A few years ago, High School Musical, a made-for-TV movie, burst upon the scene. Demonstrating that kids singing could be popular with the teen set, it became a hit, and spawned not only sequels, but stage productions of the TV show. I mention this because it is happening again. In my lunchtime reading, I discovered that the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Glee could be adapted into a stage musical, and the St. Louis paper is reporting that Glee has sparked a resurgence in high-school Glee clubs.
I mention all this not because I like Glee (I’ve only watched a couple of episodes), but because I’m a fan of Fame. No, not that horrid movie remake that surfaced last summer or the Broadway remake that had nothing to do with the original concept, but the original movie and the original TV series. I’ve been recently watching my DVDs of Season 1 and Season 2 of Fame, and thinking how good it would be to remake this with slight updates for new technology. It certainly presented a much more rounded picture of arts education: there’s wasn’t just singing and dancing: there was classical music, modern dance, ballet, dramatic performance. But, alas, if it came back today, it would be viewed as derivative, copying on Glee and HSM (even though in some sense it was responsible for both of those programs).
(As a side note: I keep having similar thoughts about Quincy, ME, the old Universal show starring Jack Klugman as a medical examiner, with his assistant Sam. This should be brought back: it would fit right in with the current CSI and NCIS craze. Again, however, if NBC brought it back it would be viewed as copycat, instead of the originator of the genre… and of course, NBC would likely hew true to form, and screw it up with changes).
