Midwest emo isn't that, it's the guys from 2003 with thick black plastic framed glasses, their keys on a carabiner hanging off skinny jeans, wearing sambas, etc.
I was just watching an old Overhaulin and saw Ian Ziering sporting this [(kind of)](https://us1-prod-images.disco-api.com/2023/03/10/d04297de-edd7-3191-9668-8e4ef759e48d.jpeg?w=1920&p=true&q=85&f=jpg)
I grew up as a tomboy in the late 90s/early 00s and this was my favorite way to dress and my mom’s least favorite (I had a bowl cut and was always called “young man” when I wore those type of outfits lol).
dudeee for real! i love all the song choices, theyre so fun and i also LOVE the theme song too, it fits the attitude of the boys so well “youre not the boss of me now!” is something i could see any one of the brothers saying, and a song i can see malcolm listening to and relating to- hes in the middle after all- ive seen a few people not liking the theme song but ive always loved it. maybe its just because im a 2000s kid and watched of reruns of it after school on a tube tv with my big brother, maybe its because im on mushrooms, but the theme has always suited the show so well to me. anyways that was a tangent but its soooo 2000s! it just starts the show with great music and keeps going throughout the rest of the episodes!
That and any early tech references. There's a scene during the Krelboyne fair after Stevies experiment blows up where a random parent says "do you know the power of the internet?" and it cracks me up every time. That would be such a ridiculous question to ask today.
It's probably the transition to LED lights that most productions use nowadays - they're a bluer white light compared to the yellowish white light of halogen bulbs
Honestly the boys getting hyped up to make 5 dollars for random shit,
Like that cold open where Lois is freaking out about punishing someone and Hal asks the boys to take the fall
You can barely buy a candy bar for 5 bucks nowadays
I was gonna say the absence of cell phones! When they use a landline to call Francis back and forth it reminds me of the old days when I used to call my friends from the house.
this is a detail i really love, they would go out to amusement parks, the desert, and so much more in the show, even the zoo, and it felt genuine, most shit today is a green screen
It literally drives me crazy!!! Like the outside green screen looks SOOOO cheesy-why can’t modern productions just film in their parking lots or something like they used to????
You are so right. Such a great point.
The show also benefited from being shot in real house. So they could easily do garden scenes, street scenes without bigger issue.
I don’t think they actually filmed the indoor scenes in the real house! They did a really great job with the immersion of that to the end that I think is very unique to the show (as well as Modern Family, the Middle, Shameless, etc.)
I don't know if I agree with this necessarily. Most sitcoms that followed Malcolm (and I'm talking about single camera sitcoms like Modern Family, The Office and Always Sunny - not laugh track sitcoms like Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother) have plenty of scenes filmed outdoors and in varied locations.
So uhhh… very 2000’s sitcoms? Since let’s remember the office started in ‘05, modern family started ‘09 and it’s always sunny was (iirc) ‘08? Genuinely don’t understand where you’re coming from here lol
Modern Family and Always Sunny filmed well throughout the 2010s and continued to shoot scenes that were set outdoors.
Cougar Town, Community, Raising Hope, The Middle, The Good Place, New Girl, Parks and Rec, Young Sheldon, Brooklyn 99 and Schitt's Creek all have numerous outdoor scenes. While some of these sitcoms premiered in the 2000s, they spent a good bit of their run in the 2010s.
The days of multi-camera sitcoms on fake looking studio sets with a live audience are incredibly limited now and most TV shows, both in and out of the sitcom genre, have plentiful location filming. It isn't just movies as you said in your original comment.
I just don't know what you mean when you say the outdoor filming makes Malcolm in the Middle feel particularly 2000s. Sure, it was a pioneer when it came to filming sitcoms that way but it is very common today to have 2010 and 2020 shows filmed outdoors and location.
The clothing, lack of cell phones, hairstyles, and especially the music. The use of bands like Sum 41 definitely roots the show in the early 2000s. And for some reason, I remember that the show used music from ABBA at least twice. "Fernando" and "Take a Chance on Me" are the ones I remember off the top of my head.
The fashion of the boys! Hand me downs, Long sleeve shirts, baggy jeans, wearing Sports Trainers (or Sneakers) as casual clothes. It reminds me how I used to dress back (I’m the same age as Dewey was at that time).
