Friday the 13th isn’t the only Friday we’re celebrating this week!
It was Friday night, but sometimes the mood wasn’t right.
If you’re wondering how in the world a show like Fuller House gets to exist, you’re probably under 25. There was a time where Friday nights on ABC was the place to be, but a block that lasted that long had to have its missteps. Read on to see what shows couldn’t even make it past the first season despite being on what was once the hottest block on TV!
This list is ordered by a very scientific formula considering ridiculousness, quality, and chance of success had it continued. Of course when you’re talking canceled shows, some of them are just plain duds — especially in a time when inoffensive, milquetoast white people were the easiest way to make a cynical cash grab on primetime network TV. The bottom of this list is filled with that stuff, but press on through the Matthew Perry vehicles, because I promise there’s some wild stuff that ABC considered not fit for Friday nights.
#15 Married to the Kellys (2003) – 23 Episodes
Remember when we all thought Breckin Meyer was gonna hit it big? It made perfect sense at the time; good looking guy, kinda funny, knew his niche. And then he seems to have either been slowly pushed out of the spotlight by Hollywood, or realized it was way more fun to screw around with his friends on projects like Robot Chicken.
A New York born-and-raised loner (Meyer) marries a midwest gal (Kiele Sanchez, best known for being in a two-way tie for the worst LOST character) and is inducted into her big down home family. Remember Reba? They were trying to do Reba. MttK was part of the revitalized TGIF lineup along with Hope and Faith and Life With Bonnie and really just had nothing going for it. It was picked up for the full season, but was unceremoniously canceled after the ordered 23 episodes.
Just watch Rat Race again.
Canceled too soon? Nah!
#14 Home Free (1993) – 13 Episodes (2 unaired)
Without a doubt the show that began Matthew Perry’s coke habit, Home Free was about a free-spirited, but lazy 22-year-old journalist who needs to quit living the easy life and learn some responsibility when his recently divorced sister and her two 13-year-old kids move back home. Half the show was about Perry struggling to be a good role model for his niece and nephew while the other half took place at the newspaper where he works with Brooke Theiss and Dan Schneider.
The show started in the hammock slot between The Wonder Years and Home Improvement, but was put on a five week hiatus after only five episodes and was canceled. It was then revived and moved to the 9:30 death slot on TGIF, which is a frequently held spot by many of the shows on this list.
Honestly, this show is entirely unremarkable other than being Perry’s last show before hitting it big on Friends and the sweet yacht rock theme song performed by Christopher Cross.
Canceled too soon? Nah!
#13 Odd Man Out (1999) – 13 Episodes
Can a MAN learn to live in a house of ONLY WOMEN!? Apparently not in thirteen episodes.
Odd Man Out closed the doors on the original TGIF as it was the last original sitcom premiered on the block. It was replaced by the reality show Making the Band before the whole thing was shuttered later that year. ABC really pushed this show with ads showing young girls screaming “EVD!” in reference to the show’s star Erik von Detten. After a remake of Escape to Witch Mountain, the Disney Channel original movie Brink!, and this he was supposed to be Disney’s next initialed heart throb like JTT (Jonathon Taylor Thomas). That didn’t take and he went on to be a voice actor and have some bit parts on other unremarkable sitcoms.
Canceled too soon? Nah!
#12 Billy (1992) – 13 Episodes
You may remember Billy Connolly was on Head of the Class for a season, but I KNOW you forgot he got a spinoff. If you ever knew in the first place.
He’s been relocated from his Manhattan Head of the Class teaching job to a community college in Berkeley, California. Unfortunately, his work permit has expired and he could get deported! So Billy enters a sham marriage with a single mom played by Marie Marshall and moves into their basement. However, the lodging comes with some rules. No drinking, no smoking, no pets, and no SEX!
13 episodes of wacky adventures ensue while Billy dodges the immigration officials who make sure their marriage is on the up and up. That whole topic was way more fun before our current president entered office. Other than the awkwardness of that issue being the main thrust of the show, the only reason to even give it a second look is to see a young Johnny Galecki right before he hit it big with Roseanne (and Suicide Kings!).
Canceled too soon? NAH!
#11 Brother’s Keeper (1998) – 23 Episodes
After the mistake of morphing TGIF into a weird supernatural teen comedy block, ABC decided to bite off a piece of that Must See TV nugget that was paying dividends over at NBC. They greenlit Brother’s Keeper, a slightly raunchier, and more down to Earth show than TGIF was used to around this time.
