Every show is somebody’s favorite. I’m not just talking about the Sopranos or Cheers. I’m sure that somewhere out there is a Pink Lady and Jeff fan holding out for a miracle. When a network cancels a show it might be due to low ratings, public outrage, lack of sponsors, or other budgetary concerns. Maybe Bernie Mac died. The point is that usually we, the viewing public, know how the game is played so we learn to live with it.

That’s not always the case. Sometimes a show is cut down in its prime or before it even had a chance. In honor of the not-entirely-recent release of the complete Andy Richter Controls the Universe on DVD (including unaired episodes) I thought it would be a good idea to look at some comedy series that suffered that ignominy. This is by no means a complete list or even a complete list of our favorite canceled comedies but rather an ode to a few shows that don’t get enough love (and a couple that simply can’t get enough love.)

Right off the bat let me just say that we of TLG give special lifetime achievement recognition in the history of canned programs to Judd Apatow and Bryan Fuller. Freaks and Geeks, Dead Like Me, Undeclared, Pushing Daisies: these shows all had their own online petitions to “Save Our Show!” and complimentary pull-quotes etched on their tombstones. If we didn’t make this one entry it would be the whole article.

#1. Arrested Development

Arrested Development is kind of the patron saint of canceled comedy although, to be fair, the network did support an extended run of the show even though the ratings didn’t justify it. That way they could wave their critical acclaim banners and loudly cheer, “See? Not everything on FOX is righteous suck!” Like most of the shows on this list, this one had a rabid internet following so I don’t think much of a plot recap is necessary: Jeffrey Tambor goes to prison and Jason Bateman is left “in charge” of a misanthropic, entitled family of social mutants. The comedy alternated between dumb jokes presented intelligently and wry satire delivered broadly, providing a perfect mix of ha-ha sensibilities.

Why It Was Shitcanned

First it was removed from the schedule to make room for the return of Family Guy with networks citing expectations of savage sweeps numbers for AD. You could argue they were trying to save the show but in context of the network’s other actions this looks more like short-changing a cult comedy series for the benefit of promoting the crap out of some newer program, a lesson you think they would have learned with FAMILY GUY, a show they had previously canceled and only brought back on the strength of DVD sales and rerun ratings on Adult Swim.

NOTE TO FAMILY GUYS FANS: Family Guy does not actually appear in this article. Please return to your daily routines of quoting Stewie ad nauseum.

FOX let the show die slowly, though, as something of an appeasement to fans. They brought AD back for a third season all right… opposite Monday Night Football for half the country. As one might guess, the ratings were even poorer this time around. FOX cut their order for the season from 22 episodes to 13, airing the final four episodes as a cobbled-together Not-Really-Series-Finale, which they then scheduled opposite the opening ceremonies for the 2006 Winter Olympics. In short, though it wasn’t as dramatic a cut as some on this list and though it survived stays of execution, when the time to cut AD came FOX did it Keyser-Soze-style.

Silver Lining

In addition to the DVDs, an Arrested Development movie is promised. Unless plagues of locusts eat the work print or something, which I’m not prepared to rule out.

#2. The Tick

The Tick comic book was a madcap superhero parody published by New England Comics which, although only lasting twelve issues, gained a large cult following. The Tick cartoon by Saban made Saturday mornings worth living for. The Tick live action series was, well, considerably different (but still funny.) Unable to have as much physical comedy and zany adventures (due to budgetary constraints) the show relied more on innuendo, puns, and satire. Nevertheless the show had a lot of promise.

Why It Was Shitcanned

The Tick had one foot in the grave before the pilot even aired because, for starters, they decided to air the pilot, the weakest of the shows produced (though built on a sound concept: Tick is tricked into leaving the bus stop he has sworn to protect by bus stop employees, saves city and President from robot.) The show was also slotted as a mid-season replacement meaning that if it took off, great. If not, the studio wasn’t going to shed any tears.

Well, except for this guy, maybe.

