Major Dad – Picture: Universal Television
After only a year, the classic sitcom comedy series Major Dad will leave Netflix in the United States.
Airing on CBS between 1989 and 1993, the show is often a forgotten classic when it comes to sitcoms.
The cast included Beverly Archer, Matt Mulhern, Jon Cypher, Marisa Ryan, Nicole Dubuc, and Chelsea Hertford. It was about a U.S. Marine finding his once-orderly life no longer entirely under his command after he marries a journalist and becomes stepdad to her daughters.
As we first reported back in August 2021, the show was headed to Netflix unexpectedly on September 1st. All four seasons consisting of 96 episodes have been available on the platform ever since.
Netflix added the series in its original 4:3 format so it didn’t receive any HD upgrades like Seinfeld did when it dropped on Hulu (and subsequently Netflix).
As you may know, Netflix has been slowly losing its collection of classic shows in recent years as distributors pull back their catalogs to fuel their own streaming services.
As it currently stands, Netflix is the exclusive streaming home of the show with no other streamer carrying it.
After leaving Netflix in full on September 1st, you’d think that there are only two candidates for where the show streams next. The most likely is Peacock, owned by Universal/Comcast who serve as the distributors or Paramount+ owned by CBS/Paramount given that CBS was the original network for the show.
The short-term license from Universal Television is in line with generally what we’ve seen with licensed TV shows in recent years.
Universal, in particular, has been licensing TV series to Netflix on short 1-year deals for quite some time. Good examples include Friday Night Lights and 30 Rock, both licensed to Netflix on short 1-year deals.
Why they’re doing this is likely two-fold. Firstly, it gets themselves some short-term money from Netflix and secondly, they’re playing the long game in getting people addicted to these shows to hopefully bring them over to their own streaming service, in this case, Peacock.
For more on what’s leaving Netflix, keep it locked right here on What’s on Netflix. We’ve listed Major Dad alongside all the currently known movies set to leave Netflix in September 2022 here.
Will you miss Major Dad when it leaves Netflix? Let us know in the comments.