Paramount+ Removes Two Adult Animated Series From Streamer

In a continuing trend so that streamers don’t have to pay costly union fees, Paramount+ has opted to remove two adult animated comedies from its service effective today. One of them, is only kind of an animated series, No Activity, which featured an animated fourth season produced at the height of COVID-19. The other, the Rhea Seehorn-starring The Harper House created by legendary producer Brad Neely.

The Harper House follows the Harpers and focuses on the matriarch and bread-winner Debbie Harper as she is forced to move her family to the poor side of River Creek, Arkansas. Despite their less than ideal living conditions in an old dilapidated house, Debbie does everything she can to reclaim their lost status.

In No Activity’s animated fourth season, the series is co-developed, executive produced and written by Patrick Brammall and Trent O’Donnell. Brammall reprises his role as Special Agent Nick Cullen, who is finally realizing his dream of joining the FBI, only to quickly discover being an FBI “special agent” isn’t what he expected it to be.  When he’s assigned to a seemingly dull observation detail, he finds a potential career case in the form of an emerging cult. When a large scale operation takes aim at the cult, it’s unclear which side will break first. Despite the promotion, Cullen’s path continues to cross with former partner Judd Tolbeck’s (Tim Meadows), who is also adjusting to life with a new partner of his own. Joe Keery, Sunita Mani, Jason Mantzoukas, Bob Odenkirk and Amy Sedaris return and will be joined by an exciting group of new guest stars, including Louie Anderson, Kevin Bacon, Jillian Bell, D’Arcy Carden, Rob Delaney, Elle Fanning, Will Forte, Kimberly Hébert Gregory, Udo Kier, Lamorne Morris, Oscar Nuñez, Hannah Simone, June Squibb and Samara Weaving.

The latter show probably didn’t have a chance of coming back, but I wonder if The Harper House were to premiere now on television at the height of the Rhea Seehorn Emmy hurrah for her fabulous work on Better Call Saul, if her name brand alone could have brought more eyeballs for the franchise. Alas, we’ll never know.

Expect more networks to premiere original series on television and then push them to streaming later rather than the other way around, mainly due to the increasing costs coming from union fees for WGA, SAG, etc.