What The Hell Happened To 'Holey Moley’?
the show has been in TV limbo for three years and it is tearing me apart
We are now entering our third consecutive summer without Holey Moley, the ABC competition show that was like if you crossed American Gladiators with Wipeout and added mini-golf. It aired from 2019 through 2022, four straight years, usually debuting in May or June. It was a perfect summer viewing experience, silly and harmless and outrageously stupid, an easy excuse to turn your brain off for an hour a week. Joe Tessitore and Rob Riggle hosted together and made a great comedy team. Contestants galore went flailing off of obstacles and into a pool of water. In the fourth season, for reasons I have to assume included “to give Brian a treat,” the show added The Muppets and had Pepe the Frog kidnap NBA superstar Stephen Curry, who was also a producer on the show. The season four finale featured one of the most impressive athletic achievements I have ever seen, which sounds like something I am joking about but I promise I am not. Shoutout to Kathy, our nation’s greatest champion.
But since that fourth season ended… nothing. Which, itself, is not weird. Shows get canceled all the time for good and bad reasons and I could learn to deal if ABC came out and announced the show was over. But they’ve said… again, nothing. As far as I can tell, the show is still just in limbo, three years later, neither renewed nor canceled, just spinning around in the air, kind of like this contestant on the show after he ziplined into a pole.
Was that analogy a little strained? I feel like it might have been. Let me try again…
The show has been shoved aside, kind of like this contestant on the show who misjudged the speed of the spinning windmills.
Was that better? I think it was. I can give you one more, though, just because I already have my folder of GIFs open…
The show was heaved into a watery abyss, like this contestant who… actually, no. I think this one is better left unexplained.
There is a silver lining here, though. Two of them, actually. The first is that this infuriating limbo means that the show is not yet dead, at least not officially. There’s still a chance we all wake up tomorrow morning to news that ABC has issued a surprise renewal and added, I don’t know, let’s say NBA superstar Rasheed Wallace to the broadcast. I would enjoy that. And until there is an official word one way or the other, I get to have that dream.
The other silver lining is that all four seasons are just sitting there on Netflix, which is good because it means you can watch them and good because if enough of you watch them, Netflix might try to pry it away from ABC and fire their money cannon at it. Weirder things than that have happened. 9-1-1 started on Fox and moved to ABC even though its spinoff, 9-1-1: Lone Star, remained on Fox. These corporations, man. I don’t know what they’re doing.
Early May is much too late to get a new season of Holey Moley ready for this summer. I can accept that. I will have to live with another May and June without it. But, if we hurry, I bet we can get a Christmas-themed season ready by late November. Imagine what these maniacs could do with Santa’s sleigh.
STUFF I TYPED
— my Friday newsletter, which opened with a look at the Conclave-style intrigue brewing at the real-life conclave
— over at Vulture, I wrote a tribute to Judy Gemstone, a character that would not have worked without the performance by Edi Patterson, who essentially had to be a mad scientist to make it sustainable
STUFF I CLICKED ON
— speaking of The Righteous Gemstones, Vulture also had a cool post-finale chat with Patterson, Danny McBride, and Adam Devine about playing the show’s titular siblings
— staying on Gemstones, Alan Siegel has a massive oral history of Danny McBride’s career up at The Ringer
— LaToya Ferguson wrote about the history of television couples and opened the list with Kermit and Miss Piggy
— Philadelphia Magazine went long on the beef bandits
— staying in Philly, really cool NYT Vows piece about Shamus Clancy and Ashley Suder, who met at the Super Bowl parade the last time the Eagles won and got married right around the Eagles’ second Super Bowl win this year
— one last Philly thing: God bless John Kruk
— Mike Ryan interviewed Paul Feig and the phrase “anal leakage” came up much faster than you’d expect
— Lin-Manuel Miranda is working on a movie about baseball’s Molina brothers
— Guy Ritchie is making the sequel to Jake Gyllenhaal’s Road House movie, apparently
— “Judge Rejects Lawsuit With Dragon Logo, Calling It ‘Juvenile and Impertinent’”
— “Universal Antivenom May Grow Out of Man Who Let Snakes Bite Him 200 Times”
— here’s a brutal review of Mark Zuckerberg’s new house
— most popular soda by state (no clue if this is legit, but if it is, shoutout to Delaware for understanding the power of orange soda)
— honestly, I would have bet my life on the fact that Sam Elliott was already on Landman (it really does feel like a show he would be on), but he definitely is now
— Julia Louis-Dreyfus should not have to know who The Rizzler is
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Okay, that’s it for this week. Please share and subscribe and give me my fun little show.
Thank you for asking the important questions. I miss this show dearly.
Rasheed Wallace on Holey Moley is the thing I need to have happen. and it's good to see former Liberty Ballers writer Shamus Clancy. Good stuff all around.
Go Birds