From creator Steve Levitan (Modern Family), the Hulu original comedy series Reboot follows the stars of an early 2000s family sitcom, called Step Right Up, as they reunite for a reimagined reboot. Actors Reed (Keegan-Michael Key), Bree (Judy Greer), Clay (Johnny Knoxville) and Zack (Calum Worthy) must face their own dysfunction and unresolved issues, if they’re ever going to get their lives and careers back on track.
During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Levitan talked about what sparked this idea, how the show evolved, drawing from his own career experiences, creating the original sitcom and writing its theme song, assembling such an incredibly talented cast, and how much he’s thought about a possible Season 2.
Collider: First of all, I’m a tough sell on comedy, and I laughed out loud, throughout this entire season. Thank you for that.
STEVE LEVITAN: Oh, my gosh, I’m so happy to hear that. Thank you.
What sparked this idea? What made you want to do a comedy series about rebooting a comedy series? Is it just the fact that there really is a lot of comedy in just the existence of that?
LEVITAN: Well, yeah. There’s quite a bit of absurdity in that process, in this Golden Age of Television, when so much is recycled. But there were so many things. I realized it was a ripe situation when I thought of it, several years ago. I thought of it when the Roseanne reboot blew up. I thought, “Wow, that must be a fascinating place to be, that day, on that soundstage. Then I thought, “Oh, that’s a pretty good idea for a show because you can force all these larger-than-life people into a high-pressure situation. It’s also interesting because people might have left that situation thinking they’re going to go on to do great things, and maybe life didn’t turn out exactly like they wanted.” I thought it was such a good idea that somebody would do it before I could because I still had several years left on Modern Family, but for whatever reason, no one did. And so, when I had time, I started thinking about it. One of the other great things for me was that Modern Family was a really amazing chance to dig into my family life, which was half my life, or my waking hours I spent with my family, while the other half was spent at work. This now gives me a chance to reflect on all my years in this business, with all the eccentric, ridiculous, wonderful people that I’ve met through the years in this business, and I welcomed that. It was nice to dig into something that I had such strong feelings about.
When you do something like this, that does come from a personal place like that, is it ever hard to not censor yourself? Is it hard not to think to yourself, “Maybe that’s too mean and the person that I’m thinking about will know”?
LEVITAN: There were a couple of times when I thought about that. I didn’t want this to be a cynical show. I wanted this to be a feel-good show. So, at the end of the day, I wasn’t looking to skewer people. For example, even with the Hulu execs, I was writing these ridiculous scenes about the Hulu execs, knowing I was gonna turn it into the Hulu execs, but they loved it. They know how absurd some aspects of this job are, and they really welcomed it. They were as enthusiastic as anybody about those things. As long as it’s not mean-spirited, and you’re not trying to hurt somebody and you’re maybe just a little bit careful about changing a few details, so that everybody’s not pointing at somebody that doesn’t want to be pointed at, you’re okay. But it did cross my mind, from time to time.
Was the show that you’d be rebooting always Step Right Up and did you always know what the theme song would be, or did you have different variations of what the show would be, that you would be rebooting within the show?
LEVITAN: It’s funny, it was one of those little details where I didn’t really care what that show was, I just needed it to be a viable show. I knew that what I wanted the modern-day cast to be, so I had to reverse engineer a show that made sense with that cast, having these two actors and a woman, all about the same age, and a grown-up kid. I reverse-engineered it from that. It’s a little My Two Dads, it’s a little Fuller House, or Full House, and I went with that. And then, the theme song, I loved it. I wrote it, and it was just so fun. It’s so fun to write insipid things. I listened to a few of those old theme songs and I knew I wanted it to sound ridiculously authentic to that time. You have to listen to it and think, “Oh, yeah, that could easily be real.” But I also wanted to be catchy and good, so I wrote the lyrics. I hummed the tune into my phone and recorded it, and then sent it to a friend of mine, named Rick Cowling, who’s a wonderful musician and singer, and I said, “Can you turn this into something?” Within three hours, he sent it back to me, fully orchestrated with him singing it. I was like, “This is absolutely 100% perfect.” He nailed it. I must have played it 150 times for myself and for everybody I saw because I just loved it so much. It’s catchy. It gets in your ear. Be careful, everybody.
You most recently came off of working with such a great ensemble cast, with Modern Family. What was it like to put this cast together? What’s it like to assemble an ensemble and fit all those pieces together? Do you just know when it’s right, or do you still have that moment of worry until you see them all together?
LEVITAN: There are times when you know certain things are right, and there are times when you’re not sure. It’s always a miracle, when a cast comes together, because there are so many things that could get in the way. With Modern Family, you look back and say, “What if Eric Stonestreet had been on another show?,” or “What if we didn’t think that he would be good?” There were many ways we could have screwed that up, and we probably had no right to get so lucky. It’s hard. It’s very hard. It’s a little bit like childbirth, you forget how hard it is until you’re doing it again. With Modern Family, we saw 1,400 actors for that cast. I don’t know how many hundreds of people we saw for this one. We did a first pilot, where a couple of things just didn’t feel right, in both the casting and in the writing, and I take full blame for both. The actors shouldn’t, because they were both wonderful, but it just wasn’t quite right. It just didn’t land the way that I wanted it to land. So, did I crack the code because we did Modern Family and now everything I do is going to be a hundred percent? No. There are always gonna be ways that you didn’t quite get things right. It wasn’t about the actor not being good enough, or anything like that. It was about how something in the chemistry just didn’t feel organic, and we needed something to activate another character in a different way. It was really hard, but I’m very happy with where we ended up.
With where you leave things at the end of the season, a lot of people are left in flux. Do you know what a Season 2 would be? Do you already know what the next step in the journey is for these characters?
LEVITAN: I have ideas. I have several ideas of how we could land the balls that are now left in the air. It’s one of those things where I love to get together in the beginning of the season and just start talking about those ideas, and then see if anybody else has any ideas, and we start to shape the season that way. I don’t think we’ve painted ourselves into a corner where I’m like, “Oh, boy, how are we going to get out of this?” I have ideas on all the big things, but I’m open to possibilities too, so we’ll discuss.
I’m already rooting for Season 2. I need more of all of these characters because the relationship dynamics are just so fun to watch.
LEVITAN: I really appreciate it. It was daunting. It’s scary to do something after Modern Family, but I’m really proud of this and I love hearing that people are enjoying it. So, thank you.
Reboot is available to stream at Hulu.