Breaking Bad beat out Hulu to a better Malcolm in the Middle reunion more than 12 years ago

Say my name… 'Hal-senberg'

Sure, a new four-episode Malcolm in the Middle revival hit Hulu this week and I guess it's cool that they got so much of the cast back together. But for me, nothing will beat out the original Malcolm in the Middle reunion, which came out more than a decade before Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair.

After Breaking Bad concluded on Sept. 29, 2013, a mysterious video popped up on YouTube six weeks later under the account for “Walter White,” which, of course, was the name of Bryan Cranston’s character in the series. The clip begins with an iconic moment from Breaking Bad where Walter tells the drug dealer Declan (Louis Ferreira) to “Say my name.” A second later, it cuts to a dark bedroom, and Bryan Cranston (with a full head of hair) awakes in a panic. He turns on a light and wakes the woman next to him, revealing Jane Kaczmarek.

Back on Malcolm in the Middle, Cranston played Malcolm’s dad Hal, while Kaczmarek was Hal's wife Lois. In the scene, Hal wakes up and recounts the events of a dream that sounds exactly like Breaking Bad, talking about how he was a drug kingpin and killed people.

Lois asks whether she was around to stop him in the dream, and Hal says, "I was married to this tall beautiful blonde."

Kaczmarek doesn't miss a beat and responds: "Keep dreaming, pal."

Eventually, Lois convinces Hal to go back to sleep and the camera pans over to Heisenberg’s signature hat sitting on a chair nearby.

The three-and-a-half-minute clip, which also made its way onto the final Breaking Bad DVD set, was not only a fun callback to Cranston’s first successful show, it was a reference to one of the most iconic sitcom endings of all time.

Back in the 1970s, comedian Bob Newhart starred in The Bob Newhart Show as psychologist Bob Hartley. He was married to Emily Hartley, played by Suzanne Pleshette. The show wrapped in 1978 and just a few years later, in 1982, Newhart went on to star in another hit sitcom named Newhart, where he played an innkeeper named Dick Loudon who lived in a town full of crazy locals. Back then — and even today, really — it was pretty unusual for someone to star in two hit shows back-to-back, so when Newhart concluded in 1990, the show's writers decided to capitalize on the unique situation.

In the final scene of the series, Dick is hit on the head by a baseball. Then, the show cuts to a dark bedroom where Newhart wakes the woman next to him, revealing Suzanne Pleshette as Emily Hartley. Then Newhart (as Bob Hartley) recalls all the crazy details about the second sitcom before she urges him to go back to sleep.

By the thunderous sound of the studio audience upon the reveal of Suzanne Pleshette, it was clear this was shocking (even some of the cast didn’t know). Audiences at home reacted much the same way and since then, the ending of Newhart has been considered one of the very best sitcom endings ever.

Malcolm in the Middle's original series finale isn't quite as critically acclaimed, but it arguably comes close. This Breaking Bad Easter egg offered fans of both shows a nice little send-off, which is why it's such a shame that the beloved sitcom's canonical ending is now a half-baked, four-episode revival that's streaming on Hulu.