Reboots bring family-friendly nostalgia to YTV
Several new additions on the way to never-ending list of remakes, revivals
From the sounds of it, no one has anticipated the return of “Punky Brewster” as much as Punky Brewster, a.k.a. actor Soleil Moon Frye.
“I have always said that if I was 80 years old and people were still calling me Punky I would be thrilled because she’s such a part of my heart and soul. I had wanted to bring her back for so long,” enthused Frye, who’s 44, during a Zoom interview.
Frye got her wish when a “Punky” update debuted last week on the Peacock streaming service. It makes its Canadian bow this week on YTV (as well as W Network and STACKTV) alongside another familyfriendly reboot, a new version of “The Hardy Boys.”
They’re part of a seemingly never-ending stream of remakes and revivals that’s been accelerating since the midaughts.
Between 1984 and 1988, Frye was Penelope (Punky) Brew- ster, a precocious foster child abandoned by her mother and adopted by widowed photographer Henry (George Gaynes), who found her squatting in the apartment building he managed. Her best friend Cherie, played by Cherie Johnson, lived in the building with her grandmother (Susie Garrett).
In the new version, Punky is a divorced photographer living with her three kids, two of whom are adopted, in Henry’s old apartment. Cherie, now a social worker helping other abandoned kids find homes, introduces Punky to Izzy (series standout Quinn Copeland), a motherless tot who naturally reminds Punky of herself.
The show unfolds in predictable, rather hokey sitcom fashion but with a wellspring of sweetness and some nods to current realities — one of Punky’s kids, Daniel, is exploring his gender identity, and Cherie is gay and has a girlfriend.
Both Johnson and Frye say the time was right to bring “Punky power and Cherie power” back to TV, especially in the midst of a pandemic.
“‘Punky Brewster’ is like coming home,” said Johnson, 45, in a separate Zoom interview.
“You know how you’ve had those friends your whole life that you really miss and you kind of wonder what they’ve been doing with themselves? We want to catch up with you now that we’re in our 40s.”
Over the years, Frye heard from many fans who related to Punky, particularly her identity as a foster child, and she hopes the new version does those people proud.
“I’ve gained the perspective of what this show meant to people as more than just a show, that it was their friend, that they were sharing their lives.”
Still, no one can appreciate the nostalgia of Punky’s return more than Frye and Johnson, who practically grew up together on the show.
Johnson — who’s known for another touchstone sitcom, “Family Matters” — recalled the emotion of being taken to the “Punky” set after three decades away: “They took me over to the studio and the elevator doors opened and my best friend was standing there,” said Johnson about Frye, tearing up at the memory.
“I think we hugged probably for about 15 minutes until they separated us, and we were crying and laughing, and they took us down to the set and basically took us home again.”
For the young stars of the new “Hardy Boys,” the connection to the show isn’t quite that personal. Neither of them was born when the last TV series adaptation of the novels aired in 1995 — but that hasn’t dampened their enthusiasm for the material.
Albertan Rohan Campbell, who’s 23 and plays 16-year-old Frank Hardy, read the books, as did his TV dad, James Tupper, 55, who avidly consumed them growing up on Prince Edward Island.
The novels about two teenage, amateur detective brothers were first published in 1927 by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the same company behind the “Nancy Drew” series.
“The Hardy Boys” has been widely adapted. There were B&W TV series in 1956 and ’57, an animated series in 1969, a 1977 version that paired the boys with Nancy Drew; the aforementioned ’95 version and a parody series in 2016, “New Hardy Boys.”
This version, shot in and around Hamilton and Toronto with a Canadian cast, sets the action in the 1980s, fertile ground for nostalgia.
“It really adds another layer to the mystery, because we can’t just Google what something means, you know, we’ve got to get out there and we’ve got to do it ourselves,” said Alexander Elliot, 16, who plays 12-year-old Joe Hardy, on a Zoom interview with Campbell and Tupper.
“And I think having it in the ’80s, especially with all this vintage tech like walkie-talkies and a Walkman and stuff like that was really, really cool to see.”
