Hardly anyone can keep up with the rumored and confirmed Nickelodeon reboots. Most dispatches from the nostalgia department mention only the latest revivals.
This week, the Hollywood Reporter’s Lesley Goldberg focused on Viacom’s bold Rugrats announcement. In the next two years, the groundbreaking Nicktoon will end its longest hiatus with a new season and film adaptation.
Goldberg’s recent write-up names eight entities potentially or already pursuing new Nickelodeon TV or movie content. Titles omitted include the already released Hey Arnold! and Legends of the Hidden Temple movies.
These projects combine for a vast scope of approaches to slaking millennial cravings for the illusion of a simpler time, remaking classic characters for the current youth or both. Game shows have been repurposed for an adventure screenplay. Old and new personnel are crafting new installments under old banners.
Studios are exhuming retired characters and subjecting them to new voices and appearances, as in the announced live-action/CGI Rugrats flick. (Prepare for a slew of melodramatic “My childhood is ruined” laments from ’90s kids on that one. Never mind that no on needs to watch that movie or that it will take nothing away from its predecessors.)
Or old teams are simply enjoying a reunion for one-off TV movies to tack onto their treasured series. The epitome of that tactic will be Static Cling.
At this stage, the more conspicuous classics are those still sitting out the reboot race. No fewer than five titles jut by their absence, but the following would be worth exploring. All dates and filmographies are according to the Internet Movie Database.
The Adventures of Pete & Pete
Mike Maronna, the narrating co-title star of this critically lauded series, has made camera and electrical work his adult vocation. Danny Tamberelli (Little Pete) has stuck with acting, though has hardly breached the mainstream.
Given the apparent fragility of some childhoods, it could be risky reviving this saga a la Fuller House. But the fact is new generations need new content, and parent-child bonding is more doable when characters transcend eras.
By the late 2010s, there is a good chance both Petes are raising their own families. Maybe the new adventures could center on Big Pete, Jr. and his cousin Little Pete, Jr. Or how about a little gender equality with the Adventures of Pat & Pat (Patricia and Patrick)?
If that is too much, a belated movie adapation would do. Rumor has it Pete & Pete was the working basis for the eventual 2000 theatrical film Snow Day.
While one could easily argue the project would have been better that way, we will never know. But it’s not too late for the Wrigleys to try their hand at another appendage.
GUTS
After this brand went dormant, a brief, tweaked version ran in September 2008. As the title suggested, My Family’s Got GUTS pitted family-based teams in a varied athletic tournament.
In short, based on its brevity, the revised revival did not work. But if GUTS concocts a proper format, it should reserve a reboot tract now that the soil is much more fertile.
Instead of multigenerational blood bands, perhaps the competing parties should be assigned teams of successful youth auditioners. A tournament could still work, but maybe not as the main premise. Depending on whether the show grows legs, individual episode victors could come back at a later date for bigger bragging rights.
KaBlam!
This was your (mostly) animated variety show, “Where cartoons and comics collide.” Running from 1996 to 2000, KaBlam! had its heyday leaning on four of its five staples in a given episode. Sniz & Fondue and Action League Now! filled the first quarter-hour, followed by combinations of Life with Loopy, Prometheus and Bob and The Off-Beats.
Eventually, the show lost its way upon plugging slots with an endless rotation of bite-size sagas that failed to stick. With that said, there were some intriguing music videos, including the 1999 debut of “Hockey Monkey.”
There is no reason KaBlam! could not work again, especially as viewers’ attention spans dwindle or stagnate. It merely needs a “new generation” of animated adolescent hosts to fill Henry and June’s shoes. The new hosts can turn the pages for a new batch of creations from up-and-coming cartoonists. The first run did wonders for Mo Willems.
Kenan & Kel
An entire series is a pointless proposition here, but a TV movie or limited set sounds just right. This show had the same lifespan as Kablam!, and went out with a whimper through the nonsensical Two Heads Are Better Than None film.
It is never too late for a do-over, though. While he is still sculpting his record tenure at Saturday Night Live, Kenan Thompson has granted Nickelodeon guest spots as a full-fledged adult. Since 2015, Kel Mitchell has assumed a key role on Game Shakers.
But they have yet to return to their roots simultaneously. So why not fill two hours of air time depicting them as any combination of businessmen, husbands and fathers?
And why not let Vanessa Baden return to bona fide TV programming? Is Kyra over Kel now?
Wild & Crazy Kids
Given its lack of rhyme or reason, this show’s premise is more timeless than its longevity suggests. It kept its freshness by being “The show that goes anywhere and does anything to find kids having fun.”
Abandoning the standard structured seasonal format could be the key to making a third crack the charm. Let the arrival of new episodes be as unpredictable as the energizing activities therein.
Like GUTS, this other physical competition variety program has had a run in each of the previous two calendar decades. It lasted two-and-a-half years to start the ’90s. Its first reboot mustered two episodes in 2002.
Once again, though, the present is a patently more opportune time to replenish bygone brands. And what responsible parent wouldn’t want a show impelling their youngsters to pursue creative outdoor games afterward?
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