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My Name Is Earl is an American comedy created by Greg Garcia that was originally broadcast on the NBC television network from September 20, 2005 to May 14, 2009 in the United States. It was produced by 20th Century Fox Television.
Set in fictional Camden County, the series stars Jason Lee, Ethan Suplee, Jaime Pressly, Eddie Steeples and Nadine Velazquez. Lee stars in the title role as Earl J. Hickey, a petty crook with occasional run-ins with the law, whose newly won $100,000 lottery ticket is lost when he is hit by a car. Lying in a hospital bed, under the influence of morphine, he develops a belief in the Americanized concept of karmic retribution when he hears about karma during an episode of Last Call with Carson Daly. He decides he wants to turn his life around, and so makes a list of every bad thing he's ever done in an attempt to correct them, as he believes that this is the only way he can gain positive karma. After doing his first good deed, he finds the $100,000 lottery ticket he had previously lost. He sees this as a sign and, with his new lucky money, he proceeds to cross items off the list, one by one, by doing good deeds in correspondence to the list items to atone for them.[1]
Creator and head writer Greg Garcia wrote the pilot while working on another sitcom, Yes, Dear. He initially pitched the series to Fox, which passed on the series. He then approached NBC, which optioned the pilot on a cast-contingent basis, meaning they would order the pilot provided a suitable cast could be assembled. Jason Lee was approached for the lead role, but was uninterested in working in television and passed on the series twice before finally agreeing to read the pilot script. Though he liked the pilot, he was hesitant to commit to his first TV starring role until after meeting with Garcia, after which he signed on to play Earl Hickey.
The series premiered on September 20, 2005, drew in 14.9 million viewers in the United States, earning a 6.6 rating. By the airing of the third episode it was apparent that My Name Is Earl was the highest rated of NBC's new fall offerings, and a full season (22 episodes) was ordered. In its first month, it was also the highest rated new sitcom of the season to air on any network and was the highest rated sitcom on any network in the 18–49-year-old demographic. The show was renewed for a second season (2006–07), a third (2007–08), and a fourth (2008–09).
NBC canceled the series on May 19, 2009. Season four had ended with the caption 'To Be Continued'. The series' producer, 20th Television, approached the Fox, ABC,[6]TBS[7] and TNT[8] networks to continue the series, but they were unable to come to terms without "seriously undermining the artistic integrity of the series."[7][9][10][11][12][13] Although the show's cancellation came just four episodes away from the coveted 100 episode mark which is typically seen as the point when a series becomes able to be syndicated, My Name Is Earl is syndicated on TBS. Long negotiations with TBS ended with the show not being resolved and classified as "dead".
Ion Television began reshowing the series on January 30, 2010 at 10pm EST.[citation needed]
Other recurring characters include Electrolarynx Guy, Bruce, Nescobar Aloplop, Doug, Jasper and his Russian mail-order bride, Joy's deaf lawyer and her interpreter, DJ Dave, Slow Roger, Bob Smiley, and TV's Tim Stack. Stack usually appears in his Son of the Beach costume, completely intoxicated, or both — he is also a writer for the show.
Several of the show's characters appeared on the July 8, 2008 episode of Celebrity Family Feud. One team, the Hickey family, consisted of Earl, Joy, Randy, Crabman, and Catalina. The other team, dubbed "Camden County," consisted of Tim Stack, Patty, Wilford (Tim's agent), Kenny James, and Nescobar Aloplop. The Camden County team defeated the Hickey family, but lost to the cast of The Office in the finals.
My Name Is Earl is set in Camden County, a fictional location in the Central Time Zone of the United States.[15] In the series, it is described as a place that was called "Central" during the American Civil War which supported neither side and seceded from both the United States and the Confederacy. Darnell remarks that the Central only lasted from 3:30 to 3:45 on March 10, 1861 as a nation before the North and the South massacred the citizens.[15] As to the exact location, creator Greg Garcia says:
In the episode titled "Inside Probe" Earl's lawyer's phone number is displayed during a commercial ad and has a Connecticut state area code. However, actual outdoor set filming was completed in Lake Balboa, California.
The show has been on the whole well-received by critics and audiences alike, on Metacritic it garnered a 77% "generally favorable" critics' metascore; 8.7 out of 10 users' rating.[16] One reviewer has noted the significance of the fact Earl's very confession to having led a life of idiocy is what endears him to the viewer, and is what suggests there is more to his character than the surface persona that the viewer initially sees.[1] Most of the negative and ambivalent reviews center on what are perceived to be base[17] and bigoted humour.[18]
Some critics have claimed the series has a Scientologist bias or message, with actors Jason Lee and Ethan Suplee being Scientologists.[19] Reports in the British press incorrectly identified series creator Greg Garcia as also being a Scientologist, but Garcia himself has denied any affiliation with Scientology.[20]
The season one "mini-episode", titled Bad Karma, is an alternate version of the events of the pilot episode featuring what would have happened if, instead of seeing Carson Daly talking about karma while in the hospital, Earl saw Stewie Griffin of Family Guy talking about vengeance.[27]
Twentieth Television has cleared My Name is Earl in nearly 50% of the U.S., said Bob Cook, the company’s president and chief operating officer. Twentieth has sold the off-net sitcom to the Fox, Tribune, CBS, Hearst-Argyle and Sinclair station groups for a fall 2009 debut.[30]
In September 2009, The Comedy Network in Canada began to show My Name is Earl on a nightly basis at 8:30 PM EST.
Independent comic book publisher Oni Press had announced a comic book tie-in to the seris in 2006[31]. Season one's DVD release included ads for the comic, but to date no series has been produced, but since the cancelation of the show, Oni has since canceled the comic[32].
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