‘Family Matters’ Star Reveals Revival Plans With Original Cast Members ‘Got Pretty Far Along’

Family Matters alum Bryton James “got pretty far along” with an idea to reboot the beloved sitcom, even getting original cast members like Jaleel White and Reginald VelJohnson on board.

The actor, who played Richie Crawford on eight seasons of Family Matters, told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Sunday that he had been pursuing an idea to turn old episodes of the show into an animated series.

The Beyond the Gates star explained that his idea would be “taking the old episodes and modernizing them and kind of starting from scratch for the new generation.”

James revealed that he “got pretty far along” with the idea, including getting “a production company in line to finance” and bringing “everybody on board” in the original cast. However, he now said, “It’s sitting in Warner Bros.’ hands right now… That plan is still kind of floating around out there, and I’m still trying to pursue it.”

Several Family Matters stars have died after the sitcom’s 1998 series finale, including Michelle Thomas, who played Myra Monkhouse, and Rosetta LeNoire, who played Estelle Winslow.

When it comes to getting the surviving cast members on board with the reboot, James said it wasn’t that difficult, especially after a 2018 reunion helped “put me back in touch with a lot of the cast that I’d kind of fallen off from.”

“I still very much keep in touch with Telma Hopkins, who played my mom… [Darius McCrary], who played Eddie Winslow, I just saw [Kellie Shanygne Williams, who played Laura], a lot of them are living — I think [Jo Marie Payton] and Kellie are living on the East Coast, so they came out for Telma’s birthday a few years back and I got to see them again,” he said. “Jaleel, I’ve kept in touch with him off and on, a great mentor at this point in my life.”

As for his reasoning for going the animated route, James explained, “I just remember these episodes, some of the storylines they’d come up with for Urkel, you know, I remember when he created a tornado in the kitchen one time. So they kind of bordered on fantasy, and you could really take the show into animation and have us voice our characters again.”

The animated reboot would also only require cast members to record their voices, meaning not everyone would have to be available to be on camera at the same time. James added with a laugh, “Jaleel wouldn’t have to put the outfit on either, and we could still deliver what the show did for the audience and for families, especially, and revamp it for the new generation.”