The crusading adventure of English “Chef and Food Activist” Jamie Oliver has nearly met its end, at least, as far as U.S. schools and the resulting television program are concerned. The second-season ratings for “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” have ceremoniously dropped, and ABC has pulled the reality program from its sweeps lineup and looks unlikely to renew it for a third season. Those familiar with the program will know that the first season featured Jamie allegedly transforming the eating habits of Huntington, West Virginia. This season, he moved onto bigger pastures and set his sights upon infiltrating the school system of Los Angeles (where, conveniently, Oliver has recently opened his own restaurant), which just wasn’t having him.

After the L.A. school board banned Oliver from directly accessing schools, he largely resorted to dressing up like a tomato, standing outside school entrances, and attempting to persuade commuting parents to take his food and insert it into their children’s lunch boxes. While I do believe that Oliver’s heart was initially in the right place, he certainly didn’t approach people in a friendly manner and was rather pushy about the whole thing to the point of shouting. If I were one of those parents confronted by Jamie Oliver, I’d probably have given him the finger and rolled up my window. While I already try to put healthy wrap sandwiches and fruit in my daughter’s lunch bag, Oliver’s superior attitude would have immediately alienated me. It seems that I’m not alone in my sentiments, for viewers have tuned out Oliver’s television message too:

Bad news for chef/TV personality Jamie Oliver.

ABC has pulled the the Ryan Seacrest-produced reality series, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, from the schedule during May sweeps.

The show, which follows Oliver as he tries to change the way kids and adults eat at home and in school, will air its four remaining episodes beginning Friday, June 3 at 9 p.m.

ABC says the Dancing With the Stars recap was a better complement to the DWTS results show on Tuesday nights, though emphasizes it is still behind the anti-junk food series. The network had pre-empted the third episode of Food Revolution for a DWTS-related hour last week.

Food Revolution has dropped in the ratings in its second season, with the premiere slipping nearly 40 percent from last year’s series debut.

[From Hollywood Reporter]

Some people will undoubtedly decry the disappearance of “Food Revolution” as a sign that Americans just want to remain fat and lazy as a whole. Then again, Jamie Oliver himself is not exactly a picture of outward physical health, and I’d like to yell at him to hop on a treadmill before he deigns to lecture any of us on what we should feed our children. Yes, our kids should eat more whole foods and avoid too much sugar and fat, but there are more effective approaches than Oliver’s way of doing things; he could have worked out a system of distributing educational pamphlets to parents through the PTA before accosting them by basically throwing his meals into their faces. Of course, pamphlets don’t make for good television; as it turns out, neither does “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.”

Here’s a clip of Oliver lecturing/harassing some cafeteria ladies (as if they could control anything) before he got banned from accessing the school system.

And here’s a full episode (wherein he tries to talk a fast food proprietor into cooking healthier food, whatever the cost) from a few weeks ago, if you can stomach it:

Photos courtesy of WENN