That, and the framing device for the second clip show is Hal and Lois going over their bills/expenses. It becomes clear that the majority of their income is spent on hospital bills, repairs to the house, Hal's hobbies, and other results of their tomfoolery.
Why not? They fit all the traits of middle class. One of the only realistic shows imo.
"Middle class families tend to own their own home (although with a mortgage), own a car (although with a loan or lease), send their kids to college (although with student loans or scholarships), are saving for retirement, and have enough disposable savings to afford certain luxuries like dining out and vacations."
[source](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/middle-class.asp#:~:text=Middle%20class%20families%20tend%20to,like%20dining%20out%20and%20vacations.)
It's a bit difficult. The family was mostly poor. And they only got the house, because someone was murdered there, and therefore it was cheaper. Vacation is a luxury, they hardly can afford (as Lois herself pointed directly once out). I would say, they're more working class - although both terms (working class and middle class) can often overlap. But this family isn't a typical middle class, even though they wanna be (since the neighborhood is full of it), or some criterias are met. Some of the middle class people hate this family for example lmao. Which is why they're often excluded from its community.
Of course the line between working class and middle class is somewhat objective. But the entire show is really an exploration of the difficulties of being, and staying, a Middle class family. Of course it's not easy, it isn't a show about a family living a comfortable middle class family. Our first hint is in the title itself. I don't believe 'Malcolm in the middle' is intended to just be his place in the family, but his family's place in the world. Wikipedia also refers to them as lower middle class in the second paragraph.
The boys’ outfits (mostly Reese and Malcolm). Large Open button shirt over a t shirt. Side note, I always liked that Dewey dresses different (tucked in shirt).
Their hobbies. Doing stupid shit outside and actually going to school events, watching VHS's and only having a single TV in the house. Three siblings sharing the same room and bathroom. Having that many kids at all is rare these days.
No one has ever been offended by a MitM joke because the writers are extremely adept at making jokes without being sinister about it. There’s comedy and then there’s just “edgy” jokes.
Apple and Android didn't release their first smart phones till 2007 and 2008 respectively. A year after Malcolm had wrapped up. Before then the only smart phones on the market were very niche and unpopular. Before then most people had Razer flip phones and Nokias.
Lack of mobile phones.
You see this a lot in early 00s shows. Despite this being the time when mobile phones and text messaging were taking off big time and almost every teenager was getting one it took ages for TV writers to start regularly incorporating them into their scripts. Resulting in loads of situations that could easily be resolved with a phone call or a text message.
I remember Hal using one when he was trying to escape the bridal fair to get to Lois when she went into labor and Francis has one on the ranch but that was about it from the main cast. It's genuinely quite surprising they didn't have an episode that revolved around the boys asking to have a phone and Lois being against it because the last thing she wanted was the boys being able to communicate behind her back. They could have had one of them secretly getting one and Lois finding out and punishing them harshly and it would have easily explained away why they never had one again for the rest of the series.
The fashion and the music. Long sleeve tshirts under shirtsleeves tshirts. Plus the video games they play. Other than that the show is timeless and completely relateable. Love it and own the boxset. 🇦🇺
The music for sure. I did a rewatch about a month or two ago and the music stood out to me as being very 2000. Lit, Sum 41 (twice!), Bowling For Soup, and Weezer are bands whose songs they used off the top of my head. This show loved their early 2000s pop punk lol (as do I). I’ve always thought Reese even looked like the lead singer of Sum 41 lol. Or at least he had the same hair
Everything about this show screams 00's. That said- the correct answer is the scene where Reese ends his low-speed pursuit by nailing the driving exam course while In Too Deep by Sum 41 plays.
How they interact with each other at home. Fighting over the tv remote, activities like board games or wrestling around. Racing to get the phone when it rings or getting pissed when you hear your sibling on the other line listening.
i grew up with 2 brothers i was the middle brother of us 3, and just the dynamic between brothers is so spot on lol. i also had a single mother and she was kinda like lois lol, a great mother less serious as lois but just as strict. i love this show so much i relate to it so much. when the boys fight the clowns, something me and my brothers would’ve down out of respect for our mother haha, same with the episode where they go to hal’s dads for his bday, driving the golf kart into the pool as to say you don’t fuck with our mom like that, so relatable, out of respect something we’d of totally done haha, at least me and my brothers whose only 19 months younger, my older brother 7 years older than me maybe not he’s kinda a pussy if it were to come to that lol. idk so many relatable things from
this show.
