Lucky Louie (and now Louie)

[Chest Rockwell]

Hope it works for him. The show was actually quite funny; it'd be a shame to see what could turn into a great show in a season or two be thrown out before it has a chance to make its mark. I'm surprised it didn't do better, considering it came on right after Entourage, which is apparently the big fucking thing of the summer now.

[grand theft sparrow]

If you weren't laughing, you were wrong.

This is true.

Funny shows don't go away.

This is not.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

"Louie is an incredible talent and a wonderful partner," said HBO Entertainment president Carolyn Strauss. "We loved trying our first multi-camera show with him, and we look forward to other projects with Louie in the feature."

The syntax wouldn't really match up, but it did get my hopes up a little.

[Chest Rockwell]

Funny shows don't go away.

This is not.

Yea his view seems a little idealistic. Funny shows "go away" all the time, more than unfunny ones. Arrested Development, News Radio,  The Street, Home Movies, Futurama, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Dead Like Me, Mr Show, Freaks, etc etc, vs maybe a few good ones that are on per year (maybe).

[polkablues]

News Radio

Newsradio lasted like seven seasons.  It even kept going after Phil Hartman died and the whole thing went totally off the deep end (remember the "Titanic" episode?).

Otherwise, your point is well taken.

On a side note, whatever happened to the girl who played Andy Richter's love interest on ...Controls the Universe?  I would definitely enjoy seeing her on TV again.

[modage]

i think she's on HUFF.  is this who you mean?  http://imdb.com/name/nm0108295/  or was somebody else his love interest?  it's been so long, i cant remember.

[polkablues]

This one:



As far as I can tell, she's vanished off the face of the earth.


EDIT: Here's a better picture.

[modage]

oooooooh yeah.  now i remember.

[matt35mm]

I made sure to watch Grosse Pointe every week, in no small part due to her.

Still pictures do her no justice!  The moving image made me fall in love with her.  (sigh)  I also named a character after her in a screenplay I was writing at the time, since it was the hip thing to do then.

Newsradio lasted like seven seasons.  It even kept going after Phil Hartman died and the whole thing went totally off the deep end (remember the "Titanic" episode?).

#1.  Phil Hartman was in the Titanic episode, so I don't know what your point is.

#2.  I liked the Titanic episode.  I liked every single episode that Phil Hartman was in.  I don't remember much from after that (and I'm not talking about just the show!).

[polkablues]

Newsradio lasted like seven seasons.  It even kept going after Phil Hartman died and the whole thing went totally off the deep end (remember the "Titanic" episode?).

#1.  Phil Hartman was in the Titanic episode, so I don't know what your point is.

#2.  I liked the Titanic episode.  I liked every single episode that Phil Hartman was in.  I don't remember much from after that (and I'm not talking about just the show!).

My only point was that Newsradio didn't really belong on the list of comedies that were cut short, since it was around forever, even after its main attraction was gone.  And for some reason I thought the Titanic thing came in the post-Hartman era, but I was mistaken.  Oops.  I liked Newsradio, though.  Make no mistake.

I made sure to watch Grosse Pointe every week, in no small part due to her.

Hells, yeah.  Another funny show, chopped down in the prime of life.

[Chest Rockwell]

NewRadio's tragic history goes like this:

Despite critical acclaim and an extremely loyal fanbase, ratings for the show were inconsistent. NBC moved the show frequently, often to inhospitable timeslots, making it difficult to establish and maintain an audience. After stabilizing the show on Tuesday nights, ratings did well, only to plummet when the show was moved in the fall of 1996 in an attempt to establish a block of sitcoms on Wednesdays. The show spent the remainder of its life on the brink of cancellation.

NewsRadio was officially canceled in May 1998, after its fourth season, but the decision was reversed a day later, with an order of 22 episodes placed for Season Five. Tragically, just a few days later, focal cast member Phil Hartman was murdered by his wife. His absence would ultimately serve as the straw that broke the show's back. Staff and cast morale never fully recovered, and NBC left the series "on the bubble" until the day the final Season Five episode aired, months after production had wrapped.

