The upcoming fall season will be filled with shows like Roseanne, Murphy Brown, and Will & Grace, so one might be fooled into thinking the 1990s had somehow gotten sentient and traveled to the future. But it's just the TV revival trend in motion. It's not stopping anytime soon, either, and sitcoms aren't the only shows making comebacks. Current America's Got Talent judge Howie Mandel has revealed he's currently working to bring the Saturday morning cartoon hit Bobby's World back to fans for new episodes.
Howie Mandel's career is now at a point where he doesn't need to rely on bringing back imagination-oozing animated series of yesteryear, but Bobby's World clearly holds a special place in his heart. Here's how he revealed his plans during interviews at NBC's upfronts event, according to EW.
I haven't told anyone this, but I'm working on it. I'm working on it right now. I have a meeting on Wednesday. I'm keeping my finger's crossed. That's what I want to do. Let's hope --- write something about it and maybe it'll happen.
That meeting has come and gone by now, and while we didn't hear any major news about Bobby's World returning to our lives on the small screen, I'm still holding out hope for the little guy. Any second now, he's bound to come flying down the stairs on his tricycle, bringing us all into his imagination for an innocently off-kilter look at life.
Howie Mandel created Bobby's World back in 1990, and it lasted for eight years of eight seasons, airing as part of the Fox Kids programming blocks. It was a widely popular fan-favorite at the time, and though it doesn't often immediately get namechecked when classic Saturday morning cartoons come up, it was the fairly rare show that showcased how kids actually think about concepts they're unfamiliar with, with Mandel voicing both the inquisitive Bobby and his perfectly coifed father.
In talking about bringing Bobby's World back for modern audiences, Mandel revealed the non-complicated way the show first came together, and touched upon what Bobby might be interested in these days.
Like most things that are happening in my career, it was really accidental. I did the voice and I was a club act when Fox asked me to do a Saturday morning cartoon. I didn't know how to write what I believed was for Saturday mornings. So I just wrote things that happened to me and my kids. And it was all real. And it happened to work. Eighty-four episodes, 65 countries in syndication. It was No. 1 for 9 years on Saturday morning. So I think it's time to come back. And now what we have --- with Facebook and Instagram and pop culture --- I think that could be a big part of what Bobby is dealing with today.
Bobby's World fans would be smart to stay level-headed about this revival news, as it's not the first time Howie Mandel has talked about trying to get the show back up and running. Going back to 2006, Mandel was claiming that new episodes were being worked on, and he made similar statements in the years since, with 2014 being one of the more recent times. But since revivals are all the rage now, and since Mandel is also heading back to host Deal or No Deal again, maybe now is the perfect time for Bobby's World rumors to become a reality.
There's no telling when Bobby's World might enter our lives again, assuming it ever does. But stay tuned, and we'll be here to report the latest findings. In the meantime, head to our summer premiere schedule to see all the shows hitting primetime soon.
