Screwed By The Network / Disney Networks

Incidents involving networks owned by The Walt Disney Company.

Fox Corporation-owned networks, primarily those previously affiliated with News Corporation/21st Century Fox before the Disney merger, are excluded; those can be found here (and here for Fox Kids programs).

Live-action shows aired on ABC have their own page.

---

General / Multiple networks

• Disney used to have a rule that instantly screwed over any show they wanted: the 65-episode rule. It mainly applied to animated series and Disney Channel shows. In TV rules, sixty-five is the absolute minimum number of episodes to be produced before a show can be officially syndicated. Once a show hits that milestone, it was very unlikely to be renewed by Disney, unless it was proven to be a major Cash-Cow Franchise. Many shows have fallen victim to this rule. In recent years, Disney Channel has decided in favor of a four-season rule, where their shows can only last no more than four seasons. In theory, this rule can prevent certain shows from falling into Seasonal Rot and allow them to end in their prime. Yet at the same time, smaller shows that needed more time to find an audience might end up getting axed just when they hit their stride because of this rule. Admittedly, this raises the question of why the writers, etc. of those shows didn't plan accordingly...
• After Disney bought out most of Fox's television studios, ^note  except for the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Television Stations, Fox Sports domestically, and Fox News, all of which were retained by Rupert Murdoch through the unrelated Fox Corporation Buena Vista Television decided to stop syndicating American Dad!, The Cleveland Show, and King of the Hill on free-to-air local TV stations (usually affiliates of Fox, The CW, and MyNetworkTV), presumably in favor of licensing them to Disney-owned Hulu. While the former two shows were lucky as they are frequently shown on reruns on Adult Swim and Comedy Central respectively and American Dad is still producing episodes on TBS, it was King of the Hill that was screwed the hardest as no other cable network aired reruns of the show after Comedy Central screwed the show over after acquiring the show from Adult Swim in 2018 alongside The Cleveland Show and dropped all reruns of the show a year later. Thankfully, though, this was eventually averted, as King of the Hill began airing on FXX, which is now owned by Disney due to their acquisition of the 20th Television library, on September 20, 2021.
• Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors also fills this trope even if it doesn't look like it. Despite heavy advertising and being simulcast on both Disney Channel and Disney XD, it premiered on September 30, 2018 at 10:00pm. Unlike Star Wars Resistance mentioned below, it didn't have the advantage of premiering on a holiday weekend.

ABC - Game Shows

• After performing well in its first six episodes in December 2007, Duel was renewed for a 10-episode weekly series; however, when it returned in April 2008 as a replacement program that was filmed due to the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, the show was bumped to the Friday Night Death Slot by ABC, against The Price Is Right $1,000,000 Spectacular and WWE SmackDown. As a result, the show's ratings declined heavily, and the network decided to remove the show from the schedule after five episodes were aired, effectively canceling it. The remaining five episodes of the series aired in the summer of that year.
• Let's Make a Deal was screwed by the network's attempts to boost ratings by having the show offer huge prizes and go to an hour-long format. This failed, so on December 29, 1975 the show was moved from 1:30 PM to Noon — against High Rollers on NBC and The Young and the Restless on CBS. Despite some initial success, the show eventually fell on July 9, 1976. The show's replacement was the Heatter-Quigley game Hot Seat... which only lasted 3 months.
• Million Dollar Mind Game, a well-liked high-quality quiz imported from Russia and intended for primetime, was sat on by ABC for over a year before being slapped on Sunday afternoons against NFL games (a timeslot usually used for awful time-buy motocross events and infomercials!) with minimal promotion, and instead chose to focus on promoting and giving You Deserve It primetime space. The result? The burn-off got better ratings...and yet it was still canned after one season, which makes you wonder why Million-Dollar Mind Game was slotted on Sunday afternoons in the first place if neither show was going to last.
• The original version of The Price Is Right, which jumped networks from NBC in September 1963:
  • The daytime show was retained at 11AM, where it'd flourished for nearly all of its run on NBC, facing Pete and Gladys on CBS and Concentration from the Peacock. On March 31, 1964, the show was moved to 10:30, going up against I Love Lucy repeats and Word for Word. On December 28, 1964, ABC moved Price to 11:30, facing The Jack Benny Daytime Show and Jeopardy! for its last eight months.
  • The nighttime show was first put in on Wednesdays at 8:30 PM, where it had done well on NBC before the latter had shuffled it around three times in two seasons (see below), but on December 6, 1963 was moved to Fridays at 9:30 (the last slot NBC had put it in). The show ended in September 1964, with that night's winner coming back on the following Monday's daytime episode.

ABC - Animation

• The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show was hit with this in its final years before Cartoon Network gained the exclusive rights to the shorts in 2000. Of course, it didn't help that ABC had at that point been bought by WB's greatest rival, and was somewhat awkwardly squeezed in between Disney's One Saturday Morning stuff; not only that, but it was frequently preempted in favor of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and afternoon sports and many affiliates dropped it altogether.
• Bump in the Night was intended to get a third season, but like ReBoot and Sonic SatAM was canceled after Disney acquired ABC.
• Capitol Critters, a politically-charged animated satire meant to compete with The Simpsons, was quickly canned by ABC after airing only 7 out of the 13 episodes due to poor ratings and critical reception. Cartoon Network aired the entire series in 1995.
• Clerks: The Animated Series: Before it aired, ABC treated the show pretty decently; even airing an ad for Clerks during the Super Bowl. Then multiple problems came along. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? became a smash hit for ABC, increasing the network's expectations for ratings. Test screenings for the show were poor among older audiences. Despite the show not being made for said audience, it was what caused ABC to move the premiere from mid-March to late-May, when most people rarely watch TV. Some major advertisers refused to support the show over "risque content" (even though Clerks, in contrast with the extremely profane and vulgar movie on which it was based, was as raunchy as most sitcoms at the time). And of the six episodes that were made, only episodes four and two were actually aired, in that order. This despite the number of running gags and ongoing plotlines that the series had, and the fact that the second episode makes sense only if you have seen the first (it's a parody of clip shows, because they only have one episode to mine for clips). All six episodes — with vitriolic commentaries — were later released on DVD and later aired on Comedy Central.
• The Critic was this during its entire run on ABC from the start. Besides being one of the many failed series that aired before Home Improvement and surprise hit Grace Under Fire, ABC received tons of complaints over its (at-the-time) edgy humor. That and low viewership numbers caused ABC to cancel the series a month after it aired and burned-off the remaining episodes in the summer (which was lampshaded in the second season). When it moved to Fox, it was treated MUCH worse despite gaining higher viewership numbers than any of the episodes on ABC.
• The Goode Family was doomed to fail, as ABC gave it Invisible Advertising and aired it on Friday Night Death Slot as a late-season replacement, which is always a death-wish for any broadcast network series.
• The ABC premiere of the movie Inside Out was scheduled on February 7th, 2018 at 8:00PM. ABC and Disney are in a rock and a hard place though, as the logical thing of premiering a family movie on a Friday or a weekend is pretty much dead in the water ratings-wise in 2018, but the Wednesday premiere on a school night is no better.
  • Another example of this was back in 2015 with the two Peanuts Christmas specials, A Charlie Brown Christmas and I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown. They were both aired on a weekday night at 9PM ET, with a behind-the-scenes special aired before the first, and Toy Story That Time Forgot and Shrek The Halls aired before the second. It didn't help that the release of The Peanuts Movie and the special's 50th Anniversary were also in 2015.
• The Jetsons originally got just one season despite becoming one of Hanna-Barbera's most-recognized cartoons. Around the time the show was in production, ABC had just caught up to rival NBC and got into color television. The Jetsons was selected to be the first color program on the network (which was fitting, since the show was set in the hypothetical future and thus needed a then-futuristic look to go with it), but color television sets were still hard to come across in The '60s. ABC gave affiliates the option to broadcast The Jetsons either in color or black-and-white, but since many ABC affiliates didn't have the money or technology to upgrade to color television, they chose the latter option. This meant that the only stations that did broadcast the series in color were ABC's owned-and-operated stations, and even those markets didn't have many residents with color televisions. This killed any attempt of the show's ratings to eclipse that of fellow H-B staple The Flintstones, which aired on the same network and didn't need color since the show's setting was the complete opposite of The Jetsons, and ABC decided to put more focus on The Flintstones and cancel The Jetsons. The show later found new life in syndication during the color television boom in the late 60's, leading to it getting Un-Canceled for two more seasons two decades later.
• Another Hanna-Barbera cartoon that ABC didn't treat well was Jonny Quest. When it premiered on the network, it was given a comfy Friday night timeslot that brought in solid ratings and positive reviews despite controversy over its violent content. Unfortunately, CBS would premiere a little sitcom called The Munsters on their Thursday prime-time schedule, right up against ABC's cartoon favorite The Flintstones. In an effort to save that cartoon, ABC made Quest move to The Flintstones' Thursday slot in January 1965, causing it to compete with The Munsters, while the latter took Quest's place on Fridays. Consequently, Quest's ratings fell rapidly, resulting in the series not getting picked up for a second season. To add salt to the wound, The Flintstones never regained the Top 30 in the Nielsen ratings despite the move, and the cartoon would be canceled anyway two seasons later, making the cancellation of Quest pointless (though the reason for The Flintstones's ratings drop and subsequent cancellation had more to do with the introduction of The Great Gazoo than with the show's timeslot).
• Kim Possible was treated horribly during its run on ABC Kids. As the only Disney Channel series shown on the block that wasn't an Edutainment Show, many ABC affiliates (mostly those operated by Hearst Television or Allbritton Communications) saw no need to air it, even less so than Power Rangers because at least that series was premiering new episodes on the block while K.P. was nothing but reruns. As a result, those stations either didn't air the show at all in favor of using that space for college football and/or locally-produced programming, or aired it in a time isolated from the rest of the block (usually the dead hours of the morning or late in the afternoon on Saturdays, or on Sunday mornings, often directly competing against the show's Disney Channel broadcasts). The show was dropped from ABC Kids' line-up in September 2006 in favor of a second timeslot for Power Rangers, meaning that the show's fourth and final season never got to air on ABC.
• Lloyd in Space and The Weekenders both got screwed over due to Disney's One Saturday Morning block getting revamped into ABC Kids (this was in spite of the latter show managing to actually get high enough ratings to beat out Pokémon: The Series) by being shafted to Toon Disney, a cable network that had lower viewership than Disney Channel at the time. Newer episodes of both shows were aired at random and without promotion over the course of two years.
• Mary Kate and Ashley in Action! suffered the same fate as its animation studio, DiC Entertainment. They pulled the plug on the Olsen Twins' animated series, lasting for only one year, then made its move from ABC to Toon Disney.
• Before the rights shifted to Apple TV+ and PBS in 2020, ABC had a terrible case of this with the Peanuts specials. In the later years they had the rights to the specials, they frequently utilized Invisible Advertising for the annual uncut airings of them (the Edited for Syndication airings would at least get some promotion), prefering to promote their in-house specials (especially those based on Disney or Pixar properties) as well as weekly holiday programs like The Great Christmas Light Fight and The Great American Baking Show. And sometimes, the specials would play as late as 9:30PM. This late time slot treatment was especially prominent with I Want A Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown, to the point where during some years, that special would be skipped altogether.
• Pepper Ann, similar to PB&J Otter (mentioned in the Disney Junior folder), had no DVD or VHS releases whatsoever despite being a popular show. The exception was a very rare VHS released by Disney Educational Productions, intended for use by teachers, that contained two segments.^note "Dances with Ignorance", which taught about American Indian history and how racial stereotypes can be hurtful, and "The Telltale Fuzzy", which taught about guilt and honesty (the latter episode was about Pepper Ann finding a roll of money at the mall and immediately buying a velvet Fuzzy painting rather than turning it in to mall security to see if anyone who lost the roll comes looking for it) Luckily, it was finally added to Disney+ in 2021.
• To say that ReBoot was screwed over by ABC is an understatement. It was ahead of its time in every way, and ABC and its censors absolutely hated it. They canned it after its second season (fortunately, Cartoon Network rescued it and gave it a nice home on its then-new Toonami block, a move that allowed the writers to make Darker and Edgier storylines and thus gave the show a massive popularity boost). By the season finale, that feeling of contempt for creativity had become mutual as far as the writers were concerned:
  "It's the 'ABCs', they've turned on us! ...Treacherous Dogs!"
• Recess was once Adored by the Network. But Walt Disney Television decided to end the series in 2001, not for any issue with ratings (actually, the ratings for the show were for a while, the highest rated Saturday morning cartoon), but because of the aforementioned 65-episode policy.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) suffered this badly. Its entire first season was plagued by preempts from college football. Then, when the second season hit, it turned out that it was a major contender against Fox's Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Then, with the Disney/ABC merger being planned, a new head honcho came in, and actually declared that he was sweeping out everything connected to the old guy. Sonic would be driven out (and would lead to One Saturday Morning a couple years later) and Power Rangers would begin its 10-year romp on Fox (then, ironically move to ABC, get screwed itself, then move to Nickelodeon). Its legacy, however, continued in the Archie comic book series, which ran for 290 issues and ended in 2016.
  • It didn't help that it never even aired in some markets, which were already starting to cut Saturday Morning Cartoons altogether in favor of local news and never saw it until it reached USA Network's Action Extreme Team. Those who were very lucky not to get total preemption either ended up having to catch it on low-rated UHF independent stations or had to catch it the following morning, as WSB in Atlanta did when they preempted the series for newscasts and subsequently aired it proper at 7:30 am on Sundays. Ouch.
• Teacher's Pet had great ratings and reviews, however (like what happened to Lloyd in Space and The Weekenders), Disney canceled it in 2002 because of the One Saturday Morning block getting the boot for ABC Kids (only Recess, which was the most popular show on the block, survived the block switch, and it was in reruns). It doesn't help that during its second season, ABC damned it to a 7:00 AM time-slot, when (most of the time) the target audience would still be asleep.
• Teamo Supremo had solid ratings on the One Saturday Morning/ABC Kids lineup, but after two seasons, ABC decided to move the show exclusively to the premium cable network Toon Disney, with its slot being replaced with newcomer Lilo & Stitch: The Series. From there, the show suffered poor treatment. After 2003, Toon Disney didn't bother advertising the show's remaining episodes, leaving fans unaware.
• In 2020, Toy Story That Time Forgot, one of their in-house Christmas specials, was burned off on Thanksgiving evening with no reruns.

