Every ‘Child’s Play’ legacy character we still need to see in ‘Chucky’

Chucky is a show with a lot of its chips on nostalgia. Executives David Kirschner and Don Mancini didn’t put them there by accident, either – the whole show exists, at least marginally, as a gamble on the idea that people still have love for the seven movies’ worth of continuity that they established across the Child’s Play franchise.

And while we’ve undeniably enjoyed killer returns for characters like Andy, Kyle, and the whole Charles Lee Ray brood, there are still more holes in the roster than Chucky put in Liv Morgan while he used his weekly bad word allowance. Here’s a look at some of the characters we still want to see on the show.

Detective Mike Norris and Karen Barclay

Most of the time, when a character has disappeared from the Child’s Play universe, there’s been a solid reason – they were moved to a different foster home, for example, or they were hit by a truck so hard that they turned into the stuff they pour on celebrities at the Kids Choice Awards.

In the case of Detective Mike Norris, played in the original movie by acclaimed Humperdink Chris Sarandon, we get fat nothing. We learn that the cops have had nothing to say about the events surrounding the Chucky doll, and that’s the end of the story. Worse, the last time we heard from Catherine Hicks’ Karen Barclay, she’d been swept off to an asylum on account of her wild notions about the dangers of serial killers with their souls in doll bodies.

The real reason we haven’t heard from these franchise icons in a while is probably more boring. MGM still owns the first Child’s Play movie rights, while Mancini and Kirschner have dibs on entries two through seven via Universal. It could be that legal minutia is what’s keeping us from catching up with these familiar faces. The fact that Hicks announced her retirement early in 2023 doesn’t help, either. Still, it’s nice to think that Mike and Karen are out there somewhere, enjoying their golden years, recreationally gunning down possessed dolls.

Tyler

Child’s Play 3 wasn’t anyone’s favorite. The leap forward in time, making Andy older and less vulnerable, was made all the more puzzling by the addition of a new kid, Ronald Tyler, who was about the same age that Andy had been in the last movie.

Stilly, Tyler – played by Jeremy Sylvers – did his job (being afraid of a doll) admirably, and it’d be interesting to find out what his near-Chucky experience did to him as he grew up. For his part, Sylvers has expressed interest in returning for the series, but his recent run-ins with the law (per TMZ) likely haven’t helped his chances.

Kristen

Andy Barclay has a lifelong habit of latching onto dope, capable women and making his life their problem: Maggie in Child’s Play, Kyle in part two, and then Kristin in Child’s Play 3. It’s selfish, and it’s behavior that’s all too common in kids being stalked by supernatural dolls across the decades, but that’s really not the point.

The point is that Kristin, played by Entourage’s Perrey Reeves, was capable and independent and taught Andy how to handle a rifle. It’s wild that the two of them didn’t hang out more after they trauma bonded.

Jesse and Jade

Mostly Jade. What I’m saying is, if we start a GoFundMe and work as a community, I bet we could pull together the $500 we’d need to get a post-Grey’s Anatomy Katherine Heigl to shoot for a week.

Other Andy

Sure, it’s long odds that Chucky is going to go out of its way to hunt down escaped Wil Wheaton clone Justin Whalin and bring him in as the second Andy Barclay from Child’s Play 3. That said, it’s not like it’s unprecedented. Every franchise on the planet is hip-deep in contrived multiverse stuff right now. Speaking of…

Other Chucky

Out of all the ideas presented today, this one’s the dark horse. It would take inter-studio collaboration, which you just don’t see anymore – for receipts, please see the Justice League mustache debacle for the millionth time.

But if Syfy managed to strike a deal with MGM to bring the Mark Hamill-voiced Chucky from the 2019 Child’s Play reboot into the world of Chucky, we’d have the makings of a classic Freddy vs. Jason, Godzilla vs. ‘Zilla monster mash. If nothing else, it seems like it would be worth the money for Mancini to finally get the catharsis of watching his character snuff out his corporate robot double.