Back in the early 2000s, the sitcom industry was fiercely competitive, and it seemed like every show was determined to be the next Seinfeld or Friends. While this was a very respectable ambition, it meant that a lot of sitcoms faded into obscurity quite quickly. That’s why many critics wouldn’t find it surprising if fans completely forgot about ABC’s 8 Simple Rules.
Yet, despite its very typical format, the show completely reinvented itself in response to the death of its leading man. “Goodbye” pays tribute to John Ritter, who played the father, Paul Hennessy, in the series. But instead of relying on seedy jokes and soppy endings, this show presented grief in its rawest and most realistic form.
John Ritter’s Death Rocked the Set of 8 Simple Rules
While it has its high points, 8 Simple Rules follows the same format and style that fans would expect from any other family-oriented sitcom. When his wife Cate goes back to work full-time as a nurse, Paul is forced to raise his teenage kids while also trying to work from home. Unsurprisingly, the show follows Paul as he juggles the fact that his little girls are growing into independent women and that his son is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Admittedly, the show doesn’t break the mold, but in the same vein, it’s not trying to. 8 Simple Rules presents itself as a humble sitcom and does very well to stay in its lane.
The patriarch, Paul Hennesy, is depicted by John Ritter, best known for playing Jack Tripper in the hit ’70s sitcom Three’s Company. Despite its slight mundaneity, the first season of 8 Simple Rules did quite well, so Ritter and his co-stars were keen to keep marching forward. Ritter had successfully filmed the first three episodes of the second season and was in the process of rehearsing for the fourth episode. Quite suddenly, Ritter stated that he felt ill, complaining of chest pain, nausea, sweating, and just general maladies. While many of the crew were willing to stop rehearsing so that he could go to the hospital, he soldiered on throughout the episode. However, he later collapsed on the Walt Disney Studios lot in California and was immediately rushed to the hospital.
When he arrived at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, he was initially treated for a heart attack, but as he steadily deteriorated, he was diagnosed with aortic dissection. Although the medical team tried to take him into surgery, he tragically passed away later that night at just 54 years old. As expected, Ritter’s wife, Amy Yasbeck, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital because the actor had a full-body MRI just a few years earlier and the team failed to notice his enlarged aorta. Even though his 8 Simple Rules co-star, Katey Sagal, documented in the lawsuit, the jury decided that neither the hospital nor the doctors who treated him were responsible for his death. Thus, even though he tried to push through for the sake of professionalism, Ritter’s death tore 8 Simple Rules apart.
Goodbye Presented an Unconventional Sitcom Farewell for John Ritter
Season 2, Episode 4, “Goodbye”, starts off fairly normal and focuses on the kids as they go about their normal routine and wait for their dad to return from the store with some milk. Cate then receives a phone call and rushes out the door without telling her children what’s happened. From there, the audience learns that Paul has suddenly passed away and is forced to watch the family come to terms with their loved one’s death. Cate’s divorced parents, Jim and Laura, fly to Michigan to support the family, but as the audience can imagine, there’s not much they can do to soften the blow.
A lot of sitcoms pay tribute to a character when the actor has passed away. Whether it’s a touching title card at the end of the episode or a storyline surrounding their best bits, these tributes are, arguably, just as common as any other sitcom trope. Yet, 8 Simple Rules took Ritter’s death very seriously and worked earnestly to show how the actor’s passing impacted both the characters and the actors. This is the only episode that wasn’t filmed in front of a live studio audience, sucking out all the laughter from the room. Overall, this gives the episode a really uncomfortable and depressing feel because even when a character makes a joke, there’s no laughter to brighten the mood. This may not seem like much nowadays, but in the 2000s, sitcoms didn’t rely on deadpan humor as much as they do in the 2020s. Thus, canned laughter was an easy way for shows to set the scene and make it obvious where the jokes were coming from.
8 Simple Rules Marched on Without Ritter
While 8 Simple Rules handled John Ritter’s death with incredible levels of grace and sincerity, the same couldn’t exactly be said for ABC. Two days after Ritter’s funeral, Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner, was keen to get the show back on track after its brief hiatus. At first, he proposed that Cate was pregnant and learning how to juggle motherhood without her husband to support her. Fortunately, Eisner’s peers believed that this was too dark and agreed to welcome in some new faces to help the show push forward.
In the middle of Season 2, the show introduced Cate’s dad, Jim, and her nephew, CJ, played by James Garner and David Spade, respectively. While Ritter’s wit and comedic timing were sorely missed, Spade and Garner are especially funny in their own way, so they arguably added another layer of humor to the entire show. Admittedly, the show did quite well to adapt to these changes, and the young cast managed to uphold their constant sense of grief while also sliding in a few jokes every now and then. However, after a steady decline in ratings, ABC decided to cancel 8 Simple Rules after just three seasons.
