\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he intro to the new Malcolm in the Middle is quite the thing. Kids punch police officers. Santa Claus gets kicked in the face. A barrel full of faeces detonates inside a family car. This recap of previous episodes is so full of gross-out comedy and family fights that a grandma grabs her teenage grandson and crushes his testicles until he squeals. \u201cAnd,\u201d intones a voiceover at its end, \u201csomeone actually asked for more of this.\u201d<\/p>\n Did they? It\u2019s been 20 years since the Emmy-winning sitcom about an outrageous working-class US family with the titular child genius went off air. It\u2019s a show whose fans remember it fondly for never dipping in quality throughout its seven seasons. But were they really clamouring for more?<\/p>\n \u201cIt was in all the magazines,\u201d says Frankie Muniz, AKA lead character Malcolm. In 2015, he casually tweeted that it would be \u201cso cool\u201d to catch up with the characters and \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe the response. I was shocked.\u201d Although, really, he shouldn\u2019t have been. After all, he\u2019s spent decades getting first-hand experience of how much more loved the show is\u00a0than he ever dreamed.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the wildest was the first time I went overseas. I had no idea people knew the show there. I was in Geneva, walking with my girlfriend and people were looking. By the end of it, we were literally being chased down the street. When I\u2019m in Europe or I\u2019m in Mexico or in Central America, people love the show so much that \u2026 I\u2019m not comparing myself to the Beatles at all, but it almost was that odd level of \u2018What is happening?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Fans should be happy. The rebooted Malcolm in the Middle (subtitled Life\u2019s Still Unfair, after the theme tune lyrics) is every bit the laugh-out-loud pleasure that the original was. The four half-hour episodes \u2013 which reunite the original cast for parents Lois and Hal\u2019s 40th wedding anniversary celebration \u2013 are full of killer gags, surreal humour and OTT family showdowns ranging from siblings calling the tax office on each other to Malcolm attempting to win an argument about not being stuck up by keying his own car. It\u2019s a comedic joy.<\/p>\n And it would never have been made without one man. The series really came to be following a conversation Muniz had shortly after that tweet. \u201cI had dinner with Bryan and I remember him saying something like: \u2018There\u2019s no role I\u2019d want to revisit more than Hal,\u2019 so he took the lead. It\u2019s thanks to Bryan that it really did happen.\u201d<\/p>\n That, just to be clear, is Bryan Cranston<\/a>. AKA the star of Breaking Bad, widely regarded as one of the greatest TV shows of all time. He won the Emmy for outstanding lead actor four times in five seasons, creating one of the finest performances ever committed to screen. Is it not surprising that the one role he\u2019s keenest to reprise is a goofball dad with a penchant for stumbling into ludicrous slapstick\u00a0scenarios?<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s because he\u2019s been murdering so many people on other shows,\u201d laughs Jane Kaczmarek, who plays Malcolm\u2019s mother, Lois. \u201cHe\u2019s like, wow, I can go back and be Hal again?\u201d<\/p>\n The opportunity to have fun certainly isn\u2019t one that Cranston wastes in the new episodes. He performs a full-on choreographed dance routine in a supermarket aisle. He attempts to microdose, accidentally takes enough hallucinogens for 15 elephants and ends up imagining himself as Nine Inch Nails\u2019 Trent Reznor, replete with thigh-high leather boots. He is repeatedly naked, including a callback to Hal\u2019s habit of stripping down so Lois can shave off his excess body hair while his kids watch on in horror.<\/p>\n \u201cTaking my clothes off seems to be my whole life,\u201d laughs Cranston \u2013 who recently won an Emmy for appearing in an episode of Seth Rogen comedy The Studio, in which he wore a leopardskin thong. \u201cI thought a nudity clause meant that it was circumspect as to when someone was going to be naked. I didn\u2019t know my agent viewed a nudity clause as \u2018nudity is essential\u2019. So here I am, a 70-year-old man parading around in his skivvies \u2013 or less.\u201d<\/p>\n Cranston\u2019s all-or-nothing approach won\u2019t exactly shock fans of the original Malcolm in the Middle. As far as he was concerned, the more extreme his commitment, the funnier the joke.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t even recall all the things that I\u2019ve done, but all in the name of comedy, man. You gotta go for it,\u201d he says. \u201cI was covered in blue paint. I was tied to the front of a city bus. I had 60,000 honey bees all over me \u2013 I got stung in my crotch. In one episode I had to drink a concoction of raw meat and eggs.\u201d<\/p>\n You had<\/em> to?