This Sitcom Got WEIRD When Nobody Watched It
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 6 июн 2024
- Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: go.nebula.tv/ironicsans
And watch Jessie Gender’s look at William Shatner’s “Invasion Iowa”: nebula.tv/videos/jessiegender...
The FOX sitcom “Til Death” was so bad that nobody watched it. But a fluke in the TV business meant that it needed to stay on the air for one more season. So with no audience and no stakes, the writers got really weird.
One of the characters becomes self-aware and discovers he’s in a sitcom, and that his girlfriend has been recast several times. He begins seeing the reality behind the scenes (boom mics, etc) which sends him to therapy. But his therapist is played by [I won’t ruin the surprise] which makes things even worse! Then there are random sound effects thrown into the show for absolutely no reason, extremely sexual jokes, constant references to the fact that nobody is watching and that the show should be canceled, and so on.
It was both a giant mess and a surreal masterpiece.
Since you, like everybody else, completely missed this show, let me tell you all about it.
📖 CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
00:55 How the show started
02:30 Changes for seasons 2 and 3
04:17 Why they made a 4th season
04:49 Overhauling the show again
05:49 Doug realizes his life is a sitcom
07:37 Didn’t other shows do this?
09:16 Lots of sex jokes
10:22 The penis episode and boob jokes
11:35 Weird sound effects
12:04 Shuffling the episode order
12:40 The animated episode
13:09 “Sitcomosis” relapse
14:18 The most surprising thing of all
15:00 Nebula
17:27 Conclusion
🎥 IMAGES / FOOTAGE
TV images via Unsplash
Clips and images from “Til Death” et al used only for the purpose of criticism and commentary consistent with fair use.
🎵 MUSIC / SOUND
Some sound effects by Epidemic Sound: nebula.tv/epidemic
Music by Storyblocks
=====================================
PLACES TO FIND ME:
Newsletter: ironicsans.beehiiv.com
Mastodon: mastodon.social/@ironicsans
Threads: www.threads.net/@ironicsans
Other: davidfriedman.info
=====================================
Research Sources:
Nobody's watching: The strange genius of the fourth season of 'Til Death www.avclub.com/nobodys-watchi...
How ‘Idol’ Helped One Sitcom Cheat Death www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/ar...
'Til Death Canceled by Fox movieweb.com/til-death-cancel...
Do Not Resuscitate: ’Til Death www.thetvratingsguide.com/2018...
Later Installment Weirdness / Live-Action TV tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
Idiot by Laura Clery www.google.com/books/edition/...
And just for laughs:
Actors Decide To Go On With Sitcom Despite Cancellation www.theonion.com/actors-decid... 
Развлечения
Thanks for watching! For everyone saying they want to watch Season 4 but only the weird episodes, I put together a viewer’s guide to help you find the best and skip the rest: ironicsans.beehiiv.com/p/researching-old-sitcom-ai
Sounds like season 4 is the only one worth watching
I just want to give a genuine kudos to you, Colin Robinson, for surviving what we all believed to be an untimely demise in season 3 of What We Do In The Shadows.
Green Acres was actually doing some of this kind of stuff in the 60’s. Some characters even noticed the opening credits. But then Green Acres is a legitimately weird show if you ever really just watch it.
The sad thing is, the Idea of a sitcom where the characters become self-aware is a great idea for a comedy. It's a shame it got wasted on a dying show.
Look into "Hi, Honey! I'm Home!"
@@KyleX515not “Heil Honey, I’m Home!”?
I just find it funny when you say nobody was watching this show. It was still averaging 3 million viewers an episode. Any show today would KILL for those kind of ratings.
This reminds me of what happened with the British teen drama Byker Grove. It aired on the BBC for 17 years, and had been compared to Degrassi Jr High as it covered subjects that were pretty taboo for kids' shows including drug addiction, child abuse, teen pregnancy, and homophobia. By the time it was axed, it had been moved from BBC One to the CBBC cable channel, and viewing figures had plummeted. The show runners clearly thought f**k it by this point and went rogue. The final ever episode was titled 'Deus Ex Machina', and the plot involved the cast gaining sentience and realising they were fictional characters. The kids were given 'magic paper' to write their own ending and attempt to save their universe and themselves. Spaceships, dinosaurs, and zombies all featured, and the episode (and the show itself) ended with the Byker Grove Youth Club blowing up and the screen fading to white.
