The Discovery Channel has decided to… cancel?.. delay? a program “re-enacting” Michael Jackson’s autopsy. Story here. This was apparently not to be part of a larger concept about his death, or celebrity drug abuse – the title of the program is “Michael Jackson’s Autopsy”. One of the ads purportedly showed a covered body on a gurney, with on sequin gloved hand peeking out from under the cover.
This strikes me as one of the worst TV show ideas I can ever recall hearing about since a previous Discovery Channel series called “Impaled”. Yes, people being impaled on stuff, and surviving it, was the theme.
Yeah that’s what immediately came to mind for me too, although, I have to wonder, retrospectively, if it counts, having read past the title and into the OP’s actual example.
I think what we are looking for is not just things which were horribly executed, but for which the actual concept itself was inherently inane. I mean, I could conceive, theoretically, of there being some Star Wars Holiday Special which did not suck or which was even awesome. And in fact, at the very least, it did contain the first appearance of Boba Fett and Chewbacca’s family, and the first ever TV depiction of cyberporn, and it concocted a minimally sci-fi stand in for “holiday” rather than succumbing to actual Earth related holiday tropes.
But it’s hard to imagine a “Michael Jackson autopsy recreation” being anything but horrific merely from the title alone.
Cop Rock was no more terrible in concept than any other musical, which admittedly is a genre I despise. So I do have sympathy.
Ok, now we’re talking. I forgot about this steamer, and it has made it to the finalists.
I hadn’t considered this one, which truly is an awful concept. But I actually loved this show when I was a kid. So I’m gonna add it to the finalists, but I feel bad doing so.
Amateurs, all. I expected not to be the first to mention “Heil Honey, I’m Home” about the Hitler family and their Jewish neighbors. Cancelled, unsurprisingly. British. Yes, this really happened.
I’m young enough that I only remember of few snippets of My Mother the Car, but if it’s not based on the worst concept of any series, it’s certainly one of the most bizaare.
I nominate “Embarrassing Medical Conditions”. This particular show means that even if you have no intentions of EVER watching it, you can channel surf while eating your dinner and delight in a full screen shot of a hairy haemorrhoid-clustered arse. With a British accent.