While revivals of popular sitcoms are all the rage, the revival of a cult Australian sitcom won’t go ahead.
Airing from 1990 to 1995, The Real Family was described by critics as “…pure chaos”, “..a show that gets away with everything and anything”, and “Married… with Children meets The Simpsons.”
The Real Family was known for its raunchy humour, airing at the ‘adult only’ time of 9:30 Thursday nights on Channel 10. It made no secret about using Married… as an inspiration, with a world-weary father (a former rugby league player who missed out playing first grade for the Western Suburbs Magpies due to injury), a lazy wife, a sexually frustrated son, and a ‘fun loving’ daughter. An eight-episode revival was announced for the Stan subscription service in late 2024.
“Real was one of the proudest moments of my career,” said Peter Curran, who played the father (Terry). “Playing Terry opened up so many new roles for me, and I was excited when I heard it was coming back.”
But that excitement faded when he read the scripts.
“They writers were trying to feed off the nostalgia and it was a copy-paste job of our classic episodes, with no attempt to modernise the show. I got five pages into the first script and I knew we didn’t stand a chance. Even though everyone is coming back, it wouldn’t be the same. Someone would complain about a joke on social media, there’d be a big fuss, and we’d be canned. It would kill me to see our legacy tarnished by a bad revival.”
Wanting to save the memory of his beloved show, Peter begged the producers to try something different. And he eventually got his way. Stan will instead air a four part ‘reunion’ series (with each episode one hour long), with the main cast discussing their favourite clips and memories of making the show.
“This is much better idea. We’re going to have some fun.”
