Some of the best comedy series set in high school these days are admired for their raw, character-driven and honest storylines -- something that was pretty much unheard of in the 1990s. Yet, many would claim that Freaks and Geeks is the show that changed that.
Created by Paul Feig and Judd Apatow, and set in the early 1980s, the series defied expectations by focusing on teens outside of the popular crowd, which made it a critical darling, but likely prevented it from becoming a commercial hit. Let’s take a deeper look the circumstances that sealed Freaks and Geeks’ fate as one of the best ‘90s shows cancelled too soon.
The Time Slot
It is not particularly ideal to be part of a network’s Saturday evening line-up — something that New York Daily News even reflected in their otherwise favorable review of Freaks and Geeks. When the show first aired on NBC, it was put in the 8 p.m. time slot on Saturdays, which immediately had Feig and co. in fear of its longevity, as he recalled in the following excerpt from Variety’s 20th anniversary retrospective:
We got the show picked up and you want to celebrate, and they go and say [your time slot] is Saturday at 8 p.m. You’re like, ‘Oh my god, there’s no way we’re going to survive that time slot’ — especially back then it was just VCRs. No one had TiVo. Anybody who wanted to watch the show was out having fun, not at home watching a high school show.
NBC shifted Freaks and Geeks to Monday nights at the same time when it returned in January 2000. However, as EW reported, that would not improve ratings, as the show only attracted 8% of the viewing audience. It makes sense when you learn what else was airing at the same time.
The Competition
Freaks and Geeks did not have the fiercest competition in its otherwise undesirable original time slot. According to TVTango, its premiere episode on September 25, 1999 had the long-running reality show Cops on Fox, the CBS fantasy-drama Early Edition (starring a pre-Friday Night Lights cast Kyle Chandler) and ABC’s Saturday Night at the Movies to contend with.
However, it was the show’s Monday night time slot — starting on January 10, 2000 — that many believe sealed its downfall. While likely not threatened by Fox’s now-forgotten Party of Five spinoff, Time of Your Life, the hour also offered CBS sitcoms Ladies Man and The King of Queens, as well as popular family drama 7th Heaven, on The WB. However, the real killer here was easily the most popular show on TV at the time: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, hosted by Regis Philbin.
The Network Notes
Freaks and Geeks was not littered with too many creative demands from NBC. Yet, whenever the network did try to assume some control over the story, its suggestions would completely defy the show's essential purpose. Apatow emphasized this in the following quote from a Washington Post interview:
The idea of selling out the premise of it was something we were never going to do, even if we sank the ship. It was the only reason we were making the show, to do it in the way we always hoped someone would do it. We didn’t get a ton of notes, but the spirit of the notes [we did get] was, don’t make it sad, don’t make the kids suffer as much, give the kids more victories. And the intention of the show was to show how kids handle failure and difficult experiences, and how you get through those things with the support of your friends and family.
Feig offered a more specific example of this when speaking to the AV Club about how Sam Weir (future Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves co-director, John Francis Daley) won the heart of his crush, Cindy Sanders (Natasha Melnick). This development was urged by then-NBC president Garth Ancier, but contradicted Feig's own experience with unrequited love as a teen and his intent to play out Sam and Cindy's over multiple seasons. A suggestion he and Apatow did not concede on, however, was a cameo by Britney Spears as a way to boost interest, according to another story by The Guardian from 2009.
The Marketing
Unlike Fox’s marketing campaign for the sorely missed sci-fi series Firefly, Freaks and Geeks did not necessarily suffer from misleading ads. Yet, there was one promo for the premiere episode that consisted entirely of pull quotes narrated over muted clips -- lacking any indication of tone and offering no story context either.
Furthermore, while NBC was broadcasting coverage of the MLB playoffs, this caused the show to go on a few hiatuses. In light of this, the producers created a website that could help keep viewers informed of when the next episode was set to air. Unfortunately, as Apatow shared to Vanity Fair, NBC did not want to promote the URL because, “they didn’t want people to know the Internet existed. They were worried about losing viewers to it.”
A Missing Episode
Not all 18 of Freaks and Geeks' 18 filmed episodes made it to air on NBC, but not just because of the network's eventual cancellation. One episode called “Kim Kelly is My Friend” — in which Lindsay (Linda Cardellini, who recently re-teamed with Scooby-Doo scribe James Gunn to voice a role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) forms an unlikely bond with Kim (Busy Phillips, who had an upsetting encounter with a bullish James Franco on set) after discovering her unpleasant home life — was intentionally pulled from scheduling. Feig shared with AV Club the following reason why:
I think there was a fear of, ‘This Kim Kelly episode is so rough, we’re just going to keep losing numbers.’ And I think that was kind of the math on why they just decided, ‘Let’s not air this one yet, or ‘Let’s not air it.’ But the problem was, it left this big hole. The next episode airs, and suddenly Kim and Lindsay are pals. You’re like, ‘What the hell happened? She was so mean to her in the first three.’
Written by The White Lotus creator Mike White, “Kim Kelly is My Friend” would make its television premiere in 2000 after Freaks and Geeks began airing in reruns on Freeform (still called Fox Family at the time). While its harsh subject matter fueled NBC’s hesitation to run it properly, that is essentially why it has since become one of the series’ most beloved episodes, currently rated 8.5 on IMDb.
Freaks And Geeks’ Legacy Beyond Cancellation
In an oral history by Consequence, Apatow and Feig recalled agreeing to craft a Freaks and Geeks finale episode pretty early on, suspecting that NBC might pull the plug, only to have their fears validated soon after. After raking in a 6.77 million viewer average during its 12-episode run (according to NME), the series was officially cancelled by Garth Ancier, who admitted, after an awkward run-in with Seth Rogen in 2014, that the decision has haunted him ever since in a Facebook post that was shared by Time. While MTV offered to pick up the series for a lower budget, Apatow and Feig turned it down, not wanting the show to continue as a weaker version, as they revealed to Collider in 2021.
As it turns out, the series’ end on NBC was only the beginning of its enduring legacy, with a growing fanbase that enjoys the show on multiple streaming platforms — it is one of the funniest shows on Hulu, and is also available with a Paramount+ subscription, on Amazon Prime and for free on Pluto TV. In addition to the aforementioned Rogen, the young members of the Freaks and Geeks cast have gone on to lead some celebrated careers in Hollywood with some help from the now-very-powerful filmmakers, Apatow and Feig. Mega-fans of the show can even purchase books reprinting the scripts for all 18 episodes on Amazon.
More than two decades since going off the air, Freaks and Geeks is one of many beloved TV shows cancelled after one season that is remembered today as a groundbreaking moment in pop culture history. It was one of the first shows to give a voice to an awkward, misunderstood teen demographic that was widely ignored on network television at the time and showed life from their perspective with unapologetic honesty. Despite what its Joan Jett-penned theme song states, we should give a damn about its reputation.
