Since 1948, television network executives have had the unenviable task of filling their prime time schedules with programs aimed at attracting viewers. Without doing the math, letís just say theyíve had to come up with a lot of TV shows over the years and many of them didnít quite make the grade. For whatever reasons, these are TVís Bad Ideas, the shows that never should have been made in the first place.

The Legends

First up, the bad ideas that are so bad they have achieved legendary status. The kind of shows that induce a snicker of respect with just the mention of their names. In fact, if people wrote folk songs about bad ideas for TV shows, these are the ones that would become standards.

My Mother The Car (NBC) - 1965
If Wilbur Post could make it on TV by talking to his horse, why not a show about a guy and his talking car? That must have been the motivation behind this 1965 NBC sitcom starring Jerry Van Dyke as a family man who goes to buy a used car and finds a 1928 Porter that is the reincarnation of his dead mother (voiced by Ann Sothern). Naturally, being a good son, he buys the jalopy, and, also naturally, when he gets it home she refuses to speak to anyone in the family except him, which leads to all sorts of wacky situations. Van Dyke, who had made a couple of memorable appearances on his brotherís hit series, took this role after turning down the lead in Gilliganís Island because he thought that showís premise sounded stupid. Way to go, Luther.

Me and the Chimp (CBS) - 1972
Seriously, how does a show with a title like that even stand a chance? Ted Bessell, who played boyfriend Donald Hollinger on That Girl, got a shot at his own series in this silly sitcom about a dentist whose life is turned topsy-turvy by the zany antics of the chimpanzee that becomes the family pet. Buttons was the name of the showís cute little primate star (and Iím talking about the chimp, not Bessell) and you can just imagine the comic possibilities! Buttons answers the phone, Buttons plays with the TV remote, Buttons hurls plates at the mailman. Too bad they didnít have a chance to explore serious issues like the dangers of second hand cigar smoke or banana addiction, but due to low ratings and the monkeyís ego (he refused to do his own roller skating), Me and the Chimp suffered an early demise. Sadly, this led to a life of supermarket openings and humiliating carnival appearances for the showís star (and this time I mean Bessell, not the chimp).

Supertrain (NBC) - 1979
Fred Silverman had no problem creating hit TV shows when he was the programming wizard at CBS and ABC, but when he came to NBC he must have lost his magic touch because almost everything he put on the prime time schedule stunk up the airwaves. Perhaps his most noticeable disaster was Supertrain, a big budget flop that was envisioned as The Love Boat on rails. Each week a different set of passengers would come aboard this speeding locomotive and partake in romance, adventure and whatever the hell else the writers could come up with. Of course, this was no ordinary choo-choo. It had a swimming pool, a gym and a discotheque, which meant that any curvaceous guest stars that showed up for the ride had ample opportunity to show off their natural talents. (Somehow the name Barbi Benton immediately springs to mind.) Despite the expensive giant train set and heavy promotion, the show failed to hold an audience and after a few months became yet another casualty in the train wreck carnage known as NBCís 1979 season.

Pink Lady & Jeff (NBC) - 1980
Pink Lady, two Japanese female singers named Mie and Kei (pronounced Dumb and Dumber), were a hot commodity in their native land and, for some reason, NBC president Fred Silverman thought they could make it big in America if they only had their own TV variety show. There was just one little problem. Neither of them spoke very much English and, at that time, most Americans didnít understand Japanese. So NBC did what anyone else would do in a similar situation and hired the girls a translator, an up and going nowhere comedian named Jeff Altman. Now this might have worked if Altman were funny and someone put acid in the nationís drinking water, but unfortunately that wasnít the case. Despite the addition of Jim Varney as a regular and an innovative hot tub closing, the show quickly went down like a kamikaze plane and Silvermanís career as a network programmer would soon follow itís path.

More: TVís Bad Ideas Spin-Offs