by Martie Lownsberry

Created on: June 04, 2009   Last Updated: June 07, 2009

If there was an academy award for the best classic television revivals, their would be few winners. Both television itself, and the movie industry, has tried to revive many of the old classics with limited or no success.

Television reviving its classic shows.

Primarily when television itself has tried to revive one of their classic shows, it has been in the form of one and two hour reunion specials. Both "Father Knows Best" and "The Brady Bunch", have done reunion shows that were moderately successful, allowing viewing audiences to catch up on the lives of the characters after their show quit airing.

These shows were successful simply because they were done as limited specials. Had they tried to make for a new series with the old characters all grown, the shows more than likely would have been canceled the first season.

There have been a few television shows that have had a huge success in reviving the show, or the character, or both.

"Trapper John MD", successfully revived the character of Trapper John from "MASH". Using a different actor, placing him in a hospital instead of a war zone, and turning the show from a comedy into a drama seemed to work in this case. What television successfully did was to use a familiar name to produce a completely different show.

Lou Grant was another character that television successfully revived. When the Mary Tyler Moore show completed its very successful run, television producers quickly jumped to revive the character of Mary's boss Lou Grant. They kept the same actor, Ed Asner, kept his profession as the head of a newsroom intact, but changed the format from a half hour comedy to an hour drama. Once again, the revival of the character was successful.

The revival of the "I Love Lucy" show in its many forms worked as well. Though Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez divorced, and the original Lucy went off the air, she returned quickly in the "Lucille Ball Show". This show went through a couple of other metamorphoses but the initial Lucy character did not change, and the show retained most, if not all, of its original humor and appeal.

"Star Trek", has been revived a number of times. Almost always with a complete change of cast and a partial change in title. It seems no matter how many changes this show goes through, it always finds its niche on television, and retains some of its original followers.

The movies attempts to revive classic television

While the motion picture industry has attempted many times to revive old

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