Fox Family/ABC Family/Freeform

• During its time as Fox Family, this network had an infamous history of screwing over anything that wasn't related to the Olsen Twins, S Club 7, Angela Anaconda or Digimon (and to a slightly lesser extent The New Addams Family, Great Pretenders and most of their preschool programming):^note All listed timeslots come from archived copies of the Foxand ABC Family websites as well as Google News archives of the Bangor Daily News, specifically the Friday/weekend editions, with the relevant listings starting somewhere between pages 180-210.
  • The Adventures of Shirley Holmes: Fox Family only aired the first two seasons on Saturday mornings, premiering as a 2-episode block airing at 10:30 and 11:00. In November the show was reduced to a single airing at 10:30 in order to make room for Great Pretenders, followed by a four-month hiatus beginning later that month in favor of Sweet Valley High reruns. When the show returned in March, it was moved to Saturdays at 2:00 PM (which became 2:30 by summer) where it remained until being dropped in October, as detailed here To add insult to injury, the episodes were usually aired out of order. The series was part of the lineup for Girlz Channel when that network premiered, but they never aired the remaining episodes. Seasons 3 and 4 would eventually premiere on Showtime Family Zone in 2002-see Showtime's page for how that worked out.
  • When All Dogs Go to Heaven was picked up from first-run syndication for its 3rd season, Fox Family placed the series at 8:30 AM as part of its weekday "Morning Scramble" block when kids were preparing for school. Even worse, it was plagued by being preceded by reruns of Pee-wee's Playhouse, Harveytoons and Eek! The Cat. The show fortunately got a more reasonable time of 9:00 AM on weekends. The next blow came in December when the weekday slot was moved to 7:30 AM, resulting in a mediocre-at-best ratings bump which saw the show dropped from weekdays in June (replaced by reruns of The Mask). Worse still, in March 1999 the show's weekend slot was also moved to 7:30 AM and come fall would be again bumped up to 7:00 AM. Charlie and Itchy would limp along in that slot until March 2000, when the show was dropped in favor of Hello Kitty's Paradise.(more on that below).
  • Animal Crackers: Season 1 aired on Saturday mornings at 7:30 AM-a time when most kids are barely out of bed- where it aired all 13 episodes no more than twice before being dropped from Saturday mornings completely in March, replaced by reruns of Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic. Seasons 2 and 3 never aired, not even on Boyz/Girlz Channel.
  • Back To Sherwood: Aired Saturday afternoons at 2:00 PM for its first and only season.
  • Bad Dog: Initially aired weekdays at 3:30 PM in "The Basement", then promoted to 4:00 PM after Monster Farm was canceled, adding an 8:00 AM airing around the same time. Come Fall 1999, the show was unceremoniously relocated to Girlz Channel (despite both main characters being male). Fortunately, the show would be restored to the main channel the following March-at the time of 1:30 PM Monday-Thursday, when the target audience would be at school. The show was moved up to 1:00 PM the following fall, and would remain buried in this slot until being dropped completely in January 2002.
  • Big Wolf on Campus: After over two years of being Adored by the Network, one of the first schedule changes made by ABC Family was to move Tommy and Merton to weekends at 12:00 PM (from 11:30, which had been its time slot since the beginning) for the show's third season. Predictably, Season 3's ratings fell disastrously short of the previous seasons, leading to the show being demoted to Sundays-only in January 2002, then moved to the burial slot of 12:30 PM in April. By July the show was kicked off the weekends completely, but remained on weekdays until being pulled altogether in September.
  • Braceface: Originally hyped to be the network's new flagship animated series to replace the soon-to-be-outgoing Angela Anaconda, the show was given the very cushy time slot of weekends at 9:00 AM and 10:30 AM—the first time in the network's history any animated series had aired Saturdays in the latter slot—and stayed there for its entire first season. The show's weekday treatment was no less golden, starting at 4:00 PM in January and hitting the sweet spot of 5:30 PM two months later. Then came season 2, by which time the network was now ABC Family and had decided to expand the aforementioned weekend action block from 2 hours to 5 hours. Braceface was thus demoted all the way to 12:30 PM for the summer and would stay there-along with its new 4:30 PM (later 5:00 PM) weekday slot-until being dropped entirely in spring 2003, only halfway through its second season.^note The rest of season 2 would air on Disney Channel in the summer of 2004.
  • Da Mob: Premiered the same week as Totally Spies following over a year of Development Hell and was dumped onto weekends at 12:30 PM, where it lay neglected for five months before being dropped in April and was subsequently banished into obscurity.
  • Donkey Kong Country: Originally airing at 10:00 AM on Sunday mornings, the show became a bigger hit than anyone expected and was given a second weekend slot in November, and then added Fridays at 5:30 PM in January 1999. Like Three Friends and Jerry, a second season was ordered and aired on the main network-and was relocated as the former show's lead in, airing first at 8:00 AM and later at 2:00 PM-again while most kids are leaving for/still at school. Unlike its running mate however, Donkey Kong did survive into March 2000-at the cost of airing in the death slot of Fridays at 1:30 PM. As with its slot-mate Bad Dog, September saw the show move to 1:00 PM, still only on Fridays. You can probably guess what happened from there.^note Answer: Fridays at 7:30 AM for summer 2001, and then dropped without a trace.
  • Edgemont: Premiered in January 2001 at 12:30 PM on Saturdays-which on top of being a death slot for any series is also a grossly inappropriate time slot for a Degrassi-style teen drama. The show inevitably failed to draw the older audiences the network sought and was moved twice^note First to 1:30 PM in May and then in June to the even earlier time of 11:30 AM, the former a death slot and the latter compounding the original issues.before being dropped in August with only one season (out of five) aired. The show would eventually return to America in 2005-on Encore WAM, a premium multiplex channel with very limited availability.
  • Enigma: Originally aired on Saturdays at 9:30 AM (later 9:00) for the first year, then bumped off to Girlz Channel.
  • Fox Family Countdown: Initially a TV version of the Fox Kids Countdown radio show-complete with carrying over host Chris Leary-this series was screwed not by timeslot shuffling (it aired comfortably at 10:30 AM Saturdays for most of its run), but instead the network's decision that-despite two years of being one of the network's top-rated shows-Leary's hosting style wouldn't fit with the tween-centric image the network would be pursuing from September 2000. Thus the six-year kids' radio icon was unceremoniously shown the door in June with various seasonally-themed countdowns running until being placed on hiatus in November. The new permanent format of High School Countdown-which premiered in January 2001-in which a new host (Melinda Sward) toured various American high schools and chatted with students in between videos, failed to catch on with viewers and was scuttled after just one half-season. Its replacement for 2001-2002, Mall-Star Countdown had Sward joined by Tonoccus Mcclain who as the name suggests chatted up tweens and teens (probably almost all girls) while touring various shopping malls. Viewers quickly disowned the series for its blatant superficiality and possibly sexist overtones and the show was moved all the way to 1:00 PM in November to make room for Totally Spies!^note To add insult to injury, most of its airings wound up preempted for Britney Spears documentary specials. There it withered away until being dropped in January 2002 (replaced by more reruns of Two of a Kind). As of this writing no episodes of any version are viewable online, but while both the Leary and High School formats have promos on YouTube and IMDB pages, not even the Lost Media Wiki recognizes Mall-Star Countdown, only Mcclain's resume, ChikaChikaBowBow and the United Methodist Church confirm its existence.
  • Hello Kitty's Paradise: Obviously created as a preschool series and likely intended as the centerpiece of It's Itsy Bitsy Time (a rebranding of The Captain's Treasure House from the previous season). Those hopes instantly evaporated when the Moral Guardians in charge of the TV Parental Guidelines monitoring board made clear their disgust at the idea of producing what was essentially a 30-minute toy commercial targeted to kids under 5 and disguised as an Edutainment Show. The show ended up being slapped with a TV-Y7 rating as seen in the American opening here to make an example of Saban and Sanrio's perceived actions. As a result, Hello Kitty's Paradise was banished to the purgatory slot of 7:00 AM Saturdays upon debuting in March 2000 (complete with absolutely no promotion) and quietly waved goodbye sometime in September.
  • The Hi Fi Room: Having learned absolutely nothing from the previous summer, this Y2K take on American Bandstand premiered in July 2000 and aired on Saturdays at 12:00 Noon. (a bad enough slot even during the regular season, mind you). Needless to say, the show tanked miserably and in November was moved to 10:30 AM (the noon slot replaced by reruns of Weird Science) in a last-ditch effort to gain anything resembling ratings. Unfortunately, replacing the video countdowns soured whatever goodwill the show had to begin with, and it was canned just one month later to nobody's great sadness.
  • I Was a Sixth Grade Alien: Speaking of which, this series also premiered the same July and was given the 5:00 PM slot on Tuesdays along with the entire 9:00 AM hour on Sundays. October saw the Sunday slot promoted to 10:30 as well as a 4:00 PM weekday slot-which became 3:00 PM the following summer, and then 2:00 PM for Season 2. The show was dropped in November 2000 before completing Season 2, with the added indignity of Camp Candy reruns serving once again as replacement filler.
  • The Kids from Room 402: After being Adored by the Network during its first season, the second season slowly began falling into this. First, its Saturday and weekday morning slots were demoted from 9:00 AM and 8:00 AM to 8:00 AM and 8:30 AM respectively, then in November 2000 its weekday afternoon slot was also demoted from 3:00 PM to 2:30 PM. The series was canceled that spring and pulled from weekends the following September but remained in weekday reruns until being removed completely in January 2002.
  • Mega Babies premiered in October 1999 and given the full 9:00 AM hour on Sundays as well as two hour-long blocks on Mondays and Fridays-only to be dropped from Sundays after one month in favor of expanding the network's Anime Invasion/Made in Japan block, as well as from Fridays in favor of S Club 7. The show lingered in its remaining Monday slots until being pulled completely in January; this despite having already been renewed for a second season. Season 2 would be burned off that summer in a 2:30 PM weekday slot, before the show was demoted to 1:30 PM for the entire 2000-2001 season (To be fair, Mega Babies was strongly rivaling Angela Anaconda for the dubious title of the network's worst and most hated show, so this treatment was somewhat justified).
  • Monster Farm: Premiered in "The Basement" at the cushy timeslot of 4:00 PM Monday-Friday, only to be dropped after three months and replaced by reruns of Camp Candy.
  • Radio Active: Premiered in April 1999 at 5:00 PM on Fridays, where it stayed for its entire 1st season, and in July given a second time slot on Saturday mornings at 11:00 AM.-only to be unceremoniously pulled in November in favor of S Club 7 in Miami. Seasons 2 and 3 never aired in the U.S.
  • Real Scary Stories: Aired Saturday afternoons at 1:00 PM for its first and only season.
  • Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Premiered in July 1999 (arguably the worst month of the year to premiere a new series) and aired Wednesdays at 5:00 PM (in a failed attempt to break up The Basement's time slots between shows) and Sundays at 10:30 AM. Needless to say, these awkward timeslots failed to translate into ratings. Following a brief and unadvertised fall run to burn off the remaining episodes^note The New Addams Family getting the full 5:00 weekday slot and its Sunday slot moved to 10:00 AM in favor of I Was a Sixth Grade Alien. the show was unceremoniously dropped in January 2000-possibly justified as this was about the time that CINAR's financial scandals were exposed, and Fox Family certainly didn't like the idea having to pay licensing fees to a discredited studio.
  • Rotten Ralph: Once again, the series premiered in July 1999, also airing at 5:00 PM (on Mondays this time) as well as on Saturday mornings at 9:30 AM. By October, the show was dropped from The Basement and its Saturday slot was moved to 7:30 AM, when the intended audience was either still asleep or just waking up. Miraculously, the show was STILL renewed for a second season-which did not begin airing until November 2000, and to add insult to injury was burned off on weekdays at Noon. No points for guessing what happened come summer 2001. ^note Worst of all, this was still better treatment than the show received in its native Canada, where the show would not begin airing until BBC Kids premiered the show in 2006-a delay made even less excusable in that BBC Kids Canada launched in November 2001-by which point the series had already ended on both Fox Family and the original CBBC in the UK (with whom the show was a co-production).
  • So Little Time: Given how well Fox Family treated its reruns of Two of a Kind^note 5:30 PM weekdays and at least one slot on Saturdays, it seemed obvious that the show would become a surefire hit even with the new regime.....except that Fox Family once again made the mistake of premiering a new series during the summer months-premiering in June and initially airing at Noon on Saturdays-and then tried to cheat the Nielsens by placing the show on hiatus (with a new timeslot of 11:30 AM) and rerunning the first 12 episodes during the fall season. It didn't work; when new episodes resumed in December^note read: Christmastime when almost nobody is watching television-especially on weekendsthe damage was done. Not even adding a 6:00 PM weekday slot-the only show from the children's daypart to be aired that late-was enough to save the Olsens; the show was cancelled the following spring and dropped from Saturday mornings in July.^note Though it did keep its 1:30 PM weekend slot for another year. At least ABC Family reran the show in wheel rotation with Two of a Kinduntil 2005.
  • Spellbinder: Picked up from Disney Channel for its second season and aired on weekends at 11:30 AM, then dropped in November in favor promoting Fox Family Countdown to Saturday mornings. The remaining episodes were eventually burned off on Girlz Channel when that network launched in October 1999.
  • State of Grace: Once again, Fox Family saw fit to premiere a new series during the summer. Specifically, the show debuted in June 2001 and initially aired as a two-episode block on Mondays at 9:00 PM. Fortunately, Fox Family was smart enough to promote the series during its kid/tween daypart in order to better attract its target audience and ultimately earn the show a second season. Sadly, by this time ABC Family was in full effect, and that second season was rushed to air the following spring complete with the following:
    • Moving to the Friday Night Death Slot.
    • Being bumped ahead an hour to 8:00 PM.
    • Airing only one episode per week.
    • As you might expect, this resulted in a dramatic ratings drop that killed off any interest the network might have had in continuing the series. The show was canceled in June with the remaining episodes moved back to Monday but still at 8:00. Grace and Hannah would spend the next season in weekday reruns at 4:00 PM before being removed completely in June 2003-replaced by reruns of 7th Heaven.
