The most ludicrous episode in TV history

[installLSC]

I was surfing YouTube when I caught this jem--the "punk rock" episode of "CHiPs". Part One is here. This episode is great in so many ways:
--the "new wave" band wears long hair, plays studio pop, and uses words like "happening".
--said band is fronted by the redheaded girl from "Eight is Enough"
--she's worried about winning a battle of the bands, even though her brother owns the club
--has punks who cheer a shiny shirted off duty cop singing "Celebration"
What other TV episodes have you wondering if they were parodies, because they're too ridiculous to be sincere?

[Superhal]

Well, I guess you are talking about dramas or other tv shows that take themselves somewhat seriously, vs comedies that are always over the top.

Probably the most surreal one for me was the Wonder Woman episode featuring Wonder Woman's newly arrived cousin, Wonder Girl, from Paradise Island, played by none other than Debra Winger.

[DrDeth]

Jump the Shark, dude, actually jumping the fucking damn shark.

[Ponch8]

Originally Posted by installLSC

I was surfing YouTube when I caught this jem--the "punk rock" episode of "CHiPs". Part One is here. This episode is great in so many ways:
--the "new wave" band wears long hair, plays studio pop, and uses words like "happening".
--said band is fronted by the redheaded girl from "Eight is Enough"
--she's worried about winning a battle of the bands, even though her brother owns the club
--has punks who cheer a shiny shirted off duty cop singing "Celebration"

That episode is awesome. Ponch's version of "Celebration" is almost as good as the original.

[Max the Immortal]

Star Trek: Voyager's episode Threshold. Even by the standards of Voyager, it is ridiculous and all-around terrible.

[Sampiro]

DRAGNET had several, but my favorite was the LSD-Blueboy episode. Clip.

I love the good girls who are saved from running with a wild crowd:

"Haven't touched any more of that acid, that's for sure!"

Peter McWilliams gave a great rundown of it as well- exerpts from that:

In search of the boy, they visit an LSD party. It looks something like Laugh In's cocktail party, but much slower and without jokes. Friday calls some uniformed police. They arrive within thirty seconds. (Ah, the good old days.) Everyone at the party is arrested. Talk about a bad trip. The boy, unfortunately, is not there.

Fortunately, however, a pharmacy calls in: they have just sold 1,000 empty gelatin capsules to a young man fitting the description of the boy.

...after being shown mug shots, the pharmacist... gives Friday the address of where the capsules were delivered. (Which means the boy came in, ordered 1,000 empty gelatin capsules, which must weigh about five ounces, and then said, "Here, deliver these." Yes, this boy was clearly on drugs—or the scriptwriter was.)
The landlady happily provides Detective Friday with a passkey. Friday enters (apparently having no use for that seven-letter four-letter word: warrant) and finds a friend of the boy, who says of the boy, "He kept taking more and more pills. He kept wanting to go far out, far out, far out . . ." "He made it;" intones Friday, "he's dead."
...
After the commercial, we are told that a coroner's inquest found the boy died of an LSD overdose. (Barbiturates are mentioned somewhere in there, parenthetically.) Yes, ladies and gentlemen, for the first and only time in history, LSD kills.

[Sampiro]

Correct link for above:

"Best of" clips from DRAGNET "Blue Boy" episode


Complete episode Part 1

[Mississippienne]

There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where blind sister Mary's (entirely fictitious) baby was being kept by a housesitter or something while Mary and her (equally fictitious) husband were gone. The house catches on fire and the housesitter grabs the baby and bashes it against a window to break the window and escape, IIRC.

[Icerigger]

I remember a Love Boat episode with Sonny Bono playing a punk rocker by the name of "Deacon Dark" complete with a song, Bash It, Take a Hammer and Smash It!

[panache45]

Roseanne winning the lottery. Not just one episode, an entire season.

[bibliophage]

Originally Posted by Max the Immortal

Star Trek: Voyager's episode Threshold. Even by the standards of Voyager, it is ridiculous and all-around terrible.

