Similar to the previous thread of the shows you can't believe they made, here's one about a show that was ahead of its time and was cancelled way too early. Not everyone remembers a CBS series called "He & She," which aired on the network in 1967. 

It was created and written by the people who would go on to make The Mary Tyler Moore Show just a few years later, and you can see the blueprints for that classic all over this one - a sophisticated couple, witty repartee, odd side characters, an early Ted Baxter-like TV star, and a divide between the workplace and the home front. 

But despite the presence of great character actors like Richard Benjamin (later a famous director of some note), Kenneth Mars (who you may remember as the clueless Nazi from Mel Brooks' "The Producers") and Jack Cassidy (the father of later Partridge Family star David), the show only lasted one season. There are a number of reasons for it, but I always thought the main one was because it was simply ahead of its time. 

It aired on a night and a network that was full of rural shows, what critics dubbed country cornpone, like The Beverly Hillbillies or Petticoat Junction. And it simply didn't fit in anywhere. About five years later, all those shows were gone and the "He & She"-type shows that became hallmarks of the same network were in full force. 

Mike Dann, then the head of programming for CBS, sent the producers a memo that is hilarious in retrospect. He wrote, "This is the best show we've ever cancelled."

If you're curious about this lost gem, every episode has been posted on YouTube. It isn't always laugh out loud funny. But you can see the future from there. It was just the right show at the wrong time. And I often wonder what might have been had they given it the time to catch on, as they did with the Dick van Dyke Show, now considered a classic but which was actually cancelled after its first season. (It was only the insistence of producer Sheldon Leonard that forced CBS to reconsider.)

You can find all 12 "He & She" episodes here.