HBO Max has excised a pair of Ellen DeGeneres’ shows from its catalog – Ellen’s Next Great Designer and Little Ellen. These cancellations come on the heels of the controversial end to DeGeneres’ longtime talk show. They were not technically related, but it does show that misery loves company. The cancellations were the latest victims of HBO Max’s cuts during its parent company’s merger with Discovery Inc.
DeGeneres teamed up with HBO Max originally for Ellen’s Next Great Designer, which was a reality TV competition series for furniture designers. It aired one season in the spring of 2021, and there was never any official news about a renewal or cancellation. In the meantime, DeGeneres and the streamer began work on an animated children’s series called Little Ellen. It targeted a preschool age audience with a fictionalized 7-year-old version of DeGeneres on her youthful misadventures. The show has two seasons with 10 episodes each, and its removal last month caught many fans off guard.
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HBO Max issued a press release this week concerning this and other removals from the catalog, but the reasoning is still not entirely clear. It said: “As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and discovery+. That will include the removal of some content from both platforms. At the same time, we’re already starting to bring our content catalogs together like the launch of the new CNN Originals Hub on discovery+ and a curated collection of Magnolia Network content coming soon to HBO Max.”
Fans have been extremely heartbroken over some of the content removals recently, including many HBO Max original series that were not available anywhere else or in any other form. In the case of Little Ellen, co-creator Jennifer Skelly retweeted news articles about the removal and discussed it with other creators and fans. She also changed her Twitter bio to say “Created a little show called Little Ellen – don’t blink oops you missed it.”
Of course, the response to these two streaming removals was complicated by their association with DeGeneres, whose personal reputation and legacy is still difficult to parse these days. DeGeneres came under scrutiny starting in 2019 when she was photographed spending a friendly afternoon with former President George W. Bush. The following year, BuzzFeed News published a report on alleged workplace harassment at DeGeneres’ talk show, including the host herself.
DeGeneres’ talk show is now over and she has officially retired. There’s no word yet on if or when fans may be able to access DeGeneres’ HBO Max shows again.
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