The show was under-promoted and had its schedule swapped around, moving time slots and nights and being pre-empted for weeks on end. Unable to find an audience (no fucking shit, the audience wasn’t able to find the show,) the series was canceled before all the ordered episodes had aired (because Fox was counting the pilot in their airing schedule; see also Dollhouse.) That means that by the time the show’s tie-in action figures made it to stores there was no show to cross-promote them (see also BraveStarr.)

Silver Lining

Thank you, DVD, for making us laugh about love… again. In addition, Ben Edlund (creator of the Tick and one of the driving forces behind the show) has moved on to Joss Whedon’s production company where he worked on also-canceled shows Angel (ouch) and Firefly (double ouch.) Today he writes for Supernatural, among other things, a show which is… well, not entirely unwatchable is perhaps the most honest endorsement…

#3. The Xtacles/Frisky Dingo

Frisky Dingo was one of Adult Swim’s eleven-minute marvels. Unique among Williams Street fare, consequences and plot lines carried over from episode to episode, making each season something of a saga. The writing was rich with wit and verve and lovingly skewered pop culture without referencing old video games and DuckTales with every third line of dialogue. It revolved largely around a supervillain named Killface, a small businessman and single father trying to provide a loving home life for his son while trying diligently to drive the Earth into the sun with his doomsday device. Killface’s comic foil was his ostensible arch-enemy and sometime best friend Xander Crews, also the superhero Awesome X.

So awesome that you're probably gonna go blind.

With a rich ensemble cast (including rapper Killer Mike) and increasingly batshit storylines the show managed to stay fresh through the end of the second season. Like the first season, the second ended with a cliffhanger and set up a third season/spinoff, the Xtacles, focusing on Awesome X’s Stormtrooper-esque sidekicks.

Why It Was Shitcanned

7030, the animation studio producing the show, closed its doors in the middle of production for as-yet-undisclosed reasons (presumably financial) and Adult Swim announced that the Xtacles would be canceled with the second episode. This news came just days after the release of the Season 2 DVD, meaning the Xtacles episodes produced are lost to the ages (and probably TiVo.)

Silver Lining

There’s not much of one, except that some of the 7030 crew are currently working on a show for the FX network.

#4. The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

To much of the internet, Bruce Campbell is a golden god who can do no wrong, a reputation earned through his appearance in genre-mixing cult fare with a strong sense of humor and a lot of physical comedy (oh, and the fact that people are usually high when they watch his movies.) That same description sums up The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. perfectly. A wild west romp with some sci-fi trappings (much like the television show Wild Wild West before it) the show has plenty of opportunity for Campbell to show off his physical prowess in bar brawls and pratfalls, with the tone of the humor hovering somewhere between Indiana Jones and Blazing Saddles. All this only months after the release of Army of Darkness? Awesome.

ABOVE: Bruce Cambell, sitting down to breakfast.

Why It Was Shitcanned

For its entire life the show ran on Friday, which is pretty much instant death for any show as Friday and Saturday night ratings are and have always been abysmal. Shows which premiere on or are moved to Friday or Saturday nights are pretty much resigned to the grave before the first commercial break.

Something that certainly didn’t help was the fact that there were almost no other westerns on television in 1993. In fact there was only one other western of consequence on television, also in a death slot: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. This aired Saturday nights and hoped to draw much the same audience as Brisco County Jr. did. However, Dr. Quinn’s audience ended up being mostly old fuddy-duddies. The image that much of the public had of the show was that it was something your grandma watched if she couldn’t work the VCR to tape Murder She Wrote episodes and that attitude tainted Brisco County Jr. as well.

Silver Lining

Again, the complete series is now on DVD. In addition, Bruce is currently on USA’s Burn Notice, a witty and sharp show that also suffers from a bit of an image problem. It’s still pretty great, and as a cable original the expectations for its ratings are lower so it takes fewer viewers to succeed.

#5. Mystery Science Theater 3000

MST3K and the internet are practically synonymous so I wouldn’t guess I’d need explain the show, but since it has been off the air for ten years now: a man and two puppets make fun of terrible movies and break up the monotony with sketch comedy. Trust me, it’s better than it sounds. Brainchild of Joel Hodgeson, the series was spirited away from a UHF station in Minnesota to national cable broadcast on the fledgling Comedy Channel, now Comedy Central. The show moved to the Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy, pronounced “Syfy”) in 1996 and, all told, lasted 10 years and 10 seasons, which is as long as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Night Gallery combined.

