What childhood TV shows deserve a reboot?
The success of X-Men '97 raises the question: Which of our favorite series growing up should return?
TV Features Saloni Gajjar
Clockwise from bottom left: Faerie Tale Theatre, The Pirates Of Dark Water, Aaahh!! Real Monsters, and Dungeons & Dragons Screenshot: YouTube
Reboots are normally frowned upon, especially if it’s a project you’ve cherished for a long time. How dare anyone touch it and potentially ruin something fun you grew up with. Yet along comes X-Men ’97, which proves it’s still possible to nail the whole bringing-back-a-beloved-series thing. In that spirit, we asked The A.V. Club staff: What beloved TV show from your childhood deserves a reboot?
93 Comments
My first thought was Dungeons & Dragons, so glad to see it here! I also thought of Speed Buggy; I loved it so much when I was a kid. Could Underdog be rebooted with its unique sensibility? Doubtful but could be fun. The Jetsons reboot was so terrible so maybe another crack at that. Maybe a spin-off of The Great Gazoo? NOT!!! NOT!!!1 NOT!!!!
None. Stop doing reboots, come up with new stuff. Despite the possible initial burst of happy nostalgia most reboots end up just being bad.
Pirates of Dark Water and Dungeons & Dragons were both phenomenal. I’d love to see the stories finished out.
GARGOYLES
https://www.cbr.com/keith-david-on-gargoyles-live-action-reboot/
This is the correct answer. I tried watching the first couple episodes again with my kids now. I love so much about it. The idea, the setting, the characters, the vibe, but now, it’s just hard to watch. I’d love an updated version that keeps all the good stuff and improves the production. Hopefully that live-action reboot will actually happen.
There it is.
The whole Gargoyles planned extended universe would work. There was the planned show where they would have followed the OG clan in Scotland until the massacre, the Pendragon timeline with Avalon, and the Timedancer timeline with Brooklyn traveling through time and eventually shacking up with a reformed Demona. Let the MCU die so the Gargoyles universe can be born.
Teen Titans has been over done (even though we need a killer live action movie) Dungeon and Dragons for sure. God I loved that show. When it was on CBS in the morning and The Real Ghostbusters was on ABC, what a time to be a kid.
A modern version would be preceded with a PSA educating kids about the importance of sitting still once in a goddamn while just to give their parents a break.
Reboot Mulligrubs, and they’ll be too fucking terrified to move:
I’ve never even heard of this before, but it’s awful. I thought that cocaine was difficult to come by in that part of the world!
See, you might think that…There’s a Channel 7 joke in there, somewhere.
I don’t get high, but every time I see a story like this, I can’t help but think, “Aw, someone’s weekend just got ruined!”
Disney seems to have almost completely forgotten they ever made this show. Although Gummi Bears did a bit of a shout-out in the 2017 Ducktales reboot, so there’s that. There’s an episode where Scrooge McDuck has to track down a spy who has stolen a mysterious secret formula. Turns out it’s the recipe for Gummi Berry juice, which we’re told was associated with “mysterious creatures” who were sighted near the ruins of a medieval castle.
The villain even quotes the theme song. “Bouncing here and there and everywhere!”
I’d like to see the “entirely unnecessary Saturday morning cartoon adaptations of HARD R-rated movies” genre return. Rambo, Toxic Crusaders, Swamp Thing, etc.If this were the 90s, the John Wick adaptation would’ve been on at 9 AM, Saturdays.
A John Wick cartoon would be him and his dog getting into adventures every week helping people.
Followed by Magic Mike & The Dynamite Dancers.
They would age all the characters down to teenagers and change them from strippers to break dancers. Every week, they would have to stop the evil developer, Mr. Dallas, from tearing down their rec center and making it a strip mall.
And ending with the misadventure of that wacky ghost the Babadook show
And they also have to collect magic gold coins before they fall into the hands of C.O.N.T.I.N.E.N.T.A.L., who’s acronym is never explained.
His dog would be back as a talking cyborg sidekick
I was always amused that the Terminator and Alien series got their own toylines that were marketed to kids as well. I suppose a cartoon series was too hard to work around.
There was a Robocop cartoon too, right?
Yep. Though thankfully they had enough restraint to save the character “Pudface” for the live action show. Good thing, too! Wouldn’t want kids to be asking their parents for a Pudface action fig-
I appreciate any and every reference to The Pirates of Dark Water, so good call Saloni!Personally, my cartoon resurrection of choice would be Sky Commanders, if only because the premise is so very ridiculous. Visionaries would also be fun, but only if the characters still had to drop a verse before using their powers.
