The Wonder Years reboot by Lee Daniels and Fred Savage will center on a Black family
Aux Features The Wonder Years
A The Wonder Years reboot is officially in the works for ABC, The A.V. Club has confirmed. The new version of the hit show—which ran for six seasons and 115 episodes between 1988 and 1993—will be a half-hour comedy that focuses on “how a black middle class family in Montgomery, Alabama in the turbulent late 1960’s, the same era as the original series, made sure it was The Wonder Years for them too,” reads the release.
This new version of The Wonder Years already has a production commitment, and a mini writer’s room will be put to work upon pilot script approval. The series will be produced by 20th Century Fox Television, with Saladin Patterson, Lee Daniels, Marc Velez, and original Wonder Years star Fred Savage serving as executive producers. Savage will also serve as a director while original series co-creator Neal Marlens is on board as a consultant.
This news comes almost two months after ABC revealed which of their shows survived to return next season…whenever that is. Traditionally the network takes a chance on a lot of new programming, but this year—probably for obvious reasons—they only pulled the plug on six shows: Schooled, Bless This Mess, Single Parents, Emergence, Kids Say The Darnedest Things, and Beauty And The Baker. Their returning series include For Life, The Rookie, The Bachelor, Grey’s Anatomy, The Bachelorette, The Good Doctor, and Station 19, Stumptown, Dancing With The Stars, Shark Tank, 20/20, America’s Funniest Home Videos, American Idol, the Jimmy Kimmel-hosted Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and the black-ish spinoff mixed-ish.
57 Comments
“Boy, weren’t the late 60s GREAT for Black families?!” said nobody ever?! I mean… how is this gonna be a comedy?
You see in Georgia, they spray us with fire hoses like this. But in Mississippi, they spray us like this.
It’s true! It’s true! We’re so lame!
I mean… the original Wonder Years was more a dramedy. It definitely cast the past in a nostalgic glow, but it was just as much about the turbulence of adolescence.
I was thinking that this approach would be more interesting than just setting it in the late 90s or early aughts or whatever. It kind of sets up the series to be in conversation with the original show. I’m not sure what the would look like since I haven’t watched the Wonder Years since I was a kid, but it’s potentially interesting.
Who are we all kidding, it will be set in the 80s because everything is these days
That’s no different that the shows back in the 80s set in the 60s or shows in the 70s set in the 50s. Every generation get’s their chance to tell stories from their time. I mean Pen15 is set in the 2000s.
It is the dark abyss from which none escape.
Yes, but it was marketed as an hour-long drama, and there’s the key difference.
I am so confused as to what you’re talking about. The OG Wonder Years was a half-hour, and the article doesn’t say anything about how long episodes of the new series will be.
As I said in a different comment, I’d been under the mistaken impression it was an hour because it’s generally called a drama. And you’re right, it doesn’t say, but shows labeled as comedies are generally half-hour.
Just because life wasn’t GREAT doesn’t mean you can’t find comedy in it. The Wonder Years wasn’t a zany sitcom about a well-off family, it was about the inner life of an adolescent in a flawed family – pretty universal, no reason to think it couldn’t work with a family of any race if done right.
That’s my point, though, the original series was marketed more as a drama.Now, I’ll admit – I didn’t watch it as a kid, so my memories are fuzzy, and I had been under the impression that it was an hourlong drama. It was a half hour. So if this reboot is truly in the spirit of the original, then great. I just had a gut reaction of “uhh….you sure about that?”
I don’t know that that’s necessarily a problem, given that it’s set from the point of view of children. It’s not like Everyone Hates Chris regularly addresses directly the war on drugs, economic inequality, criminalization, and AIDS. I think there’s definitely the opportunity for the show to address the shittiness of reality while also representing how kids manage to be kids without necessarily understanding how systematically fucked up the world around them is.
Fair, and I would also say Black-ish has done a pretty good job of addressing reality while still ostensibly being a comedy. But my gut reaction was “hmm, a comedy? really?” – especially since the original show was a drama.
And oddly enough, Black people during that time period managed to have crushes, fall in love, have petty spats with middle school/high school boy/girlfriends, have older siblings do weird things. It’s almost as if *gasp* Black people are PEOPLE too.
Yes, I know. This could be end up being great. It was an initial, knee jerk reaction to the word “comedy” that resulted in a quickly posted comment, I’m not saying I’m the arbiter of…well, anything.
I think they should set this in LA in 1992. Or, like Pasadena. The season 3 Bronco chase episode would be epic.
Do we capitalize “Black” now? I’m behind.
Get a job? Were they serious? I didn’t realize it at the time…
“To everything, turn, turn, turn…”
2020 is further from when the Wonder Years aired than the Wonder Years was from the 1960s. I feel old now.
