‘Happy’s Place’ Creator Kevin Abbott Previews New Reba McEntire Sitcom: ‘It’s a Really Fun Show’ (Exclusive)

Reba McEntire is returning to her sitcom roots with the Reba producing team for new sitcom Happy’s Place, and creator and showrunner Kevin Abbott spoke to PopCulture.com about what to expect. Premiering on Friday, Oct. 18 at 8 p.m. ET, Happy’s Place centers on McEntire’s Bobbie, who “inherits her father’s tavern (Happy’s Place) and is surprised to discover that she has a new business partner, Isabella (Belissa Escobedo), a twentysomething half-sister that she never knew she had.” Reba’s Melissa Peterman, Pablo Castelblanco, Tokala Black Elk, and Rex Linn also star.

Abbott served as executive producer on Reba and serves as executive producer on Happy’s Place alongside fellow Reba EPs Michael Hanel and Mindy Schultheis, as well as McEntire, Mat Berry, and Pamela Fryman. Between the Reba reunions and the new characters and storylines, there will be a lot to look forward to, and Abbott told PopCulture all about it. (Interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

PopCulture: What can you preview for Happy’s Place?

Kevin Abbott: I think that it’s a really fun show. We’re really enjoying it. Even though Melissa and Reba are in it, and there’s a certain familiarity from that, we wanna be very careful with this show to keep the best of what that relationship is without just replicating it. We wanna explore different areas. So I think that the difference is if you love the old Reba show, I’ll just use that as a point of contrast. Reba, back then, was somebody who was really the adult who took care of children and people acting like children. This one, she’s an adult who’s dealing with adults. So it’s a very different kind of dynamic.

I think it’s really fun to see Reba be more selfish in this show. There is an episode where she says, “Why are you expecting me to do the right thing? I’m sick of that.” And I think that’s an interesting dynamic because while Reba, the person and body of character, are really good-hearted people, it’s hard to be selfish now and again. She doesn’t have to always put everybody else’s interest in front of her own, which was a bit more what the old Reba dynamic was. So we get to see different shades of characters that we think we knew but are not the same at all, which is but the same fun. Just kinda enjoy themselves, lose themselves for half an hour.

PC: What has it been like reuniting with Reba, Melissa, and the producing team from Reba?

Abbott: Awkward. And the word awkward. It’s been great. Mindy, Michael, and I have been working on other projects when this came up and we dropped it to come do it with Reba.Reba, we keep in contact with, but she’s kind of a busy lady. So our paths hadn’t crossed in four or five years. But then she came and wanted to see if I was interested in doing a reboot of the show. This would have been three, four years ago.

I love the old cast. I used to say I didn’t appreciate how great it was back then. They were so great. They were so fun to work with. The show was really fun to work on. By the third year, I was just tired of doing it. So, I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have, and what I’ve got now is a true appreciation for not only Reba but all the new actors that we’re working with. They’re just a great cast, and they’re very similar to the old cast in the sense that they are all really great people who get along or they genuinely enjoy each other, which is what the old cast had. They get together and rehearse and get together on weekends and stuff. So, in that atmosphere, I’m really working hard to appreciate without letting just the chores of the job get me on too much.

PC: Kind of going off of that, is there anything that you were really excited about when creating Happy’s Place, whether it was the storyline, characters, anything behind the scenes?

Abbott: I’ve done a lot of family shows. I’ve done a lot of kids’ stories and raising kids, and that’s when I had kids to raise, so I had stories I really kinda wrote myself. I was really interested in doing adult stories. You’re having adult issues and conversations and dynamics and conflicts. So it’s really fun for us to be in a tavern, in an adult setting. And one of the things I’m kinda proud of, you know, the old reboot show had arguably three dumb characters, Van, Cheyenne, and Barbara Jean, to an extent. And we don’t have any dumb characters on this show, which I really like. I mean, I think that people have differences. They have their quirks and oddities. But they’re all smart, and that’s kinda fun to have situations that don’t get kooky because of people doing weird dumb things. They get kooky, and the conflict comes from their oddities and the quirks that adult people who would survive in the modern world would actually have.

PC: Is there anything else you can tease about Happy’s Place?

Abbott: I will tease that Rex is her real-life paramour and that he is a potential love interest. And that Melissa, for the fans of the show, Gabby’s character, is thinking about having a baby. So we will see how that plays out, but there’s some real fun interesting dynamics that arcs for the season that people get really excited.

Happy’s Place premieres on Friday, Oct. 18 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC’s 2024 fall schedule.