The creator of the animated Tuca & Bertie has announced the show has been canceled for a second time. The once-Netflix and now Adult Swim show has been left hanging at the end of a season once more, with fans unsure if it can be saved for a second time.
Show creator Lisa Hanawalt made the announcement on Twitter with the solemn caption “Goodbye to Tuca & Bertie, for now :(“.
In a longer note Hanawalt wrote about the show which aired on Adult Swim and HBO Max, she expressed gratitude to fans, saying, “we love you and can’t thank you enough for your support over the years.” The announcement message continued:
“Working with Adult Swim was very creatively fulfilling, our execs were all smart and thoughtful, and I’m grateful that we got the space to make all these wild and heartfelt episodes about things that matter to me very much. I’m so proud of the work by all my talented coworkers and collaborators on this show.”
The show centered around two bird women in their 30s, Tiffany Haddish’s Tuca and Ali Wong’s Bertie, who are roommates in the same apartment together.
Tuca & Bertie initially premiered on Netflix but only lasted a single season before the streaming platform canceled it. Luckily, fan support was so vocal for the show, the second and third season was picked up by Adult Swim. With that kind of grassroots history associated with it, we get the hunch that we’ve not seen the last of Tuca & Bertie after all. Perhaps like Futurama, fan petitioning will be enough to revive the show once again to give it a proper send-off. In fact, Hanawalt has said she even has an as-of-yet-realized conclusion in mind should she get the opportunity to give her show a closing chapter:
“I still have a beautiful and weird ending to T&B in mind, hopefully someday we’ll get the chance to finish this story. In the meantime, I’m not done creating. I’ve witnessed so many people connecting with this show on a profound level, and I intend to keep telling stories like this, no matter what.”
The finer details about why Tuca & Bertie was canceled have yet to be revealed, but it could be from any number of reasons. Perhaps the ratings of the show just didn’t satisfy the bean counters. Or maybe this is yet another example of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav being trigger-happy with canceling once-burgeoning projects. Yet a third possibility is that Haddish’s recent legal troubles could be the reason the show’s plug was pulled.
We’ll be sure to let you know if Tuca & Bertie receives a revival in the future.