“You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting around the corner: karma. That’s when I realized that I had to change. So, I made a list of everything bad I’ve ever done, and one by one I’m gonna make up for all my mistakes. I’m just trying to be a better person. My name is Earl.”
Most people do not remember this, but in the fall of 2005, NBC’s Must See Thursday line-up was in shambles. Cheers and The Cosby Show were long gone, Seinfeld left the air in 1998, and the network was two years removed from the last monster sitcom of the modern era, Friends. In the 2004-2005 season, NBC’s Thursday night line-up was running on the fumes of Will & Grace in its last two seasons, and Joey, the ill-fated Friends spin-off that was renewed for a second season because NBC didn’t have anything better to put on their schedule.
In that same 2004-2005 season, NBC decided to try an American adaptation of the most beloved UK comedy of all time, The Office. No one in the critical community thought it would work, and most audiences were hugely skeptical of an Americanized version of British sitcom, particularly after the disastrous and short-lived American version of Coupling, which was cancelled after only five episodes the season before, illustrating again how low the Must See Thursday lineup had sunk.
The Office premiered in the Spring of 2004 as a midseason replacement. The first season aired only 6 episodes, and it wasn’t particularly well received. Or, rather, the pilot episode was poorly received. It was seen by 12 million people willing to give it a chance, but after its tepid reception, it lost nearly 50 percent of its audience in its second week. Though The Office continued to shed viewers in that first season, it gained a critical spark that convinced NBC to renew it for a second season. After all, NBC didn’t have anything better to air, so it decided to take a risk on the talent that had been assembled for The Office.
Still, in the 2005-2006 season, NBC’s Thursday night line-up was in tatters. Joey was kicking off its second season in the Friends old time slot of 8 p.m., although Joey would struggle so badly that it would be cancelled before the season ended. Will & Grace was in its final season, having lost over half of its peak viewership. Meanwhile, The Office — a poorly rated show that was barely renewed — slid into the 9:30 p.m. slot before E.R., huffing fumes itself in its 12th season.
Amid the flopping Joey, the struggling Will & Grace, and upstart The Office, which basically got a second-season pity renewal, came a new comedy from Greg Garcia (Yes, Dear) called My Name Is Earl. Earl starred Jason Lee, a guy at the time probably best known for his work in Kevin Smith’s films, and Ethan Suplee, another Kevin Smith regular who was five years removed from probably the biggest role of his career, a 7th billed actor in Remember the Titans. Beyond those two, Earl starred two little known actresses at the time named Jaime Pressly and Nadine Velazquez.
The premise of My Name is Earl is about as high-concept as they come: It’s about a bad person named Earl (Lee), who wins a $100,000 scratch ticket and immediately loses it after being run over by a car. While in the hospital, Earl sees Carson Daly talking about the concept of karma on his late-night television show. Earl likes the concept of karma so much that he decides to live his life by Carson Daly’s philosophy. He makes a list of 258 wrongs in his life, and he decides to right them all. The decision to do so immediately brings the $100,000 scratch ticket back into his life, validating his decision to live by the rules of karma.
That’s My Name is Earl in a nutshell, except that it barely scratches the surface of how fantastic the main characters were. They can probably best be described as lovable trailer trash, and America fell instantly in love with the comedy. The premiere was seen by 15 million viewers during a time when its lead-in, Will & Grace was getting only half of that. It wasn’t just the highest-rated new show on NBC, it was the highest rated new or returning comedy on any network in the 18-49 demo.
My Name is Earl was an instant smash-hit for NBC in 2005, and no show benefited from that more than the comedy that came on after My Name Is Earl on the NBC lineup: The Office. Viewers who had otherwise tuned out after the first season returned after Earl spiked the audience for The Office in its second season, a crucial time for the Greg Daniels’ series, as now classic episodes like “The Dundies,” Sexual Harassment,” and “Office Olympics” were airing. The combination of Earl and The Office was so successful for NBC that the next season, after Will & Grace exited, NBC moved up Earl and The Office to the 8 p.m. hour to anchor the night (while the reliable Scrubs took the 9 p.m. slot to help launch 30 Rock).
Of course, by the end of the second season, The Office could hold its own, after the ratings on My Name is Earl essentially nurtured The Office into its massive success. By Earl’s third season, it was anchoring the 8 p.m. hour and The Office had moved to 9 p.m. Sadly, that’s also when Earl started to slide creatively. It was the unfortunate nature of the show’s high-concept premise: It could only sustain itself for so long. However, Earl did manage to survive for four seasons, and before it went out, it helped NBC to launch one more successful comedy, Parks and Recreation, which was sandwiched between Earl and The Office in its first season before essentially replacing Earl on the schedule the next year.
Still, My Name is Earl is remembered fondly by most who watched it (and it is currently streaming on Hulu), even if its legacy is that of a show that was eventually overshadowed by the comedy it helped to find an audience.