Posted on 12/19/2016 2:30:15 PM PST by Red Badger
Sony Pictures Television is in very early stages of rebooting several classic sitcoms from TV legend Norman Lear as miniseries — including “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Good Times” — Variety has learned exclusively.
The idea currently being discussed by Lear and Sony executives would be to have new actors recreate classic episodes of the shows, working from the original scripts, and package them as short, six-episode anthologies. The scripts would be treated similar to plays being mounted in new productions.
“There is some talk about doing some of the original shows, redoing them with today’s stars,” Lear told Variety. “There is a possibility that we’ll do ‘All in the Family,’ ‘Maude,’ ‘The Jeffersons,’ “Good Times.'”
Discussions about remaking more of Lear’s catalogue come as Sony gears up for the premiere of the new “One Day at a Time,” which re-imagines Lear’s ’80s sitcom about a single mother raising two children. The new series, which premieres on Netflix Jan. 6, focuses on a Latino family with a female Army veteran at its center.
Lear serves as executive producer on the new “One Day at a Time,” with original scripts coming from the show’s writing staff and showrunners Gloria Calderon-Kellett and Mike Royce, with contributions from Lear.
Sony has been in discussions with Lear about the miniseries-reboot concept since before development began on “One Day at a Time.” That series was developed specifically for Netflix, and was never shopped to other buyers. No network or streaming service is yet attached to the miniseries projects.
The miniseries project is a separate idea from the possible “All in the Family” reboot that Lear discussed two years ago at a Paley Center event, which would have seen the show revived with new characters, possibly Latino. That idea was set aside in favor of the new “One Day at a Time.”
“We’re exploring it,” Glenn Adilman, executive vice president of comedy development for Sony told Variety. “It’s sort of tricky to figure out what the business of that is and what that would be and how it would work. But its something we’re trying to figure out.”
Adilman added, “It’s tricky for a lot of reasons, and it’s something we’re exploring.”
Sony controls most of Lear’s TV library through its 1985 acquisition of the producer’s Embassy Communications.
Only thing is, Mike Stivic came across as an idiot too.
I can picture this easily: Archie would be a Trump supporter and would have each and every stereotype that the Clintonistas have applied to him, to the tea party, and to conservatives in general.
Edith will be his brain-dead wife who has no will of her own and does whatever Archie says.
Gloria would be the brains of the family.
But the Meathead would end up being Gloria’s butch “wife” — smarter than all of them put together and the source of constant zingers that will make the Trump Supporting Archie look like an utter idiot constantly.
The formula is already there from the 70s version...just needs to be updated with modern leftist biases.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/bea-arthur-was-truck-driving-marine
She also owned Dobermanns her whole life.
I like her, even though “Maude” was a dud show.
Of course! Writers today can’t devise new ideas - they are only taught victimology, in the arts today. You can’t know true humor without the classics - Pope, Swift, etc. But you can’t teach classics.
More important, great humor OFFENDS some people. They are taught to avoid that at all costs, and the result is complete loss of creativity.
John Cleese (Monty Python) explains this here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/the_filtered_donald/comments/5ixpta/john_cleese_on_political_correctness/
They got Donnie Osmond for the reboot of “Wonderama”. It could work. Lear’s shows VERY doubtful. VERY VERY doubtful.
Usually, though, he was portrayed as the enlightened liberal to Archie’s stupid conservative.
I was shocked when last night’s episode showed Mike in full liberal-stampy-feet meltdown when his own intolerance and immaturity was pointed out to him, during a board game.
And he *still* blamed his atrocious behavior on someone else, during his half-assed apology.
You got me wondering.
Yeah?
I remember the episode where Archie and Edith went to see Mike and Gloria in California. Where they learned the Stivics were divorcing. Because Gloria had had an affair.
Remember the “anatomically correct” Joey Stivic doll that came out during the show?
All enlightened moms want to give their little girls doll babies with willies.
/s
I read that as "robots."
That might actually make the shows palatable.
No. I didn’t watch it that long. Just the original and then as reruns.
Hey, a little morality play? Interesting.
Just play the originals on Network television instead of wasting money trying to redo it. There was that ‘70s Show’ so playing a real show of the 70s should work. Snowflakes watching would see real men again.
Apart from that, what's the point of remaking episodes of a classic TV show you can still see?
I always thought Archie was the hero when I was a kid, he acted a lot like my Dad. How anyone could have looked at the pinko son in law as some kind of role model is scary. The Jeffersons were cool too, but Maude was crap.
Only Jimmie Walker can be Kid Dynamite.
What show was Erkle in? 0bama’s gonna be looking for work.
And Archie "comes out" as a Binary Butch Transgender who sees the light and rails against Homophobic Heteronormative Cisgenders.
I can see it now, Archie Bunker sporting full MAGA apparel.
The PC versions, no doubt.
No one will watch.
So can the Jeffersons.
One that will never be funny in reruns is Maude.
She is such a repulsive example of haughty, elitist liberals, that I wager she wasn't that "funny" even to 1973 TV viewers.
And yes, Lear "intended" for Archie to be the villain, average Joes actually LIKED the character.
Lear happily pocketed all that dough he made from the show, but it kind of blew up in his face when it didn't go how he wanted.
Hatred of the conservative viewpoint.
And how liberalism was just the correct way of thinking.
If you watch it now, you realize how Archie really had common sense, hard working American values and Mike was just a hypocritical buffoon.
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