He Loves Being a Dad Caught in the Middle

Imagine the casting call: Looking for a hapless middle-aged guy who works a dead-end job. Must be willing to wear thousands of bees, get strapped to the front of a moving bus and appear naked on national television.

Interested actors should know they will take a back seat to four squabbling sons and a sometimes-manic wife. Must wear geeky clothes and have back shaved on camera.

This is not the kind of part that would appeal to anyone seeking stardom. Bryan Cranston, who had been working as an actor for years -- and, by his account, in some pretty awful projects -- saw the potential in this gig. He plays Hal, the beleaguered dad on “Malcolm in the Middle,” celebrating its 100th episode Sunday.

Cranston, 47, may be the most underrated comedian on television. Comic legend Dick Van Dyke lauded Cranston’s consistently stellar performance at an awards dinner.

“It blew me away,” Cranston recalled. “Here’s a guy I have admired for years and learned so much from, not just from his ability to deliver a line and his ability to do a pratfall.... When he said, ‘I have always been a fan of Bryan Cranston,’ my split-second thought was, ‘I know that name.’ And I did a jump. I was just floored. I didn’t hear much of what he said after that.”

Van Dyke is not alone. Cranston received an Emmy nomination in 2002 and 2003 for his hilarious work. As Hal, he once was coated in the pheromones of a queen bee so 50,000 bees would swarm him. (He was stung only twice.) He has worn a fat suit, had a tarantula crawl over his face and learned how to disco dance on roller skates. And there is the yak hair, which takes hours to glue to his body, that is shaved off.

It is too easy to dismiss Hal as bumbling and the family as dysfunctional. Actually, the family seems more sound than most, albeit the brothers are nuts. Hal and his wife, Lois (Jane Kaczmarek), genuinely love each other, and off-screen they are good friends.

“I am so lucky to have two amazing men in my life, my real husband, Brad [Whitford, “The West Wing”], and my make-believe husband, Bryan,” Kaczmarek said. “Both are witty, smart and big-hearted men.”

The show revolves around a genius named Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), his baby brother, Dewey (Erik Per Sullivan), evil older brother Reese (Justin Berfield) and the eldest, Francis (Christopher Kennedy Masterson), who was in military school to rid him of criminal tendencies. Another son was born in 2003 and introduced in this season’s premiere.

“Hal’s philosophy is to just get them out of high school without too much blood loss,” Cranston said. “That’s it. We don’t shoot for very high. If they have a limp, that’s OK. Damage a nerve in the right arm? OK, just get out.”

Though Malcolm’s parents sometimes seem a tad laissez faire about their sons’ safety, Cranston is on the other side of the curve when it comes to the safety of his only child, daughter Taylor, 11.

“Being a celebrity has brought me a lot of really wonderful things,” Cranston said. “And we get invited to a variety of events and they take care of you. There was a feeling that at some point, I am going to start feeling like a fraud. People start blessing me for showing up at their event. I realized at the same time that the issue of my daughter’s safety was becoming really important to me.”

To that end, he made a DVD, “KidSmartz,” designed to help parents protect their children from abduction and exploitation.

He and his actress wife, Robin Dearden, have been married for 15 years. “In Hollywood that’s like a golden anniversary,” he said. They met 18 years ago on the set of “Airwolf.” If the helicopter drama rings no bells, Cranston said, “you win votes in my book for not remembering that horrible show. I can’t begin to tell you how much horrible schlock I have done.”

After kicking around in soap operas, doing commercials and working in movies and on shows he didn’t fancy, Cranston appreciates his situation. “If an actor can’t have fun and enjoy his time on a hit television show, then you will never be happy,” he said.

And Cranston is one happy fellow.

Jacqueline Cutler writes for Tribune Media Services.

“Malcolm in the Middle’s” 100th episode airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on Fox. The network has rated it TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for coarse language).

Cover photograph by Fox.