Happy’s Place EP Reveals Nixed Reba Revival Led to the Creation of New NBC Comedy — Listen to the Theme Song
Before Reba McEntire got the band back together for Happy’s Place, there was a concerted effort to revive her beloved WB sitcom.
In a new interview with TVLine, Happy’s Place creator Kevin Abbott — who previously served as an executive producer and showrunner on Reba — reveals that the new NBC comedy came about after a Reba revival was nixed by the studio.
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“It all started from a reboot,” the EP confirms. “We worked on a reboot, and we spent about a year on it. We had it fully worked out. I pitched it to all the old cast members, they were all on board… I pitched it to Disney, which owns the rights to Reba, and they were on board. They discussed it internally — that was right when Disney and Fox were merging, so there was a lot of uncertainty as to who was doing what — and when that all calmed down,” and Disney completed its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, “it came down to a business decision, and they decided not to do the reboot.” At that point, McEntire turned to Abbott and said, “‘Let’s do another show.’”
At the time, Abbott was overseeing Tim Allen’s ABC-turned-Fox comedy, Last Man Standing, on which McEntire and Melissa Peterman both guest-starred. “Our last season was during COVID, and a lot happened then,” he recalls. “We started working on [Happy’s Place] right around that time, and when I got done with Last Man is when it really kicked into high gear…. It has been a long journey on this one.”
Watch the Happy’s Place trailer below, then keep scrolling for additional intel on McEntire’s new show.
Premiering Friday, Oct 18 (NBC, 8/7c), Happy’s Place centers on McEntire’s Bobbie, who “inherits her father’s tavern and is surprised to discover that she has a new business partner, Isabella (played by Hocus Pocus 2′s Belissa Escobedo), a twenty-something half-sister that she never knew she had.” Peterman, meanwhile, co-stars as Happy’s Place bartender Gabby. Per NBC, “she’s a bit needy and dramatic, and would have loved to be Bobbie’s sister,” which sure sounds a lot like her former alter-ego, Barbra Jean. That, we’re told, is precisely why Abbott chose to take Gabby in a different direction.
“Melissa was initially conceived as the sister that Bobbie didn’t know about,” the EP tells TVLine. “We changed it because we wanted to bring in a younger element and mix things up a little bit. We felt that maybe if Melissa played that sister, it would be too familiar. We [still] wanted to have that dynamic [between Reba and Melissa], because they’re so funny together, but we didn’t want it to feel too similar to what Reba was. We took the best elements of what that relationship [between Reba and Barbra Jean] was,” and channeled it into a new relationship between a tavern owner and her very needy employer. “I love what we did on the [Reba] reboot, but I was talking to Reba the other day and I said, ‘This is better.’ As disappointing as that was [to not move forward], and as much as I wanted to work with the old cast, there’s a freshness to this that makes it a lot more exciting.”
Rounding out the Happy’s Place ensemble are McEntire’s real-life boyfriend Rex Linn (Young Sheldon), who plays tavern cook Emmett; Tokala Black Elk (Yellowstone) as waiter Takoda; and Pablo Castelblanco (Alaska Daily) as accountant Steve. And as TVLine was first to report, fellow Reba grad Steve Howey (fka Van Montgomery) will appear in a Christmas episode as Danny, a potential sperm donor (!) for Peterman’s Gabby.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Abbott says of Howey’s guest role. “We absolutely want to bring some of the old cast members on — and in very different roles than what they played on Reba. Steve’s our first one up, and we’re trying to figure out how to bring JoAnna [Garcia-Swisher] in. We only want to have the old cast in if we can really utilize them in a fun, impactful way. That cast was so easy to get along with — Reba sets the tone, so it’s not a surprise — and this [new] cast is the exact same way.
“I have been blessed to work with a lot of great stars, and there are very few have I not loved working with, but [Reba] is just a level above,” the EP maintains. “God gave the right person all of those gifts. She loves sharing them with other people, and she just makes you happy being around her. That’s that star quality. They can make you feel what ever emotion they’re feeling — so, if you’re with Roseanne [Barr],” as Abbott was during his one-season stint on the controversial comedian’s namesake series, “you feel a little crazy, and with Reba, you just feel good about life.”
Like on Reba, McEntire sings the theme to Happy’s Place — an original song she co-wrote with fellow music industry icon Carole King. The title track has been released ahead of air, and can be heard in both the series’ trailer (embedded above) and the following behind-the-scenes featurette (seen below).
Happy’s Place premieres Friday, Oct. 18 at 8/7c on NBC (and streams next day on Peacock).
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