Baseball. I adore the sport, I love attending games, but watching baseball games on TV is like taking an Ambien.
NASCAR is good for nothing but a nap for me. I love the History Channel, but it usually puts me right out. I’ve tried to watch The Producers several times, but have never made it through yet.
I’ve got to ask – which version?
fortunately for me, mike rowe makes me *anything * but sleepy 
- i love that show - but i am right there with you with baseball. and i love baseball! even my beloved cubbies can’t keep me awake if they’re on the tube.
go to a game, i’m good. try to watch on the idiot box - and i’m gone within the first inning.
C SPAN, without question.
C SPAN 2 is best avoided on weekends, when they are Book TV, featuring nonstop nonfiction authors who are often quite engrossing.
Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane’s movie version. I want to watch it, but the sandman has other plans.
“Nova.”
I’m interested in science. I think the show does an interesting, entertaining job of presenting it. But it always puts me to sleep. Can’t figure out why.
I KNOW NOTHING! NOTHINGGGGG!!!
Sciency shows. Space and animals will usually do the trick. Anything with Carl Sagan’s voice.
That’s what I came here to post. I never make it through an episode!
I think we are on to something! How It’s Made puts me right to sleep and I love the show! It took me 3x watching the Nova show on ID to make it through successfully.
There used to be a pretty interesting show called Shopping Bags that was sort of similar to How It’s Made (if that even sounds like it makes sense) that had the same soporific effect on me.
The unusual thing? I never fall asleep while watching TV or a movie. These shows are the exception.
Anything ‘Crime’ or CSI-type show. I’ll agree to sit down to watch it with my wife, and 15 mins later I am out. I wake up and confirm I knew the whole plot anyway.
Yeah, same here. It’s partly because they run two episodes of CSI: Miami very late on Sunday and I always drift off. So now I just associate CSI with sleep.
How It’s Made doesn’t put me to sleep – I seem to be unable to fall asleep with the television on. But I can understand how that show would do that. How It’s Made is a very, very odd show; there’s something almost David-Lynch-esque about it. Almost every shot is of machinery and/or the hands of a factory worker; the hands always move with graceful, practiced efficiency. Once in a while you’ll see a worker’s body but you rarely get a glimpse of his or her face. The narrator’s voice is somehow detached and friendly at the same time, and the quietly perky music is hypnotic. The sheer mundaneness of the objects we see being manufactured adds to the Zen-like effect. Very, very weird.
The original Alien will put me to sleep during the opening sequence, and I have used it for that express purpose before. I have to have a TV with a timer for best effect though, or I wake up an hour and a half later to the sounds of the Nostromo self-destruct countdown … not pleasant.
The movie Ghost has that effect on me. I’ve tried to watch it several times and never managed to get through it without falling out. It’s weird, because I don’t normally fall asleep while watching something unless I’m already very sleepy.
The Joy of Painting, with Bob Ross. I used to put his show on every afternoon to help me nap. R.I.P Bob and his happy little clouds.
Remember that PBS painting program with the guy who had big hair and a real soft voice with a bit of a southern accent, IIRC? That show.
Pssst! Look up! 
That’s The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross as mentioned in the post right before yours. Heh.
If you’re talking movies… It took about four tries to get through 2001: A Space Odyssey.