I never saw that one. I have trouble imagining that it could be more ludicrous than the Spock's Brain episode of TOS.

[joebuck20]

Wasn't there an episode of Star Trek TOS where they encountered a planet of hippies.

[JohnT]

IIRC, there was also an episode of Lost in Space where they encountered space hippies as well.

LiS was one of the most dichotomistic shows ever - from my memory, the early black and white episodes tended to be drama heavy, with "scientific" issues actually mattering (for example, they landed on a planet with a highly elliptical orbit, so that the ocean of ice that they crossed earlier in the episode melted by the end), but once they switched to color it was pure camp.

[JohnT]

Yup. Space Hippies, the scourge of 60's sci-fi television.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Originally Posted by JohnT

Yup. Space Hippies, the scourge of 60's sci-fi television.

Or Hippies meet Space, the weirdest Monkees episode of them all.

[runner pat]

Originally Posted by joebuck20

Wasn't there an episode of Star Trek TOS where they encountered a planet of hippies.

Originally Posted by JohnT

IIRC, there was also an episode of Lost in Space where they encountered space hippies as well.

Originally Posted by JohnT

Yup. Space Hippies, the scourge of 60's sci-fi television.

Originally Posted by Exapno Mapcase

Or Hippies meet Space, the weirdest Monkees episode of them all.

A topic so weird not even the Muppets would touch it.

[Lute Skywatcher]

The "'Roid Rage" episode of "Simon & Simon".

[Lute Skywatcher]

I've mentioned "Brainchild" before, not by name but as the Disneyfication of "Walker, Texas Ranger".

[koufax]

Originally Posted by Lute Skywatcher

The "'Roid Rage" episode of "Simon & Simon".

One of the worst series of all time.

Brothers who look nothing alike. One talks like a prissy Ivy Leaguer and the other like a macho southerner.

San Diego? I drove by them shooting an episode on Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica, way way north of San Diego.

So I nominate ALL episodes of this ridiculous embarrassing series.

[RachelChristine]

Originally Posted by Mississippienne

There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where blind sister Mary's (entirely fictitious) baby was being kept by a housesitter or something while Mary and her (equally fictitious) husband were gone. The house catches on fire and the housesitter grabs the baby and bashes it against a window to break the window and escape, IIRC.

Don't forget Albert's girlfriend getting raped and pregnant by the blacksmith dressed up like a clown! Or Albert addicted to morphine. Or any of the other weird episodes from this "wholesome family show". <G>

[kelly5078]

Isn't this kind of like asking what's bigger, infinity or infinity plus one?

[Sampiro]

Originally Posted by RachelChristine

Don't forget Albert's girlfriend getting raped and pregnant by the blacksmith dressed up like a clown! Or Albert addicted to morphine. Or any of the other weird episodes from this "wholesome family show". <G>

There was also a major continuity error. In one episode after Charles/Caroline/Albert/whatever other kids they had left, Charles brings home Albert back for a special episode visit to overcome a drug addiction (morphine? laudanum? whatever was available in Walnut Grove). The voiceover at the end says that when Albert grew up he became a doctor. IIRC, Laura had previously said that Albert became a doctor when he grew up as well.

Unfortunately the next time Albert came back for a special episode visit it was because Albert was dying. Poor kid: illegitimate, grew up on the streets sleeping in alleys, gets taken to a farm where his girlfriend is clown-raped and impregnated, then turns to drugs, then gets a terminal illness, BUT somewhere in the months between his drug addiction and dying he evidently becomes a doctor (though it's worth remembering he was in fact a Whiz Kid).
Since the character was fictitious (in fact the Ingalls were only in Walnut Grove for a less than two years and that was non-consecutive [they lived there for about a year, moved away, came back for about a year- they spent far longer in DeSmet]) so the show completely made the rules about his life, but they never explained this one.

There was also an episode where a blizzard hit MINNESOTA and nobody knew how to handle it.

