Free to Be... a Family

{{Short description|Television special broadcast in 1988}}

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{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

Free to Be... A Family is a television special hosted by Marlo Thomas broadcast on December 14, 1988.{{cite book|last=Rotskoff|first=Lori|title=When We Were Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children's Classic and the Difference It Made|date=November 2012|publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0807837238}} It was a joint production of ABC and Soviet Union (three years before its dissolve) television. It was nominally a sequel to the popular 1974 ABC Afterschool Special Free to Be... You and Me, also hosted by Thomas.{{cite book|last=Douglas|first=Susan Jeanne|title=The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women|date=February 2004|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-0743259996|url=https://archive.org/details/mommymythidea00doug}} Among the performers on the 1988 show were The Muppets, Jon Bon Jovi, Penn and Teller, Carly Simon, Lily Tomlin, and Robin Williams.

After her husband, talk show host Phil Donahue, hosted a series of U.S.–Soviet space-bridge telecasts throughout the '80s, Thomas decided that this kind of international understanding and cooperation should start at a much earlier age. "The purpose of the special was to emphasize the fact that kids in the U.S. and Russia are much the same and can relate to one another, in hopes of bringing peace between the nations."{{Cite book |title=Muppets and Money |first=Andrew |last=Leal |work=Kermit Culture: Critical Perspectives on Jim Henson's Muppets |editor-first1=Jennifer C. |editor-last1=Garlen |editor-first2=Anissa M. |editor-last2=Graham |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rac9xis0BIgC&pg=PA213 |date=May 2009 |page=213 |isbn=978-0786442591 |publisher=McFarland & Company}} Prior to the television special, there was a book, with contributions by Christopher Cerf among others, and a record album, both under the same title.{{Cite book |title=The Oxford Handbook of Children's Literature |first1=Julia |last1=Mickenberg |first2=Lynne |last2=Vallone |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=March 2011 |pages=533–534 |isbn=978-0195379785}}

It won the 1989 Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program.{{Cite web |url=http://www.emmys.com/shows/free-bea-family |title=Outstanding Children's Program – 1989 |publisher=Academy of Television Arts & Sciences |access-date=September 5, 2014}}