‘Melissa and Joey’ & 10 Other TV Stars in Need of a Comeback

Whoa! Big news for TGIF fans! ABC Family has announced a new show, starring Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina, the Wiccan Cat Lady) and Blossom's Joey Lawrence (formerly Joseph of Urban Legends: Final Cut, which I swear has Eva Mendes on its poster!). Titled Melissa and Joey, the show features “Hart as a politician and daughter of a prominent political family who has to take in her niece and nephew after her sister lands in jail and her brother-in-law disappears amid a scandal. Lawrence plays the unlikely nanny hired to help Hart manager her new responsibilities.” Sounds like The Nanny hooked up with Brothers & Sisters and gave birth to a political Who's The Boss. It got us thinking: how many faded TV stars from the ’80s and ’90s are about ready for reprieve from syndication purgatory? Lots. 10 of them after the jump, and the projects that might just do the trick.

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1.ANDREA BARBER (pictured above), FULL HOUSE. If Showtime would just go ahead, already, and make a one-hour drama based on Boys Don’t Cry, we’d all get a Gibbler career renaissance and a reason to go back to hating Hilary Swank.

2.DANIELLE FISHEL, BOY MEETS WORLD.
In the show’s series finale, veggie-hippie Topanga lands her dream gig: an internship at a law firm in New York. Fishel needs an HBO makeover to have a shot at her previous success. What about the story of a butcher whose Chinatown meat market is actually a front for a brothel? Each episode title will be a play on this —“Rump Roast,” “Grade A Beef”—with Fishel as the silk-robe-wearing, chain-smoking den mother who’s seen it all before.

3.KIRK CAMERON, GROWING PAINS. Cameron is a born-again Christian. This is all the story he needs: once a teenage pin-up, this is the tale of an actor who turned to God and alienated everyone in the business with his outspoken, non-Scientological beliefs. Single-camera comedy about his return to the spotlight playing a womanizing drunk should do it. It’s called God Help Us.

4.SASHA MITCHELL, STEP BY STEP. Mitchell didn’t exactly play heart surgeons during his tenure with Step by Step and Dallas before that. There was probably a reason for that. Keep him playing (or not playing) dumb as an aging bachelor who falls for his long-lost sister after a chance encounter at their father’s funeral. Hilarity ensues while this bumbling meat-head tries to get in his sister’s pants. It’ll get old after three episodes, which is okay, because that’s as long as it’ll take to get canceled.

5.ZACHERY TY BRYAN, HOME IMPROVEMENT. No brainer: the jocky half of a gay couple who have just relocated to the Bible Belt to start a career as restaurateurs. (Why? Who cares? The other half is Jonathan Taylor Thomas!) Will patrons welcome their new neighbors? Will the show have any in-jokey Tool Time double entendres? Tune in!

6.LARK VOORHIES, SAVED BY THE BELL. Lisa Turtle was always the most fashionable girl of all time on TV. Thus, Voorhies needs one of those Gigi Levangie-Grazer/Candace Bushnell shows about how tough it can be to wear high heels in Meatpacking. Guest spots include highly-anticipated visits by ball-busting PR team Elizabeth Berkley and Tiffani Thiessen.

7.KELLIE SHANYGNE WILLIAMS, FAMILY MATTERS. Williams will always be Laura Winslow, and we like it that way. In Family Don’t Much Matter Anymore Does It?—a Tyler Perry production, of course—20 years have passed and Laura is divorced from (but still living with!) Steve Urkel. It’s a recession story about family and unfunny jokes.

8.GABRIELLE CARTERIS, 90210. Andrea Zuckerman was so great as the Someonegetmeascoop-high school reporter on 90210. It’s time for her to let loose as a former serial-arson-on-the-lam-turned-kooky librarian in a David E. Kelley-style high school dramedy called Book It!

9.A.J. LANGER, MY SO-CALLED LIFE. Lifetime needs a show about lesbian environmentalists as much as Bravo needs more reality programming. But, in both cases, we’re guessing it’s a perfect time to add one more.

10.JENNA VON OŸ, BLOSSOM. It’s called Oÿ Brother, and it’s on TBS. We don’t know what it’s about because we’d never watch it. But without question, Blossom’s Six will still start each episode talking like she just shoved an 8-ball up her nose.