The Real Reason My Name Is Earl Was Canceled (And How The Series Was Supposed To End)

In the early 2000s, NBC's comedy lineup was at the top of its game. "The Office" became one of the biggest comedy hits of all time, launching a new generation of stars, before giving way to "Parks & Recreation" to do it again. And then there was "30 Rock" and "Community," which packed more jokes into one scene than most other shows could fit into an entire season.

Along the way, there was a string of new shows that didn't last longer than a year, but there was one show that was airing alongside "The Office" and "30 Rock" that was poised to hit its fifth season with its funniest and most heartfelt stories yet, only to get canceled before they could resolve the central story that had made the show so endearing in the first place. And that show was "My Name Is Earl."

The wacky series followed Earl Hickey, a petty thief who, against all odds, wins $100,000 in the lottery only to be immediately hit by a car while celebrating his good luck. Earl is convinced that the bad karma he's accumulated over his life is responsible for his misfortune, and he becomes determined to right every wrong he's ever committed.

"My Name Is Earl" was full of wacky characters and offbeat stories about life on the margins of society, but it always took its characters' emotional journeys seriously, and in its fourth season, the show left Earl and his friends and family in a precarious spot, but with the hope of completing his list once and for all. That is, until it was unceremoniously canceled for reasons beyond the show's control.

Usually, a show gets canceled because people simply aren't watching it, but that was not the case for "My Name Is Earl," which was the highest-rated new sitcom of the season when it premiered in 2005. But the show was a victim of its own success, because it was produced by Fox Studios and then licensed to NBC for a fee. And the show was such a hit that, as co-star Ethan Suplee explained, negotiations between the two studios ended in catastrophe.

"'My Name Is Earl' was picked up for another season," he said. "We were a hit. And the network called and said, 'We want to license the show for another year.' And the [Fox] studio said, 'Well, we want more money. We want to renegotiate our deal with you.' And the network basically did not respond for two weeks. And then the studio called back and said, 'We'll take your deal,' and the network said, 'Too late.'"

This is a truly unfortunate series of events for the people behind the series, who had done their jobs of making a hit show that had performed well for everyone involved. However, a bit of greed and stubbornness on both sides ended it all. At the very least, the end of "My Name Is Earl" in May 2009 opened room on the schedule for "Community" to premiere soon after, which is a bit of silver lining that Earl himself might have appreciated.

What makes the cancelation of "My Name is Earl" so painful is that it ended its fourth season on a cliffhanger. Earl's list was still incomplete and the finale revealed that his friend Darnell (Eddie Steeples) was not young Earl Jr.'s biological father. The show's unfortunate cancelation meant that we never got a resolution to any of these stories. And in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread, "My Name Is Earl" creator Greg Garcia revealed what they had and had not already mapped out for Season 5.

On the subject of Earl Jr.'s father, Garcia thought some stunt casting would produce hilarious results. "We never really got the chance to fully figure it out, but the talk in the writers' room was that Earl Jr.'s Dad was going to be someone famous... like Dave Chappelle or [Lil Jon]. Someone [who] came to town on tour and Joy slept with," he said.

As for Earl's quest to make good with everyone he's ever wronged, Garcia and the writers' room had a heartfelt resolution ready to go. 

"The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item, he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it," said Garcia. "Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with [a] list and that he's finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point, he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma."

The fact that Earl's quest for good karma was never really resolved is fitting in its own way. After all, can you ever really reach enlightenment? Or is the journey its own reward? Luckily for the crew, they were able to channel their energy into follow-up "Raising Hope," and hopefully, whoever was responsible for getting "My Name Is Earl" canceled put the show high on their list to make amends with.