ABC canceled The Goode Family. What did they expect after dumping it to Friday nights. Kudos to ABC for jumping ship and not allowing it to gather a following.
Why did they even bother? It took a year or two for The Simpson, King of the Hill — even Seinfeld to hit their respective strides. Mike Judge had the makings of a hilarious show. The episodes I DVR’d were sometimes spotty with some real brilliance contained therein. I think he could’ve hit on something big over the course of this Presidency, especially with the lesbian couple, the vegan diet-dog “Che”, and the always dependable Brian Doyle-Murray voicing the grandpa. I don’t know the realities of cable picking this up (USA or Comedy Central) given the expenses, but I wager they’re not that good.
After all it was on ABC and not Fox. To be expected.
political correctness is a cruel b*tch.
USA could pick it up. Comedy Central, not a chance.
I could see Comedy Central since it is home to South Park.
Maybe Fox will pick it up, heck maybe Fox News. They could pair it with Red Eye. I’m not surprised this got cancelled ABC buried it and quit advertising it. Honestly I’d forgotten it was still on and I’m never home on Fridays to watch it.
Expected BS, but still BS. At least IMDb had the decency to leave up the quote I submitted, from the Goode Game of Chicken episode:
Cranky: You know what I think’s funny?
[throws lesbian customers out the door]
Cranky: Oh, look, the parking lot’s got two mommies!
The Simpsons was a massive hit, right out of the box. Fox was unsure about it, of course, but it was a monster. It took about three seasons for it to really figure itself out, and about six for it to become the best thing on TV, but make no mistakes, it was *always* getting massive ratings, and even old and grey now, it still is.
King of the Hill was signed on to be a replacement for The Simpsons back when the network got to thinking ‘this can’t last forever.’ The promoted the hell out of it, and it did get very strong ratings it’s first year, but it didn’t show much growth its second year, and its been in a gradual decline for a very long time. Much of that is based on the treatment Fox gave it for the last 5 years or so, but much of it is that it just didn’t have as broad appeal as the Simpsons did. In fact, Fox actually cancelled it once, then brought it back for one last season, then cancelled it again. I sense some bad blood between Judge and Fox, but don’t know that for a fact.
Yeah, Cheers and Seinfeld had a long time to find an audience, but networks were run very differently in those days, when you had only 5 or 6 viewing options (Early 80s) or even 20 or 30 viewing options (Early 90s). Nowadays, there’s so many options, and network’s ratings are so low (Comparatively) that they can’t afford to be showing programming no one’s watchign. Used to be a standard order for sitcoms was 25 episodes/season. A couple years ago, NBC was actually signing new sitcoms to 6-episode deals! If you’re not a hit by the end of that, you’re gone. Crazy!
And of course ink-and-pen animation like Judge favors is expensive as hell, far more expensive than live action. Matt Groening has long joked that as a budget cutting move, the next season of The Simpsons will be live action, rather than animated…
I didn’t mean to imply that the Simpsons season 1 wasn’t a hit — just that it sucked eggs the first season.
Of course Groening could save a few million by getting rid some of those 20 “producers” who milk fat salaries.
Oh no, it’s those dirty artists fault.
I liked it. couldn’t stand to listen to Ubuntu talk though.
was surprised they even had a show like that on the air, poking fun at environmentalists.
How about a cartoon soap opera called the “Citizens of Threedonia?”
It’s easy to read ‘conspiracy’ here, but the networks are famous for burying quality shows and giving up on programs before they really hit their stride.
Clearly, there was precious little promotion behind the show … but animation isn’t cheap so it’s unlikely someone will ride to the rescue.
That sad thing is the show is the perfect accessory for the Age of Obama – what the media used to call 2009 before before the president started stumbling, bumbling and lying about health care.
Mr. Sideous, here’s how it works in TV:
A show starts out, it’s got a cast, it’s got a crew, it’s got writers and producers. If the show survives to another season, the contract gives everyone a built-in pay raise for year two – cast, crew, writers, everyone. Of course some people will be fired, or quit, or whatever, so their replacements are brought in at the same level as people were paid back in year one. That’s fair, right? The people who’ve been there longer get paid more, right? Seniority. If the show comes back for a third year, of course there’s more built in pay raises for the long-timers and the new people who came in for year two. New people coming in for year three start at the bottom.
In some contracts, people also have a built-in promotions, sometimes in lieu of pay raises, or sometimes in conjunction with them. This isn’t considered a problem, since there’s always something for people to do – making a TV show is difficult – and most shows don’t run all that long, however if a show runs twenty or thirty years like the Simpsons, obviously you’re going to end up as top-heavy on the brass as the US Navy is. (The last I checked, four captains to every command slot)
The Simpsons are a massively labor-intensive production, however. I’ve got no idea how many people are on staff at any given time, but probably a couple hundred, and if you count the artists in Korea, probably several thousand. And it takes about 8 months to make an episode, as opposed to six-days-and-it’s-done, like Friends or Cheers or whatever. I’m sure everyone’s pretty darn busy.
However a similar situation where I think your observation is definitely right would be Saturday Night Live, with something like eleven hundred producers, many of who never even leave the bathroom, several of whom are too coked up to even properly make use of their wide assortment of Canadian hookers. Certainly NBC could get rid of a few hundred of them (The producers, not the hookers. Certainly not the hookers!), and use that extra money to maybe, I dunno, slip some jokes in to the show now and again. Or at least pay off the National Debt of Bolivia. You know, whatever…
Well Fox did pick up The Critic (one of my favorite shows of all time) after ABC dumped it, although it didn’t last too much longer. So there is always a chance this will end up somewhere else. I figured the Goode Family wouldn’t last.
Yeah, they got it at a bargain, too.
R3:
I worked in animation for 16 years. I know the process.
Mr. Sideous, I would also like to hear this one. Also, what do you do now and why did you leave it?
Mr. Sideous:
I apologize. Most people don’t.
So what didja’ do? Do tell! Do tell!