No internet lists, direct to videos (otherwise the “Yogi Okie-Dokie” vid would be right up there), and no one-shot specials.
It could be a cartoon series, or a hosted series, or something else.
I’ve got a childhood memory that I need to expunge which I will reveal in a bit, but tell me what you’ve got.
Let me be the first of the teeming masses to say: Caillou.
I’d imagine that most of the really worst would only have lasted a few episodes and never got re-run, so they’d be off most folks’ radars.
But of ones that actually stuck around for a good while, Barney has to be up there.
“Gee Davy, I don’t know. Maybe Caillou isn’t so bad compared to a show with a weirdly talking dog giving advice on morality.”
Barney and Friends.
I got stuck in a car for 6 hours with one Barney DVD playing over and over and over. By the end of the trip I felt something like this (I guess the things would be holding my ears open…my expressions was very similar though).
In the Northwest region we had a host of children’s show hosts, like Captain Puget, Brakeman Bill and Crazy Donkey, Stan Boreson and my favorite, J.P. Patches (Patches Pal Forever!)…but we also had Wunda Wunda. She was portrayed by Ruth Prins from 1953 to 1972. She was very tightly wound and immaculately dressed as a harlequin, and was parent-approved for all good little children. If you dreamed about her, it wasn’t a good dream.
I liked that one as a kid (age 4 or so). I can’t remember why, though.
Edit: I’m sure the moralising went over my head.
Gigglesnort Hotel should at least get an Honorable Mention.
When I was very young, one of the most depressing shows on TV was Romper Room. It was in B&W, and had tall windowless gray walls like a dungeon. If the kids had fun, I didn’t notice it.
To be fair, I watched it, too. It was just barely above the “is this better than the blank screen” threshold, but it was above.
I know that I saw Romper Room, but all I remember is the “magic mirror” where she names viewers (and I never saw my name).
I wouldn’t let my daughter watch Max and Ruby when she was little because the show irritated me so much. Based on my memory of the show from almost 20 years ago, my issue was that every episode was Ruby being an asshole to Max and blaming him for everything that went wrong, even when it was her fault.
To be clear, when I say I didn’t ‘let’ her watch it, I just meant I wouldn’t turn it on for her while I was sitting there too. I had no issue with her watching it on her own or with a babysitter.
As a kid, I liked a lot of stuff that would make me as a grown man claw my eyes out.
But there was one, that I thought was bad when it was new. I couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to be funny. (maybe it was actually for adults?) And I still have that damn theme song stuck in my head 50 years later. Make it stop!
Banana Splits
It was definitely bad on purpose.
Sometimes, bad is just bad. No matter the reason.
Is Davy and Goliath bad if you are Christian? or was it just bad to me? Ditto Timothy Church Mouse.
I like D&G, then and even somewhat now. But I was raised Catholic, I think I didn’t even see the hidden Luteran agenda. I probably missed that it was supposed to be a religious show. I just liked the characters.
That was me. I wasn’t Christian (or anything else), so I didn’t get any of that background. I remember not liking Davy, but I liked Goliath, and I think Davy had a sister?