Man, I LOVED that show. I’m afraid to re-visit it and find out it’s complete ass.
I have never heard of Sky Commanders, so I’m just going to assume it’s about some people who tell the sky what to do…..okay, I went ahead and looked up the intro sequence on Youtube and honestly that premise is kind of brilliant. “A new continent showed up for no reason and now people are killing each other over its resources.” This is exactly what would happen if a new continent showed up in real life, leave it to 80’s TV to present that as a heroic struggle and not an example of capitalism at its ugliest.
Noy Jitat!
I would have said “The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse” deserves another shot, but that irreverent take on an old property has now been done to death.
The omission of “Thundarr the Barbarian” is a shanda.
Happy 30th anniversary to that time a runaway planet hurtled between the Earth and the moon and cast man’s civilization in ruin.That was a really weird weekend.
Correct!A few years ago Filmfax Magazine ran an article about Thundarr the Barbarian based on interviews and archival material. Apparently the show was deep into pre-production on a 3rd season when it was cancelled, which is a shame because in the 3rd season they were going go into outer space! Kirby and Toth’s designs for Thundarr, Ariel, and Ookla in armored space suits complete with rocket packs looked amazing. What could have been!
😢😢
ReBoot deserves a reboot
Reboot Reboot.
There was a reboot of Reboot in 2018, but it failed to crack the code so it crashed.
BRO WAT
thats obviously fake, like that avatar movie that people like to bring up
captain n the game master
I suspect that this is AI-generated content because nobody — and I mean nobody — wants to see Dinosaurs back. Grade-Z catchphrase comedy played out by abominable squishy-toy puppets. Keep that shit in the natural history museum.
Factually incorrect. Dinosaurs was awesome. Extremely ahead of its time.
Personally I agree with you but there’s a lot of people that love Dinosaurs. Mostly people who love Muppets and praise anything Jim Henson ever did.
Oh, I forgot that Henson was involved! I always think of it as a lost cousin to “Rosanne,” which I have no real feelings about but has its own set of fans.
The correct answer is none! Don’t mess with my childhood memories! (Unless its Dino-Riders, lol)
As someone born in 1976, I dunno it feels like just about everything worth a damn (and plenty not) has been rebooted. Have to dig deep to find something fresh. Maybe a prestige drama prequel on the Where’s the Beef lady? Find out why she was so cranky.
I wouldn’t mind a live action reboot of Exo-Squad.
Criminally underrated show, and damn good toys too.
My pick for this would be Gargoyles – Weisman had so many other ideas of where to take the series or spinoffs of the series and I’d watch all of it. I’d settle for Spider-Man TAS being revived though as I enjoyed that show more than X-Men as a kid.
After X-Men 97 has been such a hit I have to imagine that a Spidey TAS revival is only a matter of time.
I’m going to have to give it to Galaxy High, a fun show with a great premise that had better writing and animation than its contemporaries and had a criminally short run. If I could reboot it I’d be torn between having it traditionally animated or doing it in live action with lots of practical makeup effects and puppety oddball aliens like in Farscape.
I vaguely remember that show. For whatever reason, a lot of cartoons made during this time period only lasted a single season and then they were canceled.
Somebody didn’t watch Young Justice
I’m surprised nobody has rebooted the Shirt Tails. Not that I think it needs a reboot, or that the reboot would be particularly good. But nearly everything else from the 80s has been nostalgia-mined by now, and the Shirt Tails definitely were a thing from the 80s, so hey, why the hell not?
Then you have to toss in some Get-Along-Gang at that point.
I know a lot of people loved Teen Titans but I really think it ended right where it needed to. I mean, the only “mysteries” left were just “Where is Deathstroke Slade”, “Who is Red X?”, and “Hey is that girl from the last episode Terra? What’s her deal?” and the answers to those are pretty easy honestly: “He’s a supervillain, he’s gonna do supervillain things eventually”, “Does it really matter?”, and “It totally is but she straight up said she wanted to leave and have a normal life”. It’s better for any show to end on a good note than to drag out ad infinitum.Also it’s as good a time as any to say that Teen Titans Go To The Movies is the best movie DC’s made since the Nolan trilogy, and I’m only barely being ironic.
Judging by generally ill-received the Powerpuff Girls revival was, I doubt a Dexter’s Lab revival would be a good idea. In fact I would go so far as to say that I don’t think any revivals of straight-up comedies would be good ideas. We’ve got very few examples of them working well and all too many examples of them backfiring hard.
