Yeah, you’re right. Damn! I never win anything. 
Ladies and gentlemen I have a show I want you to see. It has two good parts; The first 30 seconds and the last 30 seconds. 
If you actually want to watch the infamous “Heil Honey I’m Home” here you go.
I think Dexter is a horrible concept for a show, which is why I’ve never watched it. Creeps me out just thinking about it. But clearly there’s more to it than meets the eye, or it wouldn’t be so unfathomably popular.
Two Many Cats, that was Moment of Truth. I didn’t care for it either, but for different reasons. I think that any show that takes the results of a polygraph seriously is fatally flawed to begin with, and having some of the supposedly horrifying revelations be false was monumentally retarded. (“So, DKW, did you kill Nicole Brown Simpson?” “No.” That answer is…true." “Well, that was pointless…”) That plus the incredibly unforgiving prize structure which lead to nearly everybody leaving empty-handed killed any lingering interest I may have had.
I never saw an episode, but Jackson Pollack (www.xoverboard.com) once mentioned a game show called Hurl, where the object was to eat a lot and then get on various scary carnival rides. Whoever threw up the least won $1,000. It’s not often a show manages to be offensive, disgusting, moronic, and ridiculously cheap.
And while it’s not an especially egregious case, I have to give an honorable mention to Forever Eden, the ill-fated Fox project. The premise was to start with 16 contestants placed in a vacation paradise. There were no tasks or requirements of any kind; they could relax, socialize, have fun, get drunk, etc. At the end of each round (about 1-2 weeks IIRC), everyone got to vote for who they wanted to leave, and the one with the most votes was out. The remaining 15 each got a number of gold coins. Then a new contestant joined the fray and the next round began. In other words, all you had to do to survive…and spend another week in a luxurious vacation resort and get paid a lot for the privelege…is NOT BE THE BIGGEST JERK. If you were friendly and affectionate, you could stay for as long as you damn well pleased. Sure, maybe they’d find other people as friendly as you, but not fifteen. This one died almost the moment it was born; all I ever saw was the pilot.
I watched nearly all of Temptation Island, and frankly, I found it just plain pointless. A bunch of couples throw parties and play some silly games with a bunch of rent-a-models. No prizes, no contests, nothing important at stake. Like, whatever.
I think many people miss the point about Heil Honey, I’m Home!. It was intentionally over-the-top and tasteless. It’s only real crime was that it wasn’t very funny but there was nothing at all wrong with the concept. In the hands of a Mel Brooks it could have been hilarious. BTW for those wishing to judge for themselves the first episode is freely available on YouTube.
You’re right about the concept, but there’s no way it’s funny for more than two minutes. Maybe 30 Rock should try and revive it.
Nah, the problem with Cop Rock (that Glee avoided by not using original music) is that it’s hard enough coming up with half a dozen decent songs for a show; coming up with half a dozen a week is crazy impossible.
Hole in the Wall
Large people in skin tight silver space suits trying to fit through a hole in a wall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_Wall_(U.S._game_show)
I’m sorry, the thread for the Awesomest Concept EVER for a TV Show is down the hall.
How about a series with two people taking care of a “family” of performing chimps?
The Hathaways starred Jack Weston and Peggy Cass and The Marquis Chimps. It was so awful that ABC television (who ran it) were frequently also the sponsors. It ran the 1961-62 TV season.
I watched it, as a kid.
TV never learns. A decade later they had Me and the Chimp, starring a fresh-from-That-Girl Ted Bessel. This time the show was on CBS
Which sounds very close to the premise of Coach Trip here in the UK. Group of people on a free coach holiday round Europe get to vote off couples they don’t like, who are then replaced by new fodder. There are standard couch-trippy organised daily visits to museums or whatever in the place they’re visiting that day, but otherwise no tasks as such. Votes take place at the end of each day, not weekly, but the aim is to continue the free holiday for as long as possible. Experience demonstrates that it indeed tends to be the pleasantest couples who manage that.
Yet it’s riveting. A bunch of freeloading Brits with all prejudices intact cooped up in a confined space abroad, then given excuse to vent their frustrations with each other. Wrapped up in a travelogue. Genius television.
While I’m not quite sure I’d call it a hit and it’s never broken out of daytime scheduling, it’s gradually established itself as a guilty pleasure and they’ve apparently now filmed 8 series of it. And it’s becoming increasingly common for people to sheepishly admit to the grip of a Sunday afternoon back-to-back run of repeats of it.
Darn, and I’d thought I was being original: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12845904&postcount=16
And I knew (periphally) the “millionaire” Rick Rockwell, who was a millionaire only if you added up all his property, debt, family’s property, family’s debt and squinted.
Toonces, the Driving Cat - the actual pitched sitcom, not the excellent skits that inspired it.
Some great examples, here, though I strongly disagree with Hogan’s Heros.
I never actually watched Small Wonder. How terrible was it?
What? 76 posts in, and no one has mentioned the GEICO Caveman TV Series?
Correct. Because that show ROCKED.
Naked Jungle was a puzzle/endurance type gameshow created for Channel 5 in the UK, in the very early days after the channel was first launched. All of the contestants appeared completely naked, as did the host, Keith Chegwin, who was previously best known as a presenter of programmes for children.
No attempt at modesty was made by the contestants, camerawork, or editing.