6 TV Shows Middle-Aged Dads Want To See Rebooted

February 19, 2018

The past few years have seen an explosion of TV remakes. From the new episodes of Will and Grace to the “no one watches this but trust us, it exists” remake of Dynasty, TV execs are deciding that the safest way to bet on a new show is to just put out a show that’s already been done before. Reboots are easy, and guaranteed to have an audience, so why not?

Well, if studios are going to continue this reboot practice, they’d better start having dads in mind. And if dads had their say, here are six shows that are ready for a reboot.

M*A*S*H

M*A*S*H, the Korean War medical comedy (and occasional drama), lasted longer than the actual Korean War. But it’s also a historic show that just about every dad watched the finale of (along with 100 million other Americans).

Now, enough time has passed that dads are ready to see a rebooted version of this show, perhaps taking place in the Persian Gulf, updated for a modern audience (but still with the right combination of comedic and maudlin that the show was known for). If you really want to sell it, get Alan Alda to play a general who makes guest appearances throughout. Dads love Alan Alda.

Happy Days

The world misses The Fonz. The world needs The Fonz on television again. Older dads will lose their minds if they can get The Fonz back on their tv sets.

The original Happy Days came out in the 70s and 80s but took place in the 50s, the years when most grandparents were in high school. Fittingly, a remake should take place during the period when many dads were in school: the 80s. A 1980s Happy Days is what every dad born between 1960 and 1975 wants, and it’s frankly what they deserve. Make it happen, TV execs. We need the 1980’s version of The Fonz.

Cheers

Cheers is another show that dads loved watching, and which could be rebooted so easily. You could even go with the original cast, making it a part-time event like the latest seasons of The X-Files. With Ted Danson crushing it on The Good Place, now is the best time to bring him back into the bar after all these years. Every single dad in America would watch it and laugh at every single in-joke they cram in there.

The A-Team

Sure, there was an A-Team movie that came out relatively recently, but that was a bomb and no one watched it.

Here is another show that just needs to have the original cast members. Specifically, Mr. T. You’re not going to replicate Mr. T with a different actor, so all you need to do is make a new A-Team where a group of court-martialed special forces get recruited by a now-older B. A. Baracus.

He sets up missions, and the new group carries them out. You put that on CBS, and it’s going to get 15 million viewers every week.

The Six Million Dollar Man

The old joke goes like this. “Oh, six million dollar man? Nowadays that’ll just be enough money to cover the leg.”

Or something like that.

Okay, listen, we never said it was a good joke, okay? But naturally you’d need to change the name. $600 million dollar man probably works. And stick it on Netflix. And make it gritty, almost like any of their Marvel offerings. Would it be good? Possibly not. But would dads binge that the day it came out? Of course they would.

But there is one show that is so in need of a televised reboot, we’re amazed it hasn’t happened yet. That would be…

Charlie’s Angels

No, we’re not going to talk about the Charlie’s Angels movies, and neither should you. Pretend those never came out.

It’s 2018, and 2018 is the perfect time to find three new strong, charismatic, crime-fighting actresses to be the newest Angels. Just the casting call alone would be newsworthy. Dads would inevitably compare the new Angels to the original trio, and make uncomfortable jokes about that one Farrah Fawcett poster they had as a teenager, but they’d tune in every week.

Probably while asking their sons if they think the angels are “hot” roughly six times per episode.