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All TV shows eventually come to an end (although Mrs. Brown's Boys might disprove this statement, it would probably somehow continue on even if humans became extinct) and usually it is for one of three reasons.
It could best be illustrated by means of a three circle Venn Diagram, where the red circle is TV shows axed due to low ratings, the blue circle for TV shows that reach their natural end and the yellow circle for TV shows discontinued due to high production costs. Of course, the green, orange and purple intersections of the Venn Diagram would contain shows cancelled for two of these reasons, and the black interior where all three meet might contain the odd show that ended for all three reasons, however this would be rare and I can't name any off hand.
But what of the TV shows that meet their demise for reasons other than these, and are the teal, indigo, pink, brown, grey, vermillion and apricot dots that fall outside of the Venn diagram?
One would be US sitcom Gilligan's Island, which was a huge hit with viewers and rated well. However studio executives apparently hated the show, and in a classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face, cancelled the sitcom on a cliffhanger to reallocate the budget and try and save the western 'Gunsmoke', which was failing to get ratings as the market for TV shows and movies set in the Old West had severely declined by the mid-late 1960s.
Across the Atlantic in the UK and over a decade later, Southern Television successfully adapted Enid Blyton's 'Famous Five' novels to a TV show set in the modern era. It isn't always easy to adapt source material from years earlier to a contemporary setting, but the producers of the 'Famous Five' TV show did it well and it rated very well in 1978 and 1979. By 1980, all of the books considered adaptable to the present day had been done so (some such as those set expressly in the Second World War were deemed unadaptable) and with a hit TV show on their hands everyone was keen to continue with a third series. But there was an unexpected legal problem. The late Enid Blyton had included in the rights to her works a provision that no new works could be written using these characters, so the writers were unable to write new Famous Five stories for the show and the series regretfully had to be cancelled.
Here in Australia, there were three particularly bizarre TV show cancellations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, two resulting in controversies well-remembered to this day.
When 'It's A Knockout' was cancelled by Ten in 1987 it was still rating well, but apparently complaints by residents about noise and traffic issues around where the show was filmed in Northern Sydney led to the seemingly puzzling decision by the network to end it. One strange thing about this show was that one could compete in it if one was from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia with the ACT able to compete with NSW, but teams from Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania could not participate on the show.
In 1992, Channel 9 screened what turned out to be the world's shortest lived TV show, a 90 minute special called 'Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos' hosted by Doug Mulray, which featured videos sent in considered too risque for 'Australia's Funniest Home Videos' with an amusing commentary by Mulray. What could possibly go wrong? Well, Channel 9 Chairman Kerry Packer saw the show and wasn't laughing, and called Channel 9 requesting transmission cease. Well, that's a bit of an understatement, Packer was apparently incandescent with rage and issued the order, 'Get this shit off the air!' and so off the air it went, replaced by a re-run of Cheers, with numerous people involved in the production finding themselves looking for new jobs the next day, Mulray himself banned from Nine for life although this was lifted after Kerry Packer died in 2005.
Strangest of all though may be the axing of Channel 7's morning children's show 'Fat Cat and Friends' in 1991. In that year - the show's 20th on air - the Children's Program Committee, a board within the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal conducted a review of the show which resulted in it losing the essential 'P' classification to broadcast a show for pre-school children. A perceived lack of educational value was one of the main reasons for this (seriously, were they supposed to be teaching the kids logrithams, calculus and trigonometry?), low production values and concerns about the Fat Cat character himself. Rather than change the show, Channel 7 ended Fat Cat and Friends from the end of 1991, and from 1992 a new kids show 'The Book Place' would replace it and run until the early 2000s.
While the decision to axe Fat Cat and Friends was highly controversial and debate could continue for ages about the reasons for doing so, one never hears of the now-defunct Children's Program Committee targeting other shows at the time like they did with Fat Cat. For example, the 'Humphrey Bear' show over on the Nine Network which was similar in format and featured a mute bear that didn't wear pants was allowed to continue until 2009, when kids born in Fat Cat's last year would have turned 18. Or 'Mulligrubs' over on Channel 10 which definitely had low production values, had limited educational value and seemed only to scare kids had no such problems and continued on to 1997, only to forever haunt the dreams of Australian kids born circa 1984-1994.
