TV Revivals: ‘Kenan & Kel,’ more ‘Hey Arnold!,’ ‘Angry Beavers,’ and our Nickelodeon wishlist
Remember when you grew up on Nickelodeon?
Well, maybe not all of you do, but the nineties are a time that is very near and dear to our heart, and we consider many of the shows that air on the network to still be some of the things that make us smile more than anything else. Even though it’s 2017, that still hasn’t gone away.
Given that this TV Revivals series we’ve been doing all month is really all about bringing back some old properties for another run, isn’t this the best time to dive into some old favorites and see if there’s something there? Without further ado … aw, here it goes!
“Kenan & Kel” – The fact that the theme song feature Coolio is another great example of how vintage nineties this show really is. It didn’t bring us Kenan Thompson or Kel Mitchell (they were a part of “All That” first), but this was one of the best sitcoms of its kind in the era. It was funny, silly, and occasionally you learned a thing or two, as well. It’s definitely a property that there could be enough gas in the tank for if you wanted to do a TV movie that picked up years down the road, and showed where these two guys are in their lives now. Just look at this way: We live in a world now that it’s incredibly cynical, and it’s increasingly hard to strip away some distractions and be able to dive into and enjoy something unabashed. This show provided that opportunity in a way that very other things ever have. It was subtly moving in own way.
There was a point in time where we thought that a reunion movie or special wouldn’t happen — however, we have seen Kenan and Kel together recently on “The Tonight Show,” and that’s given us some hope that maybe someday, they could do a little something more. The 13 million views on the video below certainly don’t hurt.
Fun personal note: Kenan and Kel have both been on our interview bucket list since we first started covering TV full-time in 2009. There’s a part of us that wonders if it ever happened if we’d just end up like Troy Barnes in “Community” when he met LeVar Burton.
“Hey Arnold!” – Technically, it’s already coming back in the form of “The Jungle Movie,” an idea about exploring Arnold’s family history that was planned long before the original show ended. Of course, we’re greedy and want a little bit more than this! The real thing with getting more “Hey Arnold!” is strictly based on the performance of this movie whenever it is released. If it does well, maybe Nick decides to order some actual episodes — that is the ideal to us, given that this show thrived to us the most telling smaller, 15-or-30 minute stories that featured the wide array of characters on “P.S. 118.”
We could go on and on about some of our favorite episodes — “Helga on the Couch,” “What’s Opera, Arnold,” and “Married” are just a small sample. We actually made a full list of this last year that is worth checking out.
“The Angry Beavers” – This is the longest of all long-shots that we’ve got on the list, given that it was a fun and funky kids’ show that actually wrote a full episode about getting canceled (it never aired) once the news was past down. It was always offbeat and wasn’t one of the more popular Nicktoons, but for those out there who remember Norbert and Dag, you’ll remember that it was a real original on the network lineup.