Cop Rock - Cop Rock has been cited as one of the worst television series, ranking #8 on TV Guide's TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time list in 2002.[2] The show was a critical and commercial failure from the beginning and was canceled by ABC after 11 episodes.[3] Owing to the combination of its bizarre nature and its high-powered production talent, it became infamous as one of the biggest television failures of the 1990s.[4][5] The final episode concludes with the cast breaking character and joining crewmembers in performing a closing song.
Game shows
You're in the Picture - Technically, the show could be said to have run for two episodes, since the following Friday, host Jackie Gleason appeared at the same time, but in a studio "stripped to the brick walls" and using the time to give what Time magazine called an "inspiring post-mortem", asking "rhetorically how it was possible for a group of trained people to put on so big a flop."[6]Time later cited You're in the Picture as one piece of evidence that the 1960-61 TV season was the "worst in the 13-year history of U.S. network television."[7]
Reality shows
The Swan - The show has been criticized for being a commercial for promoting plastic surgery, a view of beauty packaged and marketed by the fashion industry, and a lack of ethics in preying on vulnerable people. It has been described as "the most morally bankrupt TV since Al Qaeda's latest press release."
Baby Bob - The series was panned by critics, but premiered to strong ratings and placed 15th in its first week, but ratings quickly declined.[10][11]
Cavemen - In terms of reception from the media the show was "critically savaged".[12] The Chicago Tribune listed it as one of the 25 worst TV shows ever,[13] and Adam Buckman of the New York Post declared the show "extinct on arrival."[14] Ginia Bellafante of the New York Times wrote "I laughed. But I laughed through my pain. 'Cavemen,' set in some version of San Diego where people speak with Southern accents, doesn’t have moments as much as microseconds suspended from any attempt at narrative."[15]
Hello, Larry - Hello, Larry had the misfortune of appearing on NBC at a time when that network was at its nadir in the ratings. The show was greeted by viewers who had high expectations based on McLean Stevenson's M*A*S*H association, but quickly gained an extremely bad reputation as a weakly written, unfunny sitcom, not helped by frequent ridicule from Johnny Carson in his The Tonight Show monologues. It was thereafter used as a frequent punchline whenever a reference to a bad decision by an actor to leave a successful TV show was needed.[citation needed]
Hogan's Heroes - In 2002, TV Guide named Hogan's Heroes the fifth worst TV show of all time. [16] The listing for Hogan's Heroes in particular accuses the show of trivializing the suffering of real life POWs and the victims of the Holocaust with its comedic take on prison camps in the Third Reich. However, the Luftwaffe, who had jurisdiction over captured enemy aviators and air crews (irrespective of whether they be of their respective nation's army, air force, navy or other service) is generally agreed to have provided noticeably more comfortable and gentlemanly accommodations than the Wehrmacht or SS, stemming from their First War philosophy that aviators were "knights of the air" and to be treated with chivalry.[citation needed]
Holmes & Yo-Yo - Holmes & Yo-Yo was universally panned by critics and is #33 on TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time. Many Nielsen viewers claimed they felt "uncomfortable" with the show's often racy humor, most especially episode seven, over 14 minutes of which was Yo-Yo verbalizing (in graphic detail) his desire for genitalia. Although the series lasted only 13 episodes (undaunted by the failure of the series, ABC green-lighted a similar concept the same season called Future Cop with Ernest Borgnine; it had the same success as Holmes & Yo-Yo), the influence of Holmes & Yo-Yo can be felt in other "robot cop" series and films that followed, most notably the RoboCop films and TV series, and the 1993 series, Mann & Machine which used the same premise as Holmes & Yo-Yo, only with a sexy female robot instead of the stout Yoyonovich.
Homeboys in Outer Space - The series was panned by critics[17][18] and was on TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time. Homeboys in Outer Space was cancelled in 1997 after 21 episodes.
My Mother the Car - Critics and adult viewers generally panned the show, often savagely. In 2002, TV Guide proclaimed it to be the second-worst of all time, just behind The Jerry Springer Show.[19]My Mother the Car belonged to the genre of "wacky" TV sitcoms popular at the time that featured supernatural characters and cartoonish situations, such as Bewitched and My Favorite Martian, but it failed and for many years afterward was widely ridiculed as the quintessential "worst show of all time," though many competitors have vied for that title since then. It did not help that the highly respected Dick Van Dyke Show, starring Jerry's brother, was still on the air at the time on another network. Audience demographics was an emerging science in the mid-1960s. My Mother the Car was a hit with younger viewers, but no one at the time knew just how to exploit the youth market with a live-action sitcom.
Small Wonder - In 2002, Robert Bianco, TV critic for USA Today, listed it as a contender for one of the worst TV shows of all time[20], and according to the BBC, it "is widely considered one of the worst low-budget sitcoms of all time." [21] In the audio commentary for the South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It", co-creator Matt Stone lamented that "for some reason, people lump South Park and The Simpsons and any animated program together... which is unfortunate that we have to be compared to one of the best shows on television ever and one of the most popular shows on television ever, we never get compared to Sister, Sister or Small Wonder."
Out of Jimmy's Head -It only aired 20 episodes and had 2 unaired episodes due to the show's poor reception. TV.Com gave it a 3.6-score.
Sports
The XFL ranked #3 on TV Guide's list of the worst TV shows of all time in July 2002, as well as #2 on ESPN's list of biggest flops in sports, behind Ryan Leaf.
Talk shows
The Chevy Chase Show - Television critic Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the show an F letter grade, and criticized the show for having "the gall to rerun a taped comedy bit he'd aired in the first week of his show."[23] Tucker also noted that "the audience that fills Hollywood's new Chevy Chase Theatre has steadily turned into the worst-behaved crowd in late-night television; they hoot and yell and cheer over whatever pitiful chatter Chase is attempting to wring out of a luckless guest."[23]TIME panned the show: "Nervous and totally at sea, Chase tried everything, succeeded at nothing."[24] The magazine also criticized Chase for having "recycled old material shamelessly", taking pratfalls, and even pleading with the audience to stand up and dance in their seats.[24]
The Jerry Springer Show - The show topped TV Guide magazine's 2002 list of the "The Worst TV Shows Ever".[25] The phrase "Jerry Springer Nation" began to be used by some who see the program as being a bad influence on the morality of the United States.[26] In addition, the phrase has shown the association of Springer with any "lowbrow" type of entertainment in general.
Turn-On - Bart Andrews, in his 1980 book The Worst TV Shows Ever, stated that Turn-On was actually quite close to the original concept for Laugh-In. "It wasn't that it was a bad show, it was that it was an awkward show," concluded author Harlan Ellison, a fan of counter-cultural comedy and a TV critic for the Los Angeles Free Press in 1969.
^"ABC Cancels 'Cop Rock'". The New York Times. 1990-11-30. Retrieved 2008-08-28. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
^"Television: The Season". March 31, 1961. Retrieved 2009-10-11. As the bloodstained 1960-61 season crawled toward its grave last week, it had proved one thing to everybody's satisfaction: it was the worst in the 13-year history of U.S. network television.
^Hofstede, David (2004). What Were They Thinking: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History. Back Stage Books. p. 56. ISBN0-823-08441-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^McKissack, Fredrick L. , Jr. (February 1997). "Homeboys in Outer Space". The Progressive. Retrieved 2008-08-24. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Tucker, Ken (1996-09-13). "Beyond the Big 4". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-08-24. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
