Fran Drescher knew the cancellation of her TV show Happily Divorced was a mistake, and according to her, TV Land came to the same realization. An executive at the cable network even told Drescher that canceling the sitcom was TV Land’s “big regret.”
“It’s too bad that TV Land took Happily Divorced off after only 36 episodes,” Drescher told People, attributing the sitcom’s slow start to a “poor business model.”
“I did point it out to them, but they didn’t want to hear it. But ultimately, I was proved correct,” she added. “Two years later, I ran into one of the executives, and they said, ‘If it’s any consolation, that’s, like, the big regret at TV Land. That shouldn’t have been canceled. That shouldn’t have gone away. It was so good.’”
Drescher explained that sponsors should have had more time to discover the show’s appeal. “If you have limited money, you can’t pay for a series with the hopes that you’ll be able to syndicate it or advance sell it before you start running out of money,” she said. “It was going to take a little bit longer than 36 episodes to sell. Not to find the audience, because everybody loved it.”
The star of The Nanny created the Happily Divorced with ex-husband Peter Marc Jacobson, and the former couple based it on their own relationship history. In the show, Drescher’s Fran Lovett is a florist who discovers that her husband of 18 years, Peter Lovett (John Michael Higgins), is gay. They divorce but continue to cohabitate to save money. As she re-enters the dating pool, Fran “juggles her new relationships and her ex-husband post-divorce while still living under the same roof,” TV Land said in a synopsis.
Joining Drescher and Higgins in the cast were Tichina Arnold as Fran’s best friend Judi; Rita Moreno and Robert Walden as her parents, Dori and Glen; Valente Rodriguez as her flower delivery employee, Cesar; and D.W. Moffett as Elliot, her new love interest.
Happily Divorced premiered in June 2011, with 2.4 million total viewers, but its audience dropped to around 1 million viewers by the time the second season ended in February 2013, and TV Land canceled the show that August, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Drescher told People that some people have told her they prefer Happy Divorced to The Nanny. “It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get an opportunity to do that longer because it had something to say,” she said. “The global message was: Everyone has a right to live an authentic life and love is love.”
Happily Divorced, Now Streaming, Paramount+