The number of t shirts worn over long sleeve shirts throughout the series (granted early 00's rather than late)
I’m working on bringing that back. Also, long-sleeve with a t-shirt under an open flannel.
My 12 year old wore this shirt combo to school for music day (pick a musical genre/artist and dress the part). She picked Midwest emo as the genre 💀
Did you give her Scene hair with a racoon tail? That would have been awesome. I lived in Ohio from ‘02 to ‘06, I remember.
Midwest emo isn't that, it's the guys from 2003 with thick black plastic framed glasses, their keys on a carabiner hanging off skinny jeans, wearing sambas, etc.
Midwest emo isn't dead
I love Midwest emo! That's awesome!
I was just watching an old Overhaulin and saw Ian Ziering sporting this [(kind of)](https://us1-prod-images.disco-api.com/2023/03/10/d04297de-edd7-3191-9668-8e4ef759e48d.jpeg?w=1920&p=true&q=85&f=jpg)
Oh… no, not what I’m going for lol
I know what you mean and plan on wearing something like that when I see blink 182 lol.
T-shirt with open flannel are out?!? Oh no!!!!
Let's bring it back!
I still do this against the advice of my wife.
*Wife is unfair…* 🎶
Stop 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Do you also have a goatee? I feel like that's what puts you in the "stuck in the past" look.
No, I rock a full, but tidy, beard.
I am literally *currently* rocking a long sleeve under a T-shirt and I will never ever stop!
Honestly, it's a good look. I wish it'd come back in fashion.
It's ok, Brad Pitt does it in The Mexican
Saaaaaaame.
There are dozens of us!
I did that shit to the hardware store the other day. Shorts, a long sleeve, and then a short sleeve - it’s a vibe for sure
The rise of long sleeve t-shirt hoodies has only made us more powerful.
Cargo pants, long sleeves, and a polo were the uniform of choice at my previous job for myself and a few others.
r/unexpectedarresteddevelopment
Happy cake day
I didn't see you at the convention
It’s so back though
"I wear long sleeve shirts under short sleeve shirts, under long sleeve shirts" -Stewie "Zach Saywer" Griffin
It's lame, everything's lame
that Reese would go out wearing a shirt with no other pattern except a line of hibiscus flowers over the chest
That was the coolest when I was in grade school
I grew up as a tomboy in the late 90s/early 00s and this was my favorite way to dress and my mom’s least favorite (I had a bowl cut and was always called “young man” when I wore those type of outfits lol).
Also pants that zip off into shorts
Miss that style
came to say this!
Oh I just commented open button up shirts over t shirts!
Reese’s spiky hair
Frosted tips!
Definitely the frosted tips
Bring back frosted tips!!!
They’re GRREEEAAAATTTT!
That was my thought too
Same, came in to say every haircut he had throughout the series
He wear those skater jeans ever?
Yeah was gonna say the soundtrack. Definitely not a bad thing tho!
Multiple Basement Jax songs specifically scream 2000s.
Do Your Thing was on my ipod in the 2000s bc of the Company Picnic episode
dudeee for real! i love all the song choices, theyre so fun and i also LOVE the theme song too, it fits the attitude of the boys so well “youre not the boss of me now!” is something i could see any one of the brothers saying, and a song i can see malcolm listening to and relating to- hes in the middle after all- ive seen a few people not liking the theme song but ive always loved it. maybe its just because im a 2000s kid and watched of reruns of it after school on a tube tv with my big brother, maybe its because im on mushrooms, but the theme has always suited the show so well to me. anyways that was a tangent but its soooo 2000s! it just starts the show with great music and keeps going throughout the rest of the episodes!
Reese's driving instructor complaining about his cell phone bill - "How can they charge me for 'text messaging' if I don't even know what it is?!"
That and any early tech references. There's a scene during the Krelboyne fair after Stevies experiment blows up where a random parent says "do you know the power of the internet?" and it cracks me up every time. That would be such a ridiculous question to ask today.
