As an artist, few things inspire more worry than the idea of working hard on a project of one’s own only to have it taken away by the studio. In the television business, this nightmare regularly becomes a reality — though when working with certain show creators proves nightmarish enough, one easily understands why some of these firings took place.
The controversies surrounding creator firings can sink promising shows, especially if the creator’s misdeeds prove heinous enough to taint their work or if the replacement showrunners fail to match their predecessors’ work in quality.
Yet these same tough choices can also save shows and keep talented crews employed without tying them to toxic or unreliable showrunners. Meet the creators fired from their own shows.
1. Donald Bellisario – NCIS
Donald Bellisario, the creator of hit shows Magnum, P.I. and Quantum Leap, found his most successful formula yet with NCIS (co-created with Don McGill). 5 seasons into the 21+ season series, however, CBS asked him to step down.
Bellisario came into conflict with actor Mark Harmon over long work hours and creative differences. The showrunner accused Harmon of leaking information about their conflicts to the press in order to force the network’s hand. Harmon and other actors say working conditions improved after Bellisario’s departure.
When CBS announced the NCIS spinoff NCIS: Los Angeles in 2011, Bellisario sued the network, arguing his contract gave him “first opportunity” for any spinoffs. The courts dismissed the suit, and CBS later settled with Bellisario.
2. Glenn Gordon Caron – Moonlighting
One of the first successful TV dramedies, Moonlighting introduced audiences to Bruce Willis and reinvigorated Cybill Shepherd’s career. The innovative detective series climbed in popularity over its first three seasons only to plummet in its final two, the last of which had no involvement from creator Glenn Gordon Caron.
Caron and Shepherd did not get along. The creator blamed the actress for many of the show’s episode-delaying production difficulties. She reportedly gave ABC an ultimatum to choose between her and Caron. Moonlighting could continue without its showrunner, but not without one of its two leads, so Caron left and Shepherd stayed for one more disappointing year.
3. Frank Darabont – The Walking Dead
Frank Darabont, the writer/director best known for Stephen King adaptations such as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, created the hit AMC adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead comics. The zombie show ran 11 seasons and spawned multiple spinoffs, but Darabont’s participation in the production only lasted about a season and a half.
Darabont’s firing in 2011 proved extra contentious, with the former showrunner filing a breach of contract suit against AMC in 2013. The ensuing legal battle revealed the once-secret reasons for the firing: Darabont responded to creative conflicts with rage and profanity. AMC and Darabont finally agreed to a settlement in 2021. To date, Darabont’s departure remains one of the most explosive stories of creators fired in Hollywood history.
4. Beau DeMayo – X-Men ’97
The public has yet to find out why Marvel fired Beau DeMayo just weeks before the premiere of X-Men ’97. This doesn’t look like a “creative differences” issue, given the rapturous critical reception for the cartoon’s first season and the fact DeMayo already completed scripts for Season 2 with the studio’s approval.
Rumors of DeMayo causing conflict with other writers date back to his time working on the first two seasons of The Witcher, so similar incidents possibly occurred on X-Men. The timing of his firing right before the premiere implies an urgent problem.
Some suspect DeMayo’s OnlyFans account also caused problems with Disney executives, though given his long-time openness about that part of his career, it makes little sense for that to only become an issue after employing him for two seasons.
5. Bryan Fuller – American Gods, Star Trek: Discovery
If Bryan Fuller creates a TV show, expect one of two things: he manages a short-lived cult favorite like Pushing Daisies or Hannibal, or he goes way over budget and the studio fires him, as happened on American Gods and Star Trek: Discovery.
Fuller lasted a full season on American Gods, the Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novel. Officially, he described his departure as amicable, but reports of conflict with Gaiman over faithfulness to the book and with the studio over budgets paint a more chaotic picture. Season 2 went without an official showrunner due to constant firings and replacements, and the show ended on a whimper with Season 3.
While Fuller worked on American Gods, he also did double duty trying to run Star Trek: Discovery. Once again, budgets and schedules exploded under his watch, and CBS forced him off showrunner duties. His co-showrunners, Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, took over the completion of Season 1. They also got fired for going over budget in Season 2 and replaced by Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise for the rest of the series.
6. Dan Harmon – Community
In Seasons 5 and 6 of the cult classic sitcom Community, characters refer to the events of Season 4 as “the gas-leak year.” In-universe, a gas leak explains why the characters and humor felt ever so off; in real life, Season 4’s failings stem from the firing of series creator Dan Harmon–one of the most notorious fired creators profiled here.
The studio had understandable reasons for firing Harmon. The showrunner’s alcoholism, procrastination, angry feuds with actor Chevy Chase, and tendency to dare NBC execs to fire him when they disagreed on the show’s direction all played a role. Yet Community without Harmon was an undeniable disappointment — and Harmon himself voiced his disappointment online in his signature crude fashion.
