Melissa Peterman had a very out-of-the-box character pitch for JoAnna Garcia Swisher before her former Reba costar joined Happy’s Place.
“One thing that I kind of had pitched to the writers was when we knew we were going to get JoAnna Garcia back,” Peterman, 54, exclusively told Us Weekly. “I thought that maybe she was a surrogate that Gabby went to but she had been conning me the whole time.”
Peterman enjoyed the idea of a more antagonistic onscreen relationship with Swisher, 46.
“She would just take my money and pretend to be pregnant but never did it,” she joked. “So, that was my one pitch that I thought could be really funny. But in hindsight, what JoAnna had come to do was hilarious.”
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NBC confirmed in September that Swisher is set to play a local Knoxville influencer named Kenzie in an upcoming episode. Her character “has been hired to represent Happy’s Place for their upcoming social media marketing campaign and all of it is much to Bobbie’s chagrin,” according to the official character description.
Swisher is the third Reba alum to make an appearance on Reba McEntire and Peterman’s hit sitcom, which debuted more than 17 years after their hit series Reba ended its six-year run on The WB. Reba also starred Christopher Rich and Steve Howey, both of whom have made Happy’s Place cameos already. (Their other Reba costars Scarlett Pomers and Mitch Holleman have yet to appear on the NBC sitcom.)
Swisher previously hinted exclusively to Us that she would be joining Happy’s Place in the near future.
“I cannot wait to go shake it up over there with them,” she told Us in July. “Steve Howey has already done it, and Chris Rich has done it.”
The actress continued: “This is my family. We are all so very close, but getting the opportunity to slide back into a sitcom stage with all of them would be so exciting. I would not be surprised if that was in the very near future.”
McEntire, 70, recently told Us that Swisher, who played her daughter on Reba, would “definitely” be the next alum to appear on Happy’s Place.
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“JoAnna is so busy. She’s producing, she’s got three movies and she’s [working on] Sweet Magnolias. So, she is a very busy lady but she said she’d definitely be there,” McEntire shared in May. “Melissa Peterman, JoAnna and Steve Howey have been very busy. To get to bring Steve in already for our Christmas episode and to bring Chris back in — that was the most special.”
Happy’s Place creator Kevin Abbott was also excited by the prospect of bringing Swisher into the fold.
“We are working on that. We really, really want JoAnna to be on the show,” he told Us and other reporters at the NBCUniversal Backlot Summer Experience in August.
Abbott, who worked on Reba, said at the time that there wasn’t a specific character in mind for Swisher.
“We have a couple of roles that we are juggling to decide which would be the most fun for her,” he noted. “Because we don’t want to bring somebody on and just have them be on. We want to bring them on and have — even if it’s just for us — a fun reason that they are playing the role that they are playing. But JoAnna is at the top of the list of the people we want to bring on as guest stars.”
Happy’s Place airs on NBC Fridays at 8 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Peacock.
