: the dad quit his job to save his favorite bar and fight to keep it open, the mom quit his job to go to college, the uncle tried going legit but still remained basically demented and the daughter took the next door boy as her boyfriend after realizing he was the kind of guy she wanted. Oddly, of all the strange incidents that happened in the series, the one incident that stands out in my mind never occurred in the series. For a promo, Frankie Munez of "Malcolm in the Middle" once described the daughter growing to a hundred feet tall and turning her parents into finger puppets then confessed he was lying. Still, that's an image that has never left my mind and as Fox Family brings the series back, that image will remain my picture of the style and crazy wit of this series.

This is one of the few shows that i really look forward to. its really funny and the characters seem so real. Not only because of how they act but also the way they look. They look like people not super model types.The show is so refreshing and it doesn't try to emulate any other show that it just makes me feel happy watching them and their antics.