Responding to the backlash, the network reinstated Harmon for a shorter and more manageable Season 5. Chase left the show when Harmon returned. NBC canned Community after this season, though a surprise revival at Yahoo! Screen pushed the show closer to its goal of “six seasons and a movie.”
7. Andrew Kreisberg – The Arrowverse
Andrew Kreisberg co-created four of the shared universe DC superhero shows that dominated The CW in the 2010s: Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow. His involvement in all four series ended in November 2017.
At the height of the #MeToo movement, people in Hollywood spoke out against rampant sexual harassment and assault within the film and TV industry. 15 women and four men accused Kreisberg of inappropriate behavior in the workplace, resulting in a suspension, investigation, and, in the end, a firing.
For his part, Kreisberg denied the allegations, but his only appearance in the headlines since then involved his arrest for “forcible touching” in March 2023.
8. John Kricfalusi – Ren & Stimpy
In 1991, The Ren & Stimpy Show stood out from other kids’ cartoons for its deranged animation and edgy gross-out humor. Yet the same qualities that inspired its success also led to its creator’s undoing.
John Kricfalusi’s perfectionism regarding the series’ animation resulted in missed deadlines and constant delays. In addition, his desire to push the envelope of kid-friendliness went far beyond what Nickelodeon (or really anyone else) would allow — people cite the violent banned episode “Man’s Best Friend” as a breaking point.
This combination of bad management and content disputes resulted in Kricfalusi’s firing. Bob Camp took over Ren & Stimpy at the new Games Animation studio, while Stimpy voice actor Billy West replaced Kricfalusi as Ren’s voice. Fans stood divided over the firing at the time, but Kricfalusi’s subsequent alleged crimes make Nickelodeon’s decision look wise in retrospect.
9. Skyler Page – Clarence
Skyler Page worked as a storyboard artist on Adventure Time before creating his own Cartoon Network series, Clarence. Just months after Clarence‘s premiere in 2014, another Adventure Time storyboarder, Emily Partridge, posted on Twitter about Page assaulting her.
Others in the animation industry corroborated stories of Page groping women, resulting in his firing. Before the firing, the studio had already reduced Page’s showrunner duties due to difficulties with mental illness. After the firing, Page went into hospital treatment for psychotic episodes.
Clarence continued without Page’s involvement and without any notable changes in style or quality. Spencer Rothbell, who already handled much of the show’s writing, took over as showrunner and as the voice of the title character.
10. Van Partible – Johnny Bravo
Johnny Bravo creator Van Partible joins Dan Harmon on the short list of fired creators to get rehired after getting fired, though the reasons for Partible’s firing appear much less dramatic than Harmon’s.
Warner Bros. purchased Turner Entertainment, the owner of Cartoon Network, shortly after Johnny Bravo‘s first season. The new ownership retooled the entire series for its second and third seasons. Kirk Tingblad took over the show, redesigning the characters and adding new ones.
Partible claims the network told him he lacked managerial skills to handle the show’s continuation. A few years later, after Partible worked up the courage to pitch a new series to Cartoon Network, they invited him back to run Johnny Bravo Season 4. Both the Partible and Tingblad eras have fans, with those who enjoy one version of the show typically not liking the other.
11. Theresa Rebeck – Smash
Theresa Rebeck offers one explanation for her firing from the Broadway-centric NBC drama Smash at the end of its first season. The writers who worked under her paint a different picture. Both accounts might offer up some truth behind one of TV’s infamous sinking ships.
Rebeck describes her experience as one of sexism, with male execs punishing her out of discomfort with her take-charge leadership style. These execs replaced her with a man, Joshua Safran, who had less experience with TV writing and zero experience in the theater, resulting in a lousy Season 2 and no Season 3.
Some reports from the show’s crew don’t exactly conflict with Rebeck’s claims of punishment for being a girlboss, but allege the real problem was that she was a bad boss. The production forgoed a traditional writers’ room in favor of Rebeck individually rewriting everyone else’s scripts, and some claim Rebeck ran the show as a “dictatorship.”
12. Justin Roiland – Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites
Justin Roiland’s creative involvement with Rick and Morty, the Adult Swim show he co-created with Dan Harmon, shrank between Season 1 and his ultimate firing in Season 6. He stopped showing up to the writers’ room in the middle of Season 3 after multiple episodes of unprofessional behavior and a growing distance from Harmon’s more structured writing style.
For the next three seasons, Roiland’s involvement with Rick and Morty mainly consisted of voicing the title characters. He co-created another sci-fi cartoon, Solar Opposites, for Hulu, but with minimal active creative participation beyond voice acting — many of the show’s creative staff never even met Roiland.
