In March 2018, it was revealed that Nickelodeon was working on a revival of the networks beloved '90s comedy series Clarissa Explains It All. The reboot would of seen former star Melissa Joan Hart reprise her role as Clarissa Darling, only this time, she would play the mother of the family. Series creator Mitchell Kriegman was also said to be in talks to return to write and executive produce, whilst Hart would also executive produce via her Hartbreak Films banner, which she runs with her mother, TV producer Paula Hart. However, it looks like Nickelodeon may have had a change of 'hart'.
Since the news broke, a lot has changed behind-the-scenes at Nickelodeon, including Brian Robbins (Kenan & Kel, All That, Good Burger) becoming president of Nickelodeon.
The reboot was announced as Nickelodeon is in the midst of reviving some of the network's most popular shows. Rugrats for example, is being rebooted for not only a Nickelodeon TV show, but a CGI/live-action movie as well. Nickelodeon also announced that Rocko's Modern Life would be returning to the network with a TV movie, as well as Invader Zim, which will likely be getting its TV movie in 2019. Nickelodeon also revived Legends of the Hidden Temple and Hey Arnold! for TV movies, which aired in 2016 and 2017, respectively, and has also revived Double Dare. Nickelodeon is also in the planning stages to revive Are You Afraid of the Dark? as a movie and miniseries, and will be reviving All That with a all-new cast as well as old favorites in Summer 2019.
In an interview with USA Today to promote her new family-friendly Netflix mystery series No Good Nick, out now, the former Nickelodeon and Sabrina the Teenage Witch star revealed that with the management change, Nickelodeon has cooled its interest in the Clarissa Explains It All revival.
The news follows the star revealing that the reboot was 'in limbo' in December 2018.
Update (4/17) - Melissa Joan Hart has further confirmed the news, telling E! News that the revival is currently on hold:
"There's talks. There's possibilities. There's a few drawn up pieces of paper about it, but I'm busy on Netflix right now, so that contract had to take a backseat," she says.
However, that doesn't mean that Hart doesn't want to return to the role if the opportunity arises! However, if the revival eventually happens, there will be one major change in the way Hart looks in the role (aside from being 25 years older): She'll have a full set of teeth.
As a young TV star, Hart lost a baby tooth but the adult tooth never grew in. Producers liked the gap.
"They thought it kept me young, and said, 'Please don’t fix it!'"
But when Clarissa wrapped, Hart finally got the dental bridge she long desired.
Nickelodeon's "Clarissa Explains It All" from 1996. --- DATE TAKEN: rec'd 6/2001 No Byline MTV Networks HO - handout ORG XMIT: PX48798 | MTV NETWORKS
Although Clarissa was Hart's big break, she also revealed that she's tried to rewatch Clarissa, which aired from 1991-94, but she can't view the sitcom without getting transported to the stressful period in of her life, when she had so much schoolwork and she was missing her New York-based family while filming at Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. “I had a really hard time," she says.
But the actress fondly reminisces about getting the part of confident and edgy Clarissa Darling. She only auditioned for the role after (as she remembers it) a producer's friend saw her deliver a monologue in an off-Broadway play about getting her period.
Although its been decades since she played Clarissa on TV, Melissa Joan Hart still seems willing to be candid and explain it all. The former Nickelodeon star, who went from Clarissa Explains It All to star in ABC and Nickelodeon UK's Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and ABC Family's Melissa & Joey before becoming a Christmas TV-movie star, has a new family-friendly Netflix mystery series No Good Nick. out Friday.
This time, she’s playing the buttoned-up mom instead of the girl next door. But in person, Hart calls to mind the sarcastic and funny Clarissa, as she explains how to age gracefully, how her kids are confused by her onscreen loves and how she became Clarissa in the first place.
Hart explains chest wrinkles
She urges using anti-wrinkle cream. "Sunscreen and moisturizer always. And do not sleep on your side. That’s what I’m fighting now, the chest wrinkles… and the ‘tech neck,'" wrinkles caused by looking down at your cellphone.
Melissa & Joey co-star Joey Lawrence "always warned me: Don’t move your face too much, you’ll wrinkle. I was like, ‘Who cares?’ Now, I’m like, ‘I care.’”
The concern could stem from the fact that many of Hart's fans still envision her as a precocious teenager. But she’s a mom of three now, and turns 43 on April 18.
“I’m a very different type than the Angelina Jolies, Charlize Therons, who are the same age as me, but have looked older since they were younger (and) will probably look younger when they’re older. I’m going to be a little girl ‘til I’m an old lady. I get it.”
She explains TV boyfriends
In No Good Nick, Hart’s type-A chef Liz is married to laidback Ed (Sean Astin), who takes in a teenage grifter Nick, played by Siena Agudong, who Nickelodeon fans will remember from Star Falls, Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn and Alex & Me. Astin (Lord of the Rings, Stranger Things) is one of Hart’s many onscreen loves.
“My 6-year-old has a hard time with the men that I’m with (on TV). I did a Christmas movie (Nutty Christmas) this fall with Barry Watson,” says Hart. “The guy I’m dating in it is named Mark. He breaks up with me. My son for weeks was like, ‘I hate that Mark guy. He was so mean to you.' He was so hurt by this guy dumping me.”
Explaining new TV boyfriends and families is even more confusing when Watson also played Hart's brother in a different movie, The Santa Con.
“My kids go to school sometimes (and say): ‘My mom has two husbands!’” laughs Hart.
Last month, Hart showed an episode of Sabrina, which aired from 1996-2003, to her kids Tucker, 6, Braydon, 11 and Mason,13, for the first time. Adding to their confusion: Hart’s husband, musician Mark Wilkerson, had a cameo.