Someone was watching. Me. I was watching. I watched it all the way to end and I actually loved the meta stuff they pulled in the 4th season. But then, I’d been a big fan of Moonlighting and would in the future be a big fan of Community, so I guess it’s just my style of humor.
But I guess even tho I liked it at the time, I can’t really defend it, as I almost never think of it now. And since no one else I know ever watched it at all, it feels almost like a fever dream that only happened to me when I do think of it.
Exactly this. My wife and I binged the whole show and it was a wild and genuinely hilarious ride.
I watched it too.
For some reason, its one of the few shows Ive ever watched on t.v.
But like you, I'd forgotten about it.
I forgot the sitcom storyline and J.B smoove was in it, but i remember now I liked both of those things.
I might have to check out Community because Moonlighting is one of my favorite shows ever.
@@joeroscoe3708 I forgot everything just about about this show but when watching the video I suddenly remembered everything he was talking about. I started predicting what he was going to say next, like, “oh and he was being bullied by the boom mike” and then it showed that lol.
Yes, you should watch Community! It is fantastic and it gets more and more meta as it goes along, and even ends in the series finale with a scene very along the lines of some things in season 4 of Til Death. Plus if you jump on now, there’s a movie coming later this year and you can be one of the fans looking forward to that! (You may want to skip season 4 of Community, tho, they fired the creator that season and it isn’t that good but he came back for seasons 5 and 6).
I feel like this used to happen a lot before streaming. Pretty sure there was a show with Rob Lowe that got canceled in it’s first season but they had to make all the episodes in the season so the season finale ends with Lowe’s character revealing he’s a serial killer and then jumping out a window.
I initially thought you were joking because the description sounded so bonkers, but when I googled to find out for sure, I was stunned to learn it was true. His show "Lyons Den" actually ended that way. Amazing, lol.
A couple weeks ago, Ghosts (USA) had episodes out of sequence. They set up the Halloween episode, then an unrelated episode, then the Halloween episode.
This bizarre turnaround on a series reminded me of the final four or five episodes of the one-season long series "Awake" (2012) starring Jason Isaacs as a detective, father and husband, who gets split into two realities after a car crash, one where only his wife survived, and, in the other, his son. The plot tries to contrast the realities by giving Jason's character opportunity to investigate events that occur in different manners in both worlds... until notice about the series cancellation came forth. From then on, things get off the rails unequivocally. I'm talking surrealist shit, bizarre action scenes, penguins, things that make no sense considering the setting's rules up to that far and irreversibly final decisions to make the storyline close somewhat. it's a mess but in a good way. I would recommend for that experience alone: the final stretch is clearcut balls to the wall commitment to complete the series, and I feel it could've made a real impact if the whole season was like that.
I'm still upset they canceled it. Would've loved to see the mystery play out for how both worlds existed.
Loved that show, thank you for reminding me. I also loved "Life" with Damian Lewis
I played poker with Brad quite a few times around this time, and I remember him constantly making jokes about how he didn't need to get back to work or need sleep for work because the show didn't matter. Though, to be honest, he kinda never stopped talking ever and was constantly making jokes about everything. Most of them bad, but he had some good zingers sometimes. Terrible poker player, though.
Nice. At some point in the last season, he told a reporter: “The other night, we got a .8 … The network said, ‘What do you suggest?’ I said, ‘If you give me one more month, I can take you to a zero.’ And there was dead silence.”
@@IronicSansThat's honestly pretty ballsy to say that to the network. I played with him 2008-2009, which I guess was even before the last season. So, he saw the writing on the wall for awhile.
Also, wanted to say I love your videos, really well written.
@@IronicSansHoly crap I love that!
Are you a friend or was this a like a tournament, charity?
@@NoHateLikeChristianLove It was a small home game in near LA. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a quite a few around that time.
I showed this to a buddy who worked on the show (he wasn't credited on IMDB, so I had no idea.)
"It was amazing very strange season, we were doing two shows at a time time (the other was a Michael Strahan sitcom called Brothers with Carl Weathers). But man did Gilbert and I have fun on this."
