Proving that no combination of aggressively happy celebrities and their earnest, constantly widening smiles will ever convince the American public to accept the humble, unloved variety show back into their hearts—no matter how often Maya Rudolph or Neil Patrick Harris sing little songs to themselves about how they wish they would—NBC has canceled Harris’ Best Time Ever, a title which ultimately did not prove to be the case.
The network has cited the show’s persistently low ratings as its reason to sweep the live program’s grabbag of stunts, shouting, and Reeses Witherspoon off the air, killing the program shortly after it aired its eighth and final episode. (Still, Harris and his crew of joy-gineers can pride themselves in knowing that they lasted four times as long as inferior Harris substitute Ryan Seacrest’s similarly unloved Knock Knock Live.)
Anyway, Best Time Ever is over. Harris presumably spent the six seconds after being informed of the news being totally and completely crushed, before bouncing back and hosting another dozen award shows (or whatever) and writing himself another book. (He’s also expecting to do another project with NBC.) In the meantime, the network will presumably follow the ratings, and confine all live broadcasts in the near-future to Motown-influenced stage musicals based on classic Hollywood films.