[Icerigger]

I seem to remember a Waltons episode about a poltergeist haunting the family.

[sqweels]

Honorable mention must go to the bit where several seasons of Dallas turned out to be all a dream.

[Markxxx]

Almost any show that has an episode where the cast decides to "put on a show." Like companies are always doing that. I never worked for any company that had a "yearly employee talent show."

And what's even worse is they never can find anyone to be in these annual employee shows so they (naturally) have to use cast members who don't work at the company in the show.

Either that or a marathon, where people get to sing.

I will let "I Love Lucy," and "Dick Van Dyke" slide 'cause the plots revolved around show business.

Speaking of which, on "The Lucy Show," after she moves to California, Lucy always seems to be befriending strange people and taking them into her home? Do people do this? Maybe back in the 60s they did

[BigT]

Originally Posted by bibliophage

I never saw that one. I have trouble imagining that it could be more ludicrous than the Spock's Brain episode of TOS.

Did going at infinite speed turn Spock into a lizard who had babies with a lizard Uhura? I don't think so.

[BigT]

NETA:

Why don't you compare them yourself?

Videos:

• Spock's Brain
• Threshold

Reviews:

• Spock's Brain
• Threshold

[olivesmarch4th]

Originally Posted by BigT

Did going at infinite speed turn Spock into a lizard who had babies with a lizard Uhura? I don't think so.

According to the article you linked (which was pretty funny, btw), Threshold is the only Star Trek episode that was unofficially removed from canon. Apparently later in the series, Tom Paris says something like, ''Nobody's ever gone to Warp 10!'' As if everyone on Trek has collectively decided the episode never existed.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Originally Posted by Markxxx

Almost any show that has an episode where the cast decides to "put on a show." Like companies are always doing that. I never worked for any company that had a "yearly employee talent show."

Our division does. It's a charity thing. There had also been an annual agency-wide talent show as part of public relations until this year due to cutbacks.

[Sampiro]

Originally Posted by Icerigger

I seem to remember a Waltons episode about a poltergeist haunting the family.

"Goodnight Mary Ellen."

"There is no Mary Ellen... only Zule..."

[Miss Mapp]

I came in to mention Threshold, but am not surprised to find it already here.

I remember when this episode first aired. Just as the little Paris/Janeway lizard-babies went sliding off into the swamp, my phone rang. It was my best friend. She didn't say anything; she was laughing too hard. I had to laugh too, and we sat laughing together over the phone, unable to discuss coherently the show we had just witnessed until after the closing credits had gone by and we could catch our breath. I can't think of anything else I've ever seen on TV that has had that effect on either of us.

[Odesio]

Originally Posted by olivesmarch4th

According to the article you linked (which was pretty funny, btw), Threshold is the only Star Trek episode that was unofficially removed from canon. Apparently later in the series, Tom Paris says something like, ''Nobody's ever gone to Warp 10!'' As if everyone on Trek has collectively decided the episode never existed.

There was a very special episode of TNG that was supposed to teach us about environmentalism. They figure out that warp drive is actually destroying the fabric of the universe somehow. So they implement rules saying a ship can only travel at warp X or whatever. I only heard it mentioned again in a later episode when the Enterprise has to get somewhere quickly and because of the urgency it was allowed to ignore the warp speed limit. They've since ignored this stupid little gem as well though they certainly didn't do it as dramatically as Paris.

[Sampiro]

DUKES OF HAZZARD- somewhere between a sitcom and action I suppose- had an episode featuring a space alien once. I don't think I ever saw it in its entirety, but I remember the Duke boys hiding him and Roscoe/Boss on the trail. I would guess this was around the time ET came out. Of course a show where a family with four members and one job (Daisy's waitressing) between them who crash their car every week and cause the local sheriffs department to crash at least one or two yet nobody ever goes back to prison or seems unable to afford repair jobs or gets held accountable by the local corrupt sheriff who crashed while chasing them (apparently Roscoe didn't know that if he could positively ID them he could arrest them after the chase) has to reach high to have a particularly ludicrous episode, but I think space aliens did it for them.

