Though you won’t find it on the 2025 TV schedule, there’s no question that Modern Family's place in peak TV history still has fans regularly revisiting its finest moments. While we still don’t know if that hypothetical Dunphy/Pritchett revival series is happening, a real-life adventure story seems to have proven that actor Ty Burrell wouldn't take long to get back into character as Phil Dunphy.
On an episode of the podcast Dinner’s On Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the host (and fellow Modern Family alum) mentioned a backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon that Burrell and his wife had taken with his co-star Nolan Gould. According to his TV dad, the actor who played the youngest Dunphy, Luke, is a bit of an adventurer, which makes the following involving some rough waters during kayaking a bit less frightening:
We start out, and [Nolan], not having kayaked in his life that I know of, decided to kayak the Grand Canyon. By the way, Nolan is someone who could do that. It was not like, ‘What are you thinking?’ I was like, ‘If anybody can do this, it’s Nolan.’ I think it was the first day he went under. He got tipped — and he can correct me if I'm wrong here — and got out relatively quickly and got back in and wanted to continue doing it. So he'd already been in the water. It's cold, cold weather and, you know, like, not quite hypothermic, but very close.
Ah, youth. The desire to jump back into a kayak on super cold waters isn’t for everyone, and Modern Family’s father-son team was learning that the hard way at this tale’s start. Those who revisit this legendary sitcom with a Hulu subscription can totally understand why Ty Burrell would feel protective of his young colleague and situational travel companion.
Through eleven years of playing a family, good casts tend to adopt that sort of mindset as part of the bonds that form while making history. This was probably why convincing Burrell to join 2024's Modern Family reunion for that year's SAG Awards involved some light peer pressure and concern on the part of Jesse Tyler Ferguson.
While one could applaud Mr. Gould’s daring ways, you can already see where this story would require Ty Burrell to go into full dad mode. For that part of the tale, we turn back to the Dawn of the Dead ‘04 star’s continued remarks and the moment he sprang into action:
And then a little bit later in the day, he tipped and went under and was under for — this doesn't sound like a long time — but I think he was under for, like, 16 seconds. He was being held down by, whatever that is, a hydraulic system for 16 seconds. And he came up, you know, I could see him start to kinda come up and reach his hand up and [I] pulled him onto the boat, and he was white as a ghost. He still wanted to get back on… I said 'No, no more.' I got to play dad. I got to play TV dad. I was like, 'You're done. You're done.' But that was probably the most dad moment I got to be with Nolan.
This would be one of those moments where the serious Phil Dunphy would pop out, allowing Ty Burrell to take this lovably dopey TV dad into the more serious corners of Modern Family. Anyone else that remembers when Phil confronted Haley (Sarah Hyland) for going to that college party in “Go, Bulldogs,” or any of the other scattered occasions where that sort of break from being one of the funniest shows on Hulu was required would know that.
Good friends and partners are practically family, and Mr. Burrell is a person that loved ones could trust in either capacity. So if you’re a fan of his work as Phil Dunphy, and you need to imagine a voice of conscience that stops you from making a pretty big mistake, let this TV realtor/dad guide you in your time of need. Just don’t be weird about it, ok?
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