Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you didn’t have kids? If you answered no to this question, you’re either lying, or you just don’t have kids. As much as we love our children — and we really, really do — we’ve all wondered about all the things we could have accomplished, or at least all the extra hours of sleep we would have, if we lived in a parallel childless timeline.
One Jewish parent celebrity couple seems to have considered that question so worthy of contemplation that they’re actually making a whole show about it, titled “Do You Want Kids?” It just landed a development deal with ABC, and of course it did, because it’s helmed by none other than Rachel Bloom and Dan Gregor, truly the TV power-couple of our dreams! According to Deadline “the show is about a husband and wife who in one universe have a baby and the other do not, and the many ways that huge decision alters their lives.”
Rachel Bloom gave us the best Jewish musical TV show ever made, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” in which she starred as Rebecca Bunch, who leaves her high-power lawyer job in New York to follow her teenage summer camp love to West Covina, California. She most recently starred in “Reboot” opposite Paul Reiser and played a Jewish dynamo, Elaine Levitch (named after the great Elaine May), on Max’s excellent “Julia.” Gregor, who married Bloom in 2015 after five years of dating, is a comedian and writer who has worked on “How I Met Your Mother.” The two have worked together on many projects, including on Gregor’s 2018 film “Most Likely To Murder,” “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers” and most importantly, on the amazing Hanukkah album “Suck It Christmas!! (A Chanukah Album).” The couple welcomed their daughter in March of 2020, to the sound of, among other things, the song “Space Jam.”
Bloom’s experiences from the past few years — giving birth during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, her daughter’s NICU stay at the same time that her friend and frequent collaborator Adam Schlesinger died from COVID-related complications on April 1 — is what informs her special, “Death Let Me Do My Show,” now streaming on Netflix. The actress, comedian and writer often shares relatable moments of parenting (while keeping her daughter’s face and identity private) like a chaotic rainbow manicure and the time her daughter started doing gymnastics while she and her husband were giving a speech at a wedding.
We don’t yet know much about this show, but here’s hoping that this incredible couple will also star in it. Like “Reboot,” the show will be produced by Levitan Productions. They are also the production company behind the latest big Jewish streaming hit, “Nobody Wants This,” which had me jonesing for more authentic, complicated, Jewish women on my TV — like the many women Bloom has played throughout the years.
Hopefully “Do You Want Kids?” will give us that and more, and be just as successful as The Hot Rabbi Show, because we all could use more Rachel Bloom in our lives.
