“Desperate Housewives” creator has 'envy' for enduring “Real Housewives” franchise

It's important to remember that Desperate Housewives, the 2004-2012 ABC dramedy, is different from the Real Housewives reality franchise. Not everyone does, as Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry knows. In a new interview with PEOPLE, Cherry recounted one such conversation with Tony Award-winning actor and director Tommy Tune.

"Tommy got confused and said, 'Oh, so do you produce all the various cities?' And I looked at him — I had no idea what he was talking about," Cherry told PEOPLE. "And then I realized, 'Oh, you think I created the real-life Housewives franchise?'"

To be clear, Desperate Housewives was a fictional series that starred Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Eva Longoria, and more as suburban housewives reckoning with the dark secrets lurking beneath their superficially perfect lives. The Real Housewives franchise is a series of reality shows set in different cities (now including New York City, Atlanta, and Salt Lake City, among others) focusing on real housewives and their feuds with each other. The two TV projects do share a connection, though. The Real Housewives of Orange County, the first show in the Bravo franchise, was launched in 2006, at the height of Desperate Housewives' popularity.

"It all started when this ad guy named Scott Dunlop brought us this video of his neighbors in Orange County," Real Housewives mastermind Andy Cohen recalled in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last year. "At the time, Desperate Housewives was a huge hit on ABC; his big idea was to bring Desperate Housewives to life. And there was no better place for it than Orange County. The women were bored and rich. Their hair was big and blond, their boobs were bigger. One woman, Vicki [Gunvalson], even had a grotto in her backyard. But Scott’s idea was maybe a little less grounded in reality. We wanted it to be a docuseries about these women and their friendships."

Related: Andy Cohen promises to (finally) reboot Real Housewives of New Jersey with 'fresh new faces'

Cherry doesn't mind the obvious inspiration.

"They didn't crib my name, to be fair to them," Cherry told PEOPLE. "They just used the word. Our show came out, and they capitalized on that. And you know what? That's the capitalistic system."

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Reality shows are much easier to produce year after year than a fictional drama series, however. Real Housewives may have started alongside Desperate Housewives, but the reality franchise is still going strong more than a decade after the ABC series went off the air. That's the part that makes Cherry jealous.

"I envy the fact that they've kept that franchise going," Cherry said, adding, "I certainly envy the good folks who produce that show because it's a train that keeps on chugging. So good for them."

Related: Alexis Bellino will not return to Real Housewives of Orange County: 'It did not come as a shock'

It's possible that Desperate Housewives could return to TV someday. Cherry previously told PEOPLE back in November that he was toying with the idea of a prequel series set in the show's same neighborhood of Wisteria Lane, but in the '60s.

"It was such a fun place to write for," Cherry said then. "And there's times when I go, 'You know what? I wonder if I could write Wisteria Lane in, like, 1966.'"

But it doesn't sound like a solid idea yet, and Cherry added that he doesn't want to revisit Desperate Housewives unless he really feels like there's something to say.

"If I ever dipped my toe in those waters again, I would want to make sure I had a really good reason," he said.

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