03/23/19 HEY, IF IT WORKED BEFORE...

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HEY, IF IT WORKED BEFORE...

His goofy bowl-cut hairstyle is gone, and the suit is blue instead of red. But six years after ending a 35-year TV run, Captain Kangaroo is back--and so are Mr. Greenjeans and Mr. Moose. Starting last fall, a recast Captain welcomed a new generation of preschoolers to the Treasure House.
As they say in Hollywood: When in doubt, recycle. Although remakes and sequels have always played a big role in Tinseltown, never before have so many producers devoted so much time to story lines pilfered from the past. ''Just about every studio is dredging up something from its library,'' says Dean Devlin, producer of the upcoming Godzilla movie.
WARM MEMORIES. In the past three years alone, Universal has made big, live-action movie hits out of The Flintstones and Casper. Walt Disney Co. had a smash in the live-action updating of 101 Dalmatians. Plenty more is on the way, including summer films based on the '60s shows Lost in Space and The Avengers. Meanwhile, TV remakes of The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, and The Hollywood Squares are in the works. This month, Paramount will re-release Grease.
Why the deluge? Larry Jones, general manager of Viacom Inc.'s Nick at Nite and TV Land oldie channels, believes it ''reflects a need for people to get back to a time when life was simpler.'' Jones should know: The highly successful diet of Hogan's Heroes and I Love Lucy reruns his channels serve up has launched a host of copycats.
But warm memories are just part of the trend. Another prime driver is money. The film and TV industry spends millions each year developing projects that never make it to the screen. A remake or sequel is a known quantity that many in the increasingly risk-averse industry assume will have built-in audience appeal.
Still, not all oldies are reborn as goodies. Last year's Tinseltown bombs include movies based on McHale's Navy, Flipper, Sergeant Bilko, and Mr. Magoo. In February, Universal Pictures flopped with a sequel to the 20-year-old The Blues Brothers movie. These failed largely because they didn't offer anything new. ''It can't look so much like the original that it looks like it should be on late-night TV,'' says Devlin.
Indeed, Hollywood is discovering that remakes require plenty of modern-day gimmickry. Paramount Pictures turned Mission: Impossible into an $189 million blockbuster by signing Tom Cruise and loading the film with special effects. The studio's 1996 film of The Brady Bunch scored by portraying the wholesome, bell-bottom-clad 1970s family as 1990s misfits. ''You have to have a unique gimmick or people aren't going to buy your film no matter how familiar they might be with it,'' says Brady Bunch producer Alan Ladd Jr.
That's why King World Productions Inc. paid a reported $3 million bonus to get Whoopi Goldberg to sit in the center square for its redo of the game show The Hollywood Squares. To turn Generation Xers onto their Lost in Space movie, New Line Cinema hired popular actors such as Friends' Matt LeBlanc.
To see how oldies can work in the right setting, just look at CBS: Catering to its aging boomer viewers, it has boosted Friday ratings by adding new versions of Candid Camera and Kids Say the Darndest Things to the lineup. It's tried. It's true. Best of all, it packs the house.
By Ronald Grover in Los Angeles

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