I have… admittedly… been a jerk about remakes. Not everything needs to be redone. Sometimes a work is perfect just like it is! Untouchable, even!

Then I heard about the mythical Casablanca TV series that haunted airwaves for a single season in 1983. Yes, that Casablanca. You heard that right.

It barely needs to be said that the 1942 version of Casablanca is widely considered to be a perfect movie. It’s SO perfect as a matter of fact, that it’s often at the top of many “Best Films of All Time” lists.

Like many budding cinephiles, I still remember the wonder I felt the first time I watched Casablanca on PBS. Even at my relatively young age, I knew I was watching something special.

Far too many years later, I learned, though, that Hollywood saw the need to remake Casablanca for TV in 1983. I was obsessed! I had to find out about this strange and certainly questionable oddity.

Is nothing sacred?

Kids, we know the answer to this. Nothing in Hollywood is sacred.

Humorously, even a quick look at the newspapers of the time reminds us of this. A January 11th, 1983, article in the Houston Chronicle (“Reincarnation of Classic Casablanca Deathly Dull”) quotes producer David Wolper, “I knew I’d get it from the critics saying I shouldn’t mess around with a film classic… So write me a letter, folks. I got a whole file of them already.”

For those who might not be so familiar, Casablanca (as mentioned!) ran for five episodes and is described as a Casablanca prequel. An April 10, 1983, review in the Boston Globe writes (jokingly!), “Next they’ll remake Gone With the Wind without Scarlett O’Hara.”

The series starred Hutch himself, David Soul as Rick Blaine, Hector Elizondo as Captain Renault, Ray Liotta as Sasha, Scatman Crothers as Sam, and Reuven Bar-Yotam as Ferrari.

So much of this sounds made up! I mean, Ray Liotta? But alas, even a quick scan through period reviews reminds us, this isn’t a joke. It isn’t even a parody. This happened. It really happened.

In 2026, we cry about soulless remakes, unneeded sequels, and a terrified Hollywood studio system driving its stable of IP into the ground. It feels like the death of originality—the cries of a dying system.

Kids, they were asking the same questions in 1983. Things really haven’t changed.

Ever since I learned about the mythical weirdness of Casablanca, I had to learn more. I needed to track these five episodes down. It’s been a long-standing quest here at Piercing Pop Culture.

I’ve discussed at length the lack of preservation in the earliest days of television. The DuMont kinescopes that ended up at the bottom of the East River. The Vampirakinescopes that were recorded over and lost to time. Our culture struggles to recognize TV as the cultural artifact it is.

Casablanca is, admittedly, widely written off as not a classic. This cultural oddity existed, though, and leads me to think about all the single-season shows that have disappeared from the cultural memory. How many are locked up in vaults? How many have been destroyed to “make room” for something else?

TV preservation is a worldwide issue. A March 13, 2026, BBC article described how two missing episodes of Doctor Who were located in a “ramshackle” collection. Before their rediscovery, the shows hadn’t been viewed since they originally aired in November 1965.

As we quest to find rare and missing works, it emphasizes just how much community plays into TV preservation. Boxes in attics. Unlabeled stacks in archives. VHS lost in dusty collections.

I’ve heard Casablanca exists in super rare VHS copies, and I’m always keeping my eyes out to finally tick this quest off my list. What missing works of entertainment are you questing for? What are the oddities you’d dig through estate sales to find? Let us know in the comments.