The Fabulous Filipino Brothers Star Dion Basco Makes The Case For A City Guys Reboot [Exclusive]
NBC
So what show or cast of beloved character should be next to get a moment in the spotlight again? Clearly, the answer is “City Guys.”
C-I-T-Y You Can See Why
But if “City Guys” was just another one of these teen-centric educational sitcoms, then why is it important? Well, for me personally, this show was the very first time that I saw a Filipino person on American TV. As an Asian-American growing up in the ’90s, I didn’t see anyone that looked like me in leading roles on any show until I stumbled upon Dionysio Basco’s Al “Rocket” Ramos. Even though he was never explicitly said to be Filipino on the show (despite wearing Tribal Pinoy shirts and having Filipino siblings), it was still a very formative experience for me as a kid to see this kind of representation and diversity on a major network at the time. After all, it’s not like “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” “Boy Meets World,” or “Frasier” were accurately showing the diversity of the cities where they were set.
So naturally, when the opportunity came up to speak to Basco about his new film “The Fabulous Filipino Brothers,” where he stars alongside his real-life brothers in a realistic look at modern Filipinos and Filipino Americans, I had to bring up the sitcom that I cherished so much as a kid. You can read all about his experience on the show, including an important landmark moment in television history, when we drop the full interview very soon. But Basco suggested that the book might not be closed on “The City Guys.”
Roll With The City Guys
1091 Pictures
I’ve actually been getting hit up on Instagram by a number of fans and fellow cast members. People keep asking about it. They should reboot it. Or at least put it up on Netflix or Paramount Plus or something like that. Revive it that way. I haven’t heard of anything going, but as a cast, we have started communicating again. We Zoomed and it was pretty much almost all of us. We were missing Ms. Noble [who was played by Marcella Lowery] and L-Train [who was played by Steven Daniel], but the rest of us got a chat for a couple of hours.
Everybody seemed down to do it. Some people aren’t acting. The girls [Caitlin Mowrey and Marissa Dyan, who played Dawn Tartikoff and Cassidy Giuliani] aren’t acting anymore. They’re on the East Coast doing their thing, but all the guys are still in the game and we’re all pretty down to do it. It be fun to see what happened to these characters.
See? That all totally works. But until a network or a streamer gets on board, you can catch Dionysio Basco and his brothers in “The Fabulous Filipino Brothers” when it starts streaming on iTunes on February 8, 2022 or on tour in a town near you.
