"The Wonder Years" Reboot with Black Family in the Works at ABC from Saladin K. Patterson, Lee Daniels & Fred Savage
by Nellie Andreeva
July 8, 2020


ABC has handed a pilot production commitment to "The Wonder Years", a new iteration of the network’s 1980s family comedy-drama. It comes from Dave executive producer Saladin K. Patterson, "Empire" co-creator Lee Daniels, the original series’ breakout star Fred Savage and 20th Century Fox TV.

Written by Patterson inspired by his experiences growing up in Montgomery, Alabama, the new incarnation chronicles a Black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama in the turbulent late 1960’s — the same era as the original series.




"The Wonder Years" has a pilot production commitment. If the pilot script is approved for pilot production by ABC, the sign-off will also trigger the opening of a mini writer’s room in preparation for a possible series pickup.

Savage will direct the potential pilot. He and Patterson executive produce the half-hour project with Lee Daniels Entertainment’ Daniels and Marc Velez.

https://deadline.com/2020/07/the-wonder-years-reboot-abc-black-family-lee-daniels-saladin-k-patterson-fred-savage-1202979955/

ABC orders a pilot for Lee Daniels' The Wonder Years reboot (https://deadline.com/2021/01/the-wonder-years-abc-pilot-order-regina-hicks-sorority-comedy-maggie-life-in-pieces-1234683748/)

The Black-themed, Alabama-set reboot of the classic ABC comedy will begin shooting its pilot this spring.

Saycon Sengbloh to Star in ABC's "The Wonder Years" Reboot Pilot
by Nellie Andreeva
March 4, 2021


"The Wonder Years" reboot has found its mom.

Saycon Sengbloh (In the Dark) has been cast as a lead in the ABC single-camera comedy pilot from Dave exec producer Saladin Patterson, the original series’ star Fred Savage and co-creator Lee Daniels.



Sengbloh will play Lillian Williams. Sharp as a tack, Lillian is confident, kind, perceptive and has a good sense of humor. She knows exactly the right thing to say to convince you of anything.

As a mother, wife and full-time accountant, she’s organized, efficient and hard-working, but she always puts family first.

https://deadline.com/2021/03/the-wonder-years-saycon-sengbloh-cast-abc-reboot-pilot-1234706213/

'Wonder Years' reboot casts Elisha Williams in Fred Savage role https://trib.al/lLHmaJ3

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwikLIiXEAUJ7is?format=jpg&name=small

Fred Savage introduces The Wonder Years reboot's young new lead: Elisha “EJ” Williams (https://tvline.com/2021/03/15/the-wonder-years-reboot-elisha-williams-new-kevin/)

Lee Daniels' Black-themed Wonder Years reboot has cast Williams as Dean, an inquisitive and hopeful 12-year-old, who is trying to figure out his place within his Black family and the world at large, while coming of age in a turbulent time. Williams' credits include Disney Junior's Puppy Dog Pals, and Nickelodeon's Henry Danger and Danger Force.

ABC's The Wonder Years reboot casts Dulé Hill as the father and Laura Kariuki as the sister (https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/wonder-years-reboot-pilot-abc-dule-hill-laura-kariuki-1234933932/)

Hill will star as family patriarch Bill Williams opposite the previously cast Saycon Sengbloh, who will play family matriarch Lillian. Kariuki will play Kim Williams, the teenage sister of main cast member Elisha Williams, who plays Dean. Hill's character is a "a music professor by day and a funk musician by night – described by Adult Dean as 'The baddest guy I knew,'" according to Variety. "Almost always calm and composed, his favorite words are “be cool.” Bill wants his family and their black, middle class neighborhood to remain self-sufficient and he puts his money where his mouth is."

The Wonder Years reboot adds three child actors, including the casting of its Winnie Cooper (https://deadline.com/2021/03/the-wonder-years-milan-ray-julian-lerner-amari-oneil-join-cast-of-abc-reboot-pilot-1234721137/)

Milan Ray will play Keisa Clemmons, the apple of the eye of Dean, the star of ABC's The Wonder Years reboot played by Elisha “EJ” Williams. In addition, Julian Lerner and Amari O’Neil have joined the cast as Dean's best friends.

Don Cheadle joins The Wonder Years reboot as narrator (https://deadline.com/2021/03/don-cheadle-narrator-the-wonder-years-reboot-abc-1234722585/)

He'll voice the adult version of Dean Williams, played by Elisha “EJ” Williams. In the original Wonder Years, Daniel Stern served as narrator, voicing the adult Kevin Arnold.

