More Reboots for trump Era

Now that ABC is raking in the dough from the "Roseanne" reboot, network executives are sifting through other red-state shows likely to attract Real American working-class TV viewers.

Here is what Starknotes has learned from anonymous sources concerning this process: 

"Hee Haw," obviously, is a shoo-in expected to go into production early this summer, and has already been called "Emmy bait" by the gifted political scientist, media critic and surviving-kid slammer and shamer Laura Ingraham. 

Under careful scrutiny is "All in the Family," but the reboot will flip the humor from the original, making the elitist snowflake Michael "Meathead" Stivic (Rob Reiner) flummoxed and humbled by Archie Bunker's wise, racist Alt-Right aphorisms. With minor tweaking, TV executives believe Edith Bunker can be a modern-day Betsy DeVos.

"Beverly Hillbillies" will be close on the heels of "Hee Haw" in the reboot parade. A family that happened upon millions of dollars (at birth, in the case of 45) and has been catapulted overnight into unfamiliar heights in which, to mix the metaphor, they are out of their depth -- what could be a better allegory for the much loved trump brood? 

Middle American viewers will "come 'a runnin'" as the show's Granny was wont to say.

Numerous social-media wonks have already noted the uncanny resemblance between Granny and Jeff Sessions, as well as strong parallels between Jethro's intellectual acumen and that of, well, almost the whole pack of good-natured, down-to-earth, working-class guys serving at the pleasure of 45.

There are other possibilities, of course, including "The Three Stooges," but producers are holding off on that one until the West Wing's doors stop revolving at such a frantic pace.  

"The Andy Griffith Show" has already been considered, then rejected. It was, after all, primarily an all-white show set in small-town Mayberry with its rural surroundings, hog farmers, moonshiners and hillbilly musicians. Sounds fine so far.

Most of its females performed only domestic duties, and did so with dignity and competence and with no whining about their unempowerment, so that'll catch on with this audience.  

But upon careful scrutiny, the show might make the MAGA patriots and Nifty-Fifties or Fabulous Fifties folks squirm a bit. Why? The Taylor family was nontraditional -- Andy was a single parent due to the mysterious death of Opie's mom before the series began (consequently, the actress who portrayed her is not mentioned in the opening credits, or the closing ones, for that matter).

Miss Crump

Furthermore, Gomer Pyle was gay, in a way.

Also, the overall manner or ethos of the series would be uneasy in trumpland. Andy Taylor the sheriff, for example, doesn't pack heat and is not a Second Amendment fundamentalist. His deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts) carries a gun, but is limited to a single bullet and is not fully trusted with it.

You sure wouldn't want him protecting a school from a deranged shooter, even if he is a good person with a gun. Sources close to the show do not believe Barney was even a member of the NRA.

Opie (Ronny Howard) doesn't appear to be a gun lover, either. We doubt he would've grown up to become a big-game hunter since he was heartbroken after killing a mama bird with his new slingshot. He might've wound up a snowflake had the series lasted a few more decades.

Miss Ellie

Also, "Andy Griffith" offers no lurid sex scandals for trumpian Evangelicals to forgive. We have no reason to believe Andy ever consummated his love for lovely Ellie, nor for his inexplicable attraction to the annoying, controlling, jealous, humorless, draconian, frumpy Miss Crump -- a sort of Sarah Huckabee Sanders without the angelic countenance.

Admittedly, Barney did have his own personal Stormy Daniels in Juanita, a waitress down at the diner. We guess she was more, I don't know, supple or yielding or compliant than his girl Thelma Lou, who, unlike Juanita, was the "kind of girl you'd marry" as we called them back then.

But even if Barney had sex (as we now call it) with Juanita, it was done tastefully off stage, and "Andy Griffith" scholars have found not one speck of evidence of spanking of any kind. (Even though rumors persist that Juanita whacked Barn's butt a couple of times with a rolled-up newspaper that misspelled his name in a headline. See picture below.) 

His name is "Fife," in case you forgot.

TV executives also fret that the show lacks the crowd-pleasing vulgarity, coarseness, crude humor and strident voice offered by the gifted actress Roseanne Cherrie Barr, a sort of 21st-Century Grace Kelly. 

Finally, Sheriff Taylor is a gentleman with common sense and integrity, quick to forgive and ask forgiveness, supportive of his staff almost to a fault, a wise and loving father -- all qualities that would evoke jeers and derisive nicknames from our current leader as well as the New Patriots of Nostalgia with their undying love for a simulacrum they call America.