The Tick — both the Fox and Amazon versions. Those are the only two I can think of.
Animated Fox version, or Patrick Warburton Fox version?Why not both? I want to face a three-Tick problem.
You forgot the Amazon version.
No I didn’t; Amazon’s Peter Serafinowicz version is the third Tick of the three-Tick problem.
The problem? Finding out which Tick is really Barry.
Dexter’s Lab technically got a revival already, but it happened behind the scenes and wasn’t advertised as such. In 1999 Genndy Tartakovsky ended the series, with the TV movie Ego Trip serving as the series finale. Production was shut down and the creative team moved on to new projects.But then Ego Trip got much higher ratings than expected so CN revived the show with a mostly different creative team and without the involvement of Tartakovsky, who was working on Samurai Jack by then. They never advertised it as a reboot, but in practical terms that’s what it was. These episodes are seen as mediocre at best by fans and CN usually ignores them when it airs repeats of the show. Basically the same thing that happened with the Powerpuff reboot, just less public.
I think the original Dexter was lightning in a bottle and any attempt to bring it back would just fall on its face, especially since Dexter’s voice actor, the great Christine Cavanaugh, is no longer with us.
Just reboot ‘em all! A few are bound to stick.
That’s the plan!
Dino Riders and Dinosaucers, both superior to Dinosaurs in the Dino-archy.
How about no more reboots?
Given X-Men ‘97’s success I would not be at all surprised to see Disney reboot the 90s Spider-Man cartoon. It ends on a cliffhanger (the search for Mary-Jane) and was starting to hint at some of the more then-contemporary stories like the Clone Saga.
I wouldn’t be opposed to someone driving a Brinks truck to Alex Hirsch’s house to see if it could coax him into cranking out more Gravity Falls.
I wouldn’t mind more Swat Kats, if only for the rippin’ guitar intro.
You DO know why Ren and Stimpy can’t and won’t be rebooted right?
They already did a reboot of Ren and Stimpy in 2003, and it was terrible.
Here’s a hot take: Ren and Stimpy was never that great. It just stood out because of its gross-out humor, which was unique at the time but has become Nickelodeon’s standard since then. Everything R&S did: the classic cartoon humor, the retro-50’s soundtrack, the surreal gags, was done much better by later Nick shows, most famously Spongebob. Only the first season of Ren and Stimpy is really worth revisiting today, and even then it’s very hit or miss: the show’s absolute best episode is Space Madness, and that’s the fifth one. They peaked super early.
And the creator, John Kricfalusi, is a total creep.
I never really got R&S.
I concur on Pirates of the Dark Water. Loved that show as a kid and as others have stated, since it never finished, its a perfect candidate for a reboot.
I hard disagree on Ren & Stimpy. Its been tried numerous times and its horrible. The original show is of its time, one of those deals where the conditions are just right and it works, but it can’t be duplicated. Just appreciate it for what it is and leave it be
I would like Hot Fudge Show & The Great Space Coaster
I’d cancel all of these in front of you for one more season of JLU, with the bat embargo lifted and free reign given to bring in all the Blue Beetles they want.
The Herculoids. Only 18 episodes in 1967 and pretty silly, but man, can you imagine the Alex-Toth-inspired design with modern-day CGI?
Bring back T-Bag!
Sticking strictly with cartoon remakes, not CGI:M.A.S.K.He-Man ThunderCats (2020’s version failed. Try again, but don’t try too hard)G.I. Joe (again, don’t try too hard. Do not over do it)
For a good revival you need a show that showed tons of promise and created an enduring pop culture legacy combined with a decidedly underwhelming implementation that was hampered by both the technical and artistic limitations of the 80s and the 90s.
I believe there is one ultimate cartoon which fits this bill and would absolutely deserve a re-boot.
He-ManBy the Power of Grayskull!Imagine a modern He-Man with cutting edge animation, good writing, and above all interesting conflicts between dozens of already extremely interesting characters, both the good guys and the baddies. Imagine all that within the realm of fantastic worlds and gorgeously done art. Imagine the sense of adventure of gradually exploring this world across episodes.
And of course, in the land of never-ending overly serious re-makes and social commentary, imagine returning to just good ‘ole fashioned fun and escapism.
I honestly believe this would be a big hit.
There have been two separate He-Man reboots in the last couple of years.
Really showing my age here…
No mention of Gargoyles? Boo!
Eerie, Indiana. We need more children’s tv shows with vaguely Lynchian vibes.