Animation Domination: 10 Decisions FOX Never Should Have Made For It’s Animation Lineup

FOX’s Animation Domination seems to be going for a growth spurt this year with a number of new and returning series on the horizon. But, not everything about FOX’s long-storied animation lineups have been rosey and a number of those reasons even happened before FOX even had an official Animation Domination lineup. Arguably FOX’s fabled lineup has long been buoyed by The Simpsons which has helped the adult animation industry stay at least steady, if not, thrive over the years. Certainly, even with the network’s success with adult animation, there were definitely a few decisions I bet the network wishes it would have back, regardless this was before, or after, the Disney buy of 20th Century FOX. Let’s take a look at ten good ones:

10) Not Pick Up Any Series From FOX Inkubation Writers Alumni

In 2008, Fox Broadcasting and 20th Century Fox Television formed Fox Inkubation, a joint initiative for new animation talent that would allow them to produce two minute shorts as pilots for new series. Fox TV had concurrently started its animation division 20th Century Fox Television Animation with Jennifer Howell, the same executive heading up both Inkubation and Fox TV Animation with Inkubation later being discontinued in 2012, as plans for a late night animation block moved forward and none of its projects got on the air with Howell exiting Fox at the end of her contract in May 2013.

FOX probably wishes it had kept at least a few of these producers. One of them, Justin Roiland, actually had the original pitch for Solar Opposites around this time that he had co-created with Mike McMahan that would later be made for Hulu. Justin also would become the co-creator for one of the biggest animated franchises of all-time, Rick and Morty.  Jason Ruiz was also an Inkubation alumni and had a series ordered to series, called Murder Police, that was canceled before it even premiered its first season. Jason would later create Adult Swim’s Royal Crackers which has already been renewed for a second season.

Since the 20th Century FOX/ FOX Broadcasting split, FOX actually did bring back a Writers Incubator, however, it’s a tad more standard and isn’t specified for just animation.


9) Cancel Culture Voice Actor Changes

In light of the various Black Lives Matter protests, Fox announced that recurring characters of color would no longer be voiced by white actors on series like The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, and Family Guy. To be fair, this applied mostly to series produced by 20th Century FOX, so it’s possible that FOX Entertainment probably would not have cared either way who voiced who, but let’s for the moment consider they were complicit in these decisions.

Looking back, those series would have been better served replacing characters rather than voices, but worse yet, none of those voice acting changes did anything to solve racism and were gross overreactions to a problem that wasn’t ever there. At the end of the day, voice acting is just that, acting. Furthermore, the idea of animation is that everyone can voice anyone and anything at any given time.


8) Canceling King of the Hill

Courtesy: FOX

Reruns of 20th Century Animation can be found up and down the dials of any cable lineup and that includes King of the Hill. On an almost constant basis you can watch reruns of the Mike Judge-created series on FXX, Adult Swim, Comedy Central, and Hulu, the latter of whom saw such a response to this that we’re getting a reboot of the series.

Even 13 seasons in, King of the Hill showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, one could make the argument that the show was actually getting better with time but FOX viewers wouldn’t know it because later seasons of the quaint satire of centrist/leaning towards liberal family were quite messed with in the areas of scheduling mostly due to a result of NASCAR and NFL overruns. When the decision to ultimately cancel the series came to pass, there were a number of episodes that hadn’t even aired on FOX as of yet and instead weren’t seen until the series was picked up for syndication.

It’s easy to point to Seth MacFarlane’s overall deal with FOX that included The Cleveland Show being ordered to series for four seasons as a culprit, but for whatever reason, FOX made a horrible decision that still emanates to this day. Personally, I think someone had a real Peggy in their family.


7) Canceling Futurama

It’s now Hulu’s most streamed original series. The series typically records everyone’s lines at the same time in a group setting, not unlike modern-day settings when everyone records separately. Despite featuring a writer’s staff featuring a number of PhD’s, the golden rule was “Science Shall Not Overrule Comedy”. But, Futurama’s rise to stardom has been anything but easy and this includes when the series was originally on FOX.

When developing Futurama, FOX wanted more animated series from Matt Groening, but they were thinking about projects like The Critic, spin-offs from The Simpsons, etc. What they got was a pitch for Futurama with David X. Cohen at the wheel and the suits were not thrilled. Neither Billy West nor Katey Sagal were the first choices for Fry and Leela that would be Charlie Schlatter and Nicole Sullivan, a casting change that looking back on things worked out. But, had it not been for Groening’s insistence on getting complete creative control over the franchise, we may have never seen the fandom that has surrounded Futurama since.


6) Canceling The Critic

I’m putting a couple of items higher on the list because at least King of the Hill and Futurama have, or will, return with new seasons on Hulu so at least we’ve got some sort of a happy ending there. But, let’s talk about a series that is also rather revered in the annals of FOX Animation lore that hasn’t been announced for a return as of yet. The Critic. While initially made for ABC, the series was canceled by Disney/ABC  and was created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who along with James L. Brooks served as executive producers. The Critic was produced by Gracie Films, the same company behind The Simpsons, in association with Columbia Pictures Television. The show’s animation was done by Film Roman, who were also still working on The Simpsons at this time. It was co-produced by Patric Verrone. And while initially conceived when Al and Mike were working with Matt Groening on a live-action spin-off featuring Krusty the Clown, Groening would later disassociate himself with the series.

