How in the world could anyone make a good movie out of the campy '80s cop series 21 Jump Street? Well, if you're the film's creative brain trust -- a team that includes stars/producers Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller -- your keep the basic premise of the show (undercover cops go back to high school) and change almost anything else. So instead of an earnest procedural where both the cops and teens learn Important Life Lessons, you've got a rollicking buddy action comedy about two guys who get the chance to relive their school days only to discover high school isn't quite how they remember it. The success of 21 Jump Street got us thinking about the best ways to reboot other fondly (and not so fondly) remembered '80s TV shows for the big screen. You're welcome, Hollywood.

Since the dawn of the Cold War, spies and comedy have gone hand-in-hand -- probably to ease the tension of knowing there are people out there looking to destroy your way of life -- and television has developed a long tradition of wacky spy shows. Currently in its fourth season, Chuck is a shining example of the genre, making great use of famous TV and movie spies in guest roles, and the animated Archer takes the James Bond type down a new, hilarious road. But the newest comedic spy series on TV is Chaos, about a team of misfit CIA agents who fight their superiors and departmental bureaucracy as much as they fight terrorists, and so far it looks like it splits the difference pretty evenly between comedy and action. While some series are funnier than others -- both intentionally and unintentionally -- these are some of our favorites from the genre.

This isn't about cougars chasing after twentysomething guys or college students hooking up with professors. We're talking about relationships between adults and underage teenagers that are actually illegal, among other things. Yet, while they're illicit, ill conceived and dangerous in the real world, we can't get enough of them on scripted TV. Hell, some of them are our favorite small-screen couples of all time. While there is a current rash of hot-for-teacher storylines, there have also been plenty of other underage characters who've fallen for someone far too old for them.

They say there are no small parts, only small actors. But this year, there are actually plenty of big roles on TV for little people -- at least, there are on HBO. Peter Dinklage has a major role in HBO's medieval drama Game of Thrones, while Ricky Gervais begins filming Life's Too Short, a sitcom starring Warwick Davis as an egomaniacal dwarf talent agent, for the network in May. And that's not even counting the numerous reality shows on the air about bakers and dog trainers who also happen to be little people. Considering how rare it is that we see actors with dwarfism on television in significant recurring roles, this double news item got us thinking about the last time a little person was on our TV on a regular basis. Then, once we remembered how bad The Cape was, we decided to look back further. Here are the best and worst.

Televised sporting events are already a pretty big deal for most people, but when you factor in the event status of the Olympics or the Super Bowl or the World Series, they become juggernauts. So why is it that fictional TV shows about sports are so much less popular? The high school football drama Friday Night Lights is one of the best shows on TV, but ratings are only so-so, and it was moved from NBC to DirecTV in 2008 (it will return to NBC in April). Luckily, other sports shows are still plugging along: My Boys, about a female sportswriter, will get a fourth season this summer on TBS, and fantasy-football comedy The League will get a second on FX. And, encouragingly, new shows are still getting made: Spike recently launched college football comedy Blue Mountain State and is prepping Players, about the owners of a sports bar. But historically, sports shows tend to hover in a sparingly viewed grey zone between regular TV shows and actual sports. Here are some of the best shows about sports that have ever aired, and don't be surprised if you haven't heard of some them.

This Sunday, the British series Merlin, a re-imagining of the Arthurian legend, premieres on NBC, with a cast of actors mostly unknown on this side of the pond. (The notable exception being Anthony Head from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) But is America ready for a new medieval television series? Sure, Legend of the Seeker just got renewed, and Robin Hood airs on BBC America, but is period fantasy ready for one of the big networks? We took a look back at previous period fantasy shows to see whether they were hits or misses.

The Simpsons Movie returns to the original scene of the family's crimes when it debuts on HBO Sunday, July 6 at 9 PM ET. And the new tube-spawned film The X-Files: I Want to Believe is being readied for July 25 release. From TV to the movies and back again, it's the sort of life cycle that used to find its exponents dropping dead at the box office.

Does anybody remember that ABC's '60s campfest Batman was made into a theatrical film? (Well, it didn't have Julie Newman playing Catwoman, so that explains things right there.) What about Munster, Go Home? (CBS' fright family heads to England.) In the '90s, we had Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which was supposed to explain things about David Lynch's largely impenetrable (if enjoyable) ABC series, but didn't.

Manly men doing manly things are big-time on the tube now. Discovery's Deadliest Catch. History's Ax Men. TruTV's Black Gold. So maybe the manliest genre of all -- westerns -- is primed for a comeback.

Why sweat to catch seafood, cut down trees or work an oil rig when you can swagger down the street wearing guns and hot-looking leather, heroically hunting outlaws and cleaning up towns embodying what we now know as The American Way?

Friday Night Lights fans couldn't ask for more. Just as the show's second-season DVD set hits shelves this week (at the bargain list price of $30), the ratings-challenged fave also gets saved from extinction: NBC, home of the first two seasons, strikes a deal with DirecTV to split the improbable third go-round starting this fall.

Of course, Passions fans couldn't have asked for more, either, when the same two entities found a way to keep their soap alive last year. Right after NBC dropped it last September, DirecTV picked up fresh episodes, and all was happy. For awhile. Then the satellite company also found continuing Passions unworkable, trimming it from four days a week to three, and finally announcing it, too, will give up the ghost (literally, in the case of this supernatural soap) in August.

Funny thing, though -- Moonlight may not be so likely to have a stake driven through it. Friday night is now a sticky wicket for the broadcast networks, who see viewership plummeting the way it already has Saturdays. And CBS' freshman vampire fave is reliably if not spectacularly rated, watched by more households than such demographic hits as The Office. The show flows nicely, too, with lineup mates Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs.