By Doug Olenick on Aug 12 2009 - 7:52pm

Circuit City Meets Frazier

Hollywood gets its inspiration, or lack thereof, for new television shows from a variety of sources; however, I never expected a writer’s muse to be a failed consumer electronics chain.But that was until I read this Reuter’s piece that discusses three new TV shows for the fall.

It seems Circuit City’s failure inspired a new show called “Hank.” The show, starring Kelsey Grammer, is about a failed Wall Street honcho who must learn to live a simple, less extravagant life.

According to Reuters:

“Creator Tucker Cawley said ‘Hank’ was inspired by the failure last year of consumer electronics retailing giant Circuit City, which was for decades a family-run business.

“We will be touching on riches-to-rags things. But Kelsey’s character doesn’t look on the new situation as something people should feel sorry about. It’s the kind of old-fashioned American optimism with which he views the world which hopefully will be appealing,” Cawley said.

Near the end, Circuit was anything but a family-run business, but it was just another corporation that hired a string of CEOs in an attempt to stay afloat. Here is a look at Circuit’s history.

Too bad failure is funnier than success or I would recommend that the writer take a look at some of the dozens of smaller CE and major appliance chains that are surviving the recession quite well.