ABC Cancels Fred Willard-Led Sketch Comedy Show

NEW YORK—Citing falling ratings, ABC has decided to cancel Trust Us With Your Life, the improvisational sketch comedy show headlined by recently arrested Fred Willard. This is the second loss for Willard, whose PBS show Market Warriors was pulled in the immediate aftermath of the July 18 incident at a Los Angeles porn theater, when Willard was arrested and cited for lewd behavior after a police officer says he saw Willard with his willie out. The only thing that puts a question mark to the ABC claim of canceling the show because of low ratings is the fact that it debuted only a few weeks ago, on July 10, a week or so before Willard was arrested. When it premiered, the show had a reported 3.3 million viewers, but fell to 1.8 million last week. Assuming those numbers are correct, it could also be that the network was waiting to see if the arrest gave the show a bump, and pulled the plug when it didn't. Maybe they should have given it a little more time to allow the producers to work the arrest into the content of the show. Trust Us, which aired on Tuesday and had only two shows in the can, will reportedly be replaced with reruns of ABC's Wipeout. Willard has insisted that he did nothing wrong, and even joked about the incident on Jimmy Fallon's show last week. Fallon, of course, is on NBC.