Mission Hill - why did it fail?

Z

Zaid A

New member
I've been watching episodes of the short-lived series "Mission Hill" lately. I don't like the character designs too much, but I thought it was funny. I notice that it was also pretty "cartoony" for a prime-time animation from the 2000s.

So why did it do so poorly in ratings? Was it ahead of its time? Poor timeslot? WB didn't promote it enough?
 
Generally the idea was at that time is that animation wasn't worth advertising to the adult audience unless it was The Simpsons. If it premiered today as a new show, who knows how it would do.
 
It did okay on Adult Swim, didn't it? Why didn'tn they renew it?

Someone should probably mirror this on the AS forum, btw.
 
It premiered during the second wave of adult animation, that was full of shows that never made it past a few episodes. Mission Hill, The Oblongs, Baby Blues, Home Movies... Probably a few more.

It's a good show, too. The problem was that it wasn't exactly typical or accessible, and a bit hard to get used to.

Also, as it has been mentioned... It was on the WB.
 
Unlike Home Movies which is pretty cheap, Mission Hill was actually a fairly expensive cartoon. Probably not as expensive as The Simpsons but that's also because they're not say overpaying the writers or the Voice actors a lot for each episode. I believe almost as much as Futurama or Family Guy. And considering that FOX and Comedy Central help fund new episodes or DTVs of those shows and CN didn't, AS really dosen't have the money to fund new episodes of they're acquistions espically when it first aired on 2002.

Another reason Mission Hill failed (besides the fact it was on WB and the WB didn't really promote it to well) was the auidence it was trying to reach: A more mature edgy late teens/early adult auidence (like the characters in the show) that really wasn't interested in animation. The lack of finding an auidence is pretty much why any adult animated project on WB failed and the only success they found was on KidsWB with well kids and not anyone else.
 
yupp

I remember it being on Sunday nights too and outside of shows on FOX, I can't think a lot of successful Sunday night programs. The adult animation on UPN and WB were all pretty darned good in my opinion but all were destined to fail. I'm just glad I get to see Home Movies and Mission Hill everyday, at the moment, due to AS.
 
It's not as simple as that. Family Guy was un-canceled by FOX not only because of it's getting high ratings on Adult Swim, but also due to the high sales of the FG DVDs. Mission Hill, by contrast, was barely promoted by the WB and ended after only 1 season due to the network's underwhelming support. Same deal with The Oblongs, another 1 season wonder that aired on the WB and failed to find an audience.

Network series are significantly more expensive to produce than basic cable series. Williams Street couldn't renew Mission Hill even if they wanted to.
 
Pretty good, I would imagine. It's just that [as] can't rerun Mission Hill constantly because there were only 13 episodes and a nightly run would burn through them very quickly.
 
Not unless they really- really- really- REALLY cut corners on it. Going to flash animation, getting cheaper VA's, making it a 15 minute show as opposed to a full half hour, etc.
 
Back
Top