Judd Apatow Sent Fox TV Chair An Expletive-Filled Christmas Card After He Canceled ‘Undeclared’

Judd Apatow wasn’t thrilled that Undeclared survived just one season at Fox. 

Fresh off the cancellation of his Emmy-nominated dramedy Freaks and Geeks, Apatow hoped the college-themed sitcom could serve as a worthy comeback. However, Apatow’s thought-out storylines, stacked cast of Freaks and Geeks alumni and positive reviews weren’t enough to convince Fox to greenlight a second season, which left him “livid.” 

Fuming over Undeclared enduring “an almost beat-for-beat” repeat of Freaks and Geeks’ fate and the failure of a pilot he’d crafted with Jason Segel and Hollywood newcomers Kevin Hart and Amy Poehler, Apatow decided to get even, taking out his anger in a holiday card addressed to an unnamed Fox Television Entertainment Group higher-up. 

“I don’t know if you just fucked me in the ass again or you just never took it out in 1992,” Apatow wrote alongside a Time clipping naming Undeclared one of 2001’s top TV series. “Merry Christmas, Judd.”

By the early aughts, Apatow had fostered a reputation for being “really tough with studio executives,” and his pal Mike Birbiglia recalls Apatow frequently insisting that his bosses allow him to fully flesh out his visions. 

“When you’re in show business long enough, you start to see that there are people who are rooting for themselves, and then there are people who are rooting for the art form at large,” Birbiglia said, dubbing Apatow as “the quintessential example” of the latter.

At the very least, his feelings never went undeclared.