10 TV Shows That Led To Other TV Shows Being Cancelled (And Why)

It’s a fate which almost every show awaits, and the looming threat which acts as the great equalizer amongst cult shows with devoted fanbases, runaway megahits, and once-popular series with waning viewerships. Yes, we’re talking about cancellation, the fate which awaits almost every show—save for the rare pre-planned likes of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.

Whether they make it to ten seasons, one season, or a mere episode or two as is the case for a few of these tragic shows, almost every series on TV will eventually be cancelled as hard as that can be to hear. However, not every show ends up on the chopping block without a little help from its competitors. Yes, a lot of series are cut short solely due to insufficient ratings or high production costs, but there are some occasions when once show is prioritized over another by either network or creator and as a result a series comes to a. close.

Other times a show might be too similar to a competitor, or the series which made it relevant may fall out of favour and take another series with it—in any case, here are ten times that one tv shows led to the cancellation of another, and just how it happened.

Now, we don’t want to be unfair to Daria—Mike Judge’s scathing satire Beavis and Butthead was always bound to be cancelled, since the show rivalled Jackass in terms of how many impressively stupid copycat stunts it prompted from its far too young viewership. But nonetheless it’s worth noting that the show’s creator, King of the Hill mastermind Judge, agreed to add a snarky female foil for the two eponymous perma-giggling morons at the behest of network executives at MTV.

Said executives then proceeded to grant the aforementioned Ms. Morgendorffer a spin off series of her own the same year they pulled the plug on Judge’s controversy magnet after seven seasons.

Whilst Daria wasn’t pushed as a direct replacement for the series as some spin-offs are, it was no doubt pretty convenient for the network to have a vaguely connected but less edgy adult animation offering in their stable now that the cash cow Beavis and Butthead was cancelled.