Why It Was Shitcanned

Comedy Central originally canceled it because, well, it was just about the only original program on their schedule. South Park was still a year away and they were doing just fine running stand-up and old reruns of Soap, the soap opera parody show where Billy Crystal played the multiple personality gay elderly Jew. The show had always taken potshots at Comedy Central itself and gossip suggests the network got tired of it. No big deal, right? Sci-Fi Channel to the rescue!

Or not. The show’s scheduling made it difficult to catch since it was a Saturday show played at different times in the morning, afternoon, or late at night depending on the whims of the scheduling body. What’s more, in an attempt to try and develop more of a fan base for the show Sci-Fi had the writers come up with a stronger story arc that carried over from episode to episode, season to season. Far from engendering Lost-style devotion, some fans found it alienating since the shows were only shown in order as the premiered and then never again, an issue still present on the DVD releases. Ergo, if you tuned in one week ancillary characters Pearl and Observer might be trying to rescue Professor Bobo from his own stupidity in ancient Rome while the next week’s episode has the Observer’s people threatening to dissect everyone with no transition or explanation.

It'd be pretty funny if those episodes HAD logically followed each other, though. In a way. I guess.

Ultimately, though, while the show’s ratings were decent (for Sci-Fi Channel anyhow) the company line at the time of cancelation was an ‘inability to secure advertisers’ which is a little evident in later episodes where every commercial break brought about a plea from Dial soap (soap again!)

Silver Lining

Everybody involved in the show has moved on to other projects, including RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic which also involve the writers sitting around and making fun of bad movies. Since tape trading was a big part of MST3K fandom all of the old episodes are still around and most of them are online in some form, meaning that if you’re a dirty fucking thief you could torrent them (The Last Gaffe does not endorse torrenting MST3K and certainly doesn’t endorse covering big-tittied cheerleaders in whipped cream.)

#6. Futurama

In 1998 I said to a friend of mine, “I don’t care if Matt Groening is doing it, there is no way anything called Futurama will ever be watchable.” Saying something like that today could get me killed in certain parts of the country. Futurama was about everything else as much as it was also about a delivery boy from the 20th century who awoke in the 31st. With a strong stable of writers and less family-oriented stories and gags, Futurama drank deep of the sci-fi and pop culture spoof well. Spaceballs deep. The story of how it met its end is less convoluted than the other entries on this list but I would be kicked out of the internet if I didn’t mention it.

Why It Was Shitcanned

Remember how when The Simpsons or South Park premiered family activist groups started worrying that every child was going to become a delinquent because of what they saw on television? That didn’t happen with Futurama because kids weren’t watching it. A lot of adults weren’t, either. Futurama’s core audience ranged from pop-savvy teens to developmentally-stunted middle-aged fanboys, a far narrower demographic than what The Simpsons was shooting for, which was “everyone.” Though it initially out-performed King of the Hill on a regular basis the ratings tapered off slowly but steadily.

That being said, there are shows about bark mulch more entertaining than King of the Hill.

The old problem of shifting nights didn’t help much and by its fourth season the show was airing irregularly, constantly pre-empted for sporting events. The fifth season was mostly composed of episodes Fox just hadn’t bothered airing from seasons three and four. Futurama was never outright canceled; instead, Fox just let it die on its own and quietly stopped ordering episodes, making the end of Futurama even sadder.

Silver Lining

The show did well in reruns on Adult Swim and when their contract ran out Comedy Central came calling. As an incentive to pick up the show it was suggested that a new sixth season might exist, which was made up of cut-down versions of four direct-to-DVD movies. This “sixth season” has done moderately well on Comedy Central and Futurama airs damn near every night.

Additionally, bolstered by the earnings of The Simpsons Movie, Groening and co. have even suggested the possibility of a theatrical feature if interest appears strong enough. This is surely the gravest issue facing our nation and I’ve no doubt that President Obama is working tirelessly toward this goal.