No Soap, Radio. The program the phrase “It just don’t make no sense” was invented for.
Tossup between “Profit” and “Action.”
The Prisoner, easily.
Although I have an odd fondness for Pingu.
Space Ghost: Coast to Coast.
I would also have to vote for Green Acres. Most people I talk to thought it was just stupid, but I always thought it was brilliantly surreal. Who can forget the hotcakes head gasket, or Dee Dees Dehrydificated Mason Dixon Chicken Dinner, or the toaster that wouldn’t pop up until someone said “Five”? (I assume the writers had their hands on some good drugs.) Sure wish they would show it on TV Land, I’m sick to death of Andy Griffith and Leave it to Beaver reruns.
It was more of a one-time thing than a regular program, but Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech was the strangest thing ever to appear on television.
No contest - Green Acres outstranges everything else by an order of magnitude.
The Brak Show is kinda bizarre…
The Prisoner was strange, in fact, it made a great deal of sense. Like Twin Peaks, it was offbeat but very sharply conceived and written.
You want pure senseless strangeness? Try “Pink Lady and Jeff.” I’ve seen an ep or two, and I WANT THOSE BRAIN CELLS BACK!!
I remember a show in the late seventies, maybe early eighties, called Cliffhanger which was on one of the networks and featured three stories that ‘cliffhung’ every week until next time. I remember one was about some future society, one was a western maybe?, and I can’t remember if one was an Indiana Jones knockoff.
The only one I remember for sure was the cheesy future one.
It lasted a few weeks.
That’s the one. Indescribably weird.
I loved that show! The vampire story was pretty interesting, from what I recall. Of course, I was probably about eight years old when I saw it…
The Young Ones (another brit-com) would get a vote from me, but the Prisoner should be the hands down winner.
Also placing:
Twin Peaks
Cop Rock
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
How about VR5? Really wierd from what I remember.
For a short while there was a show on MTV that defied description called “Sifl and Olly”. It starred two sock puppets and was responsible for one of the two instances of me peeing myself laughing (the other was the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show – keep in mind I was five).
I remember Cliffhanger! I used to love it.
But IMO, the strangest show ever made was Freddy’s Nightmares that ran from 1988 to 1990. It was a horror anthology show that was totally surreal and weird. I only remember it vaguely, but it was one of my favorite shows at the time.
I still wonder if I missed any deeper meaning in The Gigglesnort Hotel.
All of the late-1970s, early 1980s freak shows such as
Real People, That’s Incredible and others had a sort of otherworldly feel to them.
Battle of the Network Stars was sort of spooky, too. Especially when it featured Robert Conrad, and anyone in a kayak.
Another vote for this one. (Wow, I can’t believe even two people besides me were watching.) Green Acres was wonderfully surreal, but No Soap Radio had it beat by a mile.
IIRC, it was on the same season as Police Squad. I wonder what they put in the networks’ water that year to let two such weirdly great and greatly weird shows on.
Did anyone see The Maxx on Liquid TV? Very, very strange.
If anyone does remember it and knows how it ended, please tell me.
If I am remembering correctly, The Maxx ended with the psychologist moving out after Maxx killed the creepy bald guy, and ended with a set up for a second season that never happenned.