Peacock's 'The Burbs' Hid Its Universal Backlot Set
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- Celeste Hughey created Peacock's 2026 series "The 'Burbs," a modern spin on Joe Dante's 1989 dark comedy originally starring Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher
- Jack Whitehall and Keke Palmer star in the roles originated by Hanks and Fisher, playing a newly married couple relocating to Whitehall's childhood town
- Susie Mancini (production designer) identified Universal's Colonial Street as the series' first major design challenge, noting it is used for "probably 60 percent" of the studio's productions and TV shows
- Colonial Street served as the central cul-de-sac in Dante's 1989 film, which shot on the same Universal backlot in summer 1988
- Mancini's team added greenery, altered the exteriors of the houses, and redesigned interiors to give characters new personalities that were "inspired from the movie but it's a different persona"
- IndieWire's TV Craft Roundtables, where Mancini spoke, is streaming on PBS SoCal, the PBS App, IndieWire.com, and the outlet's social channels
Why it matters: Production designers working on Universal TV now face a specific creative constraint: Colonial Street — the studio's most-reused exterior — is a set audiences may have already seen without realizing it, forcing every new production to invest in heavy transformation work to avoid visual déjà vu for viewers.