  • The Animated Adaptation of Tabaluga was slated to air on Fox Family Channel in 1998 on the Captain's Treasure House block, but was preempted at the last minute for Mr. Moose's Fun Time. However, it was later aired on Fox's own boyzChannel, where the situation was worse. Since most cable providers weren't interested in the channel, very few households received it. This also impacted several of Saban's own series which were forced to make their US premieres on Boyz/Girlz Channel, such as Little Mouse on the Prairie, Jim Button, Honeybee Hutch and Princess Sissi, as well as the YTV import St. Bear's Dolls Hospital. ^note  Little Mouse was also supposed to have been part of Fox Family's launch schedule, while Sissi was the only one made part of the main lineup (the rest were aired as preschool shows, regardless of their target audience on Fox Kids' international channels.)
  • The Three Friends... and Jerry: Unquestionably Fox Family's first Network Darling, the show aired weekdays at 5:00 PM for its first season (adding weekend airings in March '99), and contrary to popular opinion (the Moral Guardians outrage for which this series is infamous being largely an urban myth) the showed was renewed for a second season which was also aired on the main channel-at the new time of 2:30 PM (when the intended audience was just returning from school)-to make room for Angela Anaconda and The Kids From Room 402. Needless to say, ratings tanked and the show was gone by March 2000. As with Monster Farm, reruns of Camp Candy would fill the time slot for what remained of the regular season.
  • Total Access 24/7: Originally aired in June 2000 as a series of behind-the-scenes specials, then promoted to a full series in March 2001 and given the very respectable time slot of Saturday mornings at 10:30 AM. The following fall, however, it was moved to the aforementioned death slot of weekends at 1:00 PM, followed by a hiatus beginning in November, and then to Sundays at 12:00 PM upon returning in April 2002. Needless to say, there was no 4th season.
  • Totally Spies!: Originally ordered by Fox Family, but did not premiere until November 2001-the same month as the rebrand to ABC Family. Nevertheless, the show was given the sweet spot of weekends at 9:30 AM and quickly became the highest-rated cartoon on the network-until it was dropped from the weekends altogether in July, again in favor of the then-nameless action block (remember, Totally Spies IS an action cartoon). The show had been given a decent weekday slot of 4:00 PM in March, but would last only two further months in that slot before being pulled for good in September (replaced by reruns of State of Grace as mentioned below), leaving Cartoon Network to pick up the show a year later to considerably better treatment.
  • Walter Melon: Built up as a flagship series for the network, airing at the prime slot of weekdays at 4:30 PM for all of the network's first year, added a Sunday morning slot in March '99, and renewed for a second season-which was unceremoniously dumped onto Boyz Channel at that network's launch. Unlike Bad Dog, Walter Melon never returned to Fox Family proper.
  • Weird-Ohs: Premiered in October 1999 and aired Saturdays at 12:00 Noon. It was then moved to Sunday mornings at 10:00 AM after only three months, and dropped altogether in March in favor of Flint the Time Detective.
  • What's with Andy?: Premiered in September 2001 and aired every morning at 8:00 AM, when the intended audience would just be getting out of bed/getting ready for school. As if that wasn't bad enough, it also meant that the entire first season (26 episodes) aired within one month before being placed on rerun loop. It lasted barely five months before its time slot was taken over by ABC Family's then-nameless action cartoon block, leaving seasons 2 & 3 unaired in the U.S.
  • The Zack Files: Aired in the inexcusable timeslot of 1:30 PM on Saturday afternoons from its premiere until May 2001, then briefly "promoted" to 12:30 PM before being kicked off the weekends in June. A 3:30 weekday slot come summer did just enough to ensure ABC Family would air the second season-but not enough to put the show back on weekends. Needless to say, airing new episodes when kids are just coming back from school did not justify a third season, and the show was moved to 3:00 in January 2002 and then removed altogether in March (replaced by reruns of Growing Pains, no less). A second weekday slot at 7:30 AM was also dropped and replaced by Digimon reruns.
  • It should be noted, however, that pretty much all of the above screwings are mostly the result of the network's scheduling practices. That is to say, Fox Family only ran children's programming from 7:00 AM until either 6:00 PM (on weekdays) or 2:00 PM (on weekends). After that, the network transitioned to a family-oriented general entertainment lineup consisting mostly of movies, original series, and reruns of then-recent sitcoms (such as Who's the Boss?, Growing Pains and Step by Step). As a result, shows on the children's daypart were forced to compete against the children's blocks on local stations-including their own sister shows from Fox Kids. For context, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel usually aired their new episodes after 7:00 PM partially to avoid this very issue. What makes it worse was that this upfront promoting the channel's launch stated that Fox Family's kids' portion was supposed to ''supplement'' Fox Kids. One can only wonder how things might have turned out if "The Basement'' had actually aired when the lights were out.
• When ABC Family rolled out its hard launch in January 2002, even the aforementioned favorites weren't spared major screwing on behalf of the new regime:
  • Angela Anaconda and Mary Kate and Ashley's Adventures were kicked off the weekday lineup in January 2002, but stayed on weekends until being pulled completely in March to make room for the action block.^note Not that it mattered much in MKAA's case, as the show had already been moved out of its weekday morning slot (which it had held since November 1999) and buried at noon starting the previous September.
    • The New Addams Family was removed completely that same January to make room for Braceface's weekday run.
  • Great Pretenders was unceremoniously dropped in July 2002, despite healthy ratings and a mostly consistent timeslot throughout its four year run.^note The show was only ever moved twice-first from 11:00 AM to 10:00 AM in March 1999, then a brief move to 9:30 AM from March-November 2001.
  • S Club 7-until then the network's flagship original series-was also not spared the action block; which saw the show briefly moved to 12:00 PM on Sundays during the summer of 2002. While the show did return to Saturdays for its 4th season (Viva S Club), it was also given the new time of 1:00 PM! Granted, the show still had its 4:30 PM weekday slot, but the resulting decline in ratings ensured that S Club wouldn't be around for The XYZ.
  • Not even Two of a Kind was immune. If moving the weekday slot from 5:30 to 3:30 wasn't bad enough, then Fall 2002 showed just how little the network cared by forcing the show to share its rotation with So Little Time (as mentioned above). Initially coupled with moving both shows back to 5:30, summer 2003 saw the pair move to 3:00 as part of a format shift to accommodate the forthcoming XYZ block; with both shows also losing their weekend slots for the same reason. The two series then spent the next two years being shuffled around to pretty much wherever the network needed to fill time, until the Olsen contract finally expired in 2005.
• 10 Things I Hate About You had solid ratings and good advertising for the first half of Season 1. Disaster struck with the second half: this time, there was scarcely any advertising. The half-hour show wasn't paired with anything else and merely showed an encore instantly afterwards. The instant followup was also the only rerun that was on at a reasonable time of day. Now in this day and age, if one misses a show, one can catch it online...right? Not so fast. The website made people pay a 99¢ fee if they wanted to watch the episode online before Friday (when it would become free), a tactic they haven't used on any other show before or since. The worst blow, however, was moving the show from Tuesday nights to Monday nights, putting a show still finding an audience against ratings juggernaut Dancing with the Stars. The show still did fairly well considering the circumstances, but dipped below an average of one million viewers, which prompted a swift cancellation.
• Contractual obligation with the network's original founder Pat Robertson is the only thing keeping The 700 Club on Freeform. In the meantime, the network is doing everything it can to discourage people from watching it, by putting disclaimers before and after it that its views do not reflect that of the network, and airing it at 10:00am, 11:00pm, and 3:00am. As of 2018 though, the network's management has taken a Sarcasm Mode as far as the disclaimer (such messages as "watch or don't watch, we don't care either way" and pleading with Robertson to "not burn the place down while we're gone" have appeared), reminding viewers that Pat Robertson has zero control over their Internet presences and viewers can just go there and watch their shows while The 700 Club airs.
• The network spent the spring and summer of 2013 coming out with news on everything on the network except about the fate of Bunheads, which had their first season come to an end in February of that year. The network waited five months and through multiple questions from fans and television critics to announce the show's cancellation in the dog days of July, leading to consternation among the fans of the show, and did no favors to the cast, who were stuck waiting to see if it was coming back and were unable to commit to the 2013-14 pilot season without news either way. It also had the opposite effect of having those who like Bunheads root against the new shows The Fosters and Twisted in the infinitesimal hope that they'd bomb so they'd get their show back. Unsurprisingly, both shows did well enough to come back in the winter, though Twisted ended up plunging and was canceled at the end of its winter half-season. Bunheads's cancellation led to questions as to why ABC Family didn't expand their original programming efforts to another night so they don't have to deal with this (Freeform finally did in 2018 with an expansion of original programming to Thursday nights).
• When Family Guy began airing reruns on the network (Seasons 16 and 17 to be exact; TBS and [adult swim] hold the rights to Seasons 1-15 until 2021), it was given a weekly hour long block of 7-8pm... on a Wednesday. After a while, the show was unceremoniously moved to Fridays at midnight, with little to no warning, and select episodes were skipped over (though the one episode that was skipped over during the Wednesday run aired during this run). Fortunately, this seems to have been alleviated, as the show now airs on Fridays, with a modest amount of advertising.
  • Even then, the show's time slots always change. Some days it can air from 8-11pm, other days it can air as early as 2-5pm.
  • Averted on sister network (as of 2019) FXX, where the show got consistent time-slots and was heavily advertised since its debut.
• In a rare example of this trope happening with the TV broadcast of the film, Freeform promised to air Frozen eight times during the 25 Days of Christmas. However, the day before the event began, they cut down the airings and only kept the showings on December 17th at 9PM and December 18th at 7:20PM. It didn't help that people on Freeform's Facebook complained about the number of airings and that one of the original airings was supposed to happen the day the film made its debut on ABC.
• At least three series meant for Fox Family's would-be 2002 season-Gadget and the Gadgetinis, Pig City and Ultimate Book of Spells-were completely screwed out of their intended broadcasts because of the ABC Family relaunch. The former two ultimately never saw US airwaves, while UBOS was passed over to Toon Disney and buried in a mid-morning slot when the audience would be at school.^note Most likely even this was only because UBOS was an outside acquisition bought by Fox/Saban as part of a multi-show deal with producer BKN (which also included Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends, Kong: The Animated Series and eventually Legend Of The Dragon) unlike Gagdetinis and Pig City which were co-produced and/or co-financed in-house and therefore could be skipped without incurring wasted licencing fees.
• Go For It TV: After being rescued from USA Network, ABC Family proceeded to burn off seasons 2 and 3, airing one after the other, on Saturdays at 12:00 Noon during the spring and summer of 2002 before canceling it for good come fall, though this was mostly not their fault; the show's producers (the southern physical rehabilitation chain Health South) were in the middle of an accounting scandal and the sudden new management killed the show as a completely superfluous expense.
• This happened with the network's premiere of The Greatest Showman on November 16, 2021. Not only was the airing not advertised by the network, but it aired in a 3:30 PM timeslot, which isn't the kind of timeslot one would expect for a premiere airing of a film.
• Shall no one mourn the loss of Kyle XY? After 3 successful seasons (which most people agreed that it really didn't degrade in quality at any point) it appeared that mainly after the slow decline of Heroes and Smallville viewers, ABC Family announced that Superhuman Realism based shows weren't really their bag anymore. Kyle was suddenly canceled, and ABC Family focused on more realistic shows in the next few years, before returning to similar content (such as Shadowhunters and Cloak & Dagger (2018)) when it was renamed to Freeform.
  • The series was ultimately axed due to low ratings. But while it is true that ratings dropped after The Secret Life of the American Teenager premiered, Kyle was still pulling in an average of 1.5 million. That's pretty good for ABC Family, but it wasn't Secret Life's average of 3 million. It's also worth pointing out that, because Season 2 was longer than the show's other two seasons, Kyle XY ended up on a nearly year-long hiatus after the second season came to an end. It didn't help matters that ABC Family seemed more intent on shilling shows like The Secret Life, because by the time Kyle XY came back for the third season, many casual fans had mistakenly assumed that the show was already canceled and, thus, didn't tune in.
• Another show that was canceled due to ABC Family's new "more realistic" outlook was The Middle Man. Alas. Matt Keeslar's acting career pretty much ended at this point.
• Norm of the North made its network television premiere on Freeform at 11:55 PM EST on a Sunday night, when nobody in the target audience would even be awake.
• When The Office (US) premiered in January of 2022, Freeform's tradition of airing movies at night on weekdays was moved to those same movies airing in the middle of the day, when their target audience would be either at work or school, to make room for reruns of The Office. The same thing also happened with the Friday movies when they devoted that day of week's evenings to Family Guy beginning in January of 2020. Thankfully, movies still air on the network at reasonable times on weekends and during special events.
• Shinzo: premiered in July 2002 and burned off on weekend mornings at 7:30 AM before being pulled with all but the last episode of season 1 being aired. That episode and the entirety of Season 2 would not air until 2005 (in the same time slot, no less).
• Back when Fox bought out the channel, it canceled all their original shows on at the time- including Jay Wolpert's Shopping Spree and The New Shop Til You Drop (which did get revived again on the former PAX TV, though the series had a major retool in 2003 that was critically panned).
• The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow got this treatment when ABC Family had the rights to the special. The special aired at 7:30AM on a Sunday, and to make matters worse, that was the special's only airing on the network, as it was never rerun.

