The Wofford Family

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Season 2, Episode 1
The Wofford Family
Recap By J.G. Bird
October 14, 2004
What’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition like? It’s somewhat like getting the gang together to build the Homecoming float in your driveway in one afternoon; personality quirks grind until the quarterback picks up the yell leader’s megaphone and sends everyone to four corners!

The Extreme Makeover “Friends helping Friends” tagline is nowhere more evident than the opening episode of EMHE Season 2, The Wofford family. The contractor’s a friend of the family, attending the same church, and various church members are also recruited for this rebuild. Everyone knows the sudden death of Mrs. Wofford has been hard on this large family.

Every girl in the family is already blubbering as they step out their front door in response to Ty’s megaphone wake up call. Mr. Wofford is very friendly and a big presence on the screen every time you see him. He’s such a sweet bear of a man, and he’s quick to cry too. The design team is quite charmed by him. The images that stand out at the beginning of this episode: The bunk beds in every bedroom plus the garage/laundry room. This was, at most, a four bedroom house. The size of the kitchen with standard size butcher-block top table for six, even open to a family room is inadequately small for this family totaling 9! The house, when you first see it, is just a California tract home, unobtrusive, the family however is not. Most of them play on school basketball teams and Mr. Wofford coaches. Basketball one-upmanship ensues with the design team trying their hand at a quick game vs. the family before the Limo arrives. Ty teases them (and us) by not revealing where they will be vacationing. That’s for a later phone call once they’re on their way.

Ty’s first challenge: trying to make a basket to start the crew on demolition!
His next escapade? Sliding down backyard landscaping on a boogie board (Uh, into a flimsy garden border fence.) The phone call while they’re in the limo provides their destination – Bahamas (Am I right? Could have been the Caribbean or Virgin Islands)
And the demolition of the Wofford house is shown, including the mini bulldozer type vehicle just crashing right through some walls. Everything is taken down but the garage.

The surf, the sun, gourmet meal shots later, the family is shown enjoying themselves away from home. The Wofford family is called in tropical paradise and Ty says “Go shopping, my treat” He wants them to pick some item that the designers will have to incorporate into one of the redone rooms. This item ends up being a hanging shell decoration that resembles a long chandelier, but I think had no functional value. I know it’s not what I would pick if the host of show told me to go shop. I preferred one of the kids’ immediate answers – a boat! Guess that would have been hard to ship back to California.

Next, we have the break in the gas line. Aren’t you supposed to call the Gas Co. anytime before you dig? Here’s one of the flaws I’ve seen in the show: wacky cartoon-style responses to very real, dangerous situations: The gas line break at the Wofford house was agonizing because I’m thinking, “They’re on this break-neck schedule, why wouldn’t an explosion ripping through the neighborhood be a real possibility?” Ty wasn’t too goofy, but he played it less than professional, I thought.
I’ve heard people complain on message boards about varying levels of perceived profiling of these deserving families by race, class and religion. Some cry foul and say, “too white” and/or “too religious.”

Honestly, after reading the first level of liability release forms for applying to this show, I say, “Honey, you gotta have religion to sign your property away to the next contractor that wants to “break the land speed record” (Ty’s words quoted from this season’s Pope family episode).

All kinds of kooky items start arriving for the interior: lions and monkeys (For a Lion King slash jungle theme shared bedroom), saddles (girl’s horse room), mannequins (girl’s fashion plate bedroom), even surfboards. Ty, Paul, Preston, (was Michael there?) take a run down to the beach to test out the boards! By the time for the reveal, all those surfboards are mounted right in the entryway. There’s no room left in the side yard – the design filled it with the biggest spa they could get their hands on. The capper: A two-story gym with open spiral stair. The design team really did a beautiful thing providing the Wofford house with three bathrooms, a master bath with really nice tile and two locker room suite-type bathrooms for the kids. The boy’s bathroom also had more than one style of toilet.

The happy moments during the reveal: The oldest son and the oldest daughter each were entering their own room for the first time ever. The build-it-yourself room for the second oldest son was Ty’s special project – the two piecing the bed together in less than 9 minutes. It’s an interesting idea, especially if you don’t have room in your garage for your Craftsman tool chest!

Mr. Wofford’s effusive love for his wife and everything still associated with her permeated almost every remaining minute. There was a pastels portrait done of the mom by a neighbor that Mr. Wofford, and then all the kids just wept over for a time.

Paul took great pride in recruiting the H.S. girl’s basketball team to refinish the mom’s secretary desk which was refinished in an almost bronzed finish. Dad’s a Chiropractor and he now has his own elegantly reserved bedroom
and a manly study behind double pocket doors. Bible open next to his wife’s bible on his desk was an emotion-evoking touch.

They recruit a line of Marines (probably from nearby Camp Pendleton) to get the heavy weight machines moved into the gym. And there’s a great thanksfest in that room, particularly to the contractor that pulled it off having only worked commercial properties, never a residence!

A fashion plate girl’s room for one of the middle daughters is one of Tracy Hutson’s grand achievements. Dad is saying, “No, no this can’t be your room, but she’s saying, “Yes! Yes!”

I seriously thought this season premiere could have been kept to the same 1 hour as all the other episodes. They’d spend a few minutes before every commercial break showing you what was coming in the very next segment. Instant replay is one thing for football and hockey, but I don’t need to see the moment by moment anguish (twice) of it being suggested the Mahogany French doors get whitewashed. Also, it seemed to stretch on forever when Ty’s trying to make that basket to start the demolition!