Check out the first image of ABC's The Wonder Years reboot featuring a Black family (https://www.etonline.com/the-wonder-years-lee-daniels-shares-first-look-at-new-cast-163741)

Lee Daniels shared the first image of the ABC pilot focusing on Elisha “EJ” Williams as Dean Williams, with Dulé Hill as his father, Saycon Sengbloh as his mother and Laura Kariuki as his sister.

From Executive Producers Saladin Patterson, Fred Savage, and Lee Daniels comes the next great coming of age story. #TheWonderYears is coming to ABC.


g6YpXU-ro-4

ABC had to resist the urge to rename it "The Stevie Wonder Years."

264242

Go behind the scenes of ABC's The Wonder Years reboot (https://www.primetimer.com/item/Go-behind-the-scenes-of-ABCs-The-Wonder-Years-reboot-DjS1aa)

Executive producers Saladin Patterson and Fred Savage and stars Elisha "EJ" Williams, Dulé Hill and Saycon Sengbloh describe making the ABC reboot from a Black perspective.

This actually looks good. I’m looking forward to it.

Why The Wonder Years reboot is set in the same 1960s era as the original series (https://www.thewrap.com/the-wonder-years-reboot-why-no-decade-change-60s-90s-abc-lee-daniels-fred-savage/)

“We wanted to really take the opportunity to show a part of Black middle-class life that had not been seen before,” showrunner Saladin K. Patterson explained at the TV press tour. “Usually when you talk about the late ’60s, it’s talking about the struggle and the civil rights movement and things like that that are very valid and a part of our story as well, but the perspective of the Black middle class during that time specifically was something that I know stood out to Lee and then stood out to me as well when when we first started talking about doing a reimagining of the show.” ALSO: Elisha “E.J.” Williams says "I’m not gonna lie, I cried" re-enacting the painful moments from the 1960s (https://deadline.com/2021/08/wonder-years-reboot-original-stars-conners-home-economics-goldbergs-casting-1234822524/).

ABC releases a new The Wonder Years trailer (https://www.primetimer.com/item/ABC-releases-a-new-The-Wonder-Years-trailer-2JSX8E)

The reboot of the classic 1988-1993 comedy starring Elisha "EJ" Williams premieres on Sept. 22.

I admit I had issues with this because I love the original. However, it can be a hit like the original Wonder Years and the Goldbergs. My big question though is will people watch about the 60s? The original aired when Baby Boomers were still in the ratings age, now they are long out and so are many of their kids.

I rather they had set it in the 80s. I loved the original and I watched it when it aired but I agree with IllinoisTVFan. There are a lot of people today who don't know anything about the 60s. Setting it in a decade that they remember will work.

I rather they had set it in the 80s. I loved the original and I watched it when it aired but I agree with IllinoisTVFan. There are a lot of people today who don't know anything about the 60s. Setting it in a decade that they remember will work.

They have the Goldbergs so I can see why they did it. It would have been nice to have seen an update from the original family though.

ABC's The Wonder Years reboot complicates our idea of nostalgia as its integrates "TV's Memory Lane" (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/arts/television/the-wonder-years.html)

"Nostalgia is itself a kind of time machine, and TV has generally let white characters drive it," says James Poniewozik. "Freaks and Geeks, That ’70s Show, Happy Days, Brooklyn Bridge, American Dreams, The Goldbergs — these stories of fads and family and regrettable fashion choices, with occasional exceptions (Everybody Hates Chris), have not made for the most diverse of genres. TV’s wellspring of Boomer remember-when is The Wonder Years, the dewy-eyed look back at 1968 from the vantage of 1988, when the pilot introduced Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage), entering middle school in a generic suburb, his hormones coming to a boil in sync with the larger society." While the original Wonder Years "was not Pollyannish about the old days," the "the recurring theme, underlined by Daniel Stern’s voice-over, is that Kevin is learning about the larger world just as the larger world is learning unpleasant things about itself," says Poniewozik. "To an audience that shared Kevin’s experience, it says: Sure, a lot of things started going wrong then, but we were just kids, figuring it all out. We didn’t start the fire!" Poniewozik adds: "Your relationship to history has very much to do with which side of history your ancestors were on. And how comfortably you revisit the past depends on whether you assume the past is friendly territory for someone like you. You don’t have to watch sitcoms to see this. The political culture-war rhetoric of nostalgia — appealing to the audience’s sense that the past was better for people like them, before their childhood favorites were recast or canceled — has been as central to Trumpist conservative campaigning as any policy plank. The 'Again' in 'Make America Great Again' is doing a lot of work. Great for whom? All this gives ABC’s new version of The Wonder Years, centered on a Black family, an immediate sense of purpose: to integrate TV’s Memory Lane, to complicate our idea of what nostalgia means, to show us what it looks like when someone else climbs in the time machine." In ABC's Wonder Years reboot, "race isn’t a special-episode topic here," says Poniewozik. "It’s part of life. It’s in Dean’s sister’s Black Panthers T-shirt; in the taunts of the bully who picks on Dean for carrying a lunchbox 'like you’re white' (the insult “confuses me to this day,” the adult Dean says); and in a key scene, when the news of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination breaks while Dean is playing baseball against a white school friend’s team." In the original Wonder Years, which begins months after the assassinations of King and Robert F. Kennedy, MLK is an afterthought. "For Kevin, King’s murder is one of many sad things in the world that echo his personal melancholy," says Poniewozik. "Dean, like Kevin, is a kid who doesn’t keep close tabs on current events. He has a crush too, and it’s only when he sees her kissing another boy that, he says, 'the anger I was seeing on the news made a little more sense.' Still, The Wonder Years makes clear that Dean can’t experience history as background noise to the extent that Kevin did."

