Trivia / Pushing Daisies

• Acclaimed Flop: Critics loved Pushing Daisies from the moment it aired, with "Pie-lette" particularly praised as one of the best pilot episodes of the year. However, its ratings in the first season never really stabilized before it ended abruptly as a result of the 2007 writers' strike. When the show came back for its second season 10 months later, the critics still loved the show, but the ratings for the premiere were very low; They never recovered, resulting in the show's cancellation, and the final three episodes burned off to Saturday nights.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Jim Dale, who voices the Narrator, was in Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973); Digby is the name of Ned's dog.
  • Dale was the villain in Pete's Dragon (1977), spoofed in the second season episode "The Legend of Merle McQuoddy".
• The Cast Showoff: The producers find ways to use Kristin Chenoweth's and Ellen Greene's Broadway cred. (Averted, however, with Raul Esparza, who never gets to show his vocal chops onscreen).
• Conclusion in Another Medium: Although a rather rushed epilogue of sorts was stuck on the end of the final episode, a "third season" of comics was scheduled to be published by DC in 2011. It would've involved a "fresh take on the Zombie Apocalypse," but was also, sadly, cancelled.
• Fake American: Britain's Anna Friel as Chuck. During "Dummy" she provides the narration for the "Dandy Lion Car" promotional video using her natural accent.
• Method Acting: Invoked by Fake American Anna Friel, who played Charlotte "Chuck" Charles. Friel, who is English, took to using her American accent constantly whilst on set, and only dropped it for phone calls from her mother (as it thoroughly annoyed said mother).
• Recycled Set: The sewers from "The Smell Of Success" show up again as the penstock of the hydroelectric dam in "Water & Power".
• Schedule Slip:
  • After ABC canceled the show at the end of 2008, the last three episodes of the 2nd season remained unaired until German TV-channel Pro7 aired them in March 2009. This means the last three episodes of a US show had their world premiere on German television, and were not aired in the US until May 30th through June 13th 2009.
  • In the UK the show aired on ITV1, who only had room in their schedule for the usual 8 episodes. Because there are actually 9 in season 1, ITV1 didn't initially air episode 2 at all, with it finally airing on the lesser-watched ITV2 after the season 2 finale.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • Though it was aggressively promoted in its first season, ABC had evidently lost interest by the second season premiere. After a ten-month hiatus plus half a season, all without any promotion for the show, they canceled it, citing low ratings. Tragic thing is it won a posthumous Emmy (the series won seven in all, including for Kristin Chenoweth and Barry Sonnenfeld).
  • In Britain, the series was bought by ITV and unusually for an American import screened in primetime on the flagship ITV1 channel - most American series currently bought by the channel are either relegated to off-peak slots (like In Plain Sight) or shown on their digital offshoots (like Gossip Girl) - but the channel held back one episode because it would clash with a World Cup match. For which England failed to qualify. Needless to say, fans weren't happy.
• Short Run in Peru: The series started and finished the second season in the UK, before the final three episodes were shown in the US.
• Star-Making Role: Lee Pace got a career boost for starring in this show. Anna Friel also received recognition for playing Chuck. While already an acclaimed theater actress, Kristin Chenoweth solidified her credentials as a screen actress after winning an Emmy Award for her supporting role.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The series was originally considered as a spin-off of Dead Like Me, a series also created by Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller.
  • Pushing Daisies itself exists through an interesting Dead Like Me storyline being rejected. The series, which has grim reaper George helping the nearly-deceased reach the afterlife, originally had an episode where George struggled to collect any souls because somebody was resurrecting them with a touch.
  • The third season would have dealt with the dangling threads from the series with Chuck's father and Ned's father and the pocket watches, and there would have been a whole new story in which a flash flood in the cemetery causes all the bodies to wash past Ned,who would have resurrected them.
• Word of Gay: According to the writers, whilst there are other people working at the morgue, we only see that one coroner ever because he's the only one who'll let Emerson and Ned in no questions asked, due to having a crush on Emerson.

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