Deadline reports that Matthew Lillard will embody John Ritter’s role as a heartfelt adoptive father in NBC’s single-camera remake of Problem Child, the best piece of anti-adoption propaganda since The Bad Seed. Lillard—who won’t recreate SLC Punk but allows more than 20 Scooby-Doo references on his resume—will star opposite Children’s Hospital alum Erinn Hayes, who is returning to NBC after her turns on Parks And Recreation and on Jimmy Fallon’s sitcom flop Guys With Kids. Like the 1990 film, NBC’s TV version follows the adoption of a redheaded monster who is “so bad even the nuns refuse to keep him.”
The show’s incorrigible star has yet to be cast (the ask is Dennis the Menace meets Ferg Face), and Old School and The Hangover Part II scribe Scot Armstrong will write and executive produce the pilot with Brian Grazer and others. And while it’s hard for some of us to believe Lillard is old enough to be offering fatherly advice, it is possible. Picture Lillard, straight to camera, pontificating on information technology and Ozzy Osbourne lyrics while the back of a red head nods in understanding. “Spandex, Junior. It’s a privilege, not a right.”