Perhaps inspired by the unnecessary Odd Couple reboot that will make you feel sad for Lauren Graham, Sony recently asked Norman Lear if he’d be interested in an equally superfluous remake of All In the Family, his great CBS sitcom that ran from 1971-1979.
Would there be an audience today for a new version of All In the Family? Sony recently asked legendary TV producer Norman Lear – who created the original series – to consider the possibility, he told an audience at the Paley Center this morning during a conversation with Netflix’s Ted Sarandos. “‘Forget the Bunkers, forget the characters you know,’” he says the company told him. “Just do an All In the Family kind of show. They can be a Caucasian family or Latino family. But a family in 2015.” Lear says he’s been thinking about the idea and concluded, “I’m not sure that there’s much that I would elect to do. After a while, with success comes the ability to say, We’re not doing this.” (Via)
Good call. All In the Family 2.0 isn’t the worst idea — that honor would go to 704 Hauser — but one of the things that made the original series so great was how, for a lack of better, “edgy” it felt. Let’s say CBS gets the reboot — there’s no way they’d allow the Archie character, probably played by Kevin James, to say something like, “I think that, I mean if God had meant for us to be together, he’da put us together. But look what he done. He put you over in Africa, and put the rest of us in all the white countries.” THINK OF THE THINK PIECES.
