Shattered Crystal: NBC’s Monkey Won’t Rule Prime Time
Posted in: Uncategorized
If TV learns anything from the NBC sitcom “Animal Practice,” it will be this: Just because test audiences really like a monkey featured in the show’s initial episodes during previews doesn’t mean the program will fare well once it gets on the air.
NBC convinced ad buyers to support its new fall sitcom, “Animal Practice,” by bragging that Crystal, a capuchin monkey with a prominent role in the series, was the highest-testing characteramong audiences for its 2012 fall lineup. But the comedy has limped into autumn, prompting the Peacock to cancel the series and replace it with the second season of “Whitney” starting November 14th.
It’s not as if NBC didn’t promote the heck out of “Animal Practice,” which is set in a veterinary hospital. The network ran an ad-free preview of the program during the closing ceremonies of this year’s London Olympics (a move that forced viewers to wait around to see The Who play from the U.K.). In trumpeting the program during the upfront and on its air, NBC may have inadvertently made its capuchin a symbol of the new TV season
Post a Comment