Modern Family Cut A Key Pilot Concept & Left A Huge Series Plot Hole

When it comes to long-running sitcoms, the mockumentary seems to be a winning format. After all, "The Office," "Parks and Recreation," and "Modern Family" each had extensive and successful runs and are still widely beloved by fans years after they have gone off of the air.

However, when it comes to "Modern Family," a series that was once sued for copyright infringement, this framing device is actually never explained. We don't really know why the Pritchett-Dunphy clan is being filmed or who they're talking to. To hear it from co-creator Steven Levitan, though, this wasn't always the case. On NJ.com, Alan Sepinwall filled in some of the gaps around the format based on a conversation he had with Levitan.

"Levitan said that in the original pitch, it was explicitly a documentary made by a Dutch filmmaker named Geert Floorjte, who had lived with Jay's family as a teenage exchange student and developed a crush on Claire (while Mitchell had a crush on him)," Sepinwall explained. In the end, Levitan and co-creator Christopher Lloyd ended up ditching the concept.

It's no surprise, really, that as a show that already has such a large cast of characters and family units to focus on, "Modern Family" ended up leaving this extraneous idea on the cutting room floor. After all, it seems unlikely that having a guy with a wacky accent on the other end of the camera setting up potential love triangles would do the series any favors.

As it turns out, Steven Levitan had even more pragmatic reasons for leaving this concept out of the show. "It's a conversation we have a lot," he said. "Is it a true documentary, or is it a family show done documentary-style? I prefer the latter because I don't like those families who let cameras in their houses in real life."

It sounds like Levitan has an ax to grind against these types of reality shows and perhaps even feared that this element would take away from the authenticity of the family dynamic in "Modern Family." "I just can't stand those shows. So it makes me — it would make me question them a little bit," Levitan said. "Who would allow all of this to be filmed by a crew? So I like the idea that it's just our style of storytelling." Being that the show ran successfully for 11 seasons as is, it sounds like this was probably the right call in the end.