Fox is giving a vote of confidence to its animated series Bless the Harts.
The network has picked up a second season of the 20th Century Fox TV comedy, created by Emily Spivey. It is the first rookie show of the fall to earn a spot in the 2020-21 season. The current season is set to run for 13 episodes.
“Bless the Harts is an incredibly sharp, yet sweet, series that complements the Fox Animation Domination block perfectly,” Fox Entertainment president Michael Thorn said Friday in a statement. “It simply doesn’t get much better than having a comedy anchored by talent like Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Ike Barinholtz, Jillian Bell and Kumail Nanjiani. We want to thank creator and executive producer Emily Spivey, whose unique voice and personal experience brought this family to life, as well as executive producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and our partners at 20th Century Fox Television. We are thrilled to watch the Hart family experience more adventures, mishaps and boxed wine for another amazing season.”
Bless the Harts hasn’t pulled big ratings for Fox, but it has kept pace with the network’s other animated offerings on Sunday night. The show is averaging 3.3 million viewers across all platforms so far (up from an initial on-air audience of 2.1 million) along with a 1.0 rating in adults 18-49.
Fox’s animated series tend to accumulate larger audiences via digital platforms than they do on air. Last season, The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy all at least doubled their initial audiences via multiplatform viewing.
Fox is thus far the only network to extend any of its first-year shows; the network has also given a back-nine order to the drama Prodigal Son.
Spivey (The Last Man on Earth) executive produces Bless the Harts with Lord and Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Wiig, Seth Cohen and Andy Bobrow. Spivey and Bobrow are the showrunners.
