Big McLargeHuge —

As you have probably already heard, and mourned, ABC Family has announced it will not renew “Huge” for a second season, citing declining ratings as the reason.

Savannah Dooley sounds as though she has all but given up on any last-chance renewal.

I haven’t.

And here’s the weird thing: I haven’t seen a single episode of “Huge.”

I just don’t have that much free time and whatever free time I do have is spent playing Banagrams with Veronica.

But I have followed Lesley Kinzel’s updates closely and I have paid attention to the reaction of fans both inside and outside of the fatosphere. These characters were beloved, the tangled romance between Will and Ian and Amber was on everyone’s mind, and for once, the multitude of body sizes and shapes were fairly and accurately represented on television.

“Roseanne” is often cited as one of the first “fat” TV shows, but I would more say that it was a lower-middle class show with fat people. Besides, it ran in the ’90s with being fat wasn’t this hot button social issue.

Today, we need a show like “Huge” more than ever. We need fair and equal representation because representation matters. It matters to everyone who has ever felt invisible, isolated or alone because of their weight. Characters like Will with her indomitable spirit and solid self-esteem act as sanity lifelines for those who feel disenfranchised by our fatphobic society.

In short, we need “Huge.”

What we don’t need is another tepid, lackluster sit-com starring Joey Lawrence (who, by the way, compared his role on “Melissa & Joey” to “Bruce Willis in his prime“).

Recall that ABC Family cited ratings as the death knell for “Huge.” At the end of it’s run, “Huge” had 1.35 million viewers, and an average of 1.9 million viewers. It also premiered with 2.53 million viewers.

Compare that with “Melissa & Joey,” which ABC Family IS renewing. It debuted with 2.2 million viewers and currently has 1.3 million viewers.

Now, I’m sure there are other variables in the equation, such as advertising desirability (which, quite honestly, I could see hurting “Huge” due to the obesity panic), but if ABC Family is citing ratings as the primary reason for the cancellation, then this is completely unjustified.

Therefore, we are organizing a robust write-in campaign for “Huge.” I have created a Facebook group called Let “Huge” Live and there is another SAVE HUGE group which seems to have official ties to the creators.

I will be working with both groups to organize an attention-getting campaign that will either convince ABC Family to renew “Huge” or else convince another network to pick it up.

There is a great history of fan-based pressure to persuade networks to renew or purchase shows, including two of my favorites: “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ (which, due to fan response, was picked up by the Sci Fi channel for three seasons after Comedy Central gave up on it) and “Arrested Development” (the genius show that met an untimely demise, only to be renewed for another year).

My favorite story, though, is when in response to cancellation the fans of “Jericho” sent 18,000 pounds of nuts, a reference to a part of the show where a call to surrender was responded with the single word, “Nuts!” (which in turn was a reference to a World War II anecdote).

Part of the success of that campaign was due to the newsworthiness of the fan response. CBS didn’t just get flooded with letters, they go a creative message that news organizations wanted to report on.

I believe that is what we need now. Something eye-catching that will elevate the awareness of our crusade even if we don’t have tens of thousands of fans sending letters.

And if we can get tens of thousands of fans sending letters on top of that, all the better.

If you haven’t seen “Huge,” you can still view all the episodes here, but it seems ABC Family is scrubbing its site of all “Huge”-related material, so act quickly.

Help us save “Huge” from the fate that met Winnie Holzman’s other genius offspring, “My So-Called Life,” as well as so many other brilliant and heart-warming shows (I’m looking at you, “Freaks and Geeks”).

If you have any ideas for a creative write-in campaign, please share them below.

Join us in the fight and help us demand that Hollywood Let “Huge” Live!