Jason Bateman Starred In A Short-Lived Sitcom That Was Canceled Due To Parents’ Complaints

From his debut as a child actor on “Little House on the Prairie” to a dark turn on acclaimed crime show “Ozark,” Jason Bateman has played many roles across his lengthy TV career. Back in 2019, Bateman told Vanity Fair that one of his strangest sitcom stints was cut short for a unique reason: “It’s Your Move” — an ’80s TV flop that’s actually worth watching — ended because parents complained to the network about the show.

Bateman’s star rose with his featured role as Derek Taylor on “Silver Spoons,” an NBC show that provided the archetype for the affable troublemaker that the actor would be associated with in his early days. He followed that series with his own lead role in “It’s Your Move,” another NBC sitcom, in which he played a genuine scam artist — or “conniving con man,” as Bateman put it — named Matthew Burton. 

“NBC was getting notes from parents across the country that their kids were starting to do the same things that they were writing my character to do,” Bateman shared. “[Teaching] kids how to cheat in school and steal your neighbors’ stuff and how to make a copy of a key that says ‘do not copy.’ So, they had to shut it down.”

While Matthew Burton on “It’s Your Move” was a textbook scam peddler who would play precursor to other TV troublemakers, being the bad boy of broadcast TV didn’t pay like it does now in the streaming era, when antiheroes and unlikable characters abound. 

If there’s a prize for causing the most trouble in a TV sitcom, Bateman’s character stacks up with heavy hitters like Bart Simpson or Ken Osmonds’ Eddie Haskell from “Leave It to Beaver.”  Bateman himself played into that rascally image in real life, too. The actor recalled in 2013 that his own youthful rebellious streak included hanging out in the “Jaws Lake” on the Universal Studios lot. Back then, the people in charge wrote his parents a letter to ask him to stop goofing around. Moments like this are long gone, and “It’s Your Move” now lives on as an amusing sitcom history footnote.