How is he not credited? I did camera work for my buddy who made a short film in his backyard & because it was screened at a local film festival of basically high school film projects, I now have IMDB credits 😂
I remember reading about this show in the TV guide. It during the new TV lineup and whereas there were TV shows that were "Must See" or "Hidden Gems", Til Death was "Proceed With Caution". Naturally, I cheered for it to stay on the air...despite the fact that I never watched it. When it was cancelled after season four, I was relieved because that meant enough people watched it to get that far. After I saw this video, and read other articles, that was a big nope. No one watched. People knew about it back when it aired but no one watched.
My fav from Roseanne is when Sarah’s on as Becky and they’re going to Disney, Sarah/Becky says she always wanted to go to Disney, or something like that, and Roseanne says aren’t you glad you’re here this week! 😂
Thank you for putting Still Standing up ! Robert Baratheon's sitcom!
Kind of funny seeing JB Smoove in a show where his character pals around with the main lead and even moves in with them… and ‘til Death came out after he first showed up on Curb…
Was this show ever actually shown in syndication anywhere? It seems like usually syndicated shows are written in a way where you can just randomly jump in at any point and not really need to worry much about what's happened previously, but feel like that could be kind of jarring here where the show keeps changing so drastically.
Till Death was great. The episodes where the guy thought he was on a sitcom and the ever changing Alison character were genius
Back in the 1990s there was a series on Australia's Channel 9 called Chances. Essentially a local attempt to do a post-watershed soap. They were given a season's notice they wouldn't be renewed, and they went crazy with it. Sadly most likely lost to time. I don't think it ever got a DVD release.
From my thoughts and others' comments, it sounds like S4 was ahead of its time
Honestly that sounds hilarious. Season 4 would pique my interest.
I was thinking the same thing
I remember starting to watch the series on tv with my mother when season 4 shenanigans started, of course, yes, it was because how weird it was😂
It piques mine, for sure.
you deserve far more subscribers
Thank you. I agree! 😀
It's popping up in people's recommends, so will probably get some boost.
The research that goes into these videos is next level!
They could of pulled a "ghost stories" and went full bore on rewriting
If knew about this at the time, I totally would have watched...except the episode/season swapping. That would drive me mad!
in the most recent episode of The Conners, they're at bar trivia and there's a question about a sitcom where a daughter character is vegan. Darlene and her boyfriend talk about a show that is right at the tip of their tongue and sounds an awful lot like the show Roseanne
Loved this! Very interesting watch, excellent narration and very well presented/edited~ Half tempted to watch it myself, now!
Glad you enjoyed it!
The idea of playing 20+ episodes extremely out of order on their debut when they dependended on continuity is absolutely HYSTERICAL! Sony Pictures must have given Fox the deal of a century. That's just insane!
I watched sporadically and would always say to myself, "this show is so funny! Why don't I watch more often?"
I don't care much for Brad Garret, but I've always loved Jolie Fisher, and they had good chemistry on this show. I think I also liked how a lot of things felt like inside jokes. I'm always down for quirky, and now I feel like I should rewatch in 2024 👍🏻
The buffer seat joke (while cringey) is making fun of homophobia more than anything. My friend used to always do that and my response was “if you don’t want to look gay, maybe go to a movie with a woman one in a while instead of me all the time..”
Amazing work. Subscribed, and now I actually want to watch through that weirdness.
This was a super fun video and absolutely fascinating!
Honestly, this reminds me of something I heard on NPR a while ago about a show where the show runners wound up in a similar predicament, but went in a different way with it by making the main character practically nuts. Things got wild, never was able to find it again. Hope someone else knows what I'm talking about about!
They should have sold the show to Adult Swim and continued the meta theme. Fits perfectly.
I've seen re runs on my local fox when they would air late at night. I swear they fixed the order of the episodes. It was still a bit wonky, but better than described on the initial run.
Thanks. I appreciate ironic reality humor and coloring outside the lines.
Season 4 sounds amazing. Skipping all the season 3 repeats is the way to go!
