The ABC sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat,” the longest-running broadcast television show centering around an Asian American family, will end in February after six seasons.
“We couldn’t be prouder of this game-changing show and the impact it has had on our cultural landscape,” ABC president Karey Burke said in a statement Friday announcing the show’s cancelation.
The show’s success “has helped pave the way for inclusion throughout the industry,” Burke said, crediting creator and showrunner Nahnatchka Khan and the show’s creative team with putting “an Asian-American family front and center” and praising the cast, including stars Randall Park and Constance Wu, as “one of the finest and funniest on television.”
Vulture was first to report news of the show’s cancelation Friday.
When “Fresh Off the Boat” premiered in 2015, it became the first broadcast sitcom about Asian Americans since Margaret Cho’s short-lived “All-American Girl” in 1994. Based on a memoir by chef and restaurateur Eddie Huang, the show helped catalyze more Hollywood projects by and about Asian Americans and raised the bar for Asian American representation in pop culture.
The show’s stars have since gone on to headline major films. Wu starred in last summer’s hit rom-com “Crazy Rich Asians,” the first major Hollywood studio movie featuring a majority-Asian cast in 25 years. This year, she also starred in “Hustlers.”
Park has been in comic book blockbusters “Ant-Man and the Wasp” and “Aquaman,” and, alongside Ali Wong, co-wrote and co-starred in Netflix’s “Always Be My Maybe,” which was directed by Khan.
“I’m so proud of the show and what we’ve accomplished over the past six seasons,” Khan said in a statement Friday. “It was truly a special experience and hopefully will forever be a reminder of all the stories out there that deserve to be told. Like B.I.G. said, ‘And if you don’t know, now you know.’”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show’s producers requested the show’s cancelation so that they could end it on their own terms. The hour-long series finale will air on February 21.
In May, Wu sparked controversy when she tweeted her apparent frustration that the show was renewed for a sixth season.