The Strangest Reasons Shows Were Renewed

A television show's renewal is typically a straightforward thing: Good ratings, good cast, boom — here's a new contract! Sure, there are bubble shows that get a surprise renewal, and shocking cancellations have definitely been known to happen. Normally, however, things progress in a way fans understand, even if these decisions are based on Nielsen metrics to which the public isn't privy. Nothing special, nothing to report on, no story. 

We're not here to talk about those times, though — we're here to talk about the times when shows got renewed for weird reasons. Who needs ratings when you can get shamed out of cancellation by a political body? Why go quietly into that good night when rumors about one of your stars makes a show too profitable to can? Sometimes, fans even take the power into their own hands and ensure their beloved show's future themselves. We're not just talking about letter writing campaigns or online petitions — that's too pedestrian. We're talking about mailing things to confused network executives and organizing special events with major brands. Who needs ratings when you have these stories? These are the outright strangest ways shows have been brought back from the brink.

On May 15, 2007, CBS announced that they had canceled Jericho. Many observers were surprised, but the show did admittedly have low viewership. It just so happened, however, that those viewers were a passionate bunch, who went on to get the show renewed through peanuts. Not peanuts as in something small or trifling — we're talking about actual, literal peanuts.

Jericho's season finale sees one of the characters exclaim "Nuts!" when something goes awry. Jericho fans used this as a rallying cry. They organized, setting up a campaign on nut vendor Nuts.com, and got to work. In addition to letter writing and creating goofy t-shirts, they raised money to send peanuts to CBS. By early June, it was too big a project for CBS to ignore — both figuratively and literally. The campaign sent almost $55,000 worth of nuts to the network, totaling about 40,000 pounds of peanuts, an estimated 8 million by individual count.

CBS renewed the series and challenged the fans to "recruit new viewers with the same grassroots energy, intensity and volume you have displayed in recent weeks." The show was canceled for the final time at the end of the next season, but the memory of the nut deluge is forever.

In the age of streaming, shows getting revived after cancellation and significant time away is a normal occurrence. Even getting shows back on network TV after years away, like Murphy Brown or Will & Grace, is somewhat common. This was not the case a handful of years ago — if a show was canceled, that was it. So you can understand what a paradigm shift it was when Family Guy got revived in the '00s, thanks DVD sales.

Family Guy ran for three seasons on Fox before getting cancelled in 2002 and airing its final show in 2003. After it wrapped, Cartoon Network showed reruns during Adult Swim ... and Family Guy got the best ratings of the whole block. At the same time, DVD sales exploded: The first volume of episodes was the top selling TV DVD of 2003. 

Fox took a good long look at those numbers, and realized this could be something more than a cult hit. Thus, a revival was greenlit in 2004. As common as this is now, it was strange and baffling to everyone at the time. There was no precedent for DVD sales reviving a show. Fox Home Video executive vice president Peter Staddon said it was "the first time [he'd] seen something like this happen."

The story of the 2010 Tonight Show conflict could fill a book — and it did, in fact. Bill Carter's The War For Late Night gives a thorough rundown of the conflict itself, the aftermath, and the factors that led to the controversy. 

It all started with two strange renewals. As Carter explains it, Fox attempted to lure Conan O'Brien away from NBC for his own 11:35 talk show around 2001. O'Brien declined, partially to protect his body of work at NBC, and partially because he still wanted The Tonight Show. As such, when he negotiated his next contract with NBC, he used the leverage to get a so-called "Princes of Wales clause" — a guarantee that if anything happened to Jay Leno, O'Brien was next in line to host Tonight.

Fast forward a few years to 2004. Leno was due for a new deal, but NBC doesn't want to lose O'Brien. As such, NBC President Jeff Zucker concocted a plan: He'd extend both Leno and O'Brien until 2009. The condition? Leno would leave Tonight at the end of the contract, and O'Brien would take over. Leno was confused, but accepted it, not wanting another messy breakup like he endured when he took over in 1993. This unprecedented and strange double renewal planted the seeds for one of the strangest TV stories of the 2010s.

When David Letterman bolted for CBS after getting cheated out of The Tonight Show, he left an open seat at Late Night. There were several candidates for the spot, including a young Jon Stewart, but the role went to an obscure comedy writer named Conan O'Brien. The show debuted with high expectations in September of 1993, and O'Brien fell miles short of them for roughly the first three years. Critics, audiences, and O'Brien himself would later admit the early years were bad TV.

Why did he keep getting renewed? Because NBC didn't have anyone to replace him.

Things were especially dire that first year, laid out in detail in Bill Carter's book, The War for Late Night. By spring of 1994, Late Night was due for a 26-week renewal — but NBC instead put them on an unprecedented week-to-week contract. Many saw this as de facto cancellation, but they were given a second chance by August largely through dumb luck.

Greg Kinnear hosted Later immediately following Late Night, and the network was keen to move him into the slot — until Kinnear left the talk show world behind to become an actor. Jon Stewart was hosting his own syndicated talk show, so he wasn't open to it. With no obvious candidates available, NBC kept O'Brien around ... who, after finding his footing, proved all the doubters wrong.