Electric toaster!!pocket sand!
It never did really, people are just stupid and don't appreciate good television when they see it. KOTH has been pretty consistent across seasons. It would be nice to have a reboot with LouAnne's death, and Peggy raising baby Grace after Lucky gets depressed and takes off.
For me it's Luanne's wedding, since that was the original final episode (you can tell because a bunch of one-offs and minor characters show up again), but it's sort of nebulously somewhere around that time. It never got like, REALLY bad, just not as good as it used to be, but it's hard to stay consistent for that long. Even Seinfeld got a little iffy toward the end.
There's an interview from a few years ago where Judge was talking about bringing the show back and using the actual years passed as a timeskip, with young adult Bobby and Joseph and the main cast getting closer to their senior years. I think that could be interesting. I think the show could have survived losing Luanne, but the fact that Nancy's VA died is the biggest nail in the coffin to me.
Even if there was drop off, it was as bad as the Simpsons.
Stooped watching after cotton died since he was the best character.
I wish Buckley had lived. His death and appearing to Luanne after death was actually really sad.