A&E Networks

• Despite pulling in respectable ratings, Lifetime canned Debt after two seasons because its demographics were skewing towards males on a television channel aimed at women. Supermarket Sweep also met this fate before it was Un-Canceled by PAX in 2000. (Disney, which produced the show, attempted to bring it back in syndication, but that didn't pan out for some reason.)
• Live PD, a huge Cash-Cow Franchise for A&E, was given the axe in 2020 along with its spinoffs (save Live Rescue, which was spared for unknown reasons) after the George Floyd protests caused a massive PR nightmare for police organizations in multiple countries, as well as allegations that the producers were withholding footage of police allegedly tasering a suspect to death.
• History Channel gave Modern Marvels one last season in 2012 (before reviving it in 2021) consisting of 10 "countdown" episodes and a retrospective episode on the Panama Canal.^note The Panama Canal was the subject of the show's first regular episode. History then premiered the ten countdown episodes over a slow two-year span, followed by "Panama Canal Supersized" on a Saturday night in 2015 after another lengthy hiatus.
• Spooks got this bad during its two runs on cable TV in the United States.
  • It first landed on A&E at a time when the network was in the process of decaying from its original image as a home for British imports into the reality/docu-net it is today. After getting decent midweek slots for series one and two, the network decided to push series three to Saturdays at 10 to make room for reality shows in that midweek slot. Ratings suffered, but A&E was already locked into a contract for series four. So, they pulled repeats off the schedule during the long hiatus between series, and dumped series four on Fridays at 11, where the ratings dropped so hard, so fast that it was pulled after two weeks. That said, at least the network bothered to burn off the rest of series four (in Saturday afternoon marathon form).
  • The show wouldn't get that chance at BBC America, who restarted the show's run at series one. This time at least, the show would maintain a midweek slot for its entire run. Unfortunately, the third series found it in competition against American Idol, which helped drain away a lot of viewers from the show (as Idol was prone to do to all shows at the time). The fourth series actually premiered against the gigantic Idol finale that year, and the numbers never recovered during the subsequent summer run, which led to BBCA pulling it after the fourth episode.
  • Luckily, PBS would pull a Network to the Rescue by contracting most of its affiliates to carry the show beginning in 2009. The series had aired its full run on PBS by sometime in 2013. Netflix also carried the full series a part of a package deal during the early 2010s, although this package has since been moved to other streaming services.

