Credit: Video Screenshot, 'Blossom', NBCBefore there was the dark and dangerous teens in Euphoria and long before science fiction hit Stranger Things, there was Blossom — the 1990s sitcom that brought heart, humor, and a whole lot of hats to prime-time TV. Airing from 1991 to 1995 on NBC, Blossom followed the life of Blossom Russo, played by a young Mayim Bialik, as she navigated the ups and downs of being a teenage girl in a house full of boys.
With her mom out of the picture and chasing dreams elsewhere, Blossom was left with her single dad (a musician with his own challenges) and two brothers — the lovable goofball Joey (yes, that Joey Lawrence, “Whoa!”) and Tony, the older sibling working hard to stay clean after battling addiction.
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What made Blossom truly special? It wasn’t just the iconic fashion (though Blossom’s outfits are still legendary), but the way the show balanced real-world issues with laugh-out-loud moments. From serious talks about substance abuse and peer pressure to the awkward hilarity of teen crushes and school dances, Blossom didn’t shy away from anything, and it did it all with charm and honesty.
Blossom might have ended in 1995, but that doesn’t mean that star Mayim Bialik wanted her story to end. In fact, Bialik and the show’s original creator, Don Reo, worked incredibly hard to bring Blossom and her family back to the small screen.
While Disney — the studio that owns the rights to the show — was originally on board, Bialik has confirmed that plans for a reboot have been officially canceled.
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In a recent blog posted on her Substack, Bialik revealed that she and Reo had been working with Disney to get a Blossom reboot off the ground. Between her starring role on Call Me Kat and hosting Jeopardy!, there wasn’t time to focus on the reboot for quite a while. But when both of those jobs ended, Bialik put Blossom at the top of her priority list.
“What would Blossom be like 30 years later? Don wrote a draft in one sitting. He said it just flowed out of him. It wasn’t writing so much as it was receiving. He found our characters exactly where many of us find ourselves – funny, lost, wandering, meandering, and torn. The script is beautiful.”
In those years I was working on CMK and “Jeopardy,” new executives were in charge and we re-pitched the show. They seemed to love it, understood what we wanted to do, and Don and I felt comfortable to speak about it in the press. We felt certain this was moving forward.
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Unfortunately for Bialik and Reo, there was major shuffling within the entertainment industry and Disney itself, so new people were put in charge of making the Blossom reboot.
Those new executives decided against moving forward with the show, and what’s more, when Bialik and Reo asked to buy the rights back so they could shop the show around, Disney refused.
“For no particular reason, we were told ‘no.’ We asked for the rights so that we could let the market decide if audiences might want to see these characters all these years later. We were told Disney reserves the rights in case they ever want to do a reboot of Blossom. The reboot we all wanted to do was now, with Don’s script. We will likely never know … why they would not let us bring these beautiful stories to people who love 90s nostalgia and who have a special place in their hearts for Blossom.”
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Even with the odds stacked against her, Bialik is still holding out hope that her beloved Blossom Russo will be able to tell her stories once again.
“I hope there will be more to this story someday. But for now, the Gd’s honest truth is this project is the role I want to play more than any other. Since this all fell apart, my desire to continue to pursue on-camera roles has waned. The constant changing of guards in our industry, the mergers, the insincerity and the increasingly extended periods of time it takes to get answers or contracts completed… It’s not the industry Don and I grew up in, and Blossom felt like my last attempt to try and assert myself as an actress.”
“While it is possible no one wants a Blossom reboot, I’m pretty certain Disney got this one wrong. The sun is gonna surely shine. Maybe not the way Don and I intended, but this door closed. While we didn’t want it to, we are powerless over every aspect of it except what we know to be true: we loved this possibility with all that we have and we are so so sorry we couldn’t get it to happen.”
In 2023, Disney’s 20th Century Television was planning on creating a new Blossom series when the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes ended, but nothing happened when they finally did.
Disney has not commented on the reboot, its cancellation, or its refusal to let Bialik and Reo shop the project to other studios.
Would you have liked to see a Blossom reboot? Were you a fan of the show when it originally aired? How do you feel about Disney refusing to let Ms. Bialik explore selling the reboot to other studios? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!