{"id":5341,"date":"2013-10-18T03:34:28","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T11:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/entertainment\/?p=5341"},"modified":"2015-07-16T22:21:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T06:21:39","slug":"what-was-michael-j-foxs-revenge-against-brandon-tartikoff-for-tartikoffs-original-hesitance-to-cast-fox-in-family-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/entertainment\/2013\/10\/18\/what-was-michael-j-foxs-revenge-against-brandon-tartikoff-for-tartikoffs-original-hesitance-to-cast-fox-in-family-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"What Was Michael J. Fox’s “Revenge” Against Brandon Tartikoff For Tartikoff’s Original Hesitance to Cast Fox in Family Ties?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here<\/a> to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.<\/p>\n

TV URBAN LEGEND<\/span><\/u>: Michael J. Fox had a clever “revenge” for Brandon Tartikoff’s early doubts about whether Fox would be popular enough to star in a regular TV series.<\/p>\n

The original actor cast in the role of Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties was Matthew Broderick, but Broderick ended up backing out of the show. You can only imagine how much that irked show creator Gary David Goldberg. It was pretty clear, even then, that Broderick was going to be something special, so the idea of having him and then NOT having him was pretty rough, and Goldberg seemingly took his frustration out on the hundreds of young men who auditioned to take Broderick’s place.<\/p>\n

Eventually, though, his writers and co-producer had him take a second look at one of the actors that had auditioned before they had cast Broderick in the first place, Michael J. Fox.<\/p>\n

This time, Goldberg was converted.<\/p>\n

However, he had to sell the idea to the network, particularly NBC Head of Entertainment Programming, Brandon Tartikoff. Before the pilot was even filmed, Tartikoff took issue with Fox’s height. He felt he was too short for the role of the son of Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney. However, he let Goldberg have his way for now.<\/p>\n

Once the pilot was filmed, though, NBC loved the show itself, but Tartikoff, once again, tried to have Fox replaced. This time, his argument (in response to Goldberg’s argument that Fox was quite good) was “Maybe, but this is not the kind of face that you’ll ever see on a lunchbox.”<\/p>\n

Eventually, though, Tartikoff relented and let Goldberg have his way.<\/p>\n

And, of course, Family Ties was a big hit and Fox, in particular, became a star. <\/p>\n

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