It's been four years since Netflix abruptly canceled the crime mockumentary series American Vandal. Now, Show creators Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault reflected on the show's sudden cancellation.
The Netflix series garnered a reputation for being able to adequately and accurately parody crime documentaries while using juvenile humor like genitalia and poop jokes as motifs to entertain the audience. In spite of American Vandal's widespread acclaim during the two seasons that aired on the streaming service, the show was canceled anyway.
In a recent interview with Comingsoon.net, Yacenda made note that it probably had to do with Netflix themselves wanting to stream new content exclusively made by them instead of projects by a different studio circa 2018. Nonetheless, he and Perrault are grateful they had the chance to make the show for Netflix. “I think it’s a bummer to have something you love canceled, but we also are so grateful for the opportunity,” he said. “If you describe the premise of that show to anyone, it’s crazy that somebody let us make that show in the first place. So I think there were a lot of external market forces that made it possible for that show to be made in 2016. And by 2018, the streaming market was very much changing. But I don’t think we could complain about the latter without being very grateful for the former.” Perrault added that working on the show together helped them learn how to work as a duo. "Tony and I had worked for years before Vandal, but that, in a way, really felt like another step for us in learning how best to work with each other,” said Perrault. “And I think a lot of the toolkit we used on Players comes directly from our experience with Vandal. We’re super grateful to Netflix and everyone who gave us that opportunity.”
The show's creation stemmed from the popularity of the Netflix true-crime series Making a Murderer, which blew their audience's minds away because it made a compelling case that Steven Avery may have been framed as a murderer by the police. Yacenda and Perrault parodied that with the creation of Dylan Maxwell, who may have been wrongfully expelled from school for something he didn't do. Since American Vandal's cancellation in 2018, the two of them have tried to pitch the show to other streaming services but have had no luck since then.
What made American Vandal such an entertaining show was not only that it parodied true-crime documentaries but that it also celebrated and condemned them as well. Unlike other mockumentaries, the show itself actually became a character that proved to be both good and bad for everyone. While Peter Maldonado and Sam Ecklund figured the mystery out bit by bit, their discoveries revealed truths that had serious consequences. The overall point of the show is that there are some things people don't want to be revealed to the public because of how damaging it can be to their lives.
That's why there's such a high demand for the show to be brought back by its fans. Underneath the satire, the show had some meaningful points to make when it was all said and done. Some shows that were previously canceled by their original streaming services were brought back a few years later by a different one, but that was usually only because they were superheroes connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. American Vandal has quite the hill to climb to be revived.
American Vandal can currently be streamed on Netflix.
Source: Comingsoon.net