pnjtony said:
we can thank DVD sales for the return of Futurama and Family Guy
The return of Futurama??????
Love to see it, doubt it'll happen.
Anyhow, the Fox defenders are barking up the wrong tree, IMO. Not only has Fox cancelled the quality shows mentioned earlier, they've cancelled them despite varying combinations of:
- critical success
- poor promotion
- scheduling craziness (i.e.: shifting a show multiple times so no one can find it)
- unfair shakes (pulling a show that didn't have a chance to build an audience)
I think some of it has to do with network politics. Malcolm in the Middle, for example, is a good enough show. I'm not a big fan, but it's fine. But clearly, it won an audience on the backs of the Simpsons while sentencing Futurama to a spotty, post-football timeslot. King of the Hill also got a boost from its Simpsons connection. You'd think Futurama would have done well if it was on an adjacent-to-Simpsons time slot.
Says creator Matt Groening of Cartoon Network: "It's so refreshing to have a network that appreciates the show."
...and of Fox: "The people at Fox didn't ever support the show and it wasn't to their taste and, in my opinion, they're out of their minds. [...]
The fans loved (Futurama), but they couldn't find it. It never got promoted. The fans delivered a petition with 130,000 signatures and there was no reaction from Fox.
We won the Emmy for best animated show a few months ago and I didn't even get a begrudging phone call from anyone at Fox. That's a dark company that they can't even make a fake phone call."
Firefly and Wonderfalls both got an early axe. I never watched Wonderfalls, but it seemed to me that there were an awful lot of people in the media writing an awful lot of nice things about it, but the message didn't have time to get out.
Meanwhile, NBC crippled the ratings of another SickBoy favorite in Newsradio with massive timeslot shifting to the point where you had to be psychic to figure out when it'd be on. Yet they stuck with it for several good seasons, and it kicked the bucket because more likely because of Phil Hartman's untimely death than ratings. (NBC has also stuck behind Scrubs, which hardly tears up the ratings).
I think it lends some credibility to a network to stick behind a quality show that has mediocre ratings. Let the shows mature, let them find their pace, and run a decent course. Fox, on the other hand, seems more content to pile up second-rate content and slap it into the schedule in hopes that they'll unleash a monster hit. Obviously isn't doing so hot, since they're firmly entrenched at #4 in the ratings this year. Good for the viewers.
Seinfeld, it's said, struggled through its first three years, and became a water-cooler talk for the rest of its run. I'm not saying that any of these shows have been destined to do that, but it takes time to build an audience....
