After months of grappling with the ongoing pandemic and the so-called ‘new normal’, you’ve probably grown accustomed to what star-studded cast reunion videos are all about. You have constant reminders to stay inside, wear masks, and social distance. Then there are the intriguing peaks into celebrity homes. Complete with wall art, bookshelves, and subtly placed political messages in the background.
Every time a new familiar face pops up on the screen, you get that little twinge of excitement. And then there are the consistent jokes pertaining to older actors and actresses struggling to set up Zoom and their camera setups.
We’ve seen a whole bunch of this kind of thing in recent times. The Office’s John Krasinski managed to reunite all of his old buddies for his Some Good News series. Then there was NBC’s a Park and Rec reunion that saw Leslie and company reprise their characters for one night only.
During these unprecedented times, the virtual cast reunion has become of staple of our popular culture. It makes sense though – with studios being shut down, filming for popular programs being put on hiatus. And with the mounting boredom permeating our society, what else are they going to do to have a rise out of us?
Even with some TV series and films finally starting to resume their production, these rather predictable reunions keep on materializing.
Recently, actor and producer Josh Gad, best known for playing Olaf in 2013s Frozen, LeFou in 2017s Beauty and the Beast. And Ludlow Lamonsoff in 2015s action-comedy Pixels has streamlined the whole cast-reunion concept with his 80s-obsessed nostalgia-heavy TV series Reunited Apart.
Casts from Back To The Future, The Goonies, Splash, and Ghostbusters, and loads of other shows have brought back together for a COVID friendly reuniting. We’re going to take a look at some of our favorite reunions that have come together in recent months.
Stay tuned to see why the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Reunion was quite possibly our favorite. But we’ll get to that in a minute.
Community
The cast came back together to read the script for the season five episode ‘Cooperative Polygraphy’ and boy was it hilariously satisfying. They made sure to pick an episode that didn’t feature Pierce so they didn’t have to call upon Chevy Chase. After all. things went sour for him on the set after he made racist comments directed towards Donald Glover.
Pedro Pascal gave a side-splitting performance when he substituted for Walton Goggin’s as the chief executor for Pierce’s will.
There was actually another Community reunion that went down on Ken Jeong and Joel McHale’s podcast. In that one, there was a pretty noteworthy moment when Donald Glover realizes that he had been excluded from a group chat that everyone else was apart of. Yvette Nicole Brown made the snarky comment that he was left out because everyone assumed that he was too busy.
Frasier
Yeah, sure the Office reunion got a ton of attention. It seems like everyone saw that and there is still the persisting excitement for a Friends reunion even though it seems to keep getting pushed-back and postponed. But more attention should given to the excellent Frazier cast reunion that happened back in April.
Kelsey Grammer, Jane Leeves, David Hyde Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, Dan Butler, and Peri Gilpin all got together and chatted it up about the good old days. Kelsey Grammer shared a pretty amazing story about how he got cast on Cheers while he was still just an understudy while working on the Broadway production of Hurlyburly.
Oh yeah! Then there was another unmissable moment where they rolled out a clip of David Hyde Pierce as he performed an absolutely ludicrous song on Caroline in the City. It’s pretty good stuff.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Will Smith launched his own show on Snapchat back in April called Will From Home. The low-budget series follows the Independence Day star making content in his garage. One of his featured projects was getting most of the cast from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air back together for a reunion chat. Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Joseph Marcell, Dj Jazzy Jeff, Alfonso Ribeiro, and Daphne Maxwell all stopped by to say hi. The stars also all paid their respects to the late James Avery who played Uncle Phil who sadly passed away back in 2013.
Friday Night Lights
Maybe not quite as star-studded as some other reunions discussed in this video. And seeing that Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Zach Gilford, and Taylor Kitsch didn’t make an appearance. But it’s still pretty entertaining to see the folks that played Tyra Collette, Jason Street, Billy Riggins, Julie Taylor, and Smash Williams sit around and watch the pilot episode together. Proceeds of the reunion viewing party went to the World Health Organization – so there’s that. And who knows? Maybe someday we’ll see a reboot film actually happen. Fans have been begging for such a thing for years now.