For me, it counts. Even though it couldn't have really kept going anyway after PH died.

[RegularKarate]

Saw Louis CK tonight... he was really damned funny.. I can't help but wonder which of his bits would have turned into season two situations.

[RegularKarate]

Sorry for the double post
Here is a mildly abbreviated statement from Louis,

As most of you know, my show "Lucky Louie" has been cancelled by HBO.  My initial message to fans of the show was that we are "Cancelled but not dead".  I would like to revise that and re-issue the statement under the heading "Cancelled and certainly dead.  Please help."

... HBO is the only place where Lucky Louie can really exist.  Any other place would want a different show.  So I'm asking you to help pursuade them to put it back on the air.  If you want Lucky Louie to come back, please contact HBO and let them know it. 

I know most of you have jobs and don't have time for this kind of horse shit.  Others of you might not even like Lucky Louie.  And listen, the show wasn't perfect.  It's an experiment and it needed more time to become as good as it could be.  But I don't think I'm sucking my very own penis when I say that Lucky Louie was very funny and showed some serious potential to get even better.  We made a connection with people all over the country.

...As far as the ratings, we actually did very well, especially considering that HBO did not promote the show hardly at all.  I am not complaining about that by any means.  I was happy that they let it grow on it's own, because we got to show that our audience was growing based on the show's merits.   The fact is that our ratings increased steadily for several weeks in a row and our cumulitive ratings (tallying up all the times each episode aired during the week) were even higher than deadwood.  We certainly did better than most HBO series have in their first year and when "The Wire" went on the air this season, with much critical acclaim and an already existing core audience, they got about the same ammount of viewers as us.

So people were watching Lucky Louie.  More people every week. 

Why did they pull the plug?  I don't know.  I really don't.
Our show is very different from what they're used to.  It's a populist show, not a museam piece.  Just the way the show looks is a huge departure from what they've succeeded with in the past.  But it was working.  So I don't know.

 Up  until the very end, I got very generous and kind support from everyone there.  That's one reason I want to go back.  I've never worked with any people that were so focused on the quality of a show.  They let Lucky Louie be what it was.  I'm extremely grateful to have gotten the opportunity that i did, to have the show on for twelve episodes.  amazing.  I am hesitant to ask for more on my own behalf.  But everywhere I go people tell me how much they love the show.  Couples come up to me on the street in every City in America (i'm on tour right now) to tell me that they watch Lucky Louie together and that it's the only thing they both laugh at. 

...So what can you do? 

well, someone, I don't know who, created a myspace page here...

http://www.myspace.com/saveluckylouie

There is also an online petition here...

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?louisck

you can also go to the hbo.com Lucky Louie message board here...

http://boards.hbo.com/category.jspa?categoryID=700000006

or just call HBO or write them and voice your opinion. 

You know, I kind of hesitated to say all this because I guess I didn't want to come off desperate.  But I don't care.  I love the show and everyone who worked on it.  I don't want any other job in television.

I feel Lucky Louie has a huge ammount of support out there.  All week I've been having to break the bad news to people that it's gone and they are so bummed, it breaks my heart.  The guy at airpot security at LAX, the guy in front of some hotel in Cleveland, three people tonight in Austin Texas.  Everywhere I go people love the show and they want it back.  People I don't even know started this petition and all this other stuff.  So fuck it.  I'm here and I'm asking.  Help save Lucky Louie if you feel like it.

thanks for your time.

LCK

http://www.louisck.com

[grand theft sparrow]

I'll sign a petition but if Arrested Development couldn't be saved, this has NO chance.

[polkablues]

I'll sign a petition but if Arrested Development couldn't be saved, this has NO chance.

On the other hand, I have to imagine this show is so much cheaper to produce than AD was.