ALSO:


The Wonder Years is the latest example of "the emptiness of the Black recast" (https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-wonder-years-and-the-emptiness-of-the-black-hollywood-recast): "No one should expect any sort of Black political or social education from The Wonder Years but the metanarrative around the update does imply a level of progressive politics that the show seeks to tap into," says Tirhakah Love. "As we’re learning in the political world, liberal politics almost never equate to more power for Black people. In fact, Black creators in both mediums would likely consider that the practice of shoehorning Black people into white uniforms actually does quite a disservice to representations of Blackness. The Black Recast, then, could be a lot more regressive than we think...Representation, itself, feels like a distraction not just from the racist underpinnings of the industry but from the ways Hollywood very much exists within an imperial project that seeks to propagate false notions of reality. When reboots and the Black Recast wed, it can mask a practical issue central to the remake-industrial complex—it steals precious time and resources that could be distributed to original IP from non-white, non-straight creators." Pointing to a recent Atlantic article on how Black writers had to “negotiate authenticity" (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/10/the-unwritten-rules-of-black-tv/619816/) with their white bosses on Black TV shows, Love adds: "A Black recast is, to some degree, one of the most ubiquitous examples of Blackface, wherein white executives mask their interests and demands behind a Black mask and deem it 'Black art.' Our present version of nostalgia is a multidimensional mirror. The white version of The Wonder Years was a 1980s look into a 1960s America that, having lost the Vietnam War, was ripe for revisionism. Now, as the current generation reckons with our losses in terms of race and class freedom, another revision is at hand. This time in Blackface—and perhaps even more regressive than ever before."
How The Wonder Years reboot composers channeled the 1960s with their music (https://variety.com/2021/music/news/wonder-years-reboot-score-1235073585/): “Our hope is that people feel the humanness of the music,” says Jacob Yoffee, who with and Roahn Hylton were tasked with creating a sonic landscape to connect the era with the story. “It’s been important to us that every piece can be performed by a band without heavy use of ‘studio magic.’ Within the world of show, the father has his own band, and our vision is that the entire score could be performed by that band. So we’re using instruments that would have been common in jazz, funk, soul, and R&B at the time. It’s thrilling because this era is one of my favorites musically, so getting to paint with these sounds is a real gift.”

As I mentioned before, they should set it in the 2000s.

It should have been set in 80s or 90s. But due fact that the people in director was in the Original show.

The 60s aren't relevant anymore.

Dan Lauria on ABC's The Wonder Years reboot: "I’ve been wondering what took them so long" (https://www.tvinsider.com/1017877/the-wonder-years-dan-lauria-guest-star-the-goldbergs-arnie-wolfy)

Lauria and fellow Wonder Years alums will help promote the reboot by appearing tonight on the other ABC comedies. Lauria will guest on The Goldbergs. “I talked to Dulé (Hill) the other day and naturally, I e-mailed Fred Savage, and just wished him the best of luck," says Lauria. “I felt, as long as they kept the reality of The Wonder Years with the new family, it’ll work fine,” Lauria adds. “We were one of the few shows that we could get a laugh out of you and as the show ended, give you a tear in your eye. But you keep that formula and you’re going to do okay.”