Show's been outgrown, so Fox ends 'Malcolm'

'Malcolm' started out funny but lost steam as its star aged.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Benjamin Franklin famously declared that houseguests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
He had little specific to say about television, but when it comes to TV series that have passed their freshness date, he couldn't have found better examples than a pair of Fox comedies finally taking their leave.
"Malcolm in the Middle" airs a half-hour adieu Sunday at 8:30 p.m.
Then Thursday at 8 p.m., "That '70s Show" has its one-hour farewell.
Between these particular fish, "Malcolm" is the lesser offender.
For one reason, it's just seven seasons old, to the other show's eight.
For another, it was genuinely funny when it began.
In the beginning
Back then, Malcolm was a scrappy, pint-sized 11-year-old with a genius IQ who was trying to mask his braininess and get through grade school under the guise of normalcy. He was further challenged by his catch-as-catch-can home life: three nongenius brothers, a nongenius father who resided in a zone of all-embracing detachment, and a fire-breathing mom who ran the household in a state of red alert.
Malcolm's family wasn't actually dysfunctional, insisted series star Frankie Muniz.
Frankie was 14 when we spoke in January 2000, the month "Malcolm in the Middle" premiered. Small for his age, he sat, legs dangling from an office chair in his publicist's conference room, as he laughingly recalled the very first scene he had filmed for the show: Addressing the camera, he asked the audience, "Wanna know what the best thing about childhood is? At some point, it stops."
On- or off-camera, Frankie was adorable, and -- along with being inventive and outrageous -- so was his series.
But childhood must indeed stop, even on sitcoms. All too soon, Muniz hit a growth spurt. More time passed. Next thing you knew, he was Agent Cody Banks in a couple of movies.
By then, the sight gags, cutaways and overall comic edge on "Malcolm" were starting to dull. Even Malcolm's new -- fourth -- brother couldn't freshen things up. Frankie had outgrown the show, and the show had outgrown what made it special.
Now Malcolm (played by a 20-year-old Muniz) has been accepted into Harvard, as "Malcolm in the Middle" finally acts its age and retires.
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