I remember when the show came out full 2006 Fox had canceled almost all of their long running sitcoms that previous May, Malcolm, Bernie Mac, 70s Show, Arrested Development, and they were in need of a new Comedy so they had the show start out a Thursday comedy hour. it started out, but American Idol did help it out a lot and I think the show found its groove at the end of the season between the Starks and the Woodcocks and was continuing that within season two but then they brought on Kenny and that was another interesting way to go, but then season three floundered and they pulled the show and then with season four they just stopped caring and 37 episodes in the fourth season. I was probably one of the few people that watched the show just because I had for so long and it was crazy how they doubled up on episodes every week early 2010.
It went from average slice of life sitcom to lets just toss the entirety of any random idea that popped into the show director's head or the writing staffs I believe I stopped watching it when they were running the last season and the missing episodes from season 3's run around the same time
OMG I actually watched this whole series and the last season was insane. I was like “I have no idea what the writers were on. But I watching all this madness till they scrap it.” 😂
I loved 'Til Death, especially as it got weirder and weirder in season 4. I need to rewatch it. I liked the ridiculous mess.
It's frustrating that this show got four seasons but Pushing Daisies only got two. Dead Like Me is another show that was gone too soon. American fucking Idol is on its 90th damned season, though and will probably survive longer than I will.
I saw some of these episodes on RUclips last year. This analysis explains a LOT.
I used to watch that show all the time! How the heck did I not see season 4 before this! I need to go rewatch this show after this video!!!
If they did a season 5 it would be cool if Gilbert Gottfried became a porn star and the cast created a business to rival the wooden adult toy store and in the finale both businesses are burnt down by the S&M Martin Mull who is apparently also a pyromaniac.
he died in 2022
Thank you for the info Colin Robinson
I watched this. I'd forgotten about it. The last season was a free for all and it was marvelous! My ONLY beef is dropping the episodes out of order. Everything else, perfect chaos. Loved it.
The 4th wall breaking reminds me of the show called Kevin can F*** Himself. I think it ran for 2 seasons on AMC.
great content!
“Who’s still watching?” Anytime I go to a hotel and see that mtv show on with that Robert guy and the dolphin laugh lady.
I watched Til Death live when it was airing all the episodes. I think i still have maybe all of it on my old hardrive.
I remember the window startup sound randomly. That's wild.
Great video. Saw the show was on but never watched it, Kinda like the wierd 4th wall breaking. Thanks for covering it
This is amazing. Thank you for this.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Man I remember watching this when it was releasing. It was a show that could very easily just sort if be on just because the tv was on in the evening. I would occasionally watch if i was bored and i just happened to have experienced what they were going for and man it was surreal.
It pisses me off when good shows don't get a chance and crap just goes on and on and on and on
Great vid, also I think Mayim Bialik has a doctorate in psychology or neuroscience, so it does sorta work having her as a therapist?
Great video. Ring light reflection in the glasses is distracting but that is not picking
S.4 sounds amazing! 😅
If they wanted to do sex jokes, they really should have brought back the Woodcocks.
For some reason i got this show and "dead like me" mixed up.
I remember this show abit. Watched a few episodes and skipped the whole things. Didn't realise how bonkers it gets. Reminds me alot of the Drew Carey show.
This video is hilarious. Well done.
Huh... I'm probably the only person who was watching. Perhaps me and two other people?
I also missed the Woodcocks. They gave the show a _Married With Children_ vibe like with the Bundys vs. Marcy/Steve/Jefferson
3:49 "will you be my bitch?" was her fave :D
And I liked that 4th wall/meta stuff. It took me by surprise, but it really did pique my interest. Granted, I was into the show since the start. I missed those "interviews" they did with children. One of the questions was "How big should the diamond ring be?". One girl replied that it didn't have to be that big. It just had to be bigger than her friends' rings. A boy replied you should b/c if she ever bothers or nags you, you can then point out that you bought such a large ring and to back off :D
surprised you didn't bring up the fact the husband from the Woodcock family was in American pie
17:44 "The State's 43rd Annual Halloween Special", "The Ben Stiller Show", "Heat Vision and Jack"
Jeez i hadnt noticed the ringlight in his glasses til people started mentioning it and now its all i can see
This is fantastic. I might buy this season just to own an obscure piece of subversive surrealism.
Season 4 sounds great!
I loved every single one of these shows as a kid. So many reruns 😍
1:34, Ok, that was pretty good.
