If you visited Las Vegas this year, you may have seen some of these shows playing at various resorts on and off the Strip:
The Australian Bee Gees
MJ Live: Michael Jackson Tribute Concert
Bruce in the USA: Bruce Springsteen Tribute
Purple Reign: The Prince Tribute Show
Abba: The Concert – a Tribute to Abba
Wanted: A Tribute to Bon Jovi
Jay White is America’s Diamond: Honoring Neil Diamond
There were more, but you get the idea.
When I moved to Las Vegas back in 1982, the only tribute show that drew an audience featured an Elvis impersonator. But today, it seems there is a much greater interest in celebrating the music of previous generations.
So I can’t help but wonder: Could the same thing happen with television shows?
Classic shows are already revisited in myriad ways. There have been parodies, like The Rerun Show (2002) and The Real Live Brady Bunch stage show. We’ve also had a wave of (mostly lousy) feature film adaptations, where the original series is a starting point from which to take the concept into new territory.
Remakes? Tim Daly headlined a new version of The Fugitive in 2000. Family Affair was revived in 2002 with Gary Cole as Bill Davis and Tim Curry as Mr. French, and Charlie’s Angels returned to television in 2011. None of these attempts were successful. New takes on Dragnet and The Bionic Woman also flopped. The new Dallas had its moments. The new Dynastydid not.
More recently we’ve had something that comes closer to a true continuation of a classic series, with the new episodes of Roseanne and Will and Grace now airing, and more Murphy Brown coming soon. Ratings have been very impressive, suggesting audiences are glad to be reunited with TV characters they first met decades ago.
So would audiences be equally happy to spend more time with Ann Marie and Don Hollinger, or James West and Artemus Gordon, or the Cartwright family?
There are obvious reasons why these projects could not be attempted with the original stars. But if you carefully and respectfully recast the roles, reproduce every other aspect of the original show, and resist any urge to "re-imagine,""update" or "modify," would that result in a successful revival? If the right tone was captured would there be an audience for new episodes of Gunsmokeor Mannix, I Dream of Jeannie or Father Knows Best, Perry Mason or The Man From UNCLE?
I think so – if the new episodes stayed true to what made the source material successful, with no self-awareness, no casting or scripts based on 21st century sensibilities, and no winking at the audience. The only goal should be not to remake but to revive, with as much authenticity and attention to detail as possible.
Think about The Brady Bunch Movie (yes, I know, I always come back to The Brady Bunch). While that project had its own satriric slant on the material, consider the possibilities of putting a lookalike cast like that one into a new 30-minute script with the kind of plot viewers came to expect from the series, and without exaggerating aspects of their characters for comic effect. Would the result be close enough to the actual show to satisfy fans?
Since the objective is to produce new episodes that would fit comfortably into the series’ original runs, that requires setting them in the same era; so no cell phone for Joe Mannix, no GPS for Bo and Luke Duke, no Chip and Ernie Douglas doing homework on a computer. And no updated wardrobe for Mike Brady.
Again, would it succeed? Could a sincere attempt to write, produce and perform new episodes of old shows capture enough of the flavor of the originals – or would the hurdle of accepting a new cast in iconic roles be too great to overcome?
I think it would work. And I think the ratings success of networks like MeTV proves there is an audience that would embrace a continuation of shows that ended decades ago. I also believe there is an audience eager to have more family-friendly viewing options, and most of the series from the Comfort TV era fit into that category.
There is another option for reviving classics, and that is through the same technology that will soon be used to bring Marilyn Monroe back for a new movie about her life. Today’s CGI can create digital avatars of characters as they appeared in a show from 50 years ago. Voices? Those can be recreated as well. Many films now combine practical sets with digital effects, and most viewers can’t tell where the real parts of a frame stop and the CGI starts.
Far too expensive to do for a TV series now, but there was a time when videocassette recorders were cutting-edge technology that cost $1,500.
I’m not saying it might happen for classic TV shows – I’m saying it absolutely will happen. And I for one cannot wait.