Happy Endings
When a decent show with a lively fanbase gets canceled too soon. It leaves a lot of people at a loss wishing that some of the loose ends could be tied up. Well, when the cast of Happy Endings reunited on Zoom back in June. Fans got a chance to see the distanced cast that was quarantining in different places across the country come together to do a special pandemic themed episode. The episode follows a plotline that originally intended for a season four episod. But adapted to the current world events of course. Proceeds of the special went to the charities Color of Change and World Central Kitchen. Maybe someday Happy Endings will finally get the reboot it deserves, but until then we have this.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
As we already mentioned, Josh Gad is the reigning king of 80s themed reunion Zoom chats. Back in June, fans of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off got to see the cast of the nostalgic film get together on the season finale of Gad’s Reunited Apart show.
Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Grey, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, and even the monotone Ben Stein got together for this blast from the past.
The cast members exchanged stories about working with Director John Hughes on the classic film that premiered 34 years ago. It hardly seems that long ago though.
Gad coaxed Broderick to revisit some of his most famous lines from the film. At first, he shied away from quoting the film but eventually, he gave in and delivered a memorable line verbatim.
‘Life moves pretty fast’ Broderick quipped, ‘If you don’t look around once in a while, you might miss it’.
That line takes on a whole new meaning in the bizarre world we live in today.
Jake Gyllenhaal also stopped by for a bit towards the end of the discussion. And doted about how big of a fan he was. And various cast members paid their respect to Hughes by reading off some of their favorite lines from the film.
Broderick and Ruck pick up conversation like they are the best of buds despite the fact that the two haven’t seen each other in 15 years. They reminisced about auditioning with each othe. And with Ruck giving us a play by play as Broderick couldn’t hold back laughter.
All in all, it was a pretty lighthearted affair. But as far as reunions go, the Ferris Bueller cast succeeded in giving fans exactly what they wanted.
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And don’t go just yet. You’re not going to want to miss learning all about the Scott Pilgrim reunion that happened a couple of months ago. It’s another one of our favorites. And no, we aren’t still secretly crushing on Ramona Flowers…well…not too much at least.
Lizzie McGuire
Gen Z kids and millennials grew up adoring shows like Even Stevens, That’s So Raven, Kim Possible, and of course Lizzie McGuire. In May, Jake Thomas, who played Lizzie’s little brother Matt, brought most of the original cast and the writers of one of the most memorable episodes “Between a Rock and a Bra Place’ together for a table reading over zoom. Complete with a cardboard cut-out of Lizzie herself. And everyone got together and recited the script of the 2-decade old episode for charity. It’s almost like getting in a time machine and taking a trip back to 2001.
The Lord Of The Rings
Another one of Josh Gad’s Reunited Apart reunions worth watching ts the Lord of the Rings one.
One of the best features of the Lord of the Rings films – well besides the actual movies of course – was all of the insane behind-the-scenes features on the deluxe edition box-sets and all the press coverage that each film received.
This reunion chat covers all of that stuff and more. We got the chance to take a peek into the lives of the ragtag oddball cast and all the little inside-jokes and gags that happened on set.
Despite the fanciful highfalutin Tolkien-esque dialogue that you might associate with the characters in those films. The cast members were actually quite goofy and fun-loving.
In the reunion, we got the chance to see everyone show off their Fellowship tattoos and argue about who’s costume and makeup sessions were the hardest to endure each day. Oh, and there’s also some pretty hilarious ‘reenactments’ of iconic scenes of the film that you wouldn’t want to miss.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
Can you believe that this film came out 10 years ago? Can you also believe that Michael Cera still looks exactly the same?
Jason Schwartzman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, and nearly a dozen other cast members came together to do a full table read of the film. They went all out, they even danced and did some epic lip-synching for all of the musical bits.
Brie Larson unfortunately wasn’t able to make it so Anna Kendrick filled in for her.
Bryan Lee O’Malley, the creator of the comic series. And also signed on to the Zoom discussion and drew several Scott Pilgrim drawings that were put up for auction for charity.
Well, here we are yet again at the end of another facts-packed video. Hopefully, we didn’t miss your favorite cast reunion. If we did, drop us a line and let us know.
And we really would love to hear from you. What do you think about all the Zoom cast reunions? Are you a fan of them or do they remind you too much of how crazy the world is these days? Let us know what you think down in the comments section.
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And as always, be safe out there.