Robert Reed hated pretty much everything about THE BRADY BUNCH other than his castmates (the kids all say he was a quiet but nice guy in real life- he took them on a world cruise between seasons once) but particularly the scripts. He hated the last episode- in which Greg buys defective hair tonic from (either Peter or Bobby) so much that he refused to participate in it; his logic- quite sound- was that a teenaged boy in the 1970s would probably not even know what hair tonic was let alone use it. (The script was one that one of the writers, who was in his 60s, had dusted off from a short he had written a generation before.)

[Spoons]

Originally Posted by Markxxx

Almost any show that has an episode where the cast decides to "put on a show." Like companies are always doing that. I never worked for any company that had a "yearly employee talent show."

I've worked for such a place. We participated in local charitable talent shows/contests. I volunteered to participate; it was always fun.

[Robot Arm]

Everybody raves about the last episode of Newhart, and with good reason, but the final season was getting pretty weird even before that. In one episode, George, Jim and Chester reunite their teenage gang (the Hooligans), along with Dick and Michael. Their rival gang, the Ruffians, provoke a rumble by criticizing Dick's grammar. After trying to dance like a revival of West Side Story they conclude that without a choreographer their rumble is getting nowhere.

I like to think that once it was decided that the whole series would be a dream, it allowed them to go almost completely crazy in the final season.

[joebuck20]

Pretty much any episode where the entire family packs up and goes to some exotic location (Hawaii, Europe, the Caribbean, etc.).
The Simpsons could pull this off, at least in the early seasons before they made it a regular gimmick, but most other shows that try this just feel really cheesy.

[Cumberdale]

Originally Posted by sqweels

Honorable mention must go to the bit where several seasons of Dallas turned out to be all a dream.

I believe it was one season that turned out to be a dream. Also, in an earlier season Dallas was hit by a hurricane. If a hurricane is able to make it to Big D, I'd hate to see what Galveston and Houston look like as it made its way inland.

[JSexton]

Originally Posted by Sampiro

(apparently Roscoe didn't know that if he could positively ID them he could arrest them after the chase)

Well, of course he could. But he'd still have to catch them eventually. Every time he sees the Duke boys, they confuse him or get him stuck in a barrel of something, so they can go speeding off again.

[Sampiro]

Originally Posted by JSexton

Well, of course he could. But he'd still have to catch them eventually. Every time he sees the Duke boys, they confuse him or get him stuck in a barrel of something, so they can go speeding off again.

IIRC the series ended when Enos finally said "Aw screw this!" and shot Bo through the head, which became a gunfight in which Daisy took down Roscoe and Enos, Cletus mowed down Daisy and Luke with an Uzi, Boss said "My God what have I done!" and fell on a detonator blowing up himself and Uncle Jessie, and ends with Waylon Jennings on the porch singing "and that's how the Duke Boys went to their maker!"

[CalMeacham]

The Bitter End, an episode of a show called The Little Theater circa 1949-1950. This episode showed up on a Rhino Video tape several years ago -- it's about a man who tries to commit suicide and fails*. I didn't know who the actor was until his last line: "Well whaddaya know! I couldn't do it!" The way he said that was exactly the way he said it when he said "Well whaddaya know! I finally got the Last Word!" as Dr. McCoy in Star Trek -- DeForest Kelley. It was apparently one of his first TV roles:

http://www.tvparty.com/unseende.html

You can click the link for the 6 minute scene. It's some of the weirdest stuff I've seen that would have been on prime time TV.


http://klhalliday.com/DeKelley/Annot...#1950BitterEnd


Oddly enough, the IMDB has nothing at all on this.





*For some perverse reason this theme of The Failed Suicide has some sort of resonance. I've seen it done as a one-page in Mad, as a cartoon, in Jan Harald Brunvand's books of Urban Legends, and as a one-page in The Big Book of Urban Legends.

