‘Living Single’ Reboot? Queen Latifah Teases TV Restart Of Underrated Precursor To ‘Friends’ [Video]


Entertainment powerhouse Queen Latifah is hoping to rewrite a passage in television history that was nearly forgotten, thanks to a certain group of Friends.

In August of 1993, more than a year before the popular NBC sitcom hit the airwaves, network competitor FOX began running Living Single, a comedy series created by Yvette Lee Bowser, that focused on a close-knit collective of six African-American friends who either lived in or often visited the brownstone where lead character Khadijah James, played by Latifah, resided. The show was also notable for its theme song, which the multi-talent loaned her Grammy-winning singing and rhyming skills to.

Thanks to its positive portrayal of successful Black women and a great lead-in with comedian Martin Lawrence’s similarly celebrated Martin, Living Single managed to rack up a strong fan base that helped the series run for five years, but it wasn’t always easy: once Friends hit the proverbial map in 1994, the rules seemingly changed.

“It’s disappointing that we have never gotten that kind of [marketing] push that Friends had,” Bowser explained in a past interview, as noted by Entertainment Weekly.

Now, more than 20 years after the final episode of Bowser’s most-seminal offering to entertainment — two of her other creations, Half & Half and For Your Love, ran on now-defunct networks UPN and The WB, respectively, for four (4) seasons each after Living Single — Latifah has expressed her desire to see if television audiences are once again ready to enter a “90’s kinda world” with a Living Single reboot.

During an appearance on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live! to promote her role on the new FOX series, Star, the 46-year-old Latifah — born Dana Owens — was inquired by host Andy Cohen on whether or not fans of the show, which still airs on syndication, could look forward to a possible comeback.

“Funny you should ask [that],” she responded, “[because] we’re actually working on it. It’s not there yet, but hopefully we can get it happening.”

(L-R) Latifah, Coles, Alexander and Fields were often praised for showing Black women in a positive light on ‘Living Single.’ [Image by Mike Coppola/Frederick M. Brown/Stringer/Frazer Harrison/Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]

Cohen’s other guest, former Saturday Night Live player Jason Sudekis, couldn’t help but to chime in that he believed that there was already a Living Single reboot in the books: Friends.

“I thought [they] were the reboot,” the actor injected.

“[Exactly, because] we knew we had already been doing that [type of show],” Latifah answered to both Jason and Cohen.

“It was one of those things where there was a guy called Warren Littlefield, who used to run NBC, and they asked him, ‘When all the new shows came out, if there was any show you could have, which one would it be?’ And he said Living Single… And then he created Friends.”

Fans of both series have long noted the near-mirror rundown of character traits and story lines from Living Single that were seemingly, but never confirmed to be, recycled for Friends to help with its long-lasting success.

For example, the almost-identical ditzy-yet-lovable natures of both Synclair James (Kim Coles) from Bowser’s Living Single and Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) from Friends, co-created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, were too obvious to mistake. Also, the romantic relationships that ultimately formed throughout the ten-season long Friends (Ross & Rachel, Chandler & Monica) felt a little too similar to that of the couplings of Maxine Shaw & Kyle Barker (Erika Alexander and T.C. Carson), and Synclair & Overton Jones (Coles and John Henton) during Living Single’s five seasons.

It was an issue that an understandably agitated Latifah couldn’t help but to address during an 1996 L.A. Times interview.

“It just pisses me off every time I see that Friends billboard and the little piece of our billboard,” she said. “I mean, how much more of a push do they need?”

None of Latifah’s former cast mates, including Kim Fields (Regine Hunter) have publicly spoken out about returning for a Living Single reboot, but it seems as if that is simply a formality at this point. What do you think, Inquisitr readers? Could the show be successful in a “2017 kinda world?”

[Featured Image by FOX Networks]

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