Breaking Dad

Steve Rannazzisi performs as an exasperated suburban husband and father, offering a playbook for dodging domestic responsibilities. He focuses on the small frustrations of middle-class family life, like the exhausting logic of coaching a T-ball team full of six-year-olds who refuse to take off their superhero capes, or the strategic planning required to get out of pumpkin-picking with his wife on NFL Sundays. Recorded at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston, the special was meant to celebrate Rannazzisi’s success as a co-star of the FXX sitcom The League, which was wrapping up its final season in late 2015. However, the actual release of the hour became secondary to a massive career crisis. Just three days before the special premiered on Comedy Central in September 2015, a New York Times report revealed that Rannazzisi had spent years lying about escaping the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11. He had frequently used that fabricated story in interviews to explain his sudden move to Los Angeles to pursue comedy. Although major sponsors immediately dropped him, Comedy Central decided to let the broadcast proceed, leaving the special as an odd time capsule of conventional family jokes completely eclipsed by real-world controversy.