From E! News
Melissa Joan Hart Explains Her "Really Unique" New Show and Gives Clarissa Explains It All Reboot Update
Melissa Joan Hart's new show is like nothing she's ever worked on before.
Netflix released the first 10 episodes of No Good Nick on Monday, and it might not be the typical family hijink sitcom you expect. It's a little bit more of a dramedy, with a mystery element thrown in. We'll let Hart explain.
"No Good Nick is a really unique show. It's something different than I've ever worked on or really ever seen. It's basically Sean Astin and I are the parents of these two kids, and one day a little girl knocks on our door and says you're the closest relatives I have left, you're supposed to take care of me, and she becomes our foster daughter, but basically the whole time she's scamming us," she says. "It's actually more of a family mystery, and it's a serialized show, so...it's meant for binge-watching."
The show is certainly different from anything we've seen Hart in before, particularly if we're talking about her two biggest roles: Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Clarissa Explains It All.
While there have been reports that a Clarissa Explains It All revival is in the works, Hart says that plan is on hold.
"There's talks. There's possibilities. There's a few drawn up pieces of paper about it, but I'm busy on Netflix right now, so that contract had to take a backseat," she says.
Sabrina has already been semi-rebooted as the much darker Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and while there are no plans for any cameos, Hart loves that the show exists and the character is living on in different ways.
"Let that character live on. That's awesome. And I love that it's so different to. I'm really lucky that a lot of the reboots that happen are so closely related and it probably stings a little bit, but in this case, it's like there have been a ton of James Bond and there's been a ton of people playing Batman, and it's just one of those characters that will go on. So it's great, and it's great to know that I was there to help start it."
Hit play [here] for more from Melissa Joan Hart.
No Good Nick is currently streaming on Netflix.https://blogger.googleblog.com/2009/09/you-might-as-well-jump.html
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From PureWow:
Melissa Joan Hart Explains It All: What Clarissa, Ferg-Face and Sam Would Be Doing Today
True story: The worst fight we ever got into with our mom as a surly teenager was when she dragged us to the grocery store and we missed the latest episode of Clarissa Explains It All (this was before DVR, people). We were that obsessed with the show.
The teen sitcom starring Melissa Joan Hart ran on Nickelodeon from 1991 to 1994 and was a formative part of our childhood. Whether she was talking to us about pimples, training bras, her annoying younger brother Ferguson or boys (Sam climbing a ladder into her room is still one of the most romantic gestures we’ve ever seen on television), Clarissa Darling just got us.
Which is why when we recently caught up with the actress to chat about her partnership with Kelley Blue Book and new Netflix show No Good Nick, we just had to ask—what does she think Clarissa and the gang would be up to now?
“It’s funny, the writer wrote a book about it called Things I Can’t Explain,” Hart tells us. “But, he and I have different opinions about where Clarissa would be, I think.” In the book, Clarissa is in her mid-twenties and dealing with unemployment, an ex-boyfriend turned stalker and her parents’ divorce. Yikes.
So, where does Hart think that Clarissa ended up? “I think she’d be loving her life in New York City, being a journalist and she’d probably have some kids. I think she’d be closer to her brother than we’d imagine.” And as for Sam? “Maybe Sam’s gay, we have no idea.”
Well, there you have it.
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Update (4/27) - From Us Weekly:
Melissa Joan Hart: ‘Clarissa Explains It All’ Revival Is ‘on Hold’
Melissa explains it all. The Darlings aren’t headed back to TV just yet. Melissa Joan Hart, who starred in Clarissa Explains It All for five seasons, reveals that the production on the revival has stalled.
“There’s no update. No, I’ve been busy on my Netflix show, and just been trying to get family time on the side, and that show’s kind of on hold right now,” the Sabrina the Teenage Witch actress, 43, exclusively tells Us Weekly. “I don’t know what’s going on with it.”
She adds: “I honestly don’t know. It’s up to the writers in the show, and the producers, and then the network, what they would want. I mean, I don’t know.”
Rumors that Nickelodeon was bringing back the ’90s hit surfaced in March 2018. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the reboot would have Hart reprising her role and named as an executive producer. However, instead of navigating through her teen years, Clarissa would now be the matriarch of the family.
Clarissa Explains It All filmed 65 episodes and ran from 1991 to 1994. It also starred Sean O’Neal (Sam Anders), Joe O’Connor (Marshall Darling), Elizabeth Hess (Janet Darling) and Jason Zimbler (Ferguson Darling).
Hart is keeping busy otherwise, though. She currently stars with Sean Astin on Netflix’s No Good Nick and has partnered with Kelley Blue Book for their recently announced Best Family Cars of 2019 campaign. In a teaser, Hart revisits her role as Clarissa — even sitting in her old bedroom and speaking directly into the camera.
“I fell right back into it. At first it felt a little strange, but then after I did it once or twice I was like, ‘Ah, this feels familiar,'” Hart tells Us.
Interested customers can head to KBB.com to find the best car suited for their family. “They’re the most trusted,” Hart explains. “I love to drive. And maybe it comes from my days on playing Clarissa when she was driving.”
“I need a lot of cup holders. I like seat heaters and that kind of thing. And my husband [Mark Wilkerson] wants to have a great sound system,” she notes. “So we all have our things and we all love to go to Kelly Blue Book so we can figure out exactly what the perfect car is for us [that fits] our needs.”
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Originally published: Monday, April 15, 2019 at 7:23pm BST.
Additional source: Special thanks to @TVShowsFan for the 'No Good Nick' release date correction; Feeling the Vibe Magazine.
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