It’s upfronts season in the US, which means that all the big networks are getting their ducks in order, and announcing which shows they’ll be cancelling and which will survive to entertain and delight us for another year. Yesterday, we reported that Community will not be coming back. Today Rebel Wilson‘s Super Fun Night joins the pile of cancelled shows. The American ABC network gave the struggling sitcom the axe after one season.
Super Fun Night was meant to be Aussie comedian Wilson’s big break into US television, following her turns in smash hits Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect. She wrote, produced and starred in the show, playing a shy, overweight lawyer named Kimmy, who vows to start living life to the fullest and taking her two nerdy besties out on the town each Friday night. The series, however, was troubled from the very beginning.
Ratings were low from the start, and Wilson had to drastically tone down her particular raunchy brand of comedy for the family network. The resulting show was a relatively toothless affair that struggled to find humour and focus. At the last minute, lacking faith in the show’s pilot, ABC decided to show the episodes out of order, meaning that the whole concept of a ‘Super Fun Night’ was never actually explained until somewhat late in the show’s run.
The problems didn’t end there. The series was also hampered by the fact that Rebel Wilson, as funny as she is, can not do an American accent for shit, and listening to her try it was an intensely painful experience. There was some vague talk of retooling the show for a second season, but with poor ratings and negative buzz, the writing was on the wall well before the cancellation announcement.
In some ways, the cancellation of Super Fun Night is a good thing for Rebel Wilson. Her movie career is still going strongly, with Pitch Perfect 2 due out next year, so if she wants to take another crack at a TV series, she’s now free to do it on a cable network that will let her do something a little more warts-and-all.
Goodbye, Super Fun Night, we hardly knew ye, and cared even less.
via AV Club
Photo: Astrid Stawiarz via Getty Images
