My Name Is Earl was cancelled on a cliffhanger in 2009 by NBC, but creator Greg Garcia has revealed how the axed sitcom would have ended, had it escaped the reaper:
We never really got the chance to fully figure it out but the talk in the writers room was that Earl Jr’s Dad was going to be someone famous. Like Dave Chappelle or Lil John. Someone that came to town on tour and Joy slept with. But when we got canceled we never got the chance to figure it out. I was worried about doing a cliffhanger but I asked NBC if it was safe to do one at the end of the season and they told me it was. I guess it wasn’t.
I had always had an ending to Earl and I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to see it happen. You’ve got a show about a guy with a list so not seeing him finish it is a bummer. But the truth is, he wasn’t ever going to finish the list. The basic idea of the ending was that while he was stuck on a really hard list item he was going to start to get frustrated that he was never going to finish it. Then he runs into someone who had a list of their own and Earl was on it. They needed to make up for something bad they had done to Earl. He asks them where they got the idea of making a list and they tell him that someone came to them with a list and that person got the idea from someone else. Earl eventually realizes that his list started a chain reaction of people with list and that he’s finally put more good into the world than bad. So at that point he was going to tear up his list and go live his life. Walk into the sunset a free man. With good karma.
Garcia also said that he would consider doing a My Name Is Earl movie, but wouldn’t take the Kickstarter route of financing the project:
I don’t think so. I don’t think I would feel comfortable asking the fans to finance a movie. I’m not real familiar with Kickstarter, so I’m not being critical of other people that have done it but it would feel a little strange to me. If a studio wanted to do a My Name is Earl movie, I’d certainly be up to it.
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