References in Other Media
When Michael J. Fox left his next series Spin City a decade after Family Ties, his final episodes (Goodbye: Part 1 & 2, Season 4, Episodes 25 and 26) made numerous allusions to Family Ties. Michael Gross (Alex's father Steven) portrays Michael Patrick Flaherty's (Fox) therapist and there is a reference to the therapist's unseen receptionist named "Mallory." After Flaherty becomes an environmental lobbyist in Washington, he meets the junior senator from Ohio, Alex P. Keaton. Actress Meredith Baxter, who played Alex Keaton's mother on Family Ties, also played Michael Flaherty's mother on Spin City.
Florida ska/punk band Victims of Circumstance's debut album Roll the Dice featured a track titled "Me and Alex P. Keaton". The lyrics parody a typical day spent with a modern, socially conservative Republican.
LFO's 1999 single "Summer Girls" name-checks "Alex P. Keaton" alongside other 1980s cultural references such as Footloose, Home Alone, and New Edition's song "Candy Girl".
In the Family Guy episode "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)", after Brian gets dumped by Jillian when he admits he didn't want to move in with her, Stewie tries to help him get over her by comparing the situation to when Alex P. Keaton lost his own girlfriend before getting another one. Stewie also mentions the fact that Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's.
Read more about this topic: Alex P. Keaton
Famous quotes containing the word media:
“Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why—but the editorialists forget it—terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)