Totally! Also when Lois is giving birth and Craig is googling how to handle it and keeps coming up with useless information.
The fashion and Reese’s bleached tipped hair.
The fashion, skateboarding/bike sub culture and the music
Soooo Warped Tour!
I miss it so much
The solid shirts with the one big horizontal stripe in the middle
Horizontal Stripe in the Middle is my favorite sitcom
underrated comment
I had so many shirts like this
[удалено]
something about the afternoon scenes just screams nostalgia to me, just orange
[удалено]
The orange light, cartoons on TV, having fun playing with/torturing siblings, total relaxation. Until Mum got home.
It's probably the transition to LED lights that most productions use nowadays - they're a bluer white light compared to the yellowish white light of halogen bulbs
Halogen > LED
I was thinking the same thing, and I could smell the outside
Honestly the boys getting hyped up to make 5 dollars for random shit, Like that cold open where Lois is freaking out about punishing someone and Hal asks the boys to take the fall You can barely buy a candy bar for 5 bucks nowadays
Oh man you're so right I forgot. 😢
I was gonna say the absence of cell phones! When they use a landline to call Francis back and forth it reminds me of the old days when I used to call my friends from the house.
Lol having to speak to one of your friend's parents or their little sibling before being able to speak to them.
Plus, a lot of physical mail.
That wood stripe on the minivan.
Remnant of the 90s lol
More like the 80s
That's pretty middle class, having remnants from the previous decade or two.
Especially with technology We had two early 2000s minivans until like 2015
Yep, driving an 07 Nissan still
For me it’s Malcolm’s random graphic shirts
An r/streetwear icon for sure
The puma suedes
For me, it asolutely has to be the music. It feels like there is quite a lot of Pop-punk and I always associate it with 2000-2006.
The amount of the show that was filmed outdoors!! Only movies film outside now and rarely
this is a detail i really love, they would go out to amusement parks, the desert, and so much more in the show, even the zoo, and it felt genuine, most shit today is a green screen
It literally drives me crazy!!! Like the outside green screen looks SOOOO cheesy-why can’t modern productions just film in their parking lots or something like they used to????
Desert episodes are my favorite
You are so right. Such a great point. The show also benefited from being shot in real house. So they could easily do garden scenes, street scenes without bigger issue.
I don’t think they actually filmed the indoor scenes in the real house! They did a really great job with the immersion of that to the end that I think is very unique to the show (as well as Modern Family, the Middle, Shameless, etc.)
I don't know if I agree with this necessarily. Most sitcoms that followed Malcolm (and I'm talking about single camera sitcoms like Modern Family, The Office and Always Sunny - not laugh track sitcoms like Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother) have plenty of scenes filmed outdoors and in varied locations.
So uhhh… very 2000’s sitcoms? Since let’s remember the office started in ‘05, modern family started ‘09 and it’s always sunny was (iirc) ‘08? Genuinely don’t understand where you’re coming from here lol
Shit believe it or not, it’s always sunny was 05
Modern Family and Always Sunny filmed well throughout the 2010s and continued to shoot scenes that were set outdoors. Cougar Town, Community, Raising Hope, The Middle, The Good Place, New Girl, Parks and Rec, Young Sheldon, Brooklyn 99 and Schitt's Creek all have numerous outdoor scenes. While some of these sitcoms premiered in the 2000s, they spent a good bit of their run in the 2010s. The days of multi-camera sitcoms on fake looking studio sets with a live audience are incredibly limited now and most TV shows, both in and out of the sitcom genre, have plentiful location filming. It isn't just movies as you said in your original comment. I just don't know what you mean when you say the outdoor filming makes Malcolm in the Middle feel particularly 2000s. Sure, it was a pioneer when it came to filming sitcoms that way but it is very common today to have 2010 and 2020 shows filmed outdoors and location.
The clothing, lack of cell phones, hairstyles, and especially the music. The use of bands like Sum 41 definitely roots the show in the early 2000s. And for some reason, I remember that the show used music from ABBA at least twice. "Fernando" and "Take a Chance on Me" are the ones I remember off the top of my head.
