Why Fox Canceled Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph’s ‘Bless The Harts’ After 2 Seasons

Fox has decided to officially cancel Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph’s animated series “Bless the Harts” after two seasons.

The television network announced its decision via The Hollywood Reporter Thursday. While the show is still airing new episodes at present, it is expected to wrap up in May on the independent broadcast network.

Though the announcement was made on April Fools’ Day, TVLine reported that it was not a prank that Fox intended to pull on the show’s fans. After all, the series has not been performing that well in terms of figures.

“Bless the Harts” is only averaging a 0.45 demo rating and 1.3 million total weekly viewers. It also ranks last among all the shows Fox has on its Sunday night lineup. THR even pointed out that its latest episode only managed to rake in 56,000 total same-day viewers.

Aside from the low numbers, THR also noted that the show’s cancellation might have something to do with the fact that animated comedy shows usually take a long time to make, so this is considered when making new fall lineups.

Created by esteemed television writer Emily Spivey, the show featured the voices of Wiig, Rudolph, Kumail Nanjiani, Jillian Bell and Ike Barinholtz. It premiered as part of the 2019-20 television lineup at Fox, but the half-hour series struggled to generate decent viewership.

On the show, Wiig voices the lead character Jenny Hart, a single mother who works as a waitress at a local North Carolina restaurant called The Last Supper to support her perpetually broke family. Her mother Betty is played by Rudolph, while her daughter Violet is portrayed by Bell.

Jenny has a longtime boyfriend named Wayne Edwards, who is voiced by Barinholtz. Wayne is also the surrogate father of Jenny’s daughter. As for Nanjiani, he voices Jesus Christ who appears to Jenny several times at the food establishment as she waits tables, as per Variety.

“Bless the Harts” is animated by Titmouse and co-produced by Fox Entertainment and 20th Television. It is executive produced by showrunners Spivey and Andy Bobrow, along with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

Despite the show’s cancellation, Fox still has many animated shows to cater to its viewers. It still has Disney-owned “The Simpsons,” “Bob’s Burgers” and “Family Guy.” It also has “The Great North,” “Housebroken,” “Duncanville” and another offering from Dan Harmon that is expected to launch in 2022.