From the year 1987 to 1993, a spin-off sitcom named ‘A Different World’ took network television by storm.
The Cosby Show spin-off originally starred the mysteriously mesmerizing Lisa Bonet as Denise Huxtable, the daughter of Heathcliff and Claire Huxtable on the Cosby Show. The new sitcom focused on Lisa and her journey as a student at fictitious HBCU, Hillman College.
The show tackled social issues, day-to-day college antics and gave us all a secret window into how ‘the culture’ lived and thrived within the walls of HBCUs, even creating characters like Maggie Lauten (Marissa Tomei) to bring true acting gravitas and presence to the nascent cast.
While Tomei was too spicy for NBC execs (she was originally supposed to date Dwayne Wayne) and Lisa Bonet had a life change that saw her exit, the show shifted focus on the other characters, namely the dreamy and proper Whitley Gilbert and Dwayne Wayne.
The show lasted 6 years, finally running out of plotlines and the original cast aging up. For the show to be successful, here’s what it must do in the reboot:
- Keep that mean Whoopi Goldberg off set. She was too preachy and knows it all. The one episode she showed up as a professor, we all sighed at her heavy handed delivery.
- Do not make Dawn Lewis married to men 20 to 30 years her senior. Dawn Lewis (Ja’Lessa) still looks the same as when the show stopped airing. I’m still upset they paired her with Sinbad (who was not bad at all, it was just awkward) and the Colonel math professor.
- Sinbad. He may have had some health issues, but find a way to get this comedy legend back on the campus. He lights up anything he is in. If he has the energy and he is up for it, make it happen.
- No mean balding energy. I will keep her name out of my mouth, but we didn’t really need TuPac sagging his pants through set and bringing hood energy to this show. Don’t invite her back.
- Have Lisa Bonet (Denise) come back by with a kid of hers. Maybe Zoe Kravitz as a guest star. That would be Meta.
- Dwayne Wayne ( Kadeem Harrison) and Ron should still get up to some antics, even in their older age. While surely Dwayne and Whitley’s offspring will be front and center, the cast around them is what brought life. The dynamic is important.
- Arsenio Hall reboot lesson. Remember when Arsenio Hall had a show revival. The ‘energy’ of his original show could not be recaptured. The same thing Martin said. “Lightning in a bottle’. You cannot catch the original energy, you have to give birth to something new yet nostalgic for it to work. The only show that has truly done this so far was Fuller House (Full House spin-off).
- Debbie Allen. You cannot have a more perfect person resuming her work. There’s nothing to say here.
So there you have it. And before you tell me to keep my unseasoned chicken and potato salad with raisin opinions elsewhere, know that is not going to happen. This show is not a FUBU, it is FABA.