That’s despite the fact he and Campbell couldn’t figure out which way to point the vintage video game controller, they admitted.
In a press kit for the show, co-creator Jason Stone says he wanted to “go back to the kind of adventure-driven storytelling that I was obsessed with as a kid in the ’80s,” movies like “The Goonies,” “Indiana Jones” and “Stand by Me.”
“They had this perfect balance of humour and mystery and fun while always feeling real and heartfelt in a way that I don’t really see that often nowadays.”
This “Hardy Boys” does indeed feel like throwback entertainment, wholesome without being cloying, serious at times; playful at others. And Campbell and Elliot make a likeable, relatable team, aided by a group of sidekicks: Chet (Adam Swain), Biff (Riley O’Donnell) and Phil played by Mexican-Canadian actor Cristian Perri.
“I’m very proud of these boys,” Tupper (“Men in Trees,” “Big Little Lies”) said of Campbell and Elliot. “I feel very lucky to be part of the show … It doesn’t feel like a network show. It feels like a premium cable show.”
“For me, film and TV is an escape,” added Campbell.
“It’s always fun getting away from the world that you live in (especially in) complicated times.”
“Punky Brewster” debuts at 8 p.m. Thursday on W and 8 p.m. Friday on YTV. “The Hardy Boys” debuts at 9 p.m. Friday on YTV. Both can be streamed on StackTV.
The reboots keep rolling
The website Screen Rant calls 2021 the year of the reboot, which is saying something since there’s been a steady stream of remakes and revivals since the early aughts. If you want to go way back, TV redos have been a thing since at least 1957 when “I Love Lucy” was brought back to life as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.” Despite the fact some have been dismal failures — I’m looking at you, “Charlie’s Angels” — networks and streamers continue to churn them out.
Here are some remakes in the development pipeline that interest me, for better or worse.
Dexter
A 10-episode ninth season of the Showtime drama is expected to debut in the fall, with Michael C. Hall back as the cunning yet relatable serial killer. Clyde Phillips, an Emmy-nominated writer on the original series (2006-13), is showrunner of the revival. Colour me cautiously optimistic. Anything that could wipe that horrendous Season 8 finale from our memories would be a win.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies
I’m skeptical of this one, a musical comedy prequel to the beloved 1978 movie that focuses on the Pink Ladies high school girl gang. Two things that don’t inspire optimism: HBO Max bailed on it before newbie streaming platform Paramount Plus snapped it up; and rights to the original songs by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey were reportedly denied when the spinoff was first announced. Can “Greased Lightning” strike twice? I wouldn’t bet on it.
Queer as Folk
An update of the groundbreaking gay drama, which had a British version (1999-2000) and a North American one (200005), is said to be in development for the Peacock streaming service. On the one hand, there’s a whole spectrum of queerness that nobody was talking about in 1999 ripe to be explored in a reboot; on the other, “The L Word: Generation Q,” a remake of the iconic lesbian series, didn’t exactly set the TV world on fire.
True Blood
The 2008 to 2014 version of the Charlaine Harris novels about a telepathic waitress, her vampire lovers and other supernatural beings in a small southern town went off the rails in the last two seasons, full of convoluted plot lines that sucked all the fun out of it.
Original “True Blood” showrunner Alan Ball is said to be attached to the HBO remake, being spearheaded by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa of “Riverdale” and “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” It’s still very early days, but that team inspires guarded hope.
Waiting to Exhale
ABC gave a script commitment to this TV sequel to the 1995 movie about the lives and loves of four Black female friends.
It’s being written by sisters Attica and Tembi Locke — Attica was a writer on well-regarded dramas “When They See Us” and “Little Fires Everywhere”; Tembi is an actor whose memoir “From Scratch” is being turned into a Netflix show.
Lee Daniels, whose track record includes directing the Oscar-nominated film “Precious” and creating the dramas “Empire” and “Star,” is an executive producer, so there’s reason for optimism.