So which TV shows from the past do you remember being cancelled for strange reasons?
It could best be illustrated by means of a three circle Venn Diagram, where the red circle is TV shows axed due to low ratings, the blue circle for TV shows that reach their natural end and the yellow circle for TV shows discontinued due to high production costs. Of course, the green, orange and purple intersections of the Venn Diagram would contain shows cancelled for two of these reasons, and the black interior where all three meet might contain the odd show that ended for all three reasons, however this would be rare and I can't name any off hand.
But what of the TV shows that meet their demise for reasons other than these, and are the teal, indigo, pink, brown, grey, vermillion and apricot dots that fall outside of the Venn diagram?
One would be US sitcom Gilligan's Island, which was a huge hit with viewers and rated well. However studio executives apparently hated the show, and in a classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face, cancelled the sitcom on a cliffhanger to reallocate the budget and try and save the western 'Gunsmoke', which was failing to get ratings as the market for TV shows and movies set in the Old West had severely declined by the mid-late 1960s.
Across the Atlantic in the UK and over a decade later, Southern Television successfully adapted Enid Blyton's 'Famous Five' novels to a TV show set in the modern era. It isn't always easy to adapt source material from years earlier to a contemporary setting, but the producers of the 'Famous Five' TV show did it well and it rated very well in 1978 and 1979. By 1980, all of the books considered adaptable to the present day had been done so (some such as those set expressly in the Second World War were deemed unadaptable) and with a hit TV show on their hands everyone was keen to continue with a third series. But there was an unexpected legal problem. The late Enid Blyton had included in the rights to her works a provision that no new works could be written using these characters, so the writers were unable to write new Famous Five stories for the show and the series regretfully had to be cancelled.
Here in Australia, there were three particularly bizarre TV show cancellations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, two resulting in controversies well-remembered to this day.
When 'It's A Knockout' was cancelled by Ten in 1987 it was still rating well, but apparently complaints by residents about noise and traffic issues around where the show was filmed in Northern Sydney led to the seemingly puzzling decision by the network to end it. One strange thing about this show was that one could compete in it if one was from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia with the ACT able to compete with NSW, but teams from Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania could not participate on the show.
In 1992, Channel 9 screened what turned out to be the world's shortest lived TV show, a 90 minute special called 'Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos' hosted by Doug Mulray, which featured videos sent in considered too risque for 'Australia's Funniest Home Videos' with an amusing commentary by Mulray. What could possibly go wrong? Well, Channel 9 Chairman Kerry Packer saw the show and wasn't laughing, and called Channel 9 requesting transmission cease. Well, that's a bit of an understatement, Packer was apparently incandescent with rage and issued the order, 'Get this shit off the air!' and so off the air it went, replaced by a re-run of Cheers, with numerous people involved in the production finding themselves looking for new jobs the next day, Mulray himself banned from Nine for life although this was lifted after Kerry Packer died in 2005.
Strangest of all though may be the axing of Channel 7's morning children's show 'Fat Cat and Friends' in 1991. In that year - the show's 20th on air - the Children's Program Committee, a board within the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal conducted a review of the show which resulted in it losing the essential 'P' classification to broadcast a show for pre-school children. A perceived lack of educational value was one of the main reasons for this (seriously, were they supposed to be teaching the kids logrithams, calculus and trigonometry?), low production values and concerns about the Fat Cat character himself. Rather than change the show, Channel 7 ended Fat Cat and Friends from the end of 1991, and from 1992 a new kids show 'The Book Place' would replace it and run until the early 2000s.
While the decision to axe Fat Cat and Friends was highly controversial and debate could continue for ages about the reasons for doing so, one never hears of the now-defunct Children's Program Committee targeting other shows at the time like they did with Fat Cat. For example, the 'Humphrey Bear' show over on the Nine Network which was similar in format and featured a mute bear that didn't wear pants was allowed to continue until 2009, when kids born in Fat Cat's last year would have turned 18. Or 'Mulligrubs' over on Channel 10 which definitely had low production values, had limited educational value and seemed only to scare kids had no such problems and continued on to 1997, only to forever haunt the dreams of Australian kids born circa 1984-1994.
So which TV shows from the past do you remember being cancelled for strange reasons?
