Better Off Ted
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Better Off Ted was Victor Fresco’s brilliant single-camera workplace comedy that ran for two seasons totaling 26 episodes before being canceled by ABC. Like Arrested Development, Ted was probably just a few years ahead of its time — too smart, too fast, too satirical for a network audience.
Set at the offices of Veridian Dynamics, the story follows the work lives of its well-meaning employees who try to maintain their sanity and morality while clocking in every day at a comically evil megacorporation.
The show is relentlessly charming, starting with lead Jay Harrington who also serves as the show’s narrator.
Don’t Trust The B—- In Apartment 23
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Another wildly funny comedy taken too soon, Don’t Trust the B was an ABC single-camera sitcom that ran for 26 episodes and starred Krysten Ritter, Dreama Walker, Eric Andre, and James Van Der Beek.
While the show is ostensibly about mean girl Chloe and her new plucky yet naive roommate June, the former star of Dawson’s Creek completely steals the show. Playing a fictionalized version of himself, Van Der Beek pulls no punches lampooning a typical self-involved Hollywood actor. A standout multi-episode arc in the second season where James competes on Dancing with the Stars provided some of the biggest laughs on network TV in 2012. It’s a shame that no one was watching.
Firefly
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I can’t make this list without mentioning Joss Whedon’s short-lived but much-beloved science fiction Western series. While the show was only aired on Fox for a few months, the show had a second life on DVD allowing fans to see all 14 produced episodes (only 11 were initially aired). The show had a stellar ensemble cast, amazing effects for the time, sharp writing, and some of the best music and visual effects of the era.
Amazingly, the cultural footprint of Firefly was big enough that Whedon was able to produce a follow-up feature film, Serenity, released in theaters in 2005.
Stella
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Stella was a 2005 Comedy Central sketch comedy series starring three The State alumni David Wain, Michael Showalter, and Michael Ian Black.
The trio began performing in 1997 as Stella. By the early 2000s bootleg DVDs of their short films that would play during the intermission of their live shows gained cult status among comedy nerds.
Only lasting 10 episodes, the Stella series would build off of those films, now blown out into 22-minute episodes. Essentially live-action cartoons, the absurdity is dialed up to eleven and often it feels like David and the Michaels are making a show only to amuse themselves (our enjoyment is just a side effect). It is wonderful.
Clerks: The Animated Series
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Clerks: The Animated Series was based on writer and director Kevin Smith’s debut feature film of the same name, and while it has since gained a cult following, only two episodes of the show ever aired on ABC before it was canceled.
The show reunited the cast of the original film to voice their animated characters, and Smith and his team expanded upon the show’s original slacker-cum-philosopher premise taking our two leads out of the convenience store and into the larger zany world of Leonardo, New Jersey.
Though Smith has said he would like to produce a film follow-up, as of this publishing that has yet to materialize.
Freaks and Geeks
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There is arguably an entire era of mainstream American feature film comedies that never get made were it not for the existence of Freaks and Geeks. Created by Paul Feig and executive produced by Judd Apatow, the show launched the careers of actors like Seth Rogan, James Franco, Martin Starr, Jason Segal, Linda Cardelliini, and Busy Phillips.
Set in 1980 in Chippewa, Michigan, the NBC series was canceled after only airing 12 of its 18 produced episodes. Still, the show has a rabid, loyal fanbase that holds it up as one of the greatest television shows of all time.
The Ben Stiller Show
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The Ben Stiller Show was a groundbreaking, hilarious sketch comedy series that initially aired on MTV for a dozen episodes before getting a brief run on Fox. Though the show was never able to find an audience and was quickly canceled, it would go on to win an Emmy for Outstanding Writing that same year.
In addition to Stiller, the show also featured Andy Dick, Jeanine Garofalo, and Bob Odenkirk and had a writing staff that featured talents such as David Cross, Judd Apatow and Dino Stamatopoulos.
The MTV episodes are lost media and have never been released to the public as physical media. Perhaps someday that might change.
The Grinder
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Starring Rob Lowe, Fred Savage, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis, The Grinder was a show that, like many on this list, was critically acclaimed but could never find an audience. The sitcom ran for only one season on Fox before it was canceled.
The show was named after the fictional courtroom procedural that Rob Lowe’s character was the star of before it ended. He returned home to help his brother run the family law firm (whether he liked it or not). The silliness of the title is acknowledged within the reality of the show, though if you don’t watch then you wouldn’t know that.
Like Don’t Trust the B, many episodes are stolen by an actor playing a fictional version of himself, this time Timothy Olyphant who serves as Lowe’s nemesis in the series.
Other Space
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Remember Yahoo! Screen? No? Well don’t worry, nobody else does either. It was supposed to be the Yahoo! answer to YouTube, and in 2015, expanded to include original series produced specifically for the platform.
Created by Paul Feig, Other Space was one of those series, with eight episodes produced in its first and only season. Set in the future, the Star Trek-esque comedy followed a dysfunctional crew lost in an unknown galaxy. The show had a stellar cast, sharp writing, and an intriguing premise that could have sustained itself for years. Unfortunately, the future of the show went away with the platform. Thankfully, every episode is preserved on YouTube, and if you haven’t watched the show you should remedy that immediately.
Swamp Thing
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Before HBO Max (now just Max) Warner Media and DC attempted to launch a streaming service, DC Universe, that would feature comics, the catalog of DC IP film and television series — as well as original content produced for the platform.
Swamp Thing, based on the comic of the same name, is the best thing that came out of that failed venture. The show was wildly expensive, and that along with internal politics at Warner was likely the reason that the show was immediately declared canceled shortly after the release of the first episode. The remaining 9 episodes would be released on the platform (and get a run on CW) but it must have been a blow to the production team who were receiving nothing but glowing reviews for their bold, challenging series.
