He’s Not That Guy

This has come up a couple of times in other venues, so I thought I’d mention this in a post: the co-creator of Modern Family and world’s biggest Ty Burrell fan, Christopher Lloyd, is not the guy from Who Framed The Taxi In the Future?, Christopher Lloyd. Because they have the same name, everyone who ever saw the credits on Frasier or Wings thought that the show was written or produced by Reverend Jim Ignatowski. I know I did; I still remember seeing the end credits of The Golden Girls and noticing that one of my favourite actors was listed as a staff writer. Except that it turned out it wasn’t him. Christopher Lloyd, the writer, is the son of another TV writer, David Lloyd (a legend in the business for writing such episodes as “Chuckles Bites the Dust”), who worked for his son on shows like Frasier, and he is married to the voice of Harley Quinn, all of which is really cool, but none of that means he has any association with Marty McFly.

Years ago, I asked on a newsgroup why Lloyd the Writer didn’t just bill himself as “Chris Lloyd,” or “Christopher [middle initial] Lloyd,” the standard practice when you’re trying to make it clear that you’re not the same person as a celebrity. The answer I received was “Um, because he likes his name and his hoping the actor will change his.”

The last regular TV role for Christopher Lloyd The Actor was on Stacked, a show created by Steven Levitan, who then went on to co-create Back To You and Modern Family with Christopher Lloyd The Writer. So a) This is getting even more confusing and b) I am desperately rooting for Christopher Lloyd The Actor to be given a guest shot on Modern Family, creating the Christopher Lloyd convergence we’ve all been waiting for lo these many years.

Update: I see now that Harley Quinn, aka Arleen Sorkin, commented on this recently:

My husband has a new show for ABC called MODERN FAMILY. He’s Chris Lloyd the writer [of FRASIER fame], not Chris Lloyd the actor. And I’m not married to Aaron Sorkin. My whole life is telling people what I’m not!”