In the days before streaming and on-demand destroyed its business model, network television forged its appeal on regularity. Same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel. The casts of TV sitcoms became reliable parts of a family's evening schedule, slotted in after dinner and washing dishes, but before brushing your teeth for bed.
It's that consistency--that intertwining of entertainment with domestic routine--that made these classic TV characters feel so intimate and relatable. And so, when the old casts organize reunions or retrospectives, it's pure childhood nostalgia. Whether they were a reminder of our good days or an escape from our bad ones, these characters were omnipresent.
Here are 10 iconic TV show casts that reunited.
1. The Brady Bunch
Original Run Date:1969-1974
The Bradys have been the subject of numerous fictional and non-fictional reunions, starting immediately after the original sitcom ended in 1974. Its popularity in syndication led to multiple one-off specials and failed attempts to recapture the original magic. There were nine episodes of a variety show The Brady Bunch Hour (1976-1977), featuring the entire original cast except, appropriately enough, Eve Plumb, who played Jan. There were made-for-TV movies like The Brady Girls Get Married (1981) and A Very Brady Christmas (1988).
There was an attempt at a dramatic reimagining called The Bradys (1990), although that only lasted one month. And of course, there have been endless documentary and reality show reunions, the most recent of which was HGTV's A Very Brady Renovation (2019), featuring the six kids restoring the old Brady house.
In many ways, The Brady Bunch demonstrated the commercial potential of the TV reunion. The entire franchise has been more profitable since it ended than when it was first broadcast to air.
2. Saved By the Bell
Original Run Date: 1989-1993
Saved By The Bell reunions have largely been characterized by the one person who didn't attend them: Dustin Diamond, who played social outcast Screech. Diamond played the role for 13 years, across the original run and both reboots (The College Years and The New Class).
After the show ended, Diamond had cold words for his former cast members and even wrote a tell-all book alleging bad behavior on set. Between all the cast drama, his legal troubles, and his sex tape, Diamond was persona non grata at Saved By The Bell reunions, including the 2015 reunion on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Any attempt at reconciliation ended in February 2021, when Diamond died of a rare form of lung cancer at the age of 44. However, the original cast will pay tribute to him in Season 2 of Peacock's Saved By the Bell continuation.
3. Star Trek: The Next Generation
Original Run Date: 1987-1994
The Next Generation cast gets along very well, and has reunited multiple times at Star Trek and sci-fi conventions. But one of the most memorable reunions, which included both Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) and Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar), was in the Season 7 episode of Family Guy, "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven." Stewie reunites the entire cast via transporter, but discovers that unlike the characters they play, the cast is a pack of juvenile a**holes in real life.
It's not the only time Star Trek has been involved with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane. Patrick Stewart has performed multiple Family Guy cameos over the years, and was the voiceover narrator for the film Ted in 2012.
4. Full House
Original Run Date: 1987-1995
The Full House cast also gets along extremely well; the cast members show up at each others' birthdays, weddings, and movie premieres. All of them seem happy to have been involved with the show, and nearly all of them took part in the Fuller House (2016-2020) reboot on Netflix, where DJ and Kimmy raise their children in the old Tanner house.
The two most frequent hold-outs are Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who co-starred as scene-stealer Michelle Tanner. Their fashion empire leaves them short on time, and the twins officially retired from acting in 2012. Fuller House made a meta-reference in its pilot, stating that Michelle had a career in New York, which prevented her from visiting. The cast then stared directly into the camera, Jim Halpert style.
Original Run Date: 1992-1996
California Dreams, a Saved By the Bell clone about a group of teens who start a rock band, was not particularly good or original, but it set itself apart with its episode-closing musical performances. It aired not on primetime, but on NBC's Saturday morning block, where it benefitted from its lead-in: Saved by the Bell: The New Class.
In 2010, Jimmy Fallon gathered the former cast on the Tonight Show, where they sang their title song whilst playing their instruments.
6. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Original Run Date: 1990-1996
The Fresh Prince cast also got along very well; there were multiple casual reunions over dinners and social events, which the former cast members would then post to social media. These reunions were tainted, however, by the back-and-forth mudslinging between Will Smith and Janet Hubert, who played Aunt Viv for the first three seasons before being replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid. Both accused the other of being unprofessional and disrespectful, and Hubert blamed Will for her low pay offer to return for the fourth season (which she declined). They eventually hashed out differences and reconciled during an HBO Max Fresh Prince reunion in 2020. Everyone was there except for James Avery (Uncle Phil), who died in 2013, following complications from heart surgery.
7. Married… With Children
Original Run Date: 1987-1997
The four main actors, Ed O'Neill, Katey Sagal, Christina Applegate, and David Faustino, are supportive of one another's projects; they film guest shots in each other's work, and celebrate each other's award wins. They all showed up for Sagal's unveiling on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. and they've all gotten together for two reunion specials, the first in 2003, again on Faustino's web series Starv-ing in 2009, and the last in 2012, to celebrate the show's 25th anniversary.
8. Family Matters
Original Run Date: 1989-1997
What originally began as a family sitcom about the Winslow family, slowly but surely became The Steve Urkel Show. And by the show's final seasons, it had become a sci-fi farce, with Steve creating mind-reading devices, a machine that turned him into Bruce Lee, and in the series finale, blasting off into outer space.
The Family Matters reunion took place in 2017, 20 years after the show ended, for an Entertainment Weekly cover story. Unfortunately, it didn't include two key people. The first was Rosetta LeNoire, who played feisty grandma Mother Winslow and died in 2002. The second was Jaimee Foxworth, who portrayed youngest daughter Judy until she was quietly written out of the series in Season 4. As an adult, Foxworth had troubles with drugs and alcohol and starred in a handful of adult films, which might have disqualified her reunion participation from the start.
9. Seinfeld
Original Run Date: 1989-1998
Seinfeld did its reunion in the most Seinfeld-ish way possible--by staging a fictional reunion show on Larry David's meta HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2009. Since Larry David actually wrote Seinfeld, and Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards, and Jerry Seinfeld all played fictionalized versions of their true selves, Curb's seventh season finale played like a redo of Seinfeld's series finale, which was widely maligned at the time of its airing. There was also a little nostalgia and warmth, despite the show's long standing mantra of "no hugging, no learning."
10. Friends
Original Run Date: 1994-2004
After 10 seasons and 17 additional years since it aired its last episodes, Friends was ripe for a splashy reunion. The six mains, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer, all came together for an HBO Max extravaganza, featuring special guest stars, the writers and creators of the show, and reconstructed sets of all the show's familiar locations. It was so glossy, heartwarming and rehearsed that it could serve as a workable template for any other Reunion that a network might produce in the future.
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