Disney Channel

• If you fall in love with a series that airs on Disney, the odds are you can say goodbye to ever getting full-season releases (or maybe even a DVD release, period). The best you can hope for are "best-ofs" or re-edited movie editions, as per Kim Possible. There have been a few exceptions (specifically Kim Possible, Mickey Mouse (2013), Lizzie McGuire, Hannah Montana, and Gravity Falls), but only a few. Let's just say don't hold your breath.
• If you were to catch any animated show from 2014 to 2016, it would've been miraculous. Gravity Falls, Wander over Yonder and even Phineas and Ferb were swiftly moved to Disney XD, as well as all imported series. The shows pitched as Disney Channel shows meant for kids 6-12 that would not fit in with the Disney XD lineup would be retooled into Disney Junior shows, as was the case with Sofia the First and Miles from Tomorrowland. This was quite controversial online because Disney is well-known for being a company for material for all ages, yet all their namesake cable network was airing were teen sitcoms.
• Conversely to what happened to Disney Channel in the U.S, on Disney Channel Asia, any live-action show (that are produced by Disney) can get screwed over in order to make way for animated shows or Malaysian-produced series like Upin & Ipin, BoBoiBoy, and Waktu Rehat.
  • It's the same situation with the Japanese counterpart. Animated shows ^note  most of which are made by Disney themselves, but some non-Disney cartoons like The Penguins of Madagascar and The Fairly OddParents! as well as anime like Doraemon and Aikatsu! have aired as well. air all day long, and the live-action shows only play at night. Even movie airings are not spared from this, as most of the movies the channel airs are animated films.
  • On the topic of Disney Channel Asia, they used to screen Arthur between 2000 and 2005. They dropped the series like a freaking hot potato in mid-2005, halfway through Season 5, for no reason whatsoever and have not resumed airing the series. It was the only way Asians outside Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong could get to watch Arthur...
• Disney has screwed over the entire South-East Asia region one last time by shutting down the SEA feeds of Disney Channel Asia a year after they shut down the Disney Junior and Disney XD feeds in the region. Like the latter feeds, the excuse given was that it was loss-making and did not have enough subscribers; this was because they managed to sabotage themselves by getting exclusivity deals to only be available on exactly one provider in countries that permit them.
• Disney used to have a rule to cancel shows after 65 episodes, 65 being the number of episodes the show can have before syndication. By the late 2000s, this rule was no longer in effect, but many shows were canceled at that number nonetheless:
  • Even Stevens
  • Lizzie McGuire, which put Disney Channel, a struggling cable network at the time, on the map.
  • Phil of the Future, which was canceled well before the 65-episode mark, much to the confusion and dismay of fans. The reason Disney gave the cast was that since the show was so popular and made them so much money, they had a choice: produce a third season of the show, or use the money to create another show with the potential to be just as popular. Despite many fans' attempts to save it, Disney chose the latter option, giving birth to Hannah Montana.
  • So Weird got this on two fronts:
    • In addition to the episode number count, So Weird also suffered a major retooling for its third season. The original plans for the story (which involved, among other things, the heroine traveling to Hell to rescue her father's soul from the demonic alliance) were deemed "too dark" and Executive Meddling ordered it be Lighter and Softer. This caused the original writers and lead actress to quit, resulting in a whole new team of writers and a new lead actress being hired as well as the Myth Arc that was being set up throughout the first two seasons being abruptly cut short. Needless to say, the third season has largely been regarded as Fanon Discontinuity by the fanbase.
    • When the show was put on Disney+, the Season 2 episodes were posted Out of Order. Their solution involved removing the season from their platforms until they figured out the right order. Considering how many launch titles remain available despite jumbled episodes, this tactic seemed unfairly extreme and gave fans a difficult test of patience. It ultimately took Disney+ weeks to put the season back up, and even then, the episodes still remained out of order.
• The season 2 finale of Amphibia was hit hard by Disney's decision to postpone it at the last moment. Presumably, as Disney themselves has yet to confirm it, the reason was because Disney was uncomfortable with the episode depicting a scene of Marcy getting Impaled with Extreme Prejudice and held it off for several weeks. To add insult to injury, this change came so out of nowhere that iTunes didn't get the memo, and leaked the episode early (though they did remove it shortly afterwards). The creators and crews of both Amphibia and other shows strongly expressed their distaste on Twitter.
• Andi Mack was canceled after its third season. Ham also had all his scenes cut due to the controversy surrounding Stoney Westmoreland. This resulted in some episodes having a shorter-than-usual runtime. It's gotten to the point where the cast had to do reshoots.
• Series like Austin & Ally, Girl Meets World, Liv and Maddie, Best Friends Whenever, and Good Luck Charlie aired reruns late at night or in the early morning, indicating that if ratings continued to tank, Disney Channel would pull them completely.
• Newer animated series, such as Big City Greens, DuckTales (2017) and Big Hero 6: The Series often fall into this territory time to time as of early 2019, usually going into a Series Hiatus that lasts around 4-8 months, much to the pressure of longtime fans and the shows' excessive popularity. Francisco Angones and Chris Houghton revealed on Tumblr that this was because of Disney Channel's new binge watching strategy, where instead of releasing about 2-4 finished episodes at a time, the crew would have to finish producing ten episodes and then release them all at once in a "bomb" format week after week, which could take them almost half a year. It doesn't help that shorts based on the series are released during said hiatuses to keep the fans entertained.
• Much like with Tangled below, Big Hero 6: The Series fell into this midway through season 1, with reruns being greatly reduced, and the show only airs new episodes, with no reruns. It says something when Disney XD, which it was originally for, treats the show better.
• First run episodes of Fish Hooks aired at decent time slots, but reruns were only shown at 5:00 in the morning unless they were filler. Even then, Phineas and Ferb usually did the job. A few months after it ended, it eventually got replaced by another Phineas and Ferb rerun.
• Despite being a successful performer for the network, "The Ghost and Molly McGee" was dealt a bad hand when executives decided to cancel the show in June 2022. This was after it was greenlit for a second season before the show even aired, and before the first season ended the following month. To make matters worse, as revealed in an X/Twitter thread from co-creator Bill Motz, Disney had even commissioned 10 scripts for the third season, and many more were written as revealed by the show's writers following the series finale. However, a complete lack of marketing and schedule planning, initially present in the buildup to the show's premiere, significantly affected its cable viewership. This forced the show to rely on viewerships and streams from Disney+ episode drops, and when the second one in December 2021 did not perform as well as the first and third drops, they made the decision to cancel the show. On the bright side, the creators were able to be granted one extra episode to the second season to allow for a proper series finale to the show.
• It took over a year for the network to air the first season of Hotel Transylvania: The Series, and by the time they aired the last few episodes in October 2018, the whole season was already available on Netflix. They also pulled it off the schedule before the second season began, likely because they saw it as a seasonal show due to its themes.
• I Didn't Do It had modest ratings in its first season, so Disney renewed it for a second season and along with it, the original writing team was fired and replaced with the writing team of Good Luck Charlie. Disney also moved it to Fridays, hoping the show would have better ratings; but Disney rarely advertised it in the block, leading the series to be axed.
• Shortly after the announcement for the second season of The Owl House was made, it was further announced that the show would end after its third season, which consists of three 44-minute specials (totaling to just six episodes when accounting the 22-minute runtime of standard episodes). While it's been vague as to whether or not ending the show after Season 3 was the showrunners' choice, creator Dana Terrace has stated on her Twitter that she expected Season 3 to be the series' usual 10-20 episode format. It was Disney's decision to cut the season down to just the aforementioned specials, with the cited reasons being that the show was deemed too costly and mature to air on the block.
• Prankstars, a Disney-fied Punk'd, was killed halfway into its run when host Mitchell Musso was caught drunk driving, blacklisted from the company, and written out of Pair of Kings.^note Though it didn't prevent him from continuing to voice Jeremy in Phineas and Ferb and going on to voice a minor character in sister series Milo Murphy's Law as the creators supported him. It still aired in the United Kingdom for a few months to low viewership without any promotion whatsoever, and the remaining unaired episodes would eventually debut in the US on Disney XD... in 2016.
• The Replacements aired between Saturday and Friday nights at 9:00 for its first season, until Disney Channel changed the date from Saturday/Friday nights to Monday afternoons at 2:30 for its second season. Premieres were eventually moved to a slightly better timeslot (5:00) later on.
• Season 3 of Shake it Up was given a 9 PM time slot on Sunday, a time when children are usually in bed. The ratings actually increased from the second season, but not enough for Disney to give the show a fourth season.
• So Random! started off pretty decently, but eventually it was moved to 7:30 PM, and during the Summer it had been consistently getting less than 3 million viewers per episode. ^note (Case in point: one episode got exactly 2.399 million viewers, only to be followed by a new Good Luck Charlie which got over 4 million.) It might be that people weren't as pleased with Demi Lovato having left the channel at the time, but still. Though since the fall, it seemed to be making its way back up rather quickly...until the series got canceled in March 2012.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil fell into this during season 4. Moving from Disney XD to Disney Channel meant little of anything since new episodes aired Sunday mornings at 8:00 before moving to 7:00. Also, despite being seen as one of the network's best shows, Disney was surprisingly quick to get rid of it. After May 31, less than two weeks after the series finale, the show was removed from the air.
• Star Wars Resistance was screwed from the get-go. Its hour-long premiere was on Sunday, October 7, 2018 at 10:00pm. It could've just been a one-time thing since it's the day before Columbus Day, but episodes after the pilot also aired Sunday nights. On top of that, Disney Channel only aired new episodes while all encores were on Disney XD.
  • Even Disney XD treated the show poorly, with reruns of the show being replaced with Phineas and Ferb and Big Hero 6: The Series.
• The original English version of Stitch & Ai was finally released in the United States on December 1, 2018, almost ten months after it made its English debut on Disney Channel in Southeast Asia and over one and a half years since the show first aired in China. However, instead of airing it on television, Disney quietly released it on DisneyNow (where the show was listed as a Disney Channel series, hence why it's in this folder), a TV Everywhere streaming service and app, and without the show's ninth episode ("The Phoenix") included. The show was then removed from the service around June 2019 and it hasn't returned since. At least U.S. viewers got to watch the twelve episodes they got (out of thirteen) completely for free when it was up, since the show wasn't put behind the TV provider log-in requirement that the service normally requires for full-length shows.
• Stuck in the Middle was a huge hit for the network, but it was announced that the show would be ending after 3 seasons, temporarily leaving Raven's Home, Coop & Cami Ask the World, Sydney to the Max, and Bunk'd (which got uncancelled with a new cast) as the only sitcoms on Disney Channel still in production, as Bizaardvark and Andi Mack were also cancelled.
• Tangled: The Series, based on the mega-hit film Tangled, has also been screwed over ^note despite being renewed for a second season before its premiere and a season three before its second season. Starting in late season 1 (around a few weeks before the season finale), its reruns greatly decreased. The show went four months without reruns from January 28 to May 19, 2018. Once the second season premiered, the show had a few encores before they were wiped completely. To top it off, the show was a scheduling nightmare.
  • Things worsened in season 2 with a six-month hiatus from August 26, 2018 to March 3, 2019, new episodes airing at 7:00 Sunday mornings, and another hiatus from the season 2 finale to the season 3 premiere. On top of that, season three episode premieres were at 1:00 PM EST, a time where the target audience would be at school unless they had fall break. When new episodes returned in January 2020, it was back to Sunday mornings.
• Wander over Yonder. The show was initially picked up by Disney Channel in 2012 and began airing regularly in September 2013. From January 2014, Disney Channel began showing fewer reruns of the show and eventually, on January 25, 2014, after a rerun of "The Bounty", all reruns of the show were removed from the schedule. Even episodes scheduled to air in February 2014 were pulled from airing.
  • A few weeks later, the network announced the show would air new episodes on Disney XD, but said episodes would air on the Disney XD on Disney Channel block starting in July 2014. Then the entire show was removed from the block, and the network entirely, in February 2015, and hasn't aired since then, leaving 3 episodes from season 1 and the entire second season unaired. When the show was up for renewal after its second season, Disney XD decided it couldn't afford to continue the series after eighty episodes. Despite protests from fans as well as series creator Craig McCracken, the show was canceled. However, what was totally uncalled for was that the season 2 finale was advertised as the "series finale", despite ending on a Sequel Hook that would've been resolved in season 3. The backlash was so bad that fans resorted to setting up multiple petitions at Change.org calling for Disney XD to reverse course. Shortly after Wander ended, Disney XD pulled it entirely from their schedule. However, reruns of the series returned to Disney XD in 2017, often as marathons in the middle of the day or late at night.
• Disney Channel's broadcast of The ZhuZhus in the US was erratic, to say the least. The network would often hold off from airing the show between months^note though in one case it wasn't their fault, due to the renaming of the show from Polly and the ZhuZhu Pets and renaming the titular character "Frankie", constantly delayed episodes, and after it aired its season finale in August 2017, Disney almost completely forgot about the show, having removed all traces of it from the DisneyNow app.

