Franchise Zombies in Western Animation.
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Real Life
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold ended by schedule after three seasons specifically to avoid this trope.
- Beavis and Butt-Head. Although Mike Judge doesn't like the last few seasons, claiming that they were forced on him by MTV, their supposed lack of quality is more of an Informed Flaw considering that the show remained hilariously funny right up to the Grand Finale. The short-lived 2011 revival, on the other hand, does not fit as both Judge and MTV wanted it.
- Ben 10 was created by a four-man group called Man of Action Studios. After the series ended, the creative team continued the franchise with Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, both spearheaded by Glen Murakami and Dwayne McDuffie. Man of Action were also involved in the production of the two series, but when the franchise was expected to end with Ultimate Alien, Man of Action left to focus on working Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), Cartoon Network continued with the Lighter and Softer Omniverse, spearheaded by Derrick J. Wyatt, without the creators' involvement although the first two episodes were the last written by McDuffie before his death; fans seemed to dislike it. In 2016 an even softer reboot began airing, which was at least produced by Man of Action this time around.
- Dexter's Laboratory and Johnny Bravo were drastically retooled after the departure of their respective creators when the former's second season and the latter's first ended, which led both series to be inactive for a while. That said, JB's creator Van Partible did return for the show's final season, while DL's creator Genndy Tartakovsky worked on a couple episodes of Seasons 3 and 4, such as "Chicken Scratch" and "Comedy of Feathers".
- The Fairly OddParents! suffered quite badly from this, as the show was cancelled three times by Nickelodeon, only to be brought back on the strength of reruns, each time adding a new character to try to keep the show fresh. Many people were displeased when Poof was created in the Fairly OddBaby special, but due him providing a new perspective on Timmy, Cosmo & Wanda as a surrogate son for the trio, he was tolerated and not widely hated. When loathed characters Sparky & Chloe, however, both of whom were far more irritating and pointless additions to the show, were made, many fans felt the series long overstayed its welcome. The fact that Sparky was removed in Season 10 to be replaced by Chloe certainly didn't help matters, as it felt as if the creators were just adding new characters to cover up a lack of ideas. When the series was finally canceled for good in 2017, most fans considered it a Mercy Kill of a show that had long since become a shadow of its former self... Which didn't stop a new live-action series from being made in 2022.
- Family Guy: Seth MacFarlane was asked about this in an October 2011 interview
(the question was if he planned the show to be as long as The Simpsons). MacFarlane said that he didn't want Family Guy to be that long, and that he wanted to end the show in a high note before it became stale. This is pointed out in the third episode of the Star Wars parody mini-series "Laugh It Up, Fuzzball", where the opening crawl starts out and then suddenly cuts in with "Okay, you know what, we don't care. We were thinking of not doing this one. FOX made us do it." - Alex Hirsch ended Gravity Falls after two seasons to likewise avoid this problem when the show became critically acclaimed.
- King of the Hill was originally scheduled to conclude in Season 10, before being renewed last minute in the spring of 2006 (the 11th season finale, explicitly designed as a series finale, was originally produced for it), then being renewed again during Season 11 for two more seasons. It finally ended in 2009, although four more episodes (which were skipped over by Fox to make room for The Cleveland Show) aired on [adult swim] in 2010. In 2023, it was announced that Hulu would be rebooting King of the Hill once again.
- The The Loud House franchise has a variant in that while creator Chris Savino didn't outright state how long he wanted the main animated series to air, he said that he wanted it to end with an episode in which the character Lori Loud moves away to start college. After Savino was fired from the series' production in 2017, the fifth season that began in late 2020 involved a one-year time skip with its premiere ("Schooled!") having Lori do as aforementioned. The franchise has continued to run since then, with the creation of various spin-off media and the main series being currently on its seventh season.
- Popeye was originally a minor character in a comic book series called Thimble Theater. After Fleischer Studios lost control of the franchise, it continued directly under Paramount's banner for several years, before moving to other companies up until the beginning of the 1980's when they finally allowed the nearly at the time 50-year-old franchise to die... until a cyberpunk-set comic of Popeye that crashed very fast.