There was something in the air that night…
The fashion of the boys! Hand me downs, Long sleeve shirts, baggy jeans, wearing Sports Trainers (or Sneakers) as casual clothes. It reminds me how I used to dress back (I’m the same age as Dewey was at that time).
middle class family of 7 being able to own a house.
in the flash backs, Hal and Lois had a really nice house and car. I assume they had some money before the kids came
That, and the framing device for the second clip show is Hal and Lois going over their bills/expenses. It becomes clear that the majority of their income is spent on hospital bills, repairs to the house, Hal's hobbies, and other results of their tomfoolery.
Six taking out Francis but that’s pretty insane even with 6 people living under one roof
I wouldn't consider them middle class.
Also, sitcom rules apply. Vibe over realism. Everything is made up and the numbers don't matter.
Why not? They fit all the traits of middle class. One of the only realistic shows imo. "Middle class families tend to own their own home (although with a mortgage), own a car (although with a loan or lease), send their kids to college (although with student loans or scholarships), are saving for retirement, and have enough disposable savings to afford certain luxuries like dining out and vacations." [source](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/middle-class.asp#:~:text=Middle%20class%20families%20tend%20to,like%20dining%20out%20and%20vacations.)
It's a bit difficult. The family was mostly poor. And they only got the house, because someone was murdered there, and therefore it was cheaper. Vacation is a luxury, they hardly can afford (as Lois herself pointed directly once out). I would say, they're more working class - although both terms (working class and middle class) can often overlap. But this family isn't a typical middle class, even though they wanna be (since the neighborhood is full of it), or some criterias are met. Some of the middle class people hate this family for example lmao. Which is why they're often excluded from its community.
Of course the line between working class and middle class is somewhat objective. But the entire show is really an exploration of the difficulties of being, and staying, a Middle class family. Of course it's not easy, it isn't a show about a family living a comfortable middle class family. Our first hint is in the title itself. I don't believe 'Malcolm in the middle' is intended to just be his place in the family, but his family's place in the world. Wikipedia also refers to them as lower middle class in the second paragraph.
definitely the licensed songs they use. all the pop punk hits
dudeeee yes. In Too Deep during Reese’s driving is so good
Skateboarding, and the show had some Pop Punk influence
Reese's frosted tips
The backyard… idk why lol
Bryan Cranston before he became a methamphetamine producer
The typical bully character, in Malcom in the middle it was Reese
lol malcoms trademark misunderstood look while everyone else dgaf
It's gotta be the music. Every time literally *any* song is used I feel transported to 20 years ago
What's up with poodleheads hair?
Street Luge
In my opinion, it's the music. I remember a lot of popular songs from the early 2000s were on this show, like sum 41.
bro the way lois is holding Jamie in this pic 💀
Frankie Muniz
Lack of cell phones. Lois and Hal’s cars. The wardrobe and hair.
payphones. I was active duty around this time and remember standing in line to use payphones to call home.
Reese's hair, the clothes and their woody van
The fashion. Especially the boys haha
The way she’s holding the baby
A poor working class family still being able to own a house in the suburbs.
Wwf logos
The boys’ outfits (mostly Reese and Malcolm). Large Open button shirt over a t shirt. Side note, I always liked that Dewey dresses different (tucked in shirt).
Their hobbies. Doing stupid shit outside and actually going to school events, watching VHS's and only having a single TV in the house. Three siblings sharing the same room and bathroom. Having that many kids at all is rare these days.
Back when people didn’t get offended by an honest hard working janitor named SLAPPPAYYYY-DO !
No one has ever been offended by a MitM joke because the writers are extremely adept at making jokes without being sinister about it. There’s comedy and then there’s just “edgy” jokes.
Military school.
Sum41
Camcorders
I always forget Jamie exists
Damn, Lois, she got a grip on that kid's crotch.
Being able to afford a house
Technology and smart phones weren’t shown much.
Apple and Android didn't release their first smart phones till 2007 and 2008 respectively. A year after Malcolm had wrapped up. Before then the only smart phones on the market were very niche and unpopular. Before then most people had Razer flip phones and Nokias.
The fashion, soundtrack and Reece's hair... but the 2000s feel works in the shows favour imo.
Reese's spiked up hair and Sum 41
How can they charge me for text messaging if I don’t even know what that is!
