Seth Rogen is rebooting The Littlest Hobo
And he’d better not mess with the theme song
For months, Crave has been asking itself how to follow up the success of Heated Rivalry, the little Canadian production that turned into possibly the hottest, horniest global TV phenomenon of all time. The answer, announced at this week’s Bell Media Upfront, is the equally beloved (though slightly less horny) combination of an iconic German shepherd and our nation’s most lovable stoner.
Related: “We deserve a gay show that is sexy and horny and fun”—Jacob Tierney on his new queer hockey romance, Heated Rivalry
Seth Rogen and his producing partner Evan Goldberg are rebooting the classic TV series The Littlest Hobo. The duo are currently riding high in Hollywood after the massive success of their Emmy magnet The Studio, but this will be their first project for the Canadian market, a phrase that almost certainly has new clout in a post–Shane and Ilya reality.
Rogen and Goldberg are childhood friends who grew up in Vancouver, where tales of the vigilante pup who just wasn’t ready to settle down (maybe tomorrow) loomed large. “The Littlest Hobo was a foundational show of our childhood. We are thrilled to have the honour of bringing it back for a new generation alongside our partners at Crave,” Rogen and Goldberg said in a press release. “Though the hobo may be little, we promise big things to come. That doesn’t mean the dog will be huge like Clifford. The hobo will still be little. But the adventures will be BIG.”
The original Littlest Hobo series aired between 1963 and 1965, but Rogen and Goldberg would have watched the first reboot on CTV in the early 1980s. For kids of that era, the nostalgia is real. (Reddit is already fired up about the mere possibility that somebody might mess with the original theme song by Canadian Terry Bush.)
Of course the bigger question is who will play the titular canine. Diesel from Hudson & Rex (a.k.a. the Laurence Olivier of Canadian canine thespians) died a few years ago, but a bunch of his nephews are keeping his screen legacy alive. If this were an episode of The Studio, Rogen’s character would be cooking up a plan to use an AI dog, but thankfully this is real life and the rights of working canine actors will be respected.
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
