‘Happy’s Place’ Creator Details How a ‘Reba’ Reboot Turned Into NBC’s New Sitcom

Kevin Abbott also tells TheWrap about casting Belissa Escobedo and bringing back Melissa Peterman

Melissa Peterman as Gabby, Reba McEntire as Bobbie in “Happy’s Place” (Photo by: Casey Durkin/NBC)

Just over 15 years after “Reba” closed out its six-season run, “Happy’s Place” creator Kevin Abbott reunited with the sitcom’s team to explore a potential “Reba” reboot series.

“I had actually come up with where the characters were at, where their lives were at [and] what was going to be the dynamic was some new characters,” Abbott told TheWrap, noting that executives were initially “very interested” in the idea. However, he added that as time went by and the industry consolidated further, the reboot didn’t move forward “for various financial reasons and rights reasons,” per Abbott.

“I’d spent six months doing this thing and been working on it and Reba [McEntire] was like, ‘well, let’s just do another one … we’ll do something else. I was like, ‘I don’t have another one in my back pocket,’” Abbott recalled. “So I called my wife [Julie Abbott] to complain because I’m a real whiner, and she gave me some comforting and she hung up, and she called me back like in five minutes, like ‘I have an idea’ it wound up being this idea.”

That idea wound up as the premise for “Happy’s Place,” which stars McEntire as Bobbie, who inherits her father’s tavern and is less than thrilled to discover that she has a new business partner in a twentysomething half-sister she never knew she had, named Isabella (Belissa Escobedo).

Abbott recalled that McEntire loved the idea, so he began working on the pitch for the new show alongside Julie Abbott and “Reba” EPs Michael Hanel and Mindy Schultheis.

“We had both ABC and NBC interested in it … and we went with NBC, which we love. ABC is great, but we very much at home at NBC,” Abbott said. “And then the strike hit — we literally closed the deals the week before the strike — we just had to sit out for that one and worry that something bad was going to happen while (the strike) happened, but NBC was really enthusiastic afterwards and we launched into it.”

As Bobbie and Isabella get acquainted for the first time as half-siblings and business partners, their generational divide sets the tone for two distinct approaches to the workplace as Isabella advocates for Gen-Z’s work-life balance approach, while Bobbie is a proponent for “I don’t pay you to have a life; I pay you to work.”

The generational difference — along with other hurdles thrown at Bobbie — were all designed as a way to challenge Bobbie, with Abbott saying “when you get to be my age and Reba’s age, we tend to fall into our patterns, we tend to get comfortable [with] the way we think we’re gonna do things, and we wanted her to be put in a situation where she was going to be forced to step outside our comfort zone.”

Escobedo — who has appeared in “Blue Beetle,” “Hocus Pocus 2” and “The Baker and the Beauty” — immediately set herself apart to Abbott in auditions, and her fit for the role was clear after a chemistry test with McEntire. “They do have a natural quality to them,” Abbott said. “They just flow together.”
Reba McEntire as Bobbie, Belissa Escobedo as Isabella in “Happy’s Place” (Photo by: Casey Durkin/NBC)
With “Reba” star Melissa Peterman on board for the potential reboot, Abbott crafted a new role for Peterman as Gabby, the tavern’s longtime bartender who wishes she was Bobbie’s sister. After playing “the other woman” as Barbra Jean on “Reba,” Abbott noted the new role “does remove certain dynamics … that worked in the old show,” saying “I’m feeling much freer not having to service [those] in the new show.”

“We still had some stories to tell [on “Reba” when we got canceled] but as a writer, I had been doing it for five years … and you don’t want to keep writing the same thing,” Abbott said. “Having this experience — it’s really wonderful. It feels very open … which is really freeing.”

Still, Abbott is excited to embrace some more “Reba” alum, especially after having to break the news that the reboot wasn’t moving forward. “Because I pitched the reboot to all of them, they’re on board for it,” Abbott said of “Reba” alum Steve Howey and JoAnna Garcia Swisher. “We’ve already started kicking around some notions of it, just because they’re both great actors … you could probably look forward to seeing one or both of them on at some point in time.”

“Happy’s Place” airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT and streams the next day on Peacock.