‘Mad About You’ Revival Starring Paul Reiser And Helen Hunt In The Works

Mad About You could be the next high-profile TV reboot. The long-running NBC comedy, which wrapped an Emmy-nominated seven-season run nearly 20 years ago, is moving closer to a confirmed revival with its original stars. According to TV Line, original Mad About You producer Sony has begun informal talks with the show’s original stars, Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt, to bring the series back for a limited run. An insider told TV Line that the new Mad About You episodes would revolve around Paul and Jamie dealing with an empty nest syndrome as their 17-year-old daughter, Mabel, heads to college.

Mad About You originally aired from 1992 to 1999 on NBC, but the network is not currently involved in talks for the potential revival. The hit sitcom starred Reiser and Hunt as married New Yorkers Paul and Jamie Buchman. The couple, who had a dog named Murray, welcomed baby daughter Mabel near the end of the series’ run. During its seven-season run, Mad About You boasted a long list of impressive guest stars, including Jerry Lewis, Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Joel, and even Yoko Ono.

In 1999, Mad About You ended with a flash-forward episode that was set 22 years in the future with an adult Mabel (Janeane Garofalo). The flash-forward finale was intended to wrap up the Buchman’s story for good so there would be no temptation to ever go back.

“One of the things we did deliberately in the finale was that we jumped ahead in the future. We saw where they went,” Reiser told Variety last year.

“Part of why we did that was to avoid the temptation of going back…When you watch a reunion (show), all you do is say ‘Wow do they look older.'”

The proposed Mad About You reboot with a teen, college-bound Mabel would mean the show intends to follow the recent Will and Grace and Roseanne revivals and totally disregard its finale.

Mad About You was a major hit back in its day. The final season of the show had Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt earning a whopping $1 million per episode. Helen Hunt also won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a comedy four years in a row during the show’s heyday. In more recent years, Hunt, who won an Academy Award for her role in the 1997 film As Good As It Gets, has focused on her successful film career. Reiser has starred in the Amazon series Red Oaks and recently appeared as Dr. Sam Owens in the Netflix blockbuster hit, Stranger Things.

You can see a clip from the original Mad About You below: