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It was the first of MTV’s new generation of scripted series. Now The Hard Times of RJ Berger has been canceled after two seasons, series co-creator Seth Grahame-Smith tweeted earlier today. The series, which Grahame-Smith co-created with David Katzenberg, launched with 2.8 million viewers last year when it aired after the MTV Movie Awards. Its second-season premiere hit a series high of 3.1 million viewers airing behind Jersey Shore. But by the end of the second-season run in May, the series’ viewership had dropped below 1 million. RJ Berger, which stars Paul Iacono as a well-endowed high-school student, is the second MTV scripted series to be canceled following the axing of Skins after one season. Teen Wolf has been renewed for a second season, and new comedy Awkward appears a lock for a second-season renewal after hitting a series high in persons 12-34 this week. Coming up is the premiere of Death Valley on Aug. 29 and a post-Video Music Awards sneak of I Just Want My Pants Back, and the October launch of animated comedies Beavis and Butt-head and Good Vibes. The Inbetweeners is in production for a 2012 debut.
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sad to see the show go so soon though there is only so many times they can make it known the main character is well endowed with his package before it gets old
I agree, it is a little sad as I hate to see any more room made for crappy reality shows on MTV. So glad to see some more scripted shows coming up. I’m really looking forward to Death Valley. It looks like a good mix of campy, creepy and funny.
Are you kidding me? That was the best show ever. I loves Rj Berger. I don’t believe it got cancelled.
you guys should do one more season
what took them so long?
I agree this show was crap and you can only do the same trick over and over so many times until people get sick of it.
Next in development at MTV, “a high school girl who reveals she has a HUGE Kim Kardashian Butt and then instantly becomes most popular girl in school!”
Love David and Seth, show was well-done. The TV landscape is changing and the old-school syndication model is shot thanks to the multi-platform content delivery. Two seasons is the new six apparently. Low cost, low expectations seem to be the norm moving ahead. Sucks.
This hack idea never should have even been made into a throw-away Funny Or Die clip, forget an actual series.
Not to mention it alienates anyone out of high school who’d watch it. Too pervy in concept for anyone without a locker and seven periods. If I want to see unexpectedly well hung dudes with glasses I’ll go to Echo Park or Silverlake.
The problem here is nothing is said about the actual show, don’t stop at the concept. I think it does appeal to people outside the high school generation because as a character, RJ held to some of the ideals of which are missing from a lot of scripted shows on the air and a majority of unscripted shows that deal with teenagers and in some ways carried back to a character archetype we don’t see anymore, i.e. Lloyd Dobler or Cameron Fry. I really enjoyed this show and the well-endowed part wasn’t even a fulcrum for the show, it’s simply the answer to “why now?” I will admit that the show had some things that I didn’t appreciate (like the two cliffhanger season endings and Travis Barker and Weezer getting face time), but overall, I think it had some promise and had a good heart.
Dan, I tried to watch it and it didn’t click with me but I get what you’re saying too about the promise and its overall intention.
I appreciate the attempt. I have to say that I understand where everyone is coming from when they say it didn’t click. I tried to watch “Awkward” this past weekend. It just didn’t do it for me. Didn’t seem like there was a lot going on that was unique. Maybe RJ was just a little too out there with the “well-endowed” thing and the swinger parents. It had a couple of “gimmes” (as one of my mentors called them) that were a little too hard to get your head around.
“I think it does appeal to people outside the high school generation.”
Obviously it didn’t.
I’m out of the Highschool generation and it appealed to me.
Yeah, I think you make some good points. Since I’ve been out of high school, I only watched two high school based shows: 1)OC since I watched it with this girl that I liked and 2) 90210 (It made it easier for me since most of the people in the show were actually in their mid 20s, ha). The person who played Andrea is 50 years old now, ha.
Hmmm. I think MTV doesn’t know what its brand is … It’s throwing darts at a very large board and seeing what comes close to a bulls eye in scripted. They’re trying to redefine their brand. What scripted show has been on MTV for more than 2 seasons in the last 7-10 years???
Show had the biggest writer’s room I’ve ever seen!
MTV is going for scripted – thank God – and it seems to still be skewing towards its primary demo of 12-34 women. RJ seems more of a guy show and thus the numbers didn’t hold.
Props to this show for allowing MTV back into the scripted arena. Whether you liked it or not (and I did), it is an important show in the trajectory of the network. It broke through after years and years of other scripted shows at MTV failed miserably. Also, I enjoy penis jokes.
MTV should bring back ‘Road Rules’ in its original format ASAP.
Avid MTV fan here and you Hollywood assholes got it all wrong – we do nOT want more scripted shows. I hate scrpted shows. I – and my friends who also watch MTV, loved JErsey Shore and want of this type of program. WE also love game shows like Silent Library.
WE live on the East Coast and are seniors and juniors in high school. Take it from us no more scripted shows, only reality.
Thanks, Toad. We will all totally listen to you.
hey genius… jersey shore is SCRIPTED!
If MTV is silly enough to air scripted shows, they should keep it short. Super short, say about three minutes per episode. That’s about the length of the average attention span and decent youtube clip. Each episode should end with a cliff-hanger.
The network should also plan on having them run only one season (at most). If the show still has an audience after a year, then they can auction it to some not so-cutting-edge channel and/or split the incoming monies.
Also, I agree with Toad. Scripted shows are incredibly unstimulating (keeping in mind that it’s not about entertainment, but about stimulation) compared with the beautifully contrived drama that can only be created by reality show editing.
Thank God. What a crap show.
How about MTV going back to what its known for? Music television. It’s so sad. I’m 23 and I miss the days where I could just come home and watch TRL. MTV should really try to go back into making music shoes like diary or making the video and avoid reality tv an unfunny scripted shows.
I loved the hard times of RJ Burger!! I was looking forward to it coming back . I will miss it dearly!!! Oh and I love ackwarded!!!!
I agree best show ever!
@Toad & Old Scribe: WOW! Are you guys serious? Because if you are then it is people like you that are resonplbe for the downfall on mankind. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate reality TV, in fact there is some good quality reality TV out there but I would take scripted TV over reality every time. Its crap like the reality shows on E! and the abomination known as Jersey Shore that is killing quality scripted TV as well as bringing down the IQ of America. As well as giving America a bad name. Frak Jersey Shore & crappy reality TV. I can’t wait until the day Jersey Shore is over & the abortions known as the Jersey Shore cast are finally out of the spotlight which they did not deserve in the first place.
Well said, Jon Smith! And hang in there, Snooki and her ensemble of equally trashy uneducated low lives fifteen minutes is just about up. We just have to be patient.
You are actually wrong, I would imagine that the mean IQ of Jersey Shore viewers (95-105) is higher than the that of the writing staff for RJ Berger (65-80). With very few exceptions network and cable television channels are unable to produce scripted comedies that are funny; aside from “Curb” and maybe “Louie” I can’t think of one funny scripted show on television. The “Jersey Shore” cast is unintentionally far more funny than any sit-com airing today, and I blame the horrible writing staffs on television comedies for this sad state of affairs!
What a shame. The show wasn’t bad, it did have some promise even though there were other things it could work on. But its nice that it started the trend on MTV of more scripted shows than reality shows.
Fuck! I really liked this show. It was incredibly entertaining.
The first season was actually very good, but the second was disappointing. Bringing back Lily and her idiotic behavior killed the show. Too much is made of the penis thing because it wasn’t talked about much on the show after the first few episodes of season one.
Spot on. The stick schtick died off early on. Bringing lily back killed the show.
MTV managers are a bunch of unprofessional people.
Another good tv series canned with no proper ending. They won’t even do a final episode.
They will cancel the very good TEEN WOLF too.
All good shows get cancelled by networks managers.
They should just CANCEL…. MTV period. I hate that fing show.
Music Television at it’s worst !
this show rocked, it was funny and i was lookin foward to this new series, y the fuck did u take it off, so wat if less ppl dont watch it, tht dont mean tht the other ppl dont want to watch it, now they r comin out with gay ass shows like teen wolf and other stupid shit
Look, im 16 and will be the only one who stands up for RJ Berger, i freaking loved this show. After watching it, i felt more important than i actually was. I mean this one akward kid used more wepons than his huge dick to bring status change to his school. He took on his bully, got the girl of his dreams against all odds(which we could all relate to), and had sexual experiences none of us could relate to. The show was great and was canceld because more people would wanna watch dumb guidos live in jersy, and 16 year old girls be pregnant. This is n
i have to agree with you.. they have more drama on tv with jersey and 16 and pergent… then regular tv shows..
Agreed literally best show I’ve ever seen.
All I want is music back!!! MTV isn’t music television any more! Just full of bullshit shows now!