Sunnyside
NBC has had a fairly consistent trend of successful comedies in the past few years, which unfortunately seems to have ended with one of its leading sitcoms, “Sunnyside.” The series was marketed as a promising comedy starring the classic popular actor and comedian from “Harold & Kumar,” Kal Penn. Unfortunately, the show didn’t premiere to great ratings, as it suffered from a fairly unsuccessful September premiere.
“Sunnyside” reportedly earned the lowest ratings out of any freshman broadcast series in the past few years. The last few episodes will air and remain on NBC’s app and website, but it’s very unlikely that we’ll see another season. Perhaps the actor’s appeal began to fade over time, or perhaps the show just didn’t hit the right audiences.
Splitting Up Together
Splitting Up Together was a sitcom show starring Jenna Fischer, Oliver Hudson, Bobby Lee, Diane Farr, Lindsay Price, and a few other lesser-known actors. The show follows a couple with three children who are going through a divorce, which happens to reignite their marriage. It lasted for two seasons, with the first being only eight episodes long and the second having more than twice as many episodes.
ABC’s comedy show received mixed approval (you could also say that reviews were "split"), and unfortunately, the show was canceled by the network amidst a slew of cancellations by the broadcasting company.
Top Cat
A sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera, "Top Cat," ran in the early sixties for a total of 30 episodes and one full season. The ABC show followed a gang of alley cats in Manhattan and was inspired by the 1940's characters, the East Side Kids.
The title character, Top Cat, was loosely based on a comedy about a con-man called "The Phil Silvers Show." The show was a rating failure in prime time yet managed to find a receptive audience in the Saturday morning timeslot
Speechless
Another sitcom that was abruptly canceled but absolutely adored is the popular "Speechless," which followed both hilarious and very serious challenges that a family faces from having a teenage son who's disabled. The show has received excellent ratings from critics due to its honest and heartfelt performance, as well as the excellent balance it manages of humor and seriousness around some pretty sensitive topics.
Speechless has been cited as a "clear-eyed and empathetic exploration of life in a special-needs family that makes plenty of room for hilarity." Unfortunately, it didn't make it past its third season, although it received quite a respectable ending after running for more than 60 episodes. The show received various awards over the years, including an “Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming” prize at the 2017 Television Critics Association Award.
The Partridge Family
One of the best-known sitcoms of the twentieth century, The Partridge Family, starred Shirley Jones. The family traveled around the world, playing music. The show aired as a part of ABC's Friday-night lineup and would later go on to have reruns in syndication.
The family was based on a real-life family band that was popular in the sixties and seventies, The Cowsills. "The Patridge Family" had it all, comic books, animated series, movies, and CDs - not to mention various spin-offs of the show.