What childhood TV shows deserve a reboot?

I was only four years old when I watched Faerie Tale Theatre, but something about it (probably the host/creator Shelley Duvall’s vocal lilt and gentle smile in the intros, as an image of her is, against all odds, still rattling in the back of my brain) really stuck with me. And now that I’m old enough to know who the people who helped bring this anthology to life are, I can’t help but be staggered that it was even made, or wonder just who a 2024 version would feature. The likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Tim Burton, and Eric Idle helmed episodes (each stand-alone renditions of classic fairy tales) throughout the series’ five-year run, with acting turns from Robin Williams, Harry Dean Stanton, Elliott Gould, Carrie Fisher, Ned Beatty, Susan Sarandon, Bud Cort, Karen Black, and… Frank Zappa. [Tim Lowery]

Listen, I know Glen Murakami’s Teen Titans got to live on in the form of Teen Titans Go! In many ways, that version seems to be more successful (at least it’s longer-running). But those of us who grew up with the original would kill for an X-Men ’97-style continuation of our favorite cartoon. The original series was slightly more mature (only slightly—there was still plenty of comedy) and explored darker themes. The show ended on a mysterious note that would have been fascinating to follow. For me, it was a true introduction to superheroes that expanded from there into comics and movies, so selfishly I’d love to see my first favorite iteration of the team back in action. [Mary Kate Carr]

Though I haven’t seen it or the original, the success of X-Men ’97 shows what a good bet reviving an animated series is compared to something live-action. In that vein, the childhood show I’d be most interested in resurrecting would be Dexter’s Laboratory. The original series held a lot of charm in its 1950s aesthetic and 1970s Saturday Morning Cartoon sensibility. But maybe, with the extra level of distance, a revived Dexter could work with what we now know to be a 1990s Cartoon Network vibe. That said, keep this suburban family is exactly where we left them, saving us from jokes about Dexter’s deepening voice or facial hair. I get older, but Dexter and Dee Dee stay the same age. [Drew Gillis]

The Ren & Stimpy Show was always an outlier in Nickelodeon’s Nicktoons lineup. For one thing, the series, which follows an unstable Chihuahua named Ren and his best friend/punching bag Stimpy, wasn’t particularly interested in easy-to-follow narratives or typical kids’ show morals. It got creator John Kricfalusi in trouble with the network; he was fired after season two, although Nickelodeon produced three more batches without him after that. A specifically adult-oriented reboot aired just three episodes on Spike TV before the network canceled it; the show just didn’t work when it was trying to be controversial. But X-Men ’97 has found that sweet spot of simply being a good cartoon that’s not aimed at any specific age group, and I can’t help but wonder what a Ren & Stimpy reboot that wasn’t trying so hard to reject its original audience would look like. A lot of the show went over my head as a kid, but I still enjoyed its singularity and oddness. And a reboot that captures that would really be something special. [Jen Lennon]

I remain shocked over how underrated The Pirates Of Dark Water is whenever we talk about famous animated lineups from the early ’90s. The episodes are extremely engaging, following the treasure-hunting capers of Prince Ren, who needs to find the Thirteen Treasures Of Rule to save his dying father and planet before a black liquid takes over. It was such a fun yet emotional story with characters worth rooting for, and I remember being awed by the vision of The Pirates Of Dark Water. That’s probably because of how it introduced certain tropes of the fantasy genre to an impressionable mind. The world-building of Mer, with its spooky and weird creatures, was super entertaining. The show was cut short after two seasons because of budgetary reasons. And that means the story is incomplete, making it perfect for a reboot, especially considering it was ahead of its time in 1991. I’d even take a single-season follow-up to see Ren and his crew discover the five remaining treasures. Nostalgia bait be damned, take me back to this universe! [Saloni Gajjar]

Nightmare Before Christmas is now a holiday mainstay and Beetlejuice will soon be back, but what about this creepy nineties gem? Created by the same husband/wife duo who brought us Rugrats and centered on three misfit monsters (Oblina, Ickis, and Krumm), Aaahh!! Real Monsters essentially preceded the whole Monsters University “scare school” premise, but brought more Yellow Submarine weirdness and extra gross-out humor to the mix. I mean, Oblina looked like a black-and-white candy cane with wax lips stuck to it, and Krumm looked like a letter H made of skin. Weird stuff, right? And I’d love to see them again. [Meredith Hobbs Coons]

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember Dungeons & Dragons as one of the highlights of the 1980s Saturday morning cartoon lineup. It follows a group of kids who are magically transported into the fantasy world of D&D. They’re given magic weapons and become the targets of an evil wizard and his five-headed dragon. Although the show isn’t currently streaming anywhere and the out-of-print DVDs are a rare find, it still has a hold on those of us who grew up watching it. That includes the filmmakers behind last year’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, who included a fleeting live-action cameo of the original characters as an Easter egg for fans.

Thanks to the movie and the rise of web series like Critical Role, the tabletop game is enjoying a surge in popularity, so now would be the perfect time to revive this show. There’s even an entire genre of anime now called isekai, in which the characters find themselves in similar situations. It doesn’t much matter if the new version is a reboot, a continuation, or a reimagining with all new characters; as long as the writing is good, I’d be thrilled to see it come back in any form. [Cindy White]

A revival project works best, I think, for shows that never quite reached their potential. And no kids’ show from my youth hits that point harder than the single-season series that is, at least from a technical point of view, Paul Verhoeven’s single foray into the world of children’s animation: 1999's Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. Produced in one of the worst-looking animation eras of all time—the post-Toy Story period where shows tried to replicate Pixar’s CGI beauty on the cheap, to horrifying effect—the show was a fascinating attempt to combine Verhoeven’s gung-ho satire with the military grimness of Robert Heinlein’s original novel (but for kids!). The result was, essentially, a long-form children’s war movie, as Razak’s Roughnecks went on serialized missions that saw characters grow, change—and die. It’s an incredibly strange, surprisingly good series, and it’d be fascinating to see it get a second shot at life. [William Hughes]

This TGIF staple was famous for its little freak Baby Sinclair, a flesh-colored dinosaur in a yellow tee and diaper who whacked his dad on the head with a frying pan and yelled “not the mama” right in his dang face. But this Simpsons/Flintstones-style sitcom starring anthropomorphic, animatronic dinos also got as dark as it did silly (see its infamous environmental-catastrophe-tinged finale) and deftly tackled social commentary, too. Dinosaurs ended with extinction and was apparently super expensive to make, so this might be a tough one to resurrect. But I say we Jurassic Park this shit anyway. [Meredith Hobbs Coons]

Action League Now! and Prometheus And Bob, you will always be famous. They were two of my favorite shorts of Nickelodeon’s KaBlam! The animated sketch comedy took fun risks with the genre (the PAB stop-motion was amazing). It lampooned cartoons while also providing original humor, and I remember laughing a lot while watching it. The show ran for four seasons, which is pretty great. But that doesn’t mean a new generation of children, along with the grown-ups who enjoyed it back then, wouldn’t want KaBlam! to return with inventive goofiness. [Saloni Gajjar]