I have four off the top of my head, ranked in order of # of episodes:
Andy Richter Controls the Universe (19 episodes)
I am in the middle of watching this now on Netflix. On the one hand, I am laughing so hard that it hurts sometimes. On the other hand, I realize that they only made 19 episodes! For those who have never seen it, here is a brief sampler:
Battlestar Galactica (which I loved) got 73 episodes, whle this Joss Whedon masterpiece got only 14? WTF? Here are the opening credits. Everyone sing along now: “Take my love, take my land…”
Wonderfalls (14 episodes, only 4 of which ever aired)
Quirky yet hilarious show about a girl who receive messages from objects at the Niagra Falls gift shop in which she works. Sounds stupid? It’s anything but. Here is a sampler:
4. Police Squad (6 frickin’ episodes!)
Hey, at least it spawned a whole bunch of Naked Gun movies and kept OJ Simpson out of trouble. Here is the intro:
You gotta love a 1982 show that brags that it is filmed IN COLOR!
What are your other nominees? Try to include a You-tube clip if you can.
Two Judd Apatow series. Freaks and Geeks was cancelled after only twelve episodes aired, although eighteen were completed. Undeclared was cancelled after fifteen episodes aired although seventeen were produced.
Because Fox totally mishandled the show, then gave up on it when it didn’t build an audience quickly enough.
My nominee:
Pushing Daises – technically doesn’t qualify, at 22 episodes, but the last 3 were aired months after ABC cancelled it. The writers’ strike cut its first season short, and its ratings never rebounded in its second season.
Action. 13 episodes filmed, only eight aired. Blackest of all black comedies.
Once a Hero – terrific metafictional superhero series that in many ways had many of the elements that made Joss Whedon’s plotting so clever. Three episodes aired.
Jake 2.0, which could be considered Chuck 1.0, or a modern rip-off of the Six Million Dollar Man. 16 episodes were produced, and it was broadcast on UPN from August 2003 to January 2004. I liked it quite a lot and if I remember correctly, I posted a thread whining about it being cancelled on this board when it happened.
Norman Lear produced a sitcom in 1992-1993 called POWERS THAT BE about a dysfunctional political family in D.C… The father (John Forsythe) was a senator married to an ice queen Lady MacBeth (Holland Taylor); their daughter (Valerie Mahaffey) was the neurotic whining wife of a suicidal Congressman (David Hyde Pierce) who was in love with his in-laws maid. A very young Joseph Gordon Levitt played the grandson. Everybody was having affairs or trying to and yet the perfect family for appearances. (Surprisingly for a man as liberal as Lear, the family was Democrat.)
I may think differently if I saw it again now but at the time I thought it was hysterical. The episode in which John Forsythe is accidentally shot in the butt by his suicidal son-in-law and his wife decides to shoot him again in a more strategic location that can be blamed on terrorists was one of those “you have to see it to understand” moments but was comic genius.
Today the show’s mainly famous for the fact that producers of Frasier, then still an uncast (other than Kelsey Grammer obviously) Cheers spin-off in formation, watched it and dropped their jaws at Pierce’s resemblance to Grammer, and wrote the brother character for him.
Kitchen Confidential – some may argue against it being “great” but it was quite funny and had a lot of potential. It was another series mishandled by FOX and killed prematurely. It may also been slightly ahead of the curve in terms of the demand for restaurant-themed TV. There were 13 eps made, only 8 aired I think. The full 18, plus some extras, are now on a DVD. Several cast members are more famous now than they were when it was made …
P.S. While it is “based on” Anthony Bourdain’s book of the same name, in fact it bears only the vaguest whiff of a resemblance to what he wrote.
Wizards and Warriors…only 8 episodes. Airplane! style humor in a fantasy setting, though I haven’t seen it for 20 years and my memories of its humor greatness may have drifted.
It’s Your Move lasted only 18 episodes, and the second half was sort of gelded when the suits worried about the success of juvenile con-man Matt’s tricks and Made the Mom Find Out. In the meantime, though, there was a great performance by Jason Bateman as the lead, a basically good but very manipulative and clever kid, and fine support from his best friend Adam Sandowsky, pretty but dim Mom Caren Kaye, Broadway character actor Ernie Sabella, and shallow but equally clever popular sister Tricia Cast.
The creators, Michael Moye and Ron Leavitt, stayed together writing and took many of the writers along to ther next project, a little trifle called Married…with Children than ran for eleven season. They also took along another fine Broadway actor, David Garrison, who played Matt’s adult nemesis and (widowed) mother’s boyfriend, and was cast as the much less confident but more successful (at least at first) Steve Rhoades.
I think we could get a full thread just limiting it to FOX.
The Ben Stiller Show. Cancelled 12 episodes into its first season (the last show was unaired) and wins an Emmy for Best Comedy Writing. My favorite skit was Die Hard 12 (terrorists take over a grocery store for the Christmas coupons).
Well, I love THE PRISONER, but it’s British and a great many of their shows run for one or two short seasons. I wouldn’t say that FAWLTY TOWERS or THE OFFICE UK was “cancelled” after their creators were pretty much done after twelve episodes.
I adored THE JOB and ACTION too. IT’S YOUR MOVE, however, was NBC, not Fox.