Then came the arrest for domestic battery and false imprisonment (charges since dismissed for insufficient evidence), and the receipts of lewd messages Roiland sent to minors over the years. Adult Swim and Hulu both severed ties with Roiland, recasting his characters for Rick and Morty Season 7 and Solar Opposites Season 4, respectively.
13. Chris Savino – The Loud House
Chris Savino made his name in animation replacing showrunners who voluntarily left their ongoing series. He took over Dexter’s Laboratory from Genndy Tartakovsky and The Powerpuff Girls from Craig McCracken. He’d later find himself replaced on his own creation, The Loud House, but not because he quit.
In October 2017, a dozen women brought forth accounts of Savino sexually harassing them and threatening to blacklist those who didn’t go along with his advances. Rumors about Savino’s bad behavior circulated for at least a decade before, but it took the urgency of the #MeToo movement to spark an investigation and subsequent firing from Nickelodeon.
14. Dan Schneider – Henry Danger
Viewers of the docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV know many of the ways producer Dan Schneider mistreated the child stars on his popular Nickelodeon sitcoms. Zillennials can no longer look back on the likes of The Amanda Show, Drake and Josh, and iCarly with the same nostalgia they had before this knowledge.
Suspicions about Schneider, based on uncomfortable content on his Twitter account and in the shows themselves, spread online for years before Nickelodeon fired him in 2018. Though the network’s investigation did not find evidence of sexual misconduct, it found far too many examples of Schneider verbally abusing employees.
Henry Danger, which Schneider co-created with Dana Olsen, was the only Schneider series still in active production at the time. The show continued without the involvement of its disgraced co-creator.
15. Amy Seimetz – The Idol
Amy Seimetz might not technically count as a “creator” of The Idol, but the director’s firing deserves mention here both for how big a role she had in the original version of the HBO series and how disastrous it turned out without her.
The filmmaker, known for co-creating The Girlfriend Experience and directing the movie She Dies Tomorrow, signed on to direct every single episode of The Idol. She had shot roughly 80% of the series when Sam Levinson decided to take over as director and retool the whole thing. Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, one of the show’s co-creators and lead actors, allegedly took issue with the woman director centering a “female perspective.”
That “female perspective” sounds far more appealing than the misogyny of the version of The Idol that made it to air. One of HBO’s worst-reviewed dramas ever, The Idol lasted one five-episode season before swift cancellation.
16. Kurt Sutter – Mayans M.C.
Kurt Sutter created the motorcycle gang drama Sons of Anarchy, which lasted seven seasons and broke ratings records for FX. Not long after Sons of Anarchy concluded, the network put Sutter to work on developing a spinoff series, Mayans M.C., in collaboration with former gang member Elgin James.
Two seasons into the spinoff, the network put Sutter out of work in response to many complaints about his unprofessional behavior. These problems went way back, to the point that Sutter had older letters of complaint from the Sons of Anarchy era framed in his office.
As the entertainment landscape strived towards greater accountability in the post-Weinstein era, being a self-described “abrasive d-ck” warranted more serious consequences. The more responsible James handled showrunning duties for Mayans‘ remaining three seasons.
17. Julia Vickerman – Twelve Forever
Most of the firings on this list went very public very quickly. In contrast, the firing of Julia Vickerman on Twelve Forever proceeded under hush-hush circumstances. “Hush-hush” could also describe Netflix’s marketing for the animated series, which never stood a chance at a second season.
Court documents reveal that three of Vickerman’s employees accused her of sexually harassing them while drunk at after-work parties. Though not reported on by news outlets at the time, these documents are accessible online and became well-known after an older Tumblr post of Vickerman’s, in which the cartoonist talked about stalking a teenage boy, went viral on Twitter.
Following Vickerman’s firing, no one officially took over as showrunner, though producer Shadi Petosky managed to complete the first season. The closure of Petosky’s animation studio Puny Entertainment, in the aftermath of allegations against co-founder Chris Hardwick, killed any chance of a second season.
18. (Possibly) Joss Whedon – The Nevers
Technically, Joss Whedon never claimed HBO fired him from the steampunk superhero show The Nevers. However, considering the circumstances, many suspect the Buffy and Firefly creator only stepped down from showrunner duties because not doing so would result in a more public firing.
At the time, Whedon faced an investigation from HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros., over his treatment of actor Ray Fisher on the set of Justice League. Fisher publicly accused Whedon of racist behavior, and the ensuing controversy called attention to other allegations of misconduct from past Whedon productions, most notably firing Charisma Carpenter from Angel due to her pregnancy.
Whedon left The Nevers halfway through its first season, and Philippa Goslett took over as showrunner during a production hiatus. Only Whedon’s episodes aired on HBO, with Goslett’s final episodes sold to Tubi.