<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, of course I did. Because I wanted to. Because I know the audience would wonder if I really did it. So in the same shot that I\u2019m cracking eggs, putting raw meat in, and blending, I start drinking it.\u201d<\/p>\n And this is the role you were desperate to do over?<\/p>\n \u201cIt was seven great years of my life \u2013 in which I met the most wonderful people. There\u2019s no better\u00a0job than going to work and thinking of how to be funny.\u201d<\/p>\n The intervening years have taken the cast in very different directions. Kaczmarek took a hiatus from acting, as \u201cmy life went topsy-turvy. I got divorced shortly after the show ended and had three kids that I really wanted to raise.\u201d Erik Per Sullivan, who played Malcolm\u2019s younger brother Dewey, is currently studying for a master\u2019s degree at Harvard \u2013 and is the only member of the original family to be recast (Kaczmarek: \u201cHe\u2019s studying Dickens and is an incredible student \u2013 they offered him buckets of money to come back, and he just said: \u2018No thank you\u2019.\u201d) Muniz threw himself into alternative ventures, from becoming a professional racing driver to running an olive oil shop with his wife in which he \u201cwas personally filling 600 bottles a day \u2013 because I want to make sure everything\u2019s perfect\u201d. The latter came as no surprise to the cast.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember him saying once in the makeup chair he was thinking about buying warehouses in Australia,\u201d laughs Kaczmarek. \u201cAnd I thought, what 16-year-old kid is thinking about buying a warehouse? He was a good kid. He didn\u2019t drink. He didn\u2019t do drugs. He was a real straight arrow.\u201d<\/p>\n Given that some of them stepped away from acting, you can\u2019t help but wonder whether it felt odd to be back on screen. Especially given\u00a0that one of them became quite possibly the greatest actor of\u00a0his generation.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Bryan was more nervous to work with me again,\u201d laughs Muniz. \u201cI wasn\u2019t intimidated to work with him, because he\u2019s always just been such an amazing guy to me. Throughout all the success he\u2019s had, he\u2019s always been there to support whatever I\u2019m doing. When I had the olive oil company, he bought the olive oil. I was in a band, and he came to the shows. When I was racing, he checked on me after a wreck. I was just excited to spend more time with him.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a vibe that comes across pretty clearly in the show. To see the cast back together is to marvel at chemistry that is somehow every bit as vigorous after two decades apart. Second child Reese (Justin Berfield) steals scenes with his hilariously malevolent rivalry with Malcolm and non-binary sibling Kelly (the one new addition to the cast, as Lois was pregnant with them in the original run, played by Vaughan Murrae). Eldest son Francis\u2019s (Christopher Kennedy Masterson) manic \u2013 and futile \u2013 determination to be the apple of his mother\u2019s eye is still hilarious (\u201cMom \u2026 I\u2019m senior management. I have 75 people under me.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s 75 people plotting to replace you!\u201d).<\/p>\n It\u2019s exactly the slice of joy the world needs right now. Did the team ever feel like helping to bring some laughter into people\u2019s lives was a public service given how dark\u00a0the world feels?<\/p>\n \u201cComedy is essential right now. It\u2019s not even important. It\u2019s essential,\u201d says Cranston. \u201cBecause it\u2019s a break from the bombardment of non-stop information. People who have the news on 24 hours a day in their homes, I don\u2019t think they realise the damage they\u2019re doing. You might as well make a house full of asbestos or just have radiation constantly emitting through your house.\u201d<\/p>\n There is one thing about bringing the show back that doesn\u2019t feel quite right, though. When the original run wanted to prove Lois\u2019s unshakeable belief in Malcolm, it\u00a0ended with her telling him he could be the greatest person on the\u00a0planet \u2013 the US president.<\/p>\n \u201cGod, who would want to do that now?\u201d says Kaczmarek. \u201cTalk about unfair: look who we got as president. If only Lois had raised Donald Trump, she could have put a couple of good kicks up his backside.\u201d<\/p>\n Malcolm in the Middle: Life\u2019s Still Unfair is on Disney+ on <\/em>10 April<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The intro to the new Malcolm in the Middle is quite the thing. Kids punch police officers. Santa Claus gets kicked in the face. A barrel full of faeces detonates inside a family car. This recap of previous episodes is so full of gross-out comedy and family fights that a grandma grabs her teenage grandson … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/\u2018Taking-my-clothes-off-is-my-whole-life-Bryan-Cranston.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26541,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26539\/revisions\/26541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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