Sometimes pilots just don’t make it off the ground no matter how dream-like they seem. You’d think that a comedy superhero show featuring Harry Potter’s Rupert Grint and the ever-charming Stephen Fry would be a sure thing, but Super Clyde was canned.
Would you like to see the pilot?
For those who must get the jist before they spend time watching a twenty-minute pilot: Clyde and his siblings grow up living with their eccentric uncle. Then he dies, leaving them only enough money to survive and his mansion to live in. 15 years later, Clyde has grown up into Rupert Grint, and it is revealed that their uncle simply wanted to wait the alotted time so all three kids could find themselves. His fortune is released to them in $100,000/month increments. While Clyde’s siblings waste the money on impriving their own lives, Clyde is puzzled about what he should do with it.
Luckily, they re-hired their uncle’s old butler, Stephen Fry, who eventually lets Clyde in on an awesome secret: his uncle was a superhero. But not an ordinary sort—he would leave cash-filled wallets around town, and anyone who returned the wallet without taking the money received a special anonymous favor from him to make their lives easier.
It is literally the most feel-good sitcom produced in a good long while.
Which makes us real sad that Super Clyde never got picked up. It has some stylistic eccentricities, to be sure, and not all the humor is spot on. Still, given time to find its voice, it seemed likely to fill a comic void in our viewing schedule. Stephen Fry was in the perfect position to regularly steal the show, plus, Rupert Grint has an American accent, which is funny all by itself.
Super Clyde, we raise our coffee mugs and give a toast to all you might have been.
Watch the pilot on CBS’ website here!