[StoutHearted]

Originally Posted by Mississippienne

There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where blind sister Mary's (entirely fictitious) baby was being kept by a housesitter or something while Mary and her (equally fictitious) husband were gone. The house catches on fire and the housesitter grabs the baby and bashes it against a window to break the window and escape, IIRC.

What the what? Was the housesitter Nellie?

[Icerigger]

Mrs Garvey

[Robot Arm]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

*For some perverse reason this theme of The Failed Suicide has some sort of resonance.

For a hilarious variation on that theme, try to find the episode Overkill from a British series called Murder Most Horrid.

[xizor]

I remember watching The 6 Million Dollar Man as a child and even then knowing the episode where he met Bigfoot (a 2 parter!) was as ludicrous as television gets.

[TheFaerie]

Originally Posted by Miss Mapp

I came in to mention Threshold, but am not surprised to find it already here.

I remember when this episode first aired. Just as the little Paris/Janeway lizard-babies went sliding off into the swamp, my phone rang. It was my best friend. She didn't say anything; she was laughing too hard. I had to laugh too, and we sat laughing together over the phone, unable to discuss coherently the show we had just witnessed until after the closing credits had gone by and we could catch our breath. I can't think of anything else I've ever seen on TV that has had that effect on either of us.

This is also the only episode my husband remembers from the entire series, and it ruined the rest of the series for him. I kinda liked the series as a whole, but I agree that was the worst episode ever.

[Small Hen]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

The Bitter End, an episode of a show called The Little Theater circa 1949-1950. This episode showed up on a Rhino Video tape several years ago -- it's about a man who tries to commit suicide and fails*. I didn't know who the actor was until his last line: "Well whaddaya know! I couldn't do it!" The way he said that was exactly the way he said it when he said "Well whaddaya know! I finally got the Last Word!" as Dr. McCoy in Star Trek -- DeForest Kelley. It was apparently one of his first TV roles:

http://www.tvparty.com/unseende.html

You can click the link for the 6 minute scene. It's some of the weirdest stuff I've seen that would have been on prime time TV.

http://klhalliday.com/DeKelley/Annot...#1950BitterEnd

Oddly enough, the IMDB has nothing at all on this.

Thanks for this. I've been looking for it on and off for a couple years now, even since before I was a Star Trek fan. You're right, it's kinda bizarre. I think the end, where Kelley's character finds out they switched off his gas was supposed to be funny, but Kelley laughs more like a man who's finally snapped. After the cameras stopped rolling, I'll bet he up and murdered his bitch of a landlord with a butcher knife.

[Stealth Potato]

Originally Posted by Mississippienne

There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where blind sister Mary's (entirely fictitious) baby was being kept by a housesitter or something while Mary and her (equally fictitious) husband were gone. The house catches on fire and the housesitter grabs the baby and bashes it against a window to break the window and escape, IIRC.

Babies were made much sturdier back in the frontier days.

[Lute Skywatcher]

"The Frontier Days of Lake Woebegon. Where all the women were strong, all the men were good-looking, and all the children were bricks."

[Small Hen]

Originally Posted by Mississippienne

There was an episode of Little House on the Prairie where blind sister Mary's (entirely fictitious) baby was being kept by a housesitter or something while Mary and her (equally fictitious) husband were gone. The house catches on fire and the housesitter grabs the baby and bashes it against a window to break the window and escape, IIRC.

Well, she should have never have hired one of her blind school students to baby sit. And she probably shouldn't have left that ham in the crib.

[Swallowed My Cellphone]

Originally Posted by Markxxx

Almost any show that has an episode where the cast decides to "put on a show." Like companies are always doing that. I never worked for any company that had a "yearly employee talent show."

It's called "United Way Campaign". Yup, there are a bunch of companies I know of here in the financial district who have some (usually ridiculous) "employee talent shows" as fundraisers for United Way. Eg/ a bogus American Idol type event, where the idea is you have to buy votes (say one vote is $10), and you can vote as many times as you want as long as you pay each time. The funniest team usually wins.