What's The Biggest Bomb/Blunder In TV History?

[TMC1982]

It just came to me the other day, where's The Star Wars Holiday Special on EW's list? The special is so bad that George Lucas has vowed that he had the chance, he would have every video taped copy destroyed (I guess Mr. Lucas isn't aware of something called YouTube). I mean, the Nostalgia Critic needed Santa Christ's help in order to make him forget that he ever saw it. Lets also not overlook the simple fact that it was never reaired and has never been officially distributed on home video.

 

[TMC1982]

Laurence Tisch's time overseeing CBS in the late 1980s-early 1990s should be on the list (he was to the "Eye" Network what Jeff Zucker is to NBC). Under Mr. Tisch's watch, CBS' evening news program (then, anchored by Dan Rather) went from first place to third. This perhaps is in part, due to the budget being cut at CBS News, which in return, negatively effected the overall quality. CBS also bid approximately $1.2 billion on Major League Baseball, only to wind up losing $500 million four years later. Worst of all, CBS lost the National Football League package (which they had since 1956) to the then upstart FOX network, who offered the NFL at least $100 million more per year, than what the cost-cutting Tisch was willing to offer. CBS wound up losing a lot of key affiliates to FOX over this. Because in large part to Laurence Tisch's idiocy at running CBS, they wound up getting bought out by Westinghouse in 1995.

 

[spongebob03]

Many people didn't; including longtime fans of Lucille Ball.

It wasn't a bad idea, it was poorly executed. Also, I'd be highly surprised if you've seen it, as it hasn't aired once after its cancellation and will never be on DVD.

I saw a couple of episodes of it on Youtube last year...FINALLY! It was ok. It was interesting to see Lucille at that age do physical comedy. Lucille and Gale were great. But the supporting cast wasn't that good IMO. I haven't look at the list, but the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this topic was that show that was on CBS either last year or the year before about the singing cops. It was called Viva something I think.

 

[Tapout]

Vince has no one to blame but himself on this one. I liked the XFL and I rooted for Tommy Maddox when he joined the Steelers. But what Vince did is he pushed the WWE and the team's cheerleaders down people's throats instead of making football the absolute star.

While there are definitely tons of blunders associated with the XFL, I believe its biggest downfall was that Vince, Ebersol, & Co. were trying to put Single A level (at its absolute best) football on prime time network television. The freakshow factor can - and did - draw viewers for a couple weeks, but bad football isn't going to keep people around for an entire season.

And it's certainly not worse than the XFL. Football on TV is hard to mess up. Arena Football was able to last 22 years. The Super Bowl and the conference title games are the top three rated show

Arena football works the same way minor league baseball does. It works very well in a live venue and they did tons of stuff to be extremely fan friendly. Nobody's ever been stupid enough to put the Arena League on at 8 PM on NBC.

 

[Brandon Pierce]

I almost want to mention Comedy Central and Sci-Fi Channel canceling MST3K, but that's just my inner-fanboyness. It really isn't a TV blunder for two reasons:

1. Neither network really suffered for the loss (particularly Comedy Central).

2. Most of "The Brains" seemed okay with Sci Fi letting them go anyway.

 

[Eleanor Hugbees]

Venture Brothers isn't a hit, either critically or ratings wise. Though, you do have a point about AMC's numbers prior to airing Mad Men. What were they getting previously?

I'm actually not sure of AMC ratings before Mad Men, but if 2.8's and 1.0's are considered great by AMC ,that should probably say something.

 

[tucsoncoyote]

NBC's Supertrain. a 25 million dollar trainwreck of a show for NBC.

Actually here's one that should be on the list, but somehow got "Derailed" by all the current stuff.

Namely I'm talking about NBC's 25 million dollar blunder back during the 1978-1979 TV season known as "Supertrain"

The idea was an drama adventure series on a nuclear powered bullet train that was transcontinental (from New York to Los Angeles) and that could go 200 mph..

But somewhere along the way Fred Silverman thought this idea would be a hit, and took a 25 million dollar (1978 dollars if rounded up for inflation would be close to 100 million today) gamble on this "Train wreck" of a show

I mean come on, a nuclear powered bullet train with swimming pools, a bowling alley, and even shops.. Can we say "Love Boat on the Tracks"?

After just 9 episodes the series was cancelled, and the model of "Supertrain" was sold off to some avid railroad fan who bought the 1/12th scale model (and the track to go with it), for a paltry 25,000 bucks.

Sorry Freddie Silverman, the train derailed..

Seriously it did..

 

[Vyse]

I saw a couple of episodes of it on Youtube last year...FINALLY! It was ok. It was interesting to see Lucille at that age do physical comedy. Lucille and Gale were great. But the supporting cast wasn't that good IMO. I haven't look at the list, but the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this topic was that show that was on CBS either last year or the year before about the singing cops. It was called Viva something I think.

Ah. Viva Laughin is what you're thinking of, itself another failed adaptation of a popular British show. That was very bad. I would have watched it if it meant more clips would be used for The Soup. [/one of the best bits in the history of the show]

 

[TMC1982]

Since the TV Guide Channel recently aired a special devoted to the biggest TV blunders ever, I thought that it would be a good enough of a time to revive this discussion. I have two more blunders that should be put under consideration: NBC cutting away from the closing ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics in order to air The Marriage Ref followed by the late local news. Also, FOX temporarily canceling America's Most Wanted in 1996. Only massive protests from the public, law enforcement and government (as well as the poor ratings for the sitcoms that aired in AMW's place) officials persuaded FOX to bring it back.