# Tone-deaf TV show titles **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 12, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544 "2020-06-12T15:49:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/1 "2020-06-12T15:49:40Z")
That’s tone-deaf meaning (in the UK) a horrible misjudgement of tone – I assume it means the same in the States. And this is all my own opinion, of course. I don’t want to make this OP too heavy - but there’s no getting around the fact that what started me thinking was pretty grim. A documentary on the Smithsonian Channel last night about a family with a high incidence of dwarfism. Jewish – the Ovitz family – in wartime Romania, rounded up and shipped to Auschwitz. The subject of medical experiments led by Josef Mengele – [detail here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovitz_family#Auschwitz), not nice. The happy ending is that surprisingly, miraculously even, the family survived intact. I know this from the Wiki article; I couldn’t bring myself to watch the documentary – because of the title. **The Seven Dwarfs Of Auschwitz**. I shit you not\* – _what were they thinking?_ OK, in my imagination, this is how it plays out: At night. In an office, **the Commissioning Editor** is reading the script by a desk light. Suddenly he leaps up and punches the air in glee. \*Seven?? We got us a title! \* Cut to the production meeting. **The Director** clears his throat nervously. _Ah……the title……don’t you think there’s a risk of the “Seven Dwarfs” thing being perceived as just a little bit – well – totally crass and trivialising? You know, of a family subjected to medical experiments by Josef Mengele in a concentration camp?_ There are blank looks all round…… It can’t be the only tone-deaf title ever dreamed up. I would like to see others – ideally with better potential for humour, but all contributions gratefully received. Documentaries, ill-judged comedies, whatever. What have you got? j - - There were seven. It’s factually correct. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/2 "2020-06-12T16:18:32Z")
Somewhat related, advertising executive Jerry Della Femina claimed that someone seriously (but unsuccessfully) pitched the slogan [“From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor”](https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/05/archives/from-those-wonderful-folks-who-gave-you-pearl-harbor-from-those.html) to Panasonic. ---
**Author:** ![Quondam\_Mechanic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quondam_mechanic/32/3404_2.png) [@Quondam\_Mechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quondam_Mechanic)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/3 "2020-06-12T18:00:29Z")
There maybe should be a different thread for this and the last one, but I remember Renault pitching its cars on TV with a cartoon character speaking with a French accent. The tone-deaf part? The character was a frog. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/4 "2020-06-12T18:37:31Z")
> [@Quondam\_Mechanic](#): > > There maybe should be a different thread for this and the last one, but I remember Renault pitching its cars on TV with a cartoon character speaking with a French accent. The tone-deaf part? The character was a frog. Almost certainly on purpose. (It could have been worse, they could have licensed the rapey skunk.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2020, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/5 "2020-06-12T18:44:43Z")
> [@whitetho](#): > > Somewhat related, advertising executive Jerry Della Femina claimed that someone seriously (but unsuccessfully) pitched the slogan [“From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor”](https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/05/archives/from-those-wonderful-folks-who-gave-you-pearl-harbor-from-those.html) to Panasonic. He later used that as the title for his book on advertising. This was probably seen as funny at the time (heck, it made me buy a copy), but is a lot less so nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/6 "2020-06-22T12:50:19Z")
There was of course the infamous “Heil honey I’m home” - but that was totally deliberate. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/7 "2020-06-22T13:53:18Z")
Some Jews were not that crazy about the “The Six Million Dollar Man.” You have to admit, it’s an oddly specific number. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/8 "2020-06-22T14:10:26Z")
Didn’t Mitsubishi once almost name its new pickup the Zero? Also, it must have been very confusing for Mengele having a subject named “Doc”. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/9 "2020-06-22T16:34:12Z")
Della Femina himself offered up the slogan, but it was a joke, designed to lighten the mood during a brainstorming session when no progress was being made. What made the story work was the next line in the book: “Nobody laughed.” ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/10 "2020-06-22T17:16:57Z")
> [@whitetho](#): > > Somewhat related, advertising executive Jerry Della Femina claimed that someone seriously (but unsuccessfully) pitched the slogan [“From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor”](https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/05/archives/from-those-wonderful-folks-who-gave-you-pearl-harbor-from-those.html) to Panasonic. That sounds like something that Stan Freberg would have done (and gotten away with). ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/11 "2020-06-22T17:24:08Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Some Jews were not that crazy about the “The Six Million Dollar Man.” > > You have to admit, it’s an oddly specific number. That connection never, ever once occurred to me. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/12 "2020-06-22T20:41:41Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > That connection never, ever once occurred to me. > > Zev Steinhardt It definitely occurred to Israelis - that’s why the show was translated as “_Ha’Ish Hashaveh Milionim_” (“The Man Worth Millions”) and the number 6,000,000 was never mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Acerbic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acerbic/32/3695_2.png) [@Acerbic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acerbic)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2020, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-tv-show-titles/855544/13 "2020-06-23T00:22:49Z")
Until you mentioned it that never crossed my mind.