ESPN/ABC Sports

• In 2005, ESPN opted not to continue its relationship with the National Hockey League (fresh out of the lockout that canceled the entire 2004-05 season), and the cable rights were taken over by OLN (which then became Versus, and later still, NBC Sports), a channel dedicated to outdoor sports with distribution not as wide as ESPN's. When NBC finally offered to air the 2007 NHL playoffs, they cut away from a series-clinching playoff game in overtime to show 90 minutes of pre-race coverage of the Preakness Stakes, knocking the remainder of the game over to Versus (except in Buffalo, one of the NHL's smallest yet loyal markets, and Ottawa, where CBC knows better and didn't have such a conflict). Thankfully, they've learned their lesson (and Versus, now known as the NBC Sports Network following Comcast's acquisition of NBC, has become a lot more established since^note NBCSN was shut down on December 31, 2021, with programming moving to either the USA Network, the Peacock streaming service, or the main NBC network.) The Preakness Stakes incident was Executive Meddling of its own, as NBC's contract with the race (negotiated years before, mind you) had advertising commitments.
  • ESPN and ABC aren't exactly blameless for losing their NHL TV rights, though. Once they pulled some duplicitous tactics to yank broadcast rights away from Fox, both ESPN and ABC proceeded to ignore the league, giving it absolutely no advertising time on ABC and the bare minimum on ESPN. This behavior accelerated when ESPN and ABC got the rights to broadcast NBA games from NBC (coincidentally, the NHL's direct competitor for the winter months), with both networks making it clear they were prioritizing basketball over hockey. Then right as the 2004-05 NHL lockout started, ESPN canceled their NHL recap show NHL2night and refused to revive the show when the League approached them for a new cable deal after the labor dispute ended. With this kind of network screwing over a 6-7 year period, you cannot possibly blame the NHL for jumping to a more caring TV partner in Versus (although going with NBC is still inexcusable, as shown above). This blog entry goes into more detail about how Disney's networks screwed over the NHL, as well as the aforementioned dirty tactics used to screw FOX out of any TV rights.
  • Fortunately, the two managed to reconcile in 2021, with ABC securing rights to four Stanley Cup Finals (which means ABC will have a lot more sports to show in late May and early June, as the NBA Finals take place at the same time) and ESPN+ securing the rights to the entire NHL.TV out-of-market package in addition to 75 exclusive games (shared with Hulu), which will see them broadcast over 1,100 games each year. Also, the contract includes a stipulation where ESPN provides extensive highlights and coverage to the sport, meaning that, hopefully, ESPN will pay attention to the sport far more than they've ever done in the past. And in a twist of irony, NBC ended up parting ways with the NHL as the high price of the ESPN deal, coupled with the network having just paid a hefty penny to keep NFL's Sunday night game and a desire to provide more English Premier League games to its Peacock platform, made it difficult for them to fend off an offer with Turner Sports, who ultimately scored three Stanley Cup Finals along with the other half of the NHL's media rights, all but giving Disney and ESPN the last laugh and vindicating NBC's decision to close their sports channel down by 2022.
• The 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Bank of America 500 was a victim of this. The first 25 laps, as well as NASCAR Countdown, were preempted due to a college football game (TCU versus Baylor) running long. And it couldn't have been shown on the other ESPN networks, either, considering that they were all airing games of their own^note And it certainly didn't help that it was ESPN and TNT's final year broadcasting NASCAR races, as NBC and Fox (the latter of whom screwed CBS out of airing NASCAR races, especially the Daytona 500, in 1999) had signed a more lucrative broadcasting contract with NASCAR the year prior. Talk about overbooking...
  • During its second stint with NASCAR, ESPN had a nasty habit in general of screwing over NASCAR races, often moving the second-tier Busch/Nationwide Series races around to accommodate their more lucrative sports contracts, mainly college sports and NBA games running overtime. In one instance, the 2011 Lily Diabetes 250 at Richmond International Raceway was moved to Fox-owned Speed Channel, who gladly produced the broadcast themselves with their own broadcast team and on-screen graphics used for Sprint Cup and Truck Series events (a Nationwide Series race hadn't aired on a Fox network since 2011, as ESPN had the exclusive contract to air the entire season). Even worse was when ESPN moved races to networks not everyone gets, such as ESPN Classic and ESPNews. Races on ABC were also at the mercy of local affiliates, who would often preempt pre-race coverage in favor of educational programming to meet FCC mandates, and in some egregious cases, left the race while it was in progress, but usually returned in time for the ending.
• Another victim of ESPN's overbooking was drag racing. It was hard to be an NHRA fan when event telecasts were frequently shuffled around due to conflicts with other programming. In 2015, the NHRA agreed to end its contract, and agreed to a new one with Fox Sports 1 and 2 beginning in 2016. Unlike ESPN, Fox has aired much more thorough coverage, and viewership has seen major increases.
• A rare example of an affiliate breaking away from a sporting event: in a manner that may be reminiscent of the Heidi Bowl of 1968, on September 29, 2020, Toledo, Ohio ABC affiliate WTVG-13 broke away from an MLB playoff game (2020 was the first season in which ABC simulcast at least some of ESPN's broadcasts of the MLB playoffs) between the Houston Astros and the Minnesota Twins, which by that point had been tied 1-1 (the Astros would go on to win the game), to broadcast their regularly-scheduled 5:00 PM newscast. The remainder of the game moved to their CW-affiliated 13.2 subchannel to the anger of viewers who had YouTube TV, which doesn't carry WTVG-13.2..
• The Brazilian ESPN has at times disregarded important live events. The 2016 Olympic Games were being well-covered, until the Premier League started and many events were lost to both show English football games or air roundtables discussing that tournament. 2021 had an awful case as local tennis player Beatriz Haddad was pulling off an upset at Indian Wells, beating the tournament's top seed who was then ranked #3 in the world, only for the broadcast to cut abruptly to a roundtable on the American major leagues, meaning Haddad's victory was not seem by those who didn't sign up for the Star+ streaming service and could watch the rest of the game there.
• Hoyt'n Andy's Sportsbender, a 1995 sports-themed animated series centered around a show of the same name that MSTs sports clips from ESPN's archives, created by Jim Jinkins of Doug fame, was torpedoed the moment the Disney/ABC merger (which included the acquisition of ESPN) was announced, with production about 95% complete to boot. Despite the series wrapping up production two days before the merger became official (and Disney also buying Jinkins' Jumbo Pictures around the same time after discovering during the Disney/ABC merger that Jinkins had been working on this show, which would lead to a revival of Doug the following year), it was lost in the shuffle and ended up going unaired, even after a timeslot change, though Sony, who co-owned the show, managed to get it on the air in a few foreign markets, including the Philippines and Ireland, only finally debuting in the United States on Tubi years later.

FX Networks

• Both Unsupervised and Chozen, despite initially getting a decent amount of marketing before the series premiered, struggled to get even a million viewers on FX (this was back in 2012 and 2014, when series on major cable networks were typically getting more than a million viewers), weren't well-received, and were both canceled after one season. Chozen didn't even finish airing as they didn't even air its last three episodes on either the main network or FXX (the network it was initially pitched at), with those episodes only being available on DVD through Amazon manufacture-on-demand.

