On May 10, 2019, after only five episodes into season four, it was announced that the show would not have a season five. CBS canceled it but would run the final nine episodes. The series was highly rated in its second season, right behind The Big Bang Theory (2007), but ratings dropped in season three and didn't recover in early season four. Many felt it was because of the way CBS scheduled it. The show first aired in September it's first season and then kept getting pushed back later in the year the following seasons. It didn't premier until April, almost a year after season three ended, in season four.
Every episode starts with "four short stories", a pun on the family's last name, Short.
Clementine's parents are played by real-life married couple Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman. They played another married couple, Ron and Tammy Swanson, on Parks and Recreation (2009).
In the third episode of season one, during the scene where Colin Hanks, James Brolin and Thomas Sadoski's characters are trying to chop down the palm tree in the front yard, the song playing is Bonnie Tyler's "Holding out for a Hero" from the movie Footloose (1984). Dianne Wiest, the matriarch on this show, was also Ariel's mom and the town pastor's wife in the film.
Cast members James Brolin and Dianne Wiest also worked together as parents in the theatrical film Soeurs (2015).