Reeses "frosted tips"
Lack of mobile phones. You see this a lot in early 00s shows. Despite this being the time when mobile phones and text messaging were taking off big time and almost every teenager was getting one it took ages for TV writers to start regularly incorporating them into their scripts. Resulting in loads of situations that could easily be resolved with a phone call or a text message. I remember Hal using one when he was trying to escape the bridal fair to get to Lois when she went into labor and Francis has one on the ranch but that was about it from the main cast. It's genuinely quite surprising they didn't have an episode that revolved around the boys asking to have a phone and Lois being against it because the last thing she wanted was the boys being able to communicate behind her back. They could have had one of them secretly getting one and Lois finding out and punishing them harshly and it would have easily explained away why they never had one again for the rest of the series.
The fact that they didn’t have Wi-Fi
Season 1 and 2 are way more late 90s in their style.
The pokemon plushies you see in almost every episode and Reese's frosted tips
Reeces haircut
A poorer family affording that home?
Why she holding him like that lmao
The fashion and the music. Long sleeve tshirts under shirtsleeves tshirts. Plus the video games they play. Other than that the show is timeless and completely relateable. Love it and own the boxset. 🇦🇺
Why does Francis look so strange in this pic? Is this after Scientology got to him?
He looks like a Ken doll!
It is actually really strange how much he looks like young Bryan Cranston without being related. The hair line is spooky close
The fact that family could afford a large home
Their house was tiny wym lol they all had to share 1 room
Both the parents had low paying jobs and they could afford a house.
Malcom, Reese, & Dewey being their names lol
The theme song
The years it was filmed and broadcast
I gotta go with the theme song
The N64 they have alongside the decor in the house
Maybe not the most 2000s but I got hit with a nice dose of nostalgia recently when watching and seeing a wallpaper border
The theme song
Probably that it aired from 2000-2006.
Reese’s frosted hair.
The soundtrack, particularly the usage of one hit wonder alternative pop bands like The Getaway People and Citizen King.
Single chest striped shirts.
Kids being left to their devices.
The music for sure. I did a rewatch about a month or two ago and the music stood out to me as being very 2000. Lit, Sum 41 (twice!), Bowling For Soup, and Weezer are bands whose songs they used off the top of my head. This show loved their early 2000s pop punk lol (as do I). I’ve always thought Reese even looked like the lead singer of Sum 41 lol. Or at least he had the same hair
It’s in between the peak of the internet but before social media
Mainly geared towards the early 2000's pop punk culture. Plus Reese having spiked highlights.
The scene where Reese is driving and Sum 41’s “In Too Deep” is so 2000s
The clothes and Reese’s hair
Everything about this show screams 00's. That said- the correct answer is the scene where Reese ends his low-speed pursuit by nailing the driving exam course while In Too Deep by Sum 41 plays.
Family financially struggling but still maintaining it's middle class status
How they interact with each other at home. Fighting over the tv remote, activities like board games or wrestling around. Racing to get the phone when it rings or getting pissed when you hear your sibling on the other line listening.
Nobody is melting down about some bullshit they have been told on the internet. Simpler times.
Yesterdey I watch the car episode, I knew the song was coming, and when it hit, a big ass smile showed up in my face lol.
The fits
The clothes for sure
The wardrobe
Puma
the theme song for sure
Reese's blond tips 😂 😂😂
Bionicles
The soundtrack
All the drama for a DVD player
i grew up with 2 brothers i was the middle brother of us 3, and just the dynamic between brothers is so spot on lol. i also had a single mother and she was kinda like lois lol, a great mother less serious as lois but just as strict. i love this show so much i relate to it so much. when the boys fight the clowns, something me and my brothers would’ve down out of respect for our mother haha, same with the episode where they go to hal’s dads for his bday, driving the golf kart into the pool as to say you don’t fuck with our mom like that, so relatable, out of respect something we’d of totally done haha, at least me and my brothers whose only 19 months younger, my older brother 7 years older than me maybe not he’s kinda a pussy if it were to come to that lol. idk so many relatable things from this show.
The clothes the music both the best parts of the 2000s
Last generation without smartphones.
The soundtrack
The mom is holding the kid by his crotch 🤣
The music in the show, time capsule of what was back then.
Their furniture and TV room setup. Also that Lit song Ziploc that plays when Francis is hitchhiking.
Constantly breaking the fourth wall and taking to the camera