When Reba McEntire returned to television last year as the star and executive producer of NBC’s “Happy’s Place,” fans of the singer and actress were delighted to find that the comedy contained the same blend of humor and heart that characterized “Reba,” McEntire’s beloved sitcom that ran from 2001 to 2007. It’s no coincidence that the new series, in which Reba’s character Bobbie McAllister inherits her father’s bar and is forced to run it alongside the half-sister (Belissa Escobedo) she never knew existed, has retained the earlier show’s strengths — not only was it co-created by “Reba” showrunner Kevin Abbott, it actually began life as a potential “Reba” reboot.
“ We were working on a reboot for about a year,” Abbott told IndieWire as part of our USG University virtual panel series. “The old team had gotten together and we were hashing out, ‘Where would these characters be now?’ We’d come up with a whole pitch. We’d gotten all the other previous actors on board. We went to Disney who owned the rights to the ‘Reba’ show and they loved it.”
Then Abbott and McEntire got the word that Disney, which was in a state of flux after buying Fox, wasn’t going to move forward with the project. Abbott was, as he put it, a “grouchy old dude,” but McEntire proposed they simply shift gears and make a different show. Abbott’s wife Julie pitched him the idea of McEntire taking over her dad’s bar, and “Happy’s Place” was born.
As with their previous collaboration, McEntire and Abbott — who were joined on the USG panel by director of photography Gary Baum and production designer Glenda Rovello — looked to television classics for inspiration. “We pretty much just carried over what we did on ‘Reba,’” McEntire said. “ Kevin always made sure that we were laughing and it was witty and snarky, but by three-quarters into the show there was always a poignant place that was fit for everybody to relate to. We learned that from ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ and carried it over into ‘Happy’s Place’ — we’ve got to laugh, we’ve got to cry, but if we do it together we’re all stronger.”
Rovello saw that tone as a guiding principle for her production design. “Kevin and Reba were very clear that it had to have a certain amount of warmth and a lot of humanity,” Rovello said. Because the show was set in Knoxville, Tennessee, Rovello incorporated the University of Tennessee’s orange and white as a design element, along with local artifacts that decorated the set and gave a sense of both place and family. “[The characters] had to clearly be from Knoxville, and that’s what we strove for.”
Given how much of the series takes place in the bar referenced in the title, making sure that set was as expressive and utilitarian as possible was essential. “ We essentially provide the envelope for our actors and we want to support the story,” Rovello said. “I wanted [the bar] to feel very tactile. We use materials that are real. There’s a lot of wood in that set, and all the booths, I don’t pull them from a warehouse and they’re not rented. They’re all custom made because I wanted it to have that layer of authenticity and be a place that you would long to go to, like, ‘Gosh, I want to go there when I go to Knoxville.’”
Baum too saw the characters as the starting point for his work, crafting a pleasing, cinematic visual style via lens choices designed to showcase the actors and elicit affection for them. “We try to keep it warm and light, because that’s what the show is,” Baum said, noting that one of the great challenges on a multi-cam sitcom is accommodating all the cameras without compromising the lighting. “My lenses that I use are tweaked for me personally and have a little bit of a fall off. The tight shots or the singles have less depth of field, so it feels a little more like a single camera show or even a feature.”
While Abbott praised Baum for the meticulousness of his lighting and framing, Baum prefers that no one actually notice what he’s doing when they’re watching the show. “It’s a little bit of a balancing act between making the set look good and the people look good and telling the story without the photography getting in the way,” he said. “Because to me, you’re not supposed to notice too much. You’re supposed to enjoy the show and go for the ride.”
For McEntire, a key component of creating that ride is shooting “Happy’s Place” in front of a live studio audience that gives the cast and crew energy to feed off of — but also lets them know when a joke isn’t working and needs to be rewritten on the spot. “I love the changes,” McEntire said. “ And when you get lines that are great, you get to really sink your teeth into them.” McEntire said that Abbott and the other writers frequently bring the actors new material when the performers think they’re done, and that’s part of the fun. “Everybody’s game. Everybody wants to play. And that makes it comfortable and fun for everyone. It’s never dull.”
Abbott credits the cast and crew with having the flexibility and talent to keep making the show better right up until the final moments before the live audience. “They’re very good about knowing that it’s a play — we’re doing a show in front of people,” Abbott said. “What’s the point of having an audience if they’re not entertained? I really like this cast, they just feel organic. And as much as it was not fun when the reboot was shut down, I’m glad it was because it brought us this. It’s been a blessing to do a first season and heading into the second season there are still a lot of stories to tell.”
IndieWire partnered with Universal Studio Group for USG University, a series of virtual panels celebrating the best in television art from the 2024-2025 TV season across NBC Universal’s portfolio of shows. USG University (a Universal Studio Group program) is presented in partnership with Roybal Film & TV Magnet and IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking. Catch up on the latest USG University videos here or directly at the USG University site.