- The Powerpuff Girls:
- The executives at Cartoon Network asked if a seventh season of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) was going to happen, but the new showrunner Chris Savino shot down the idea after agreeing with Craig McCracken to end the series on Season 6. No plans were made for a seventh season, and Craig and Chris wanted to go out while it was still fresh.
- A decade later, Cartoon Network aired a new series for three seasons without any involvement from McCracken or Savinonote whatsoever. Despite its relatively short run in comparison to the 1998 series (after which it was Quietly Cancelled), the 2016 series was promoted left and right by Cartoon Network.
- In 2020, it was announced that The CW was working on a live-action adult show titled Powerpuff; after controversy surrounding both the show's overall concept and a leaked script of its first episode, Powerpuff ended up in Development Hell until it was announced it was shelved in 2023.
- In an aversion in 2022, another announcement stated that McCracken would be working on a third animated series, this time with a more story-driven approach, in direct contrast to the 1998 and 2016 series.
- The Ren & Stimpy Show became this after its second season, when creator John Kricfalusi got fired. The show was ended after 5 seasons. The franchise briefly made a resurgence on Spike TV almost a decade later with the revival Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", which had Kricfalusi back at the helm, but said revival was canned after it tanked on account of its Audience-Alienating Premise and overly dark humor. And then in 2021, another reboot was announced for Comedy Central, albeit without the now-disgraced Kricfalusi.
- The Simpsons: Matt Groening stated in an interview that it was getting harder to keep the series fresh, and that while it would be around for the next couple of seasons at least, he wanted it to leave on a high note. A few weeks later, he did a public recantation: The Simpsons was fine, and would be continuing for the foreseeable future. That was in 1999, ten years after the show began airing. Quite a number of episodes around season 7-11 made the fact that the writers thought the show would be on its way out into a common gag. Troy claims in one that the series would go on until it became unprofitable, another episode noted that the next few seasons would feature hilariously outlandish plots common to shows on the verge of cancellation, and Season 11's "Behind the Laughter" flat-out proclaims "This'll be the last season."note As of this writing in 2022, the show is currently on Season 33.
- South Park: According to this article, Trey Parker and Matt Stone had hoped to end their show earlier than the (at minimum) 26-season run (as well as 14 additional movies) that Comedy Central had renewed the series for.
- SpongeBob SquarePants was supposed to end after the third season and The Movie, but popular demand has kept it going since, even with creator Stephen Hillenburg being less involved with future seasons. Many complain over the supposed deterioration of the main cast's personality traits and the decline of writing quality/general aimlessness of the series these days; but, of course, if you asked any current young child (anybody born after 2004, when the Movie and the show were supposed to wrap it up), the series is absolutely fine enough to go on for many more years. And, of course, SpongeBob remains Nickelodeon's most popular cartoon, running over 20 years straight now with that distinction. The show would eventually Win Back the Crowd when Stephen Hillenburg returned to the show in 2015. After Hillenburg's death in 2018, Nickelodeon pursued an aggressive push towards the production of spin-off series The Patrick Star Show and Kamp Koral alongside the main show.
- Tom and Jerry was subject to this as well after William Hanna and Joseph Barbera left MGM, changing hands many times throughout the decades.
In-Universe
- Parodied in Animaniacs (2020), where billboards reference how the Looney Tunes franchise has become one to the point where a billboard displays a reboot featuring zombified versions of the characters.
- J. D. Salinger defies this in BoJack Horseman on his wildly popular Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let's Find Out!, by canceling the show after just one season. His reasoning? "I told the story I wanted to tell." Not unreasonable... except that this is a trivia game show.
- Back when she was known as Ralph, Rachel Bighead in Rocko's Modern Life was forced to create another show to get out of her contract, but she secretly detests it. Thus, she gets Rocko and his friends to create a terrible show, "Wacky Delly", to get kicked out of her contract. Unfortunately, it was a huge hit. The show goes on with her trying over and over to make it worse and worse, including having nothing but a jar of mayonnaise for 10 minutes on-screen, but it keeps getting more and more popular. It wasn't until she actually tried to make it better that it failed.
