Marvel Studios finally kicked off the highly anticipated fourth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the debut of “WandaVision,” the franchise’s first episodic television series which hit the Disney+ streaming platform last Friday. The show sees Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), and her husband, Vision (Paul Bettany), attempting to live a normal life in an alternate reality that mimics classic television sitcoms of decades past.
The series begins in the 1950s, with each of its nine episodes representing a different era and the various stylized programs of that time. The first two episodes largely take inspiration from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “Bewitched” and the third, which airs on Friday, pays homage to “The Brady Bunch.” As head writer Jac Schaeffer explained to Entertainment Weekly, “The show is a love letter to the golden age of television. We’re paying tribute and honoring all of these incredible shows and people who came before us, [but] we’re also trying to blaze new territory.”
Historic sitcoms seem to run in “WandaVision’s” blood. Not only is series’ star Olsen the younger sister of those most famous of television twins, “Full House’s” Mary-Kate and Ashley, but all nine episodes are being directed by Matt Shakman, a child actor who portrayed young J.R. Lubbock on “Just the Ten of Us.”
A historic sitcom site was even pegged to portray the idyllic Westview, New Jersey suburb where Wanda and Vision live on the show. The couple’s picturesque block, known as Blondie Street, is not a real place, but a fabricated backlot streetscape located at the Warner Bros. Ranch studio facility in Burbank. The tiny U-shaped road, easily the most cinematically famous in all of L.A., is home to such classic TV residences as Major Anthony Nelson’s (Larry Hagman) from “I Dream of Jeannie,” Dennis Mitchell’s (Jay North) from “Dennis the Menace” and Donna Stone’s (Donna Reed) from “The Donna Reed Show.” The pad where Wanda and Vision live is perhaps Blondie Street’s most iconic. On the new show, the superhero couple settles into the Griswold House, so named because it was built to serve as the Griswold family residence in the 1989 holiday classic “Christmas Vacation.”
For more Dirt on Wanda and Vision’s house from “WandaVision,” click over to the gallery.