How in the world are there less than 1k subs!?
He keeps draining them of their energy.
I actually would have watched a show about the cast believing they're in a sitcom.
Cool video, would love more like this? Any thoughts on Hope & Faith?
As someone who enjoys 4th wall breaking and never heard of this show, I just want to say thank you, I’m gonna watch this now lol 😂
This seems incredible.
As someone in the UK, I've tried to understand syndication, I really have. But I just don't get it. I know it was also the reason that crappy Charlie Sheen sitcom got a 70-episode 2nd season.
I like America. I even worked out the rules for how NFL teams have their opponents chosen each season, and that barely makes a lick of sense to me. But it's crystal clear compared to syndication.
My suspicion has always been that Don Reo made season 4 his revenge against the television industry for the meddling that ruined the later seasons of The John Larroquette Show. Go back and watch TJLS, the first season has the same dark undertones that the fourth season of Til Death had.
I’ve been fascinated by this show since I first watched it during the pandemic. Loved Brad Garrett on Raymond and found this show lasted long enough for syndication and changes it made after the Woodcocks were gone became so strange, I remember seeing an old Brad Garrett appearance on Howard Stern and Howard brought it up and Brad barely promoted it, he had no faith in this show whatsoever by the 3rd season
That show went for four seasons?!?!
And yet The Wonder Years was cancelled when Kevin still had one more year of high school. I saw this show when it was new and all i remember was them falling asleep watching a porn.
The guy who thought he was in a sitcom actually sounds pretty funny.
I must have only watched the first season. I never watched "Raymond" so I really know Brad Garrett best from his stint as a regular on Match Game '90 where he did copious Herman Munster and Charles Nelson Reilly impersonations. Joely Fisher I knew from Ellen's sitcom. I had no idea this show went for this long. I do kind of want to see that fourth season, though. Mayim Bialik seemed to have a mini-career playing herself. She also did a couple appearances on Kirstie Alley's "Fat Actress" (2005) as Kirstie's cranky neighbor.
Ohh...i remember that show too.
It was hilarious. She was great in that show.
You have to be kidding me with the "homophobia" and "misogyny" like seriously?
Lazy, unfunny jokes at the EXPENSE of gay people and women. Better?
Yeah, it's lame to rely on tired jokes that are only funny if you have implicit bias
@@thatguyyouhatealotget bent loser.
Next up: the highest rated show that got cancelled during its first season... Profit.
I always meant to watch the show because it had Brad Garrett in it who has always been one of my favorite actors but that was the begining of my not having a cable subscription and I had no way of watching tv shows at the time unless I was at someone else's house in which case I was never in the mood to watch t.v. so I don't think I ever saw an episode of the show.
I mean really that looks like the funniest season. Lmao they should have did that one first lmao
Joely Fisher is 56 now! She is still just as fine as when she was on Ellen 30 years ago! ❤🔥
the first season was HILARIOUS. And the best. I loved Margaret Cho and Anthony Anderson, and the Woodcock. I was buying the dvds and by the end of season 2 I knew I wasn't gonna spend any more money.
Jesse is aces! Love her!
Those people who worked on that show hated their life and took it out on their viewers 😂
my fave season of sitcom tv ever.
Oh yeah...i remember this show.
Its one of the few shows ive ever watched
I did watch it when it was bizarre actually. I thought it was better
however I didn’t actually know what was happening when they aired the out of sequence stuff so I just went with it
I watched Till Death from start to finish a few years back. It was a train wreck.
I actually loved this show, and watching it as it aired with the episodes out of order was a surreal experience.
I actually really liked this show bitd. Although I dont remember the 4th season antics. I actually really liked JB Smooves run on the show. The Chicken and Waffles episode was a favorite.
You gotta watch Timm Sharp in Enlightened. He’s fantastic as Dougie and the show is an all-timer.
I’ll check it out. I found his acting reel and he’s done a lot of diverse work.
Greatest show ever. Laura Dern is amazing.
I love Til Death! I'm not saying it wasn't bad or weird, but I liked it.
I saw this show in syndication and saw this last season.
Absolutely loved the decision to break.the fourth wall and just say "f#%k it"
4:03 oof right there