Toon Disney/Jetix/Disney XD

• One reason why this trope was so prominent in the Toon Disney days was the Jetix block. At its peak, the block would air for half of the day, not unlike [adult swim], with Toon Disney's programming airing during hours when the target demographic would be on their way to or was at school. Many shows were sent into graveyard slots until said slots were also taken over by Jetix programming.
• Disney has screwed over the entire South-East Asia region by shutting down the SEA feeds of Disney XD. The excuse given was that it was loss-making and did not have enough subscribers. This was because they managed to sabotage themselves by getting exclusivity deals to only be available on exactly one provider in countries that permit these kinds of behavior.
• In the Summer of 2016 and the Winter of 2016/2017, three shows were all condemned by Disney XD to a single mid-afternoon weekday slot where they were aired Out of Order with absolutely no promotion (including no mentions in any way, shape, or form on the channel's website) as quickly as possible. The first was Counterfeit Cat, which debuted in May and left at the start of July after 13 episodes to be replaced with Fangbone!, which burned off its first 13 episodes through the first half of July to be replaced with Atomic Puppet, which vanished from the schedule once July came to a close. Then Counterfeit Cat was suddenly brought back in January where the remaining 13 episodes that had yet to be aired were all aired within a single month before Atomic Puppet returned at the start of February to conclude its run before Fangbone! also came back at the end of February, finishing up the rest of its first season by March. In each case, once the show concluded, it was immediately pulled off the air without any further reruns or indications for a second season, and all of them ended on a cliffhanger.
• The 7D was canceled in April 2016 during its second season while also suffering the ignominy of having that season's intended 39 episodes shortened to 20. And due to unknown reasons, it hasn't aired reruns since December 2017.
• Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer, debuting in the summer of 2017, aired new episodes everyday for two weeks until the series was confirmed canceled after just 13 episodes. It is now the shortest-lived Disney cartoon in history.
• Nelvana's Blazing Dragons was dropped in a time slot that was so late at night/early in the morning that it was rarely seen before being quietly scuttled away. To add insult to injury, the series also faced heavy censorship from Disney, particularly of the implied homosexuality of one of the characters.
• In the summer of 2013, Disney XD brought in 4 new Canadian shows: Camp Lakebottom, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, the 2013 Max Steel cartoon, and Packages from Planet X, none of which were produced by Disney. By the next year, Pac-Man was the only show that lasted on the network for more than one season, yet after it was renewed, Disney XD suddenly had no interest in the show anymore and dumped it; reruns ceased for "Pac-Man" almost immediately after the show ended in 2015.
• Captain Flamingo was atrociously screwed by Jetix when it was picked up from Canada. The show premiered on Monday mornings at 8:30, when its target audience was heading for school. After seven months of this treatment, it was taken off the channel for two weeks, and when it returned it was pushed to Tuesdays at the inexplicable timeslot of 5:30 am, where the majority of its target audience are still asleep.
• On the UK Jetix channel, Combo Niños aired in an 11:00 am slot for the school holidays of 2008, but after only a few weeks it had moved to a 5:00am graveyard slot and vanished entirely a month later. Averted when the show had a second chance of life on GMTV's Toonatik strand in the Summer of 2009 and later the Christmas of that year.
• Crash & Bernstein. How, you may ask? First off, due to Disney XD deciding to rerun a one-hour episode of Kickin' It, the debut of episode 7 ("Motorcycle Crash") was delayed by a week. After that, they put it on hiatus to air new episodes of Mr. Young.
• Disney XD began airing Doctor Who starting from the episode "New Earth" in May 2015 with very heavy advertising, only to drop it shortly after. Much like what happened to Naruto Shippuden^note and The Vision of Escaflowne on Fox Kids, it was another example of a network acquiring a show without realizing that it would be inappropriate for their target audience.
  • The aforementioned Naruto Shippuden was briefly treated well when the early episodes of the show were light-hearted fun for tween boys. But when Disney discovered the show would get more violent, they pushed it to a later time slot, without notifying the Shonen Jump publishers advertising the show in the magazine. The show would also be twice preempted by tweencoms at the last minute and, soon afterwards, disappeared from the schedule. Disney XD has since removed all Naruto material from their website.
    • When Toonami was resurrected by [adult swim] and brought back the first Naruto anime, fans hoped this would bring Shippuden with it. Disney still held the rights and refused to release them, despite the fact that Disney XD wasn't even airing the show.^note Again, Fox Kids did the same thing with Magic Knight Rayearth and Slayers, preventing Cartoon Network from acquiring them for Toonami's daytime incarnation Eventually, in late 2013, Disney's rights to the series expired, and [adult swim] scooped them up as soon as they could.
• Doraemon. When the second season began airing in summer 2015, it was at the 1:00 P.M. slot. After the summer, however, new episodes continued to premiere in the same time slot.
  • It was worse on what used to be Disney XD's Canadian version (now known as WildBrainTV). The show only aired at 12PM on random days in the summer of 2015, and only ten episodes were aired. DHX Media purchased the network at the same time they began to air the show, which could justify its poor treatment.
• Following its premiere in 2016, Future-Worm! aired new episodes around 8:30 PM (sometimes with little to no promotion), but had fewer reruns over time. In 2017, the only time the show had reruns was when it was a spring marathon. Then reruns of the show were pulled entirely. The series was allegedly renewed for a second season, but this turned out to be false.
• When Toon Disney aired Garfield and Friends, it aired as early as 2:00 AM Eastern Time. The series would continue airing there for the next two years.
• Despite being one of Jetix's first original productions, Get Ed was given very little attention by Jetix and Disney XD, ultimately resulting in it fading away into obscurity and ending after a single season despite plans for a second (which were permanently canned with creator Andy Knight's death).
• Canadian import Jimmy Two-Shoes was a classic example of an American network being given the broadcast rights to an international show, but then acting like they never wanted it. After hopping on to distribute the show internationally and asking the creators to bowdlerize the setting (domestic broadcasters Teletoon proved a lot more lax), Disney XD proceeded to royally screw the show over, with new episodes of the show being aired at midnight and reruns aired at 4 in the morning. As a result, it ended after two seasons, despite announcements for a third season that later never came into fruition due to Disney opting out of the deal to fund it. That said, the show did have more success on Jetix in Europe, where they were much nicer to it than the Americans were (presumably because the Europeans weren't as twitchy about the implications of the setting).
• Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil, despite pretty good critical acclaim and being the most highest-rated cartoon on Disney XD, it was quietly cancelled in late 2012 and unfortunately suffered from Disney XD's two season curse. On the bright side, reruns occasionally air on Disney XD.
• Cartoons based on Marvel Comics have been hit with this in recent years.
  • Avengers Assemble and Guardians of the Galaxy (2015) got this treatment starting in mid-2017, when new episodes would premiere without encores. By 2018, both shows only air when there's a new episode.
  • The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes got this treatment. Although EMH did pull in good ratings and was critically acclaimed, part of the problem was that much of the audience was outside Disney XD's target demographic.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man and Wolverine and the X-Men (2009). This was due to Disney taking over Marvel and, as such, axing any TV show that requires them to pay another company for. For other shows, such as Iron Man: Armored Adventures and X-Men: Evolution though, they just silently end the series without any announcement. Evolution is notable for the final season, which while resolving the Apocalypse plot arc that had been building up since season 2, still ended with a lot of loose plot threads. Steven Gordon, Evolution's head character designer and occasional director and writer, has stated that, while he believes the show ended well, he does have some hard feelings for Marvel's decision to end it, as he noted they didn't appear to really care for the show at all despite many of the show's aspects and a certain original character later being adopted by Marvel's writers later.
• Milo Murphy's Law was a follow up series from the guys who made Phineas and Ferb and debuted in October 2016 to much acclaim. After airing a month's worth of episodes, it was four months before any more episodes aired, from July to the rest of the season in September. It was renewed for a second season in February 2017, was announced to have a crossover with its sister show at Comic-Con, and it was given a nice plush Saturday morning spot between DuckTales (2017) and Marvel's Spider-Man. But come 2018, reruns of the show have disappeared and no premiere date has been set for the second season or the crossover announced. Season 2, while it had the advantage of premiering on Disney Channel, launched in January 2019, over 13 months after the first season. Said new episodes premiered at a graveyard 7:00 A.M Eastern on Saturdays morning. ^note Meanwhile, the second season premiered August 10, 2018 in Japan and in September 2018 in Germany
• Motorcity received the axe before the first season even finished. The series concluded in January 2013, but reruns weren't aired until 2015.
• After the first season of Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero finished its run, the show went oddly quiet and wasn't seen at all for at least a year (occasional marathons aside). When it finally returned for a second season, it was barely advertised, had half the episode count the first season did, and was burned off within the whole month of July 2017.
• While still adored, Phineas and Ferb has fallen prey to this a few times.
  • During the middle of Season 2 new episodes were subject to some severe Schedule Slip, to the point where they would air in other countries months before the US premieres, which are about a month apart from each other themselves. The premieres have since been getting more regular since the start of Season 3.
  • In January 2017, reruns of the series were sent to the graveyard hours, airing between 4:00 A.M and 6:00 A.M each weeknight (although a weekend-long marathon would still occasionally air). During the following summer, however, reruns were added back to daytime hours. However, later on in the summer of 2019, the show only aired during the nighttime hours, and while daytime reruns were later added, those didn’t last long as later that year, most of its time slots were preempted by Big City Greens and Big Hero 6: The Series, alongside the D|XP leftovers Parker Plays and Player Select. For a period of time, it only aired on Saturday nights. Later, Disney did give it another chance by adding Sunday morning slots and experimented with more time-slots, but this didn't last long, as those slots were preempted once again, leaving only the Saturday night slots. Then on March 15, 2020, the show's last slots were preempted with reruns of Gravity Falls, making the show completely gone from the regular lineup for the rest of March. However in April, the show was added back to the schedule. Since then, it has been airing everyday on the channel.
• In 2021, after Pokémon: The Series had Channel Hopped to Netflix, the show's time slots on Disney XD were pulled. (though to be fair, said channel hop is more to blame here than actual screwing) The show would return for a brief period of time in October and November 2021, though only the latest season Disney XD had the rights to (Ultra Legends) aired.
• Toon Disney never intended to order a second season for Pucca, since it was a one-time licensed property Disney decided to import to the US. However, the show's immense popularity on Disney's Jetix channels in Europe led to pressure from Jetix Europe to order a second season. Disney ultimately did so in 2008, but promoted it less frequently than they did with the first season, harming its ratings. Upon Toon Disney's relaunch as Disney XD, the show was unceremoniously dropped from the schedule, and Disney's license to the Pucca property lapsed, ensuring its cancellation.
• Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja likewise suffered from Disney XD's 2nd season curse: Started off great, then episodes got delayed, barely any advertisements, and finally was quietly canceled to which the show ended on a cliffhanger. At the very least, the show wrapped up that season's storylines.
• Despite the series replacing Stitch!, Disney XD had no faith in Rated "A" for Awesome. It was burned off in the span of just under six months with very little advertisement, then it got pulled with no indication of reruns or a second season.
• Right Now Kapow is another bad example, despite the novelty of a Warner Bros. cartoon premiering on a Disney network. Right from the beginning, Disney XD acted like they wanted nothing to do with it, placing it in a weeknight time slot at 9 p.m. with little promotion, which showed in the ratings. When character designer Alex Schubert announced its cancellation after a single season, he cited DXD's preference towards home-grown series, a criteria which Right Now Kapow doesn't fall under.
• After four or five episodes aired in the US on Disney XD, the English dub of Stitch! was canceled. According to one of the people who worked on the English dub, the cancellation was due to, not a poor timeslot or ratings issues, but not being supposed to air in the United States at all. The remaining episodes would air in other countries like Australia.
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! was supposed to have a fifth season to end the series, but Disney felt the show wasn't getting enough viewership to justify the making of one, which infamously led to the show being Cut Short.
• Timon & Pumbaa aired its third season on Toon Disney with virtually no promotion to speak of, causing it to end without much fanfare. Granted, the show was initially canceled by CBS after two seasons due to Disney's acquisition of ABC, but popular demand overseas led Disney to produce a third season reluctantly. Toon Disney only aired the third season out of a contractual obligation.
• Shortly after premiering in 2012, TRON: Uprising would often be preempted for several weeks or even months and got shunted to Mondays at midnight only ten episodes in. It didn't get renewed for a second season.
• Despite having a strong narrative and greatly improving with the second season, the television adaptation of W.I.T.C.H. was canceled in-spite of a very obvious Sequel Hook at the end of season 2. According to one of the crew that worked on the show, this was because the new higher-ups didn't like the show's premise and wanted to make way for more live-action sitcoms on Disney Channel. The fact that Greg Weisman worked on the show's second season should be no surprise at this point.
• Yo Kai Watch got this treatment starting in 2017, when it was revealed that the anime series was struggling in the ratings against Disney's own first-party originals, and even Pokémon: The Series (a series many thought Yo-Kai Watch would kill). The network naturally decided to focus on said first-party shows rather than aggressively marketing the anime whenever the games came out.

