‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ canceled, inevitable petition to save the show started

Duane "Dog" Chapman, star of A&E's reality show "Dog the Bounty Hunter," poses with his longtime sidekick, Beth Smith. (Doug Hyun - AP) “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” a reality show that followed Duane Chapman, his mullet and his team as they apprehended fugitives, has been canceled by A&E. Insert your own euthanasia joke here.

As is now customary when a TV show with a fan following is taken off the air, a petition has been started on Change.org asking A&E to bring “Bounty Hunter” back. The petition — which claims the show “has been inspiring and changing the lives of MILLIONS all over America!” — has been signed more than 1,300 times. (Seriously.)

A&E has not commented on the show’s cancelation. The Chapman family released a statement thanking fans for their support but didn’t comment on the reason behind the show’s demise: “This has been a great ride for 8 seasons and we would not be where we are today but for our loyal and dedicated fans. We are about to start a new chapter, and an announcement will be made sooner rather than later. You can’t keep a good Dog down.”

Could this “new chapter” mean that the Chapmans were ready to leave “Bounty Hunter” behind? Doubtful. To a fan who pleaded on Twitter with Beth Chapman — the Dog’s fake-nails-loving wife — to do something about the cancelation, she replied, “Wish I could honey.”

As was previously noted, petitions to save TV shows have become pretty common in the age of Internet activism. There’s even a WikiHow page explaining how to use petitions to “take action” when a show in canceled.

Fans of NBC’s “Best Friends Forever,” which was taken off the air after four episodes, recently attempted this tactic, but the petition failed.

Two petitions — one on Change.org and another started on iPetitions.com by talk show host Wendy Williams — to save the canceled ABC comedy “GCB” were created earlier this month. When asked Tuesday by a Twitter follower whether “GCB” still has a chance at a resurrection, star Kristin Chenoweth tweeted, “I don’t know. We’ll see!?”

The most notable grass-roots campaign to bring back a TV show has to be the one behind “Arrested Development.” Still, it took over six years for the pleas of show’s fans to be heard by TV executives.