Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet says ‘it felt a little hurtful’ when ABC rejected Mitch and Cam spinoff idea

> “I don’t think it’s potential anymore,” Stonestreet said of the scrapped project. “They had their chance. [Series co-creator] Chris Lloyd and a couple of the writers wrote a really great script that spun Jesse and I off in our life in Missouri, and they said, ‘No.’ They just said, ‘We don’t want to do it.’”

> Stonestreet added that this decision ultimately led to “hurt” feelings for Ferguson, Lloyd, and himself.

> “I love my character. I love the show. I love Jesse. We had a great working relationship, we had amazing chemistry,” he continued. “I think Jesse and I maybe felt like they thought of us as the old guys, or something like that, that didn’t seem worthy of keeping those characters going. It felt a little hurtful. But people make business decisions.”

> “I think it would have been a slam dunk,” he said. “I don’t think it would have not been successful. Because you had one of the creators — who had really taken such great care of making sure that show was great for so long — willing to do it.”

It sounds horrible, like the failed episode of The Office “The Farm” that was meant to spin off Dwight. Talented creators doesn’t mean every idea they have will be good.

Modern Family had 11 major characters, and almost all of them had some kind of small storyline in every episode. That means you got each of them in very small doses. I enjoyed Mitch and Cam, but I wouldn’t want an entire episode of them, especially with a bunch of new Missouri characters added on.