Tacoma — A Tacoma-based sitcom about hijinks-loving firefighters is ending production after four seasons on the air, its creators and stars announced Tuesday.
“Tacoma FD” premiered in 2019 on the TruTV network. Co-creators and stars Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme — two of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe members — rose to fame with the “Super Troopers” movies.
“We got the sad news today,” Broken Lizard announced on X. “Tacoma FD has come to an end.”
Heffernan and Lemme chose Tacoma as the location for the sitcom because they were amused by the idea of a fire department with little do in a city where constant rain put out fires before crews could reach them, they told The News Tribune in 2019. In reality, the Tacoma Fire Department doesn’t get a lot of help from rain. But reality never stopped Hollywood.
“We really wanted a rainy city, and we thought of Seattle, but then we thought that’s too simple,” Lemme said. “Then it was either Spokane or Tacoma. I think we were in Tacoma when we decided.”
Despite its name, the series was filmed in southern California. But Lemme and Heffernan did visit Tacoma on two occasions and met with local firefighters.
Broken Lizard said TruTV is no longer interested in producing scripted comedy. Heffernan and Lemme said Tuesday that the show has been the highlight of their careers.
“And finally we want to say how proud we are to have represented, in our own small way, the community of Firefighters and First Responders,” they said. “Our hope was to humanize the folks who serve us so nobly. Hopefully we were able to do that and provide them with a few laughs as we played in their sandbox.”
All four seasons are available on Netflix.
