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
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