TV Watchdog Group Calls On Fox To Resuscitate ‘Last Man Standing’ And Bury ‘The Mick’ In “Win-Win”

Parents TV Council says it is “recommending” Fox broadcast network cancel The Mick and replace it with Last Man Standing.

Nellie Andreeva wrote on May 16 that Fox seriously considered rescuing the series, which is produced by 20th Century Fox TV, after ABC gave it the hook. She reported that Fox tried to fit Season 7 of Last Man Standing on its schedule but couldn’t find a way to do it, what with Fox having been out of the multi-cam comedy business or a while, and these days being in the edgy single-cam business with comedies like, you know, The Mick.

Parents TV Council, in a news release sent around today, said if Fox yanked The Mick for Last Man Standing “it would be a win-win-win, and how often can we say that?” Now’s probably a good time to mention PTC is no fan of The Mick, which it called “socially damaging, culturally bankrupt humor” in an op-ed post.

Anyway, ABC’s decision to pull the plug on Last Man Standing caused a bit of a uproar in conservative circles, what with the lead character, as described by Andreeva, being a political conservative, and “devout Christian adhering to traditional American values.”

A Change.org petition calling for the return of the Denver-set sitcom currently has about 382K signatures – slightly higher than the population of the city of the Mile High City – in 1990.

The petition lauds Last Man Standing as “standing out in the sea of network television sitcoms” by appealing to a “broad swath of Americans who find very few shows that extol the virtues with which they can identify; namely conservative values.”

But, the petition continues, the series was not selling just “conservative ideals” as evidenced by the fact that some of its characters “are clearly of the liberal persuasion.”

In its news release, PTC acknowledges Last Man Standing “isn’t a perfect show” conceding the org gave it one of its famous Yellow Light ratings, owing to “occasional sexual innuendo and language.” Still, PTC insisted, “it’s a much safer show for families than The Mick and, for that matter, much safer than most programs on air on primetime broadcast television.”