From 1994 through 2005, Nickelodeon’s All That was a sketch/variety show in the vein of Saturday Night Live that appealed to kids. Now, the kid-friendly network is going to revive the series, and its bringing back a former cast member to help it along.
According to Variety, former All That cast member Kenan Thompson will return to executive produce the series, which gave him his start in TV back in 2004. Thompson has also been a prominent cast member on SNL since 2003, so he’ll likely bring some of his late-night expertise to the program.
“It means everything to me,” Thompson said about the revival. “It was my first job that I ever had. It gave me an opportunity.” One recurring sketch, Good Burger, would be turned into a 1997 feature film, which starred Thompson alongside All That co-star Kel Mitchell.
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Nickelodeon president Brian Robbins was a co-creator and an executive producer of the original series, which featured a who’s who of young stars like Amanda Bynes, Nick Cannon and Jamie Spears. He says the revival comes as Nickelodeon is exploring its past endeavors and repackaging them for a new generation of viewers.
“We think there’s a great opportunity to find the next pool of stars,” said Robbins. “We want to bring the show back in a real fun way. This summer, we are going to bring back a lot of the original cast and the cast through the years, and let them introduce the new cast of ‘All That’ to the world,” which he described as “a sort of mash-up of some of the old sketches and a lot of new sketches.“
Thompson won’t be giving up his long-running stint on SNL. And though he admits his time is limited, he’ll make sure he’ll have input on the overall tone and direction of the new iteration of All That.
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