Why was Black Sheep Squadron canceled? It got axed twice
Plenty of shows get canceled. Very few get canceled, brought back from the dead, renamed, retooled with a squad of nurses — and then canceled again. That's the strange two-death history of Black Sheep, NBC's World War II flying drama, which met the axe in 1977 and once more in 1978.
Cancellation number one: Happy Days
The series premiered on September 23, 1976, with Robert Conrad as Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington, leading a Marine squadron of self-described misfits through the South Pacific. Created by Stephen J. Cannell, it was a big, old-fashioned action show — and NBC parked it on Tuesdays at 8pm, directly opposite ABC's Happy Days, then the most popular show on television. Critics weren't kind either. On debut day, The Washington Post sniffed that it was aimed at:
"anyone who remembers World War II as a rousing, blowzy, fraternity turkey-shoot"
The ratings never escaped the time slot, and NBC canceled the show in the spring of 1977 after 23 episodes.
The resurrection
Then NBC's fall 1977 lineup happened. New launches like The Richard Pryor Show, Rosetti and Ryan, and Quark flopped so fast that the network suddenly had holes to fill — and a hangar full of Corsair fighter planes it already owned. Pappy got the call. The show returned on December 14, 1977, with a new name, Black Sheep Squadron, and a new night: Wednesdays.
Cancellation number two: Charlie's Angels
The new slot put it head-to-head with Charlie's Angels, one of the hottest shows in America. NBC's answer was a mid-run makeover — the final seven episodes dropped several pilots and added a teenage flyer plus four nurses, billed as "Pappy's Lambs," in an unsubtle bid for the Angels audience. It didn't work. The final episode aired on April 6, 1978, and this time there was no reprieve. Final tally: 36 episodes plus the two-hour pilot.
What the real Black Sheep thought
The genuine Pappy Boyington — Medal of Honor recipient, and a Japanese POW for 20 months after being shot down in January 1944 — served as the show's technical consultant and even cameos in the pilot.
He was also blunt that the "misfits and screwballs" framing was Hollywood: of all the men on screen, he said, only his own character was real.
Several actual VMF-214 veterans bristled at the portrayal too.
For the record: Boyington earned the nickname "Pappy" because, at 30, he was a decade older than his pilots. Robert Conrad played him at 41 — the one piece of casting where the show out-aged reality.