FOX was so behind the series that they essentially pressured the producers to come up with a backdoor pilot of the series featuring the Jon Lovitz-voiced main character “Jay Sherman” in the episode “A Star Is Burns”. Moreover, Jay Sherman would host Bart and Homer Simpson in an episode of The Critic and later would appear in additional episodes of The Simpsons, mostly in cameo roles.


5) Cancelling American Dad

The Smith Family on a poster for American Dad

American Dad! is doing fine and well over at TBS, routinely one of the biggest-rated animated comedies on cable television and some might argue the show has gotten better over time and that may have been as a result of the series moving on from FOX. Like King of the Hill, The Cleveland Show, and Futurama, reruns for this series can be seen up and down cable networks, most notably in marathons on both the aforementioned TBS and sister network Adult Swim.

However, one may wonder what would have happened if FOX had opted to keep the rights to American Dad! Certainly the series was a better idea than Allen Gregory or whatever the hell else the network tried to replace that series with.


4) Getting Rid Of Animation Domination-Hi Def

Boy, imagine the potential if FOX kept THIS lineup alive and going. We did a deep dive into ADHD a while ago but the long skinny of it is this…Animation Domination Hi-Def should return in it’s full violent force. Think of the talent that was associated with this here lineup. Nick Offerman as the title voice for the animated adaptation of Axe Cop? The now Oscar-nominated Lucas Brothers aka the creators of The Lucas Bros. Moving Company? Josh Miller creator of Golan the Insatiable later writing the smash-hit Sonic The Hedgehog movie trilogy?

FXX continued on a bit with the lineup featuring the excellent Stone Quackers and Major Lazer featuring the likes of John C. Reilly, JK Simmons, and John Boyega among their respective casts?


3) FOX Scheduling

It has actually been getting better the last few years but not by much. But, if you’re like me and run to your couch at the crack of 8 pm ET hoping to catch a new episode of The Simpsons knows the pain of having to deal with a NASCAR or MLB rain delay that causes a reschedule. Or how about when some sort of national tragedy happens and we reschedule a premiere episode for whatever arbitrary reason because we think that even matters? OR OR OR when we are scheduled RERUNS??

RERUNS! In 2024!!! Like, FXX (and I think they should stop doing this as well) doesn’t already have a number of Animation Domination series already doing reruns at that exact hour, let’s schedule reruns on the FOX network. Fortunately, the network has remedied some of this like when they send the episode to Hulu for a brief time or because of the FOX Sports Net they will take those sports overruns and then send them over.

NASCAR is largely the reason why the 730 pm ET premiere time slot stopped working and therefore killing off the likes of King of the Hill, The Cleveland Show, Sit Down Shut Up, and others. MLB is a lot of the reason why Animation Domination Hi-Def no longer exists. I love sports, but fuck NASCAR.


2) Cancelling Murder Police

Nowadays networks and streamers promoting a number of TV shows and movies and then canceling them for no reason before they premiere or air is all of the rage, but I honestly think this example was the reason why THAT trend started to happen.

In 2013, FOX made big waves announcing that they were creating a new animated series called Murder Police. The series came from the aforementioned Jason Ruiz (of Royal Crackers fame)  with voice talent Will Sasso, Chi McBride, Peter Atencio and Justin Machado and FOX got so excited about it they did a whole takeover of San Diego Comic-Con 2013 with hotel wraps, train takeovers, panels, you name it. And then September 2013 came…and went with no premiere. Then the announcement comes that the series had been canceled for whatever BS reason was released making all that promo and excitement over the season all for nothing.

From what I’ve been told the series was completed, never sold, and is now owned by Disney giving the one-time promising series the final nail-in-the-coffin.


1) Re-branding Animation Domination to “Sunday Funday”

Beginning in the fall of 2014, the Animation Domination block was replaced by the Sunday Funday block, with the addition of live-action comedies Brooklyn Nine-Nine (which moved to Sunday night for its second season), freshman series Mulaney (which was canceled in early 2015), and, as of March 2015, the Will Forte sitcom, The Last Man on Earth. This marked the first time that the network has regularly aired live-action comedies on Sundays (outside of burn-offs of failed weeknight series) since 2005.

Except for Mulaney, the other two live-action shows were very good, but I’m not sure if that necessitated need them to premiere on Sunday nights and thereby kill off the possibility of other animated series having a home.  The initial lineup incorporated the remaining animated series from Animation Domination The SimpsonsFamily Guy, and Bob’s Burgers and later hybrid series (another failed SDCC monster push that only went one season) Son of Zorn. By Fall 2019 even FOX had had enough with it’s pricey Sunday night lineup and opted to revert the lineup to an all Animation Domination.

And the rest is history.