Kid sitcoms, or ‘kidcoms’, are generally tough for adults to watch. Lots of mugging for the camera, tons of one-line gags, and lame physical humor usually dominate episodes of those shows. So it’s always refreshing to see one come along that has character-based humor with a relaxed pace. Apple’s new kidcom does just that.
Opening Shot: A suburban house. Two friends run down the stairs to get the last ice cream sandwich in the freezer. One of the boys has a prosthetic right leg.
The Gist: Josh Dubin (Logan Marmino) really wants to go to public school for 7th grade. He’s homeschooled along with his younger brother Matthew (Roger Dale Floyd) and younger sister Louisa (Romy Fay), and his parents Maggie (Joy Suprano) and Gary (Stephen Schneider) like that arrangement. But Josh’s best friend Kyle (Peyton Jackson) has been giving him the hard sell, especially because he claims he’s the “Mayor of middle school.”
After giving a presentation to his parents, Josh finally persuades them to send him to public school; Maggie is especially reluctant, she thinks the kids will single him out because of his prosthetic leg. The one condition is that Matthew goes with him, which is just fine with a kid who thinks they go to school in a “vanilla-scented prison.”
Josh doesn’t want to be known as “the kid with the leg,” so he asks Kyle and Matthew to keep it quiet. He also has read motivational books and has decided to memorize the yearbook and call everyone by name. Kyle starts things off by telling Josh that he’s not popular, he doesn’t like school and he hides most of the day. Undaunted, Josh still executes his charm offensive; it gets him one new friend, Gabriella Decker (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and it seems like he’s become the “mayor of middle school” by the end of lunch.
But when a bully trips him and his foot pops off, he becomes “the kid with the leg,” and gets all sorts of unwanted attention and dumb questions, like how he lost the leg. Fearing his mom will pull him out over the incident, he lets his dad know, who assures him that things can’t get any worse and that he’ll break the news to Maggie himself.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Best Foot Forward reminds us of various smart kidcoms over the years, like Lizzie McGuire, Andi Mack, Diary Of A Future President and other similar shows.
Our Take: Created by kids show veteran Matt Fleckenstein, Best Foot Forward tells a relatively simple story in a fun and smart manner, giving us characters that are generally a little more wise and self-aware but for the most part act their age.
While Josh’s adventures in public school have the added obstacle of making sure he’s not seen as the “kid with the leg,” much of what we see in Best Foot Forward is general middle-school coming-of-age stuff; friendships made, preteen and teen love blossoming, and funny situations that Josh tries to manage.
In the second episode, for instance, Principal Keifer (Brian Stepanek) gives Josh a key to the elevator, despite Josh’s pleas that he doesn’t need it; Kyle convinces him that they can use it as a quick avenue to popularity. So, while Josh’s leg may be used as a jumping-off point for some of the stories, they’re still about the age-old desire to just fit in, especially during the super-painful middle school years.
We already see in the first episode that Matthew can handle middle school just fine, Luisa’s innocent face belies something a little darker underneath, Kyle is desperate to be known, Maggie is overprotective, and Gary… Well, Gary seems to be the same inept sitcom dad that makes us roll our eyes, but Schnieider at least makes him easygoing and funny.
In other words, Fleckenstein and his staff have done a good job making the characters the focus over particular gags. It doesn’t force the funny, which is something we always appreciate from any sitcom, whether it’s geared towards kids or not. There’s no mugging for the camera. Its relaxed pace helps us get into who Josh and his family are and lets us settle in for some really smart laughs that come out of the personalities of well-established characters.
What Age Group Is This For?: Best Foot Forward is rated TV-G, and it’s definitely suitable for all ages.
Parting Shot: Luisa hears her dad tell her brothers to keep Josh’s first day quiet. “Ooh… secrets… and snacks!”
Sleeper Star: Roger Dale Floyd plays Matthew, who is about a year younger than Josh. But he definitely seems to have his stuff together more than Josh does, and takes to middle school like a duck to a lake. He’s a good foil to Josh’s more straight-laced personality.
Most Pilot-y Line: When Kyle tells Josh that the pizza at school is terrible, Josh says, “The pizza’s terrible? That’s OK, I can live with that.” Well, we don’t know if we could. Bad pizza at school? That would stop us cold.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Best Foot Forward is a family-friendly sitcom that doesn’t pander to its audience in the slightest. And even though its plots consist of standard middle school shenanigans, it doesn’t rely on lame gags for cheap laughs.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