Playhouse Disney/Disney Junior

• This often happens to the block on Disney Channel during the summer months, with it ending as late as 9:00 or 10:00 AM for tweencoms and starting as early as 5:00AM. This isn't good for people who don't have the 24/7 channel, meaning they'll either miss it, wake up very early to see their favorite show or have to record it.
• Many pre-2007 Playhouse Disney shows (save for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, and Little Einsteins) either only aired in late night or early morning time slots on the 24/7 Disney Junior channel before all of them were pulled two years after the network launched.
• This happened to reruns of older shows on the 24/7 channel before the schedule was narrowed down to only ones produced in the past two years in 2019 (save for one show). Any older title that wasn't named Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Little Einsteins was usually moved to an early time slot after a few months or vanished from the schedule for another show with no explanation if it managed to snag a good time slot.
• In early 2021, all of the network's pre-2021 series (with the exception of Bluey and Puppy Dog Pals) were made exclusive to the digital channel.
• As of fall 2017, if an interstitial series isn't either based on one of Disney Junior's shows or isn't Merchandise-Driven (like Sunny Bunnies or Molang), expect it to air either late at night, early in the morning, or pulled altogether. For example, Nina Needs to Go!, which had new episodes produced in 2017, was quickly put in mostly early morning timeslots a few months after said episodes premiered. And none of the older shorts Disney Junior used to air anymore are on the block or channel, save for Nina Needs To Go! and the occasional airing of Big Block SingSong.
  • In 2019, all of the older shorts were dropped from the schedule on both the main channel and the 24/7 network, replaced by more airings of Molang.
• In Asia, Disney's refactoring of Playhouse Disney Asia to Disney Junior Asia inevitably gave non-Disney programming like Clifford the Big Red Dog the pink slip. And while they brought in Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood initially after the refactoring, the show barely lasted a season. Disney Junior Asia is now mostly bereft of any non-Disney programming; the only surviving non-Disney programs seem to be Sesame Street, Elmo's World and UK spinoff Furchester Hotel. Insiders claim that this is due to Executive Meddling; the higher-ups at Disney's broadcasting arm want their channel to focus only on in-house content.
  • This treatment also happened to acquired shows on the Disney Junior channel and block prior to the introduction of PJ Masks. The show would usually run in either an early morning time slot after a normal run of a few months before being pulled (as was the case with Tinga Tinga Tales ) or, if they were channel-exclusive, late at night (as was the case with Guess How Much I Love You). The only exception during this period was Babar and the Adventures of Badou, which stayed on the channel until late 2015 and aired during the early morning slot of the Disney Junior block on Disney Channel block until 2014.
  • P. King Duckling premiered on the main channel, but got low ratings and was later shuffled to the 24/7 subnetwork, where it was burned off. The second season never saw the light of day, despite the show being renewed for one.
• Like Disney XD above, Disney has screwed over the entire South-East Asia region by shutting down the SEA feeds of Disney Junior at the same time for the same exact reason.
• Bear in the Big Blue House almost fell victim to Disney's 65-episode policy in 1998 and then went on a three-year hiatus after its third season. It finally returned for a fourth season in 2002, but was canceled a year later because the staff believed they had produced enough episodes of the show. Most of the final season's episodes only aired once and never had any reruns. Disney Channel held off the last eight episodes until 2006, but they aired in various countries as early as 2003. For a while, these BITBBH episodes (especially in their original English language) were extremely difficult to find online. The entire series, however (including these lost episodes), can be watched in Polish or Castilian Spanish.
• The Chicken Squad was basically dead on arrival, as the show garnered very little promotion in the weeks leading up to its premiere, most episodes aired Out of Order and premiered in awkward time slots. In June 2022, it was announced that Disney had given the show the pink slip after a single season. However, most of this had to do with the show being overshadowed by Mickey Mouse Funhouse and Spidey and His Amazing Friends.
  • The show was among over 50 shows and films removed from Disney+ in May 2023 as a tax write-off.
• After several years of being adored, Doc McStuffins fell into this during its fifth season, with long hiatus in between episodes, and after "Adventures in Baby Land" aired, got moved to the devoted cable channel to air its remaining episodes, and even there only aired new episodes with no repeats. The show would be dropped from the schedule in 2018 in preparation for the "only newer shows" strategy mentioned above.
  • Averted when Doc McStuffins returned for a limited time in 2020 to help children deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
• Elena of Avalor eventually fell into this, with fewer reruns as the show went due to becoming more serialized. The show only airs new episodes with the occasional rerun.
• By January 2019, reruns of Fancy Nancy started gradually decreasing to the point of only airing twice on weekdays across the Disney Junior block and channel, and only once on weekends in the latter.
  • In October 2019, the show's reruns were removed entirely in favor of more Puppy Dog Pals reruns, despite no ratings issues whatsoever. It was given the Elena of Avalor treatment and only airs on the channel when it has new episodes.
• Goldie & Bear fell victim to this during its second season. As it went on, its reruns were greatly reduced, and only aired on the main channel when it had new episodes, received little to no advertising, got burned off to the Disney Junior channel to air its remaining five episodes, and was taken off the schedule a few weeks after the series finale aired.
• In October of 2014, Henry Hugglemonster was screwed over by Disney Junior for more airings of Doc McStuffins, just when merchandise had come out for the show. It was relegated to airing on the Disney Junior channel after Summer 2015 and was quietly canceled that November.
• JoJo's Circus was treated well by the network at first, with a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, an entire merchandise line based on the show, and sneak previews of the show before it aired. Sadly, the show was a victim of poor ratings and low merchandise sales, and got the kibosh after its third season, which only consisted of five episodes. Reruns briefly returned in 2012, but were pulled in 2014; the show has yet to see a Disney+ release.
• The Disney Junior channel did not treat its reruns of Jungle Cubs and Timon & Pumbaa well. Not only did they air in an early-morning time slot, only 13 select episodes of each show were aired on loop. The shows would be removed a year later.
• Despite being based on an evergreen Disney property, The Lion Guard fell into this midway through its second season; it received little to no advertising, got pushed into rather peculiar premiere times, had several long hiatuses and was eventually banished to the Disney Junior channel.
• In 2016, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, despite having great DVD and merchandise sales as well as being the flagship show of Disney Junior, got canceled because it wasn't performing as well as the other Disney Junior shows like Sofia the First and even newer shows on rival channels like PAW Patrol. Disney also wanted to make a spin-off aimed at a slightly older audience; many parents were understandably upset by this news.
• PB&J Otter:
  • Despite the series still being popular at the time, it was canceled in 2000 after its third season due to Jumbo Pictures choosing to cut ties with Disney, as well as the studio being absorbed into Walt Disney Animation Studios. It is also notable for having no home media releases whatsoever, not even on VHS.
  • After not wanting to air repeats of the show for years, Disney Junior put it back on the air at the launch of the 24/7 channel.. Then they proceeded to preempt it for Jake and the Never Land Pirates reruns in November of 2013. When it came back, it was on at 2:30AM Sundays before being replaced with The Octonauts.
• The Rocketeer got hit by this hard. Barely any advertising was done for the show in the weeks leading up to its premiere, regularly got less than a million viewers, rarely had reruns, and had no merchandise whatsoever. In April 2020, it was shifted to the 24/7 network where it only aired for premieres. In July 2020, the show would have premieres as early as 2:15 in the morning, a time when absolutely no one in the target audience would be awake. The show's first season wrapped up in July without any announcement of renewal or cancellation.
• Sofia the First fell into this during season 4. Its reruns were greatly reduced as it went on, it got pushed into rather peculiar premiere times, and eventually was taken off the schedule a few months after the series finale aired. It does fare better than most shows that fell victim to this due to having enough foresight to plan a series finale and, again, being rerun as opposed to being taken off immediately.
• After a few years of being adored, T.O.T.S. fell into this late in its second season. As time went on, its reruns were greatly decreased to the point of only airing new episodes on the main channel and only airing once a day on the Disney Junior sub-network. In August 2021, the show was made exclusive to the Disney Junior channel. The show ended after 3 seasons on June 10, 2022.

Hulu

• Helstrom: Not by Hulu, but unintentionally by Marvel Television, which was restructured into a subdivision of Marvel Studios during Helstrom's pre-production phase. As a result of this and a vast change in plans regarding the future of Marvel TV shows, the show will not continue after the first season.

The Disney Afternoon

• In an interview with Animato!, Bill Kopp expressed concern over Disney barely promoting The Shnookums & Meat Funny Cartoon Show, which he created, outside of the requisite on-air promos and a pasta line by Franco American, especially compared to Gargoyles, which was given wall-to-wall promotion. After the 13 episodes were completed, Disney left the crew in the dark for a while before canceling the series despite decent ratings which, as Kopp mentioned, would've landed it a renewal elsewhere.
• In some states, the block was replaced with the infamous cartoon The Wacky World of Tex Avery, which ironically, was produced when DIC Entertainment was owned by Disney, albeit it didn’t share the same syndicated distributor, with the former show being distributed by The Program Exchange.