And that’s just the 60’s. 2020 is the same distance from when That 70’s Show premiered as to That 70’s Show was from when the show was initially set (1976). (22 years)
Happy Days was set 20 years in the past as well.20 years is the optimal time for a nostalgic show.People who were adolescents 20 years previous, are just starting families and having children of their own. Its normal be be a bit nostalgic and remember the highlights of their own childhoods.
Begs the question why the Wonder Years is going to be set in the 60’s again. When I heard rumblings about a reboot, I assumed it would be optimum to set it in the late 80’s/early 90’s (and be about Kevin’s kind).
Of course, focusing on an African American kid in the 60’s lets the viewers see the civil rights movement through the eyes of a child more directly impacted by it than Kevin was. That’s an awesome story telling setup and better than what I thought it would be (i.e., another attempt at a Boy Meets World style reboot).
I think you answered your own question. But I agree the 60’s makes sense, since it was so pivotal.
I recently realized the classic rock I was listening to in high school in the ’80s was newer then than some of the “modern rock” I hear on the radio now.
Any time I catch myself wondering why my kids can’t get into early U2 I realize that would have been like someone trying to turn 1983 me onto music from the rockin’ year of 1946.
I discovered my love for the Beatles Abbey Road in high school, when it was barely 20 years old. Nevermind and Ten are 30 years removed from their release as soon as 2021 hits. My point is that I’m over and done with this nostalgia,” let’s reboot an old series” mentality. Are they gonna reboot M*A*S*H next but set it in Iraq or Afghanistan? Jesus.
I was born 16 years after the 60s ended. That was 34 years ago.
The 60’s ended in 1986?
We’re doing nostalgia for the nostalgia that was popular when I was a kid.
/feels HoneybunchesofgoatsActually, you feel more like a garbage bag full of warm oatmeal
Yeah that is like realizing if they made Back to the Future today, Marty would meet his young parents in the year 1990. Maybe its the internet not letting things fade and come back as easily but I don’t feel like Gen X and now Millenials have the same hard-on for nostalgia of their youth like the boomers. I mean sure we love 80s and 90s shit but we aren’t making dramedies about how great those time were. We seem to really just like to use them for horror and scifi backdrops it seems
Hate to break it to you but Gen X steeps itself in nostalgia just as much as every generation before them did. Again, this is not unique to boomers at all.
Yeah but Boomers suck
You really have issues with your parents don’t you.
Nope, my parents are great. Its the vast majority of other boomers who suck
The real question is- if your 17 year old kid grew up to look like some random dude you knew for a week in 1990, would you recognize it?
If they were remaking Freaks and Geeks today, it would be set the year Freaks and Geeks was cancelled.
Also, when I got laid off last month a friend bought me a Cameo message from Danica McKellar, and it made me feel 13 again. best gift I got in a long time.
I was the same age as the fictional Kevin Arnold. I’m 47.
Pass. Why can’t they make anything original?
I’m surprised they didn’t connect it to the Black-ish universe and call it The Wonder-ish Years.
The new series will be narrated by Eddie Steeples*.*OK, no one’s going to get that. I’ll just come right out and tell you that Eddie Steeples is a person of color who played one of the bad guys in Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, which I’ve never even seen. You probably know him from My Name is Earl.
I’ve been rewatching the OG Wonder Years and it’s a very weird viewing experience from 2020, where boomer-era nostalgia has soured a bit. It doesn’t help that a lot of the show’s drama and comedy both come from the dissonance between Kevin’s monologue and what’s actually happening around him; half the time he thinks he’s the protagonist of what’s clearly someone else’s story, and his entitlement is constantly on full blast.I think a version of the show which approaches a perspective that isn’t 100% “boy were times changing, but I’d give anything to go back” rosy-tinted nostalgia could have legs.
That being said the last episode of the Wonder Years still kills me every time I see it as an adult. The memories of childhood really do stay with you. I can barely remember my 20s or my 30s. Even though those are some of the most important times of my life. Graduating college, starting my career, meeting my wife, marriage, the birth of my kids, etc. But few memories of those time cling on like the years of my youth. Just the other day I realized I can remember every detail of July 3rd 1996 in my mind like it was yesterday but I can barely remember my wedding day 11 years later.
Plus it looks like shit in hi def.
With J.B. Smoove as the narrator. They can just dub in his lines from Pootie Tang.
Or his lines as Frank the Plant from Harley Quinn.
Yet another reboot…
Was there any chance EVER this could’ve just been an original show with the exact same premise that SOMEBODY thought might fly with its own title?
When did the trend for capitalizing “black” start and can it please stop because it’s patronizing as all hell?
Granted it was set in the 70s I think, but didn’t “Everybody Hates Chris” already do the Wonder Years adaptation with a black family?
Wonderful
But, oddly enough, the black family’s lives will still be narrated by Daniel Stern.