Bobby has just been signed to the 49ers as a placekicker (wait, another San Francisco show?), but his reputation as a bad boy means he’s contractually obligated to live with someone with a bit more structure to their life. So he moves in with his boring college history professor brother Porter (William Ragsdale) and his son Oscar (the kid who played Jim Carrey’s son in Liar Liar). Bobby’s schoolboy antics build tension between him and his brother as they struggle to find a balance in raising his so-It’s Two and a Half Men. It’s just Two And A Half Men, but a few years earlier.
ABC clearly had a lot more faith in this show than most others on this list. It ran for a full 23 episodes and featured a slew of guest stars including Bill Maher, Elizabeth Berkley, Illeana Douglas, Henry Kissinger, Jack Klugman, Piper Laurie, John Michael Higgins, Karl Malone, Al Michaels, and Tony Randall.
Canceled too soon? Nah!
#10 Camp Wilder (1992) – 20 Episodes (1 unaired)
I was really hoping this would turn out to be a vanity project for Gene Wilder, but no it’s just a vehicle for Jerry O’Connell also featuring pre-SNL Jay Mohr, pre-Million Dollar Baby Hillary Swank, pre-Napoleon Dynamite Tina Majorino, and pre-Everyone In Hollywood Hates Me Jared Leto. Oh hey, that’s still pretty good.
After 28-year-old nurse Ricky Wilder’s (Mary Page Keller) parents pass, she’s left to raise her 6-year-old daughter (Majorino), 16-year old brother (O’Connell), and 13-year-old sister (Meghann Halderman) — as well as all of their teenage friends who filter in and out of their house, affectionately nicknamed “Camp Wilder”.
So take a healthy dose of Full House by way of Step By Step, with a dash of Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead, and kinda dump in some Blossom? It’s destined to win! I mean, hey at least it lasted way longer than most show’s on this list.
Canceled too soon? Nah!
#9 Complete Savages (2004) – 20 Episodes
If you’ve been skipping the embedded videos in this article, PLEASE take twenty seconds to watch the intro above. It’s like a fake show characters in a better show watch to make fun of TV. Twenty seconds of a bunch of white people dressed in white, screaming into microphones, and then a dog talks. And it’s created by Mike Scully, the showrunner of The Simpsons from seasons 9 through 12 (the best era). What the hell.
The Mel Gibson produced sho…wait what? Like Mel Gibson Mel Gibson? What the Christ is this show? Keith Carradine is a single dad raising his five unruly sons-goddammit. I can’t even write about this show. Just paint the word “sitcom” on a wall and stare at that. You’ll get the idea. Also Betty White was on it.
Canceled too soon? Nah!
An angel, a genie, a muppet alien, Kevin Hart, and musician Morris Day all have TGIF one-season wonders awaiting on the next page!
Holy shit! I remember watching Two of a Kind one summer on Nickelodeon. They only showed it because Mary Kate and Ashley had an animated show on the same channel.
Fantastic retrospective!
Teen Angel will forever be tied to a specific, pivotal moment in my development as a media consumer. It aired when I was 10. At the time, I devoured any story featuring teens with powers — your Sabrinas, your Alex Macks, your Animorphs, and so on. So naturally, I was SUPER excited for Teen Angel and watched it religiously (har har).
One Friday evening, my mom wanted to watch something else, or maybe she just didn’t want me glued to the TV, but either way, I insisted on watching Teen Angel. She let me put the channel to ABC and sat there while the show started. She watched a bit of it, but then said something like “Ugh, what is this canned laughter? You *like* this? It’s not even funny.” I remember being shocked that she didn’t find it as good as I did. I think it was the first time I realized that a piece of entertainment I really enjoyed could be objectively mediocre. Humbled, I surrendered the remote at the next commercial break, and ever since then, any mention of Teen Angel makes me nostalgic for that lost innocence.
Anyway, I watched the clip you posted above, and while you’re right that it features bad acting and dullness — along with that cringeworthy couch gag, and the unnecessary Hollywood-based jokes that have nothing to do with the show’s setting –, there are some cute moments. It’s kind of amusing that Rod is defensive about the appearance of nepotism (why would he care?), and hey, a Batman-esque scene transition thingy! Looking back, I think it would have been a MUCH better show if it had been a cartoon and could have pushed the weirdness and dark comedy further. Like… there had to be a conversation where they discussed the times of day when Marty definitely shouldn’t pop into Steve’s room unannounced, right?… I mean… come on.