5 Biggest Fox Animated TV Show Bombs Of All Time

Today, adult-skewing animated shows are everywhere. Every single streamer hosts a slew of animated programs full of profanity and raunchy humor trying to recapture the success of "Rick and Morty," "Smiling Friends," and "Family Guy." When one sits down to watch the best Adult Swim shows of all time, they're watching programs only made possible because the Fox network took a chance on "The Simpsons" in the late 1980s. Homer (Dan Castellaneta), Marge (Julie Kavner), and the rest of the Simpsons family were a revolutionary TV family that sent a vivid message to the world: American adult TV animation was viable. Very viable.

After "The Simpsons" became a phenomenon, the floodgates opened for adult-skewing small screen animated programming. Many of these shows have aired on Fox, including mega-hits like "King of the Hill," "Family Guy," and "Bob's Burgers." However, just because Fox kicked off this revolution doesn't mean every one of these shows has become a cultural sensation. The five biggest Fox animated TV show bombs of all time reflect that not even the network Homer Simpson built has a flawless track record in this realm.

There's countless reasons why these shows missed the mark and ultimately failed. Whatever informed their demise, these animated Fox TV show flops remain haunting cautionary tales.

Jonah Hill's journey from "The 40 Year Old Virgin" to today included his explosion as a leading comedy man in the late 2000s. After "Superbad" put him on the map, Hill was a hot commodity and anchored further motion pictures like "Get Him to the Greek" and "Cyrus." As his star rose, he co-created (alongside Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul) and starred in an animated sitcom about rich and snooty 7-year-old Allen Gregory, whose sheltered life comes crumbling down when he's forced to attend public school. This was a project relying heavily on Hill's star persona to draw folks in.

Unfortunately, reviews for "Allen Gregory" were dreadful, as critics lamented that the program didn't have a sustainable premise or any characters worth getting invested in. Any hopes that the public would like it quickly became laughable. Immediately, the show's dismal viewership ratings careened it into cancellation by December 2011 (less than two months after its October 2011 premiere). With that, "Allen Gregory" was as dead as Hill's big foray into animated sitcoms.

Ironically, "Allen Gregory" debuted a few weeks after the premiere of "Moneyball," the movie that garnered Hill his first Oscar nomination. Of his two fall 2011 creative endeavors, "Moneyball" was much more evocative of Jonah Hill's subsequent forays than this animated dud.

Ask the average person on the street which shows Seth MacFarlane has produced and they'll likely rattle off famous titles "Family Guy," "American Dad!," "The Cleveland Show," and "The Orville." However, part of the untold truth of Seth MacFarlane is that, though he's brought the Fox network countless small screen hits, he's also been connected to a handful of flops. That includes projects like the live-action sitcom duds "The Winner" and "Dads." Not everything MacFarlane touches turns into a "Family Guy-"level phenomenon.

One of MacFarlane's Fox failures was the 2017 show "Bordertown," which was created by "Family Guy" writer and showrunner Mark Hentemann. This show chronicled the exploits of two dueling neighbors, an incompetent Border Patrol agent and a Mexican-American immigrant. Part of the immediate problem with "Bordertown" was its repellant animation style. The character designs were the wrong kind of ugly and not the kind of thing people want to stare at for 22 minutes every week. As the abysmal reviews make apparent, the program's problems went far deeper than just off-putting character models.

Chiefly, the jokes in "Bordertown" simply didn't work. That grave flaw sealed the show's fate and ensured it secured such dismal viewership that "Bordertown" was unceremoniously axed only four months into its debut. Given all the "Family Guy" dough MacFarlane's brought in for Fox, though, the network could certainly withstand such a flop.

"Sit Down, Shut Up" isn't just a notable flop in the pantheon of animated Fox shows. It's also among the biggest animated adult TV show bombs of all time. This outcome is bizarre given that this animated remake of a live-action Australian sitcom was developed by "Arrested Development" creator Mitchell Hurwitz and showran by Josh Weinstein of "The Simpsons." Additionally, its primary cast included Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Henry Winkler, Kristin Chenoweth, Kenan Thompson, Will Forte, and countless other notable names. Surely putting all these people together could produce some memorable chuckles or at least a show that didn't crash and burn.

Instead, the cruelly unfunny "Sit Down, Shut Up" was immediately ignored by audiences. The ratings proved so dreadful for Fox that "Sit Down, Shut Up" was yanked off the air after just four episodes (the remaining nine episodes were unceremoniously dumped on the network later on). Like so many woe begotten Fox animated shows, "Sit Down, Shut Up" mistook pervasive cruelty and raunch for laughs. Given that this was still a broadcast network show confined by the restrictions of airing publicly, "Sit Down, Shut Up" could never take its darkest impulses to the memorable heights of an Adult Swim series.

Working on no level for anybody, "Sit Down, Shut Up" suffering such an embarrassing failure wasn't surprising.

Starting with "Bless the Harts" in 2019, Fox put the pedal to the metal in launching animated TV shows for its Animation Domination exploits. The result was a string of multi-season programs like "The Great North," "Grimsburg," and "Krapopolis" that at least lasted longer than "Napoleon Dynamite." One of the shorter lived endeavors in this shift was "HouseBroken," which explored the lives of various pets residing in Los Angeles, including lead character Honey (Lisa Kudrow). 

Gabrielle Allan, Jennifer Crittenden, and "But I'm a Cheerleader" veteran Clea DuVall all created this program, while one of the most prolific "Simpsons" episode directors, Mark Kirkland, helmed the series premiere. The best dog movies ever made demonstrate the audience demand and creative potential in telling stories about pets. Unfortunately, "HouseBroken" never registered as obedient with critics. More pressingly, "HouseBroken" had difficulty building up a fanbase thanks to the over 18 month-gap between its first and second seasons.

Animated sitcoms like these need to become weekly fixtures in people's lives, not productions like "Severance" with years in between seasons. That problem alone cemented "HouseBroken" as a major misfire and Fox inevitably gave it the ax after two seasons. That was probably for the best, since "HouseBroken" struggled uncovering fresh material out of anthropomorphizing household critters.

"Son of Zorn" is a fascinating anomaly on this list in that it's not fully animated. Though it starred a 2D animated character and featured many animated elements, "Son of Zorn" took place in a live-action world. This mixture of animation and reality fueled a story about He-Man pastiche Zorn (Jason Sudeikis) trying to live a normal life in Orange County, California to reconnect with his son Alan (Johnny Pemberton). He also must contend with his ex-wife Edie (Cheryl Hines) and her new fiancé Craig (Tim Meadows), while working at a local sanitation company.

Hailing from series creators Reed Agnew and Eli Jorné as well as executive producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, "Son of Zorn" attempted to launch a new hit sitcom out of '80s nostalgia and more grounded fish-out-of-water yuks. However, the general response to "Son of Zorn" was that its basic premise wasn't executed with much creativity, originality, or memorable wit. Meanwhile, a show this tricky to pull off (thanks to its integration of animation and live-action) would've needed sky-high ratings to convince Fox to commit to it for the long haul.

Instead, "Son of Zorn" was quietly cancelled in May 2017 after airing just 13 episodes. "Son of Zorn" had a bold vision, but the execution didn't live up to its beefy promise.