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Curated playlist

English-language American television shows

  • The SimpsonsMatt Groening sketched The Simpsons in a lobby after deciding not to sign away his comic strip rights.
  • Daredevil: Born AgainMarvel largely set aside six filmed episodes of Daredevil: Born Again.
  • Mad MenHBO passed on Mad Men, and its CEO later called that his biggest regret. AMC made it its first original series.
  • Stranger ThingsAbout 15 cable networks rejected Stranger Things because its leads were children.
  • True BloodAlan Ball found True Blood's source novel by accident. He wandered into a bookstore before a dental appointment.
  • Perfect Hair ForeverPerfect Hair Forever aired on Adult Swim in place of the expected Squidbillies premiere.
  • Sesame StreetTest children lost interest in Sesame Street's human-only street scenes, so producers re-shot them with Muppets.
  • Grey's AnatomyGrey's Anatomy began with nine star-billed actors, and by its 19th season only three were left: Ellen Pompeo, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr. The medical drama follows surgical interns, residents and attendings at a fictional Seattle…
  • The Big Bang TheoryTest audiences disliked a lead in The Big Bang Theory's first pilot, so CBS had it retooled.
  • Twin PeaksSheryl Lee was hired to play Twin Peaks' dead girl, Laura Palmer. Lynch saw her in a picnic scene and kept her on.
  • FrasierFrasier was first pitched as a show about a paraplegic publisher. Paramount pushed for a Frasier Crane spin-off instead.
  • Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live began because Johnny Carson wanted weeknights off. NBC needed a new Saturday show.
  • Harvey Birdman, Attorney at LawHarvey Birdman, Attorney at Law turned a forgotten 1960s superhero into a cartoon lawyer.
  • Wednesday (TV series)In its first week on Netflix, Wednesday logged 341 million viewing hours. That topped the English-language record of 335 million hours held by Stranger Things 4. The total reached more than 50 million households. The show is a supernatural…
  • The MandalorianThe Mandalorian filmed inside a room of LED screens that showed digital landscapes.
  • The SopranosThe Sopranos aired on HBO from the 10th of January 1999 to the 10th of June 2007. It ran for six seasons and 86 episodes. At its center is Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini, a New Jersey Mafia boss who suffers panic attacks.…
  • Star Wars: AhsokaStar Wars: Ahsoka drew 14 million views in its first five days on Disney+.
  • BridgertonBridgerton is a Netflix period romance in which an anonymous gossip pamphlet holds more sway than most dukes. The pamphlet is the Society Papers, written by the mysterious Lady Whistledown and voiced in the series by Julie Andrews, who…
  • Breaking BadBreaking Bad began as a joke about two unemployed writers cooking meth in an RV.
  • Castlevania (TV series)Castlevania's Dracula tries to kill all of Wallachia after his human wife is burned at the stake.
  • The Walking Dead (TV series)Daryl Dixon, one of The Walking Dead's most popular characters, was invented for the TV series.
  • Jeopardy!A quiz show idea came to Merv Griffin's wife on a flight: give contestants the answers and ask for questions.
  • Street Fighter (TV series)In the Street Fighter cartoon, Ken Masters is a con-man more interested in getting rich than fighting.
  • Game of ThronesHBO made the Game of Thrones pilot redo about 90 percent of its footage. The re-shoot changed cast and directors.
  • American BandstandDick Clark pitched a Philadelphia dance show to ABC in 1957, and it went national.
  • South ParkFox balked at a talking stool, and South Park's creators walked away from the deal.
  • Rick and MortyRick and Morty's first draft was written in six hours on an office floor. Harmon and Roiland wrote it cross-legged.
  • Kappa MikeyKappa Mikey began in a toy company, not a television studio. Larry Schwarz conceived the cartoon in 2000 at Rumpus Toys.
  • High Guardian SpiceHigh Guardian Spice was meant to be Crunchyroll's first original series but premiered about two years late.
  • Fallout (American TV series)The television series Fallout opens with a young woman named Lucy leaving Vault 33 to search for her kidnapped father. Amazon Prime Video released it as a drama based on the role-playing video game franchise created by Tim Cain and Leonard…
  • Avatar: The Last AirbenderAvatar: The Last Airbender opens with a boy frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years. Aang wakes to a world at war.
  • Monday Night FootballMillions of Americans first heard that John Lennon had been shot during a Monday Night Football game.
  • Top of the PopsTop of the Pops was planned as a short-run experiment. The BBC music show began in 1964 and ran for 42 years.
  • The Book of Boba FettLucasfilm hired a YouTube deepfake expert to improve Luke Skywalker in The Book of Boba Fett.
  • ManningcastThe Manningcast is ESPN2's alternate Monday Night Football show hosted by Peyton and Eli Manning.
  • The Boys (TV series)The Boys is an American satirical superhero series that Hollywood spent years refusing to make. Director Adam McKay carried the idea to every studio and financing house in town, along with a pre-visualization reel of superheroes doing…
  • House of the DragonHouse of the Dragon premiered on the 21st of August 2022, and an estimated 9.99 million viewers in the United States watched its first episode on opening night. HBO said no series debut on its streaming service had ever drawn a bigger…
  • USA TodayUSA Today's first issue sold out within hours in 1982. Critics mocked it as a "McPaper" anyway.
  • The Ed Sullivan ShowEd Sullivan vowed never to book Elvis Presley, then signed him after a rival host's ratings win.
  • Star Wars: EwoksIn one Ewoks episode, Wicket and his friends board an Imperial Star Destroyer.
  • Ted LassoTed Lasso is a television comedy-drama about an American college football coach from Kansas City, Missouri, who is asked to run an English soccer team. He has never coached the sport. Many around the club doubt him, and the person who…
  • For All Mankind (TV series)In the TV series For All Mankind, a Soviet cosmonaut lands on the Moon first.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of PowerAn orphan raised as a Horde soldier finds a magic sword in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
  • The Beatles (TV series)The Beatles cartoon spoke with voices that were not the Beatles'. No band member recorded any dialogue.
  • Star Wars: DroidsStar Wars: Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO opens with a song called "In Trouble Again", performed by Stewart Copeland of the Police. The title doubles as a mission statement. This animated series, a spin-off from the original…
  • Power RangersPower Rangers owes its existence to a hotel television in Japan. Haim Saban was on a business trip there in the 1980s. The only thing his hotel set would show was a series about five masked people in spandex suits fighting monsters. He was…
  • Euphoria (American TV series)Euphoria, the HBO drama created by Sam Levinson, began with an instruction in June 2017. Levinson had been invited to meet Francesca Orsi, HBO's head of drama, about adapting an Israeli series. The two ended up talking about life and the…
  • The PittThe Pitt is an American medical drama that squeezes an entire season into one twelve-hour shift in a hospital emergency room. The fictional setting is the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, and its emergency department goes by the nickname…
  • Pluribus (TV series)Pluribus is a television series about a world that has become gloriously happy, and one woman who wants no part of it. Only 13 people on Earth are immune to the change. One of them is Carol Sturka, played by Rhea Seehorn. Everyone else has…
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi (miniseries)Ewan McGregor spent four years lying about a Kenobi project. He admitted it at Disney's D23 event in August 2019.

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