The Best Animated Show No One Was Watching Just Got Canceled
(Welcome to Animation Celebration, a recurring feature where we explore the limitless possibilities of animation as a medium. In this edition: "Central Park.")
After three phenomenal seasons, Apple TV+ has unceremoniously canceled one of the best original programs on the platform, the animated musical sitcom "Central Park." Created by star Josh Gad with Loren Bouchard and Nora Smith of "Bob's Burgers" fame, Gad confirmed the cancellation on Instagram's attempt at Twitter, Threads, after a fan inquired about season 4. "Sadly, it's done," he wrote. Apple subsequently confirmed the cancellation to The Hollywood Reporter. This news is a devastating loss for fans of animation, because "Central Park" was easily one of the best new animated sitcoms in years. While sharing the Bento Box Entertainment animation style of "Bob's Burgers" and "The Great North," "Central Park" stood out with its dynamic musical numbers and boasted one of the most impressive celebrity voice casts ever put to television.
Focusing on the Tillerman family (Leslie Odom Jr., Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell/Emmy Raver-Lampman, Titus Burgess) who live in the titular locale in New York City, "Central Park" has all of the traditional family hijinks, but heightened stakes as the family is also in a constant battle against wealthy hotel heiress Bitsy Brandenham (Stanley Tucci) and her assistant Helen (Daveed Diggs) who wants to turn the park into luxury condos and fancy restaurants. Their adventures are narrated by a busker named Birdie (Gad), and as THR noted, Apple TV+ had nabbed the rights to a two-season, straight-to-series order in a bidding war in 2018, only to cancel the show after one additional season. So what happened?
Raise your hand if you watch Apple TV+
Save for "Ted Lasso" and maybe "Severance," the average person likely can't identify which shows are on Apple TV+ the way even people without Netflix know that "Stranger Things" and "Squid Game" are on the platform. There are still no reported numbers on how many people actually subscribe to the Apple TV+ service, with the tech giant instead pushing forth the narrative that Apple has over 1 billion paid subscribers, but that includes Apple iCloud, Apple Care, Apple Arcade, Fitness+, News+, and Apple Music ... or, you know, the services utilized by people with an iPhone.
I have no idea how many people actually use Apple TV+, but considering I have to metaphorically bang pots and pans together while screaming "PLEASE WATCH 'SHRINKING' AND 'PLATONIC' FOR THE LOVE OF GOD" at even fellow entertainment writers, I can't imagine the numbers are anywhere near where Apple wants them to be.
And it's a shame because on average, Apple TV+ has some of the best original offerings of any of the streaming platforms. They certainly don't have the quantity of Netflix or Hulu, but their quality is undeniable. "Central Park" was their flagship animated series, and it's frustrating to know that if the show had been, for example, included in the animation domination lineup on Fox the series would have gotten the attention and audience it deserved. Alas, the writing had been on the wall for quite some time, with Gad mentioning last fall that he hoped one day the cast would be able to perform together in a live performance — citing how the pandemic and busy filming schedules of the star-studded cast on other projects have prevented them from being in the same place at the same time. His dream now reads like Gad was already anticipating the worst.
Central Park wasn't good, it was great
Given the series' setting — this is a show about urban living — episodes often double as love letters to civil servants and publicly accessible resources, celebrating life beyond the suburban streets of most animated sitcoms. Street vendors, park yoga, public transit, pigeons, and even issues of wealth disparity are all highlighted — which seldom happens in other shows. Honestly, "Central Park" feels more in line with a show like "Hey Arnold!" than it does with any of the other animated sitcoms currently airing.
With musical numbers that fit the modern Broadway vocal stylings perfectly, plotlines that were as wholesome as they were wacky, and larger-than-life personalities for all of the characters, "Central Park" had everything you could want in an animated sitcom. As much as I love shows like "The Simpsons," "South Park," "The Great North," and "Bob's Burgers," their critical barometer typically includes inescapable comparisons to one another. But because of the emphasis on musicality, that wasn't the case for "Central Park." The animation medium was perfect for this show because as the other criminally underrated Apple TV+ musical series "Schmigadoon!" proves, pulling off a full-scale musical series is hard. "Central Park" could have as many extras or chorus members as the show wanted, as long as an animator could make the characters fit in the frame.
Across three seasons, there were over 170 songs performed, or roughly 4-5 songs per episode, and there's not a bad one in the bunch. Whether it's a show-stopping full-belt from Titus Burgess' Cole expressing his love for a lost dog or Daveed Diggs' Helen rapping away her feelings about working for a vindictive socialite, "Central Park" covers a wide range of musical stylings to emphasize the characters' emotions and personalities. Despite sharing so many thematic, aesthetic, and tonal similarities with its contemporaries, the songs allowed "Central Park" to exist in its own world and the animation landscape was better for it.