Probably because the Moon was basically revealed to be the world's largest webcam this week, Americans have been obsessed with a bygone era. Remember when you could email your girlfriend as a 15-year-old and the audience of your crippling embarrassment was just limited to you and your equally stupid love interest? Now some guy in a military compound in the American desert is cringing for you as he wolfs down four Powerbars during his lunchbreak.
Anyways, it was a better time. That's why Melissa Joan Hart is coming out with a book called Melissa Explains It All. That's why there was a Teen Wolf: The Next Generation parody on Kimmel last night, too. We're meth-level addicted to nostalgia right now.
So, as a scary Internet television juggernaut, we are desperate to capitalize on your most vulnerable and desperate moments. That's why we're thinking of rebooting a bunch of TV shows.
But a lot of these things need updates. Badly. We went to our creative team with some ideas of how to remake your childhood classics -- complete with updated plots, new taglines and fresh poster art.
America's all growns up. It's time our nostalgia started to reflect it. -- Ben Collins
Are You Afraid of the Dark? Have You Done Your Taxes?
The Tale of Adulthood
The kids from "The Midnight Society" are all grown up and, although they've remained friends, their thoughts (and nightmares) have turned from ghosts, monsters, and evil clowns to far worse terrors of the night: adult ones.
Tucker discovers the true cost of laziness when he leaves hid GPS device on his dashboard overnight and his car windows are smashed. David and Kristen finally get married and settle down, but their sexual chemistry slowly wanes, and they fall asleep nightly without touching. Gary racks up a $200 bar tab one evening buying shots for coworkers he wants, but can't really afford, to impress. Betty Ann watches too many episodes of Law & Order: SVU before bed and can't fall asleep.
The group meets up regularly at a local pub to tell harrowing tales of chores left unfinished, crying babies, and noisy neighbors, pretending they still have the same bond as they used to around that secret campfire. But really, they're just prolonging as long as possible the inevitable onslaught of night -- and all the responsibilities that come with it. -- Naivasha Dean
Outsourced... to the Ozarks
Press 2 for an Even Deeper Southern Accent
Not content with letting other networks' racist shows about every other country survive for three episodes before a media firestorm forces cancellation, CMT has decide to peer into its very own soul. Due to a super racist explosion of some kind (maybe a cricket bat factory fire?) in New Delhi, a major cell phone company's customer service operations have been moved to rural Arkansas. Corporate bigwig, Jeff, is forced by his new coworkers to slovenly eat 40 racks of ribs before driving his ATV to work every morning.
But -- watch out! -- in the office park's line dancing studio, he finds love. With a pig.
Again, we said it'd be super racist. We warned you. -- Ben Collins
PTSD Major Dad
Coming back home from war is a mother... when you're a father.
Major Reginald Dadd returns from three tours in Afghanistan only to find out that his family had the nerve to grow up while he was gone! With Daddy's Little Girls now more interested in boys and his wife preoccupied with her burgeoning real estate business, Reggie has to come up with ridiculous "conditions" he developed from "traumas" he experienced during the war to get their attention. But his kids don't understand why he's so hung up on a war he already fought so they could live this way in the first place. It's enough to make Reggie crazy! (Note: PTSD Major Dad will run against a reality show featuring someone famous for a drug-fueled sex tape and who is celebrated more than any veteran returning from service, ensuring Dad's cancellation after just two episodes.) -- Martin Moakler
The Pretender: The G Word
How Has This Not Been a Kevin James Movie Yet?
Jarod is a child prodigy ballet dancer who was kidnapped by a Texas construction worker at a young age and raised to spit and chew tobacco and not call girls back after the first date. After discovering his true identity when he accidentally does a pirouette while putting on his boots, he escapes his home to bring justice to the social (and fashion) world.
His mission: to go around the world pretending to be straight to save girls from marrying the wrong men -- before immediately becoming their lifelong BFF. To do so, he convinces these girls that he is more of a man than the douchebags they're about to marry by his ability to disguise his true love for Monday musical nights at the local bar. He sports a bowl cut to disguise his impeccable sense of style and only works out his biceps to make sure no one thinks he actually cares about his body. Some comical moments occur when he almost reveals the fact that he religiously watches Ellen, but he quickly recovers by acting like he doesn't actually remember anyone's birthday. -- Janet Wood
Clarissa Explains Some Things But She's Really Just Not That Sure Anymore
Could I Borrow $40?
After quitting her job at TJ Maxx because she stood up to a bully in the shoe department, Clarissa is once again unemployed and blogging about it. She has four advanced degrees, career-murdering levels of compassion, and an open, caring boyfriend with a debilitating ladder fetish. Life's beautiful, but relationships and Millennials are like oil and very smelly, very dirty water.
Wait, this is just the plot of Girls. -- Ben Collins
My So-Called 20 Year High School Reunion
She's totally over high school. But Jordan Catalano's a different story.
She may have put Liberty High far behind her, but Angela Chase is still very much a teen at heart. She kind of has to be, since she basically works for one. After writing for a series of semi-serious-minded women's magazines, Angela is now an editor at an online magazine that recycles '90s trends for tweens and teens who are navigating what it means to be "alternative" in the 21st century. While she can't help rolling her eyes at the nostalgia this generation seems to have for things they've never experienced (especially when her 22-year-old boss shows up to work in a hat that would make Blossom think twice), Angela can also relate, given her own teen years trying on various identities.
But at least she doesn't have to "try" anymore. She and her husband, a poetry professor, live in a tiny, but quaint walk-up in Greenpoint with a particularly lazy Maine Coon and their much more active one year old son. When she receives her invite to her 20th high school reunion in the mail, Angela's more than a little curious as to how everyone turned out, especially one person in particular. Besides, the trip would make a great essay for her magazine. So Angela unpacks her old diaries, slips on a flannel shirt, and buys a train ticket back to Liberty High. Because maybe, just maybe, he'll show, and smile at her one more time. -- Sheila Dichoso and Andrea Marker
Dog Bites Man: The New Class
Fair & Balanced & Getting A Network to Admit They're Wrong
Dog Bites Man was a partially improvised Comedy Central series starring Zach Galifianakis, Matt Walsh, A.D. Miles, and Andrea Savage. Despite having so many respectable names on the roster, the show still managed to get canned after only nine episodes in 2006. "That's three human lifetimes on Comedy Central," you're probably thinking.
But it shouldn't have been cancelled in the first place. The mockumentary style show would set up the stories in the newsroom before acting out scenes in front of unsuspecting non-actors -- failing to mention the fact that they weren't an actual news crew. And now you're probably thinking, "Isn't that just a bottle episode within the first series?" That answer is yes. I just really want that show back. -- Razmig Arabian