David Cassidy on the Web
NBC Picks Up The Partridge Family Several Decades Too Late
October 2, 2008
By Shawn Lindseth
www.hecklerspray.com
In a move almost as shocking and drastic as the time someone thought it'd be a real good idea to make something called The New Monkees, people have gone and announced a very intentional remake of the Partridge Family.
Maybe it won't be so bad though. The entire old cast is returning to reprise their roles, and to once again live with their really old mother. Sure, it sounds improbable, but the scriptwriters are supposedly coming up with all sorts of ways to make the transition go off real smoothly - for instance Danny Bonaduce's character moves back home because he's hiding from a newly resurrected KGB, and David Cassidy's character retreats to his mother's residence after losing half his brain in an industrial mining accident.
See, Hollywood has ways of making this kind of stuff work.
NBC has reportedly just picked up rights to a brand new version of The Partridge Family. It will be packed with all new cast members despite what lazy research caused us to write in a preceding paragraph.
The plot for everything is supposed to basically remain the same, except the mother will be more of a stage mom who dresses her kids up in that red martian Britney Spears-jumpsuit before she allows them to perform in front of anybody. It should really be pretty sexy.
For paedophiles.
To everyone else though, the idea pretty much screams mistake. Here's what the Hollywood Reporter knows about it:
"The Partridge Family" has found a new network home at NBC. The Peacock has picked up a contemporary single-camera take on the classic ABC sitcom to be written by Jeff Rake.A fan of the 1970s series, Rake plans to "turn the premise on its head."
"In the original, the kids actually recruited their mom to front the band, which I can't see happening in any family on this planet," he said. "The new version will reflect what seems to me to be the more realistic family band scenario these days: a struggling, sort of well-meaning mom pimping her kids in order to create a wholesome-slash-sexy cash cow."
If all this ends up to not be the ratings juggernaut Rake seems to expect, it won't effect him too much. That's because he's already got partially written scripts for newly conceptualized versions of The Brady Bunch, The Monkees, and a younger, more musical take on the Great Grape Ape.
That last one will probably feature animatronics. If it's good it will, anyway.
This kind of old classic remake-thing has happened before, you know. We've got a clip it. It's The New Monkees. Take a good look at it and then tell us if you think this Partridge Family thing is a good idea.
