Dumb Reasons These TV Shows Were Canceled

We all love TV, and we've all got lists of our favorite shows—including the ones that, whether it was because of low ratings or other outside factors, ended up getting their plugs pulled and leaving the airwaves before we were ready to see them go. Regardless of your favorite genres, every television fan eventually grows accustomed to the pain of seeing their favorite series canceled, and we've all seen shows die because of the usual ratings, budget, or cast problems. Sometimes, though, the plug gets pulled for reasons that were totally avoidable—and sometimes even downright dumb. We've taken a look back into TV history and rounded up a list of some of the most senseless cancellations networks ever committed to—and even if you're a hardcore television fan, the inside stories of some of these show endings may surprise you. Here's everything you need to know about the dumb reasons TV shows were canceled.

Few places are scarier than hospitals, so when horror maestro Stephen King made a deal with ABC to write and produce the haunted medical drama Kingdom Hospital, it seemed like fright fans could be in for a classic in the making. Sadly, the show's sole season was kind of a mess—not on the screen, where it turned out a solid batch of episodes that earned a handful of Emmy nominations, but behind the scenes, where struggles between King and the network doomed its odds of renewal. Convinced ABC wasn't doing enough to promote Kingdom Hospital, King went out of pocket for a print ad campaign, only to see his efforts foiled when execs bumped the show to a different timeslot. No stranger to Hollywood turmoil, King learned yet again that while ghosts are scary, what's truly terrifying is trying to put together a hit TV series.

Casting turnover is a fact of life for TV showrunners, who routinely have to come up with novel ideas of getting around the loss of a major star. Few have done so more brazenly—or less successfully—than BBC One's Robin Hood. Series star Jonas Armstrong decided to vacate the role of Robin after the show's third season, and instead of recasting, producers opted to kill off the character. Since they'd already killed off Robin's love Maid Marian, that left the supporting cast to carry the show—and although Robin Hood's writing staff was willing to try a revamp, the network decided there wasn't any point in continuing.

It isn't easy to put together a hit series, so when Warner Bros. hit paydirt with their Cartoon Network show Young Justice—which posted triple-digit ratings increases for its time period on the channel—it would seem safe to assume they'd want much more than two seasons. Alas, the studio pulled the plug after a mere 46 episodes, prompting fan outcry and widespread speculation. Many believed Warner Bros. axed Young Justice because it wasn't popular enough with young boys, but the real reason is just as frustrating. Funding for the show, which was based on younger versions of DC Comics characters, was largely drawn from a merchandising tie-in deal for Young Justice action figures—and when low sales killed the toy line, the show quickly followed suit.

Lots of movies are made out of TV shows, but the three Naked Gun! movies probably mark the first time a successful series of films were spawned from an incredibly unpopular TV show. After the silly joke-a-minute disaster movie parody Airplane! became a cultural phenomenon in 1980, writer-directors Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker developed a similarly-styled cop show parody for ABC called Police Squad! starring Leslie Nielsen as Lt. Frank Drebin. Like Airplane!, the jokes were fired in a nonstop barrage, with sight gags and recurring bits contributing to an incredibly dense level of zaniness. That level of detail—and audience expectation—has never been typical of television, particularly when Police Squad! hit the airwaves in 1982, and the show subsequently flopped. (A similar ambition—and premature cancellation—befell Arrested Development two decades later.)

Police Squad! was pulled from ABC's schedule after just four episodes, with the last two episodes airing over the summer. Low ratings were the direct culprit for the show's demise, but ABC president Tony Thomopoulos was surprisingly (and amusingly) frank about why people weren't tuning in, telling a reporter that "the viewer had to watch it to appreciate it." Apparently that wasn't the case with ABC's other shows at the time, like Happy Days and The Love Boat.

Chicago-based WGN was a cable TV staple for decades, delivering sitcom reruns and Chicago Cubs games to viewers around the country. In 2009, the station rebranded as WGN America, a general-interest station in the mold of USA or TNT that soon started producing high-quality scripted dramas—including Underground, centered around the Underground Railroad, the 19th century network of abolitionists that helped slaves escape the South.

Underground brought critical acclaim and some of the best ratings WGN America had ever seen. Despite its success, it was canceled in 2017 after two seasons. Peter Kern, president and CEO of WGN America corporate parent Tribune Media, said that while Underground was "a terrific and important series, it no longer fits with our new direction."

That new direction: no more scripted original series at all. WGN America also scrapped the Appalachian drama Outsiders, and when that show got the axe, Kern said the network would be "reallocating our resources to a more diverse programming strategy." That reallocation was at the behest of executives at Sinclair Broadcast Group, which was in the process of acquiring WGN America and all of Tribune.

"The channel could be run much more profitably on a fraction of what they spend on programming," Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley told the Wall Street Journal. In other words, Outsiders and Underground—which cost a reported $5 million an episode—were too expensive.

Did LeVar Burton's beloved PBS series leave the air after 26 years because kids today are too addicted to their gadgets to be interested in a dumb old book? Not at all. Budget restrictions forced the cancellation of Reading Rainbow in 2009 because it wasn't educational ... in the right way.

It all started with the No Child Left Behind Act. Signed into law in 2002, it sought to establish new educational benchmarks for American kids, many of which would be measured with standardized tests results. It certainly sounds noble, but it had the side effectof encouraging schools to "teach to the test" and focus on quantifiable subjects, like math skills and reading skills. Not so easy to test: a love of reading, which is what Reading Rainbow helped inspire for countless viewers during its lengthy run. But hope is not lost: thanks to an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign, Burton's Rainbow is poised for a 21st-century comeback.