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So Bad It's Horrible/Live-Action TV (view source)

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{{quote|''"In Beverly Hills ... they don't throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows."''|'''[[Woody Allen]]'''}}
 
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* ''The Tammy Grimes Show'', aired on [[ABC]] in 1966, starred Grimes as an heiress with plots focusing on how much she loved to spend money. Ten episodes were produced, but only four aired before it was canned and replaced by a nighttime version of ''[[The Dating Game]]''. Keep in mind that this was when networks were far slower to bring down the axe — ''My Mother The Car'' lasted a full season, but ''Tammy Grimes'' lasted just four shows.
* ''The Trouble With Tracy'' is thought to have been made just to fulfill a then financially unsteady [[CTV]]'s quota for Canada-produced content. There's certainly no other justification for this 130-episode 1970's sitcom, which went on for six months due to a desperate attempt by CTV to recoup their investments. Due to a severe lack of time and money, they could not shoot on-location, build convincing sets, or even retake scenes. The scripts were, for the most part, recycled from the 1930-45 radio series ''Easy Aces,'' with a few topical references (such as Tracy's deadbeat hippie brother) shoehorned in.
* ''Turbocharged Thunderbirds'', a half-hour version of Gerry Anderson's British [[Supermarionation]] classic ''[[Thunderbirds]]'', produced for syndication. Thirteen of the original ''Thunderbirds'' episodes were [[Cut and Paste Translation|hacked into a half-hour format (with space opened for commercials), re-titled, and dubbed over with new voices]].<ref> Which included [[Tim Curry]] no less</ref>. The Tracy family fought supervillains, and the action took place on "Thunderworld". Oh, and the family took orders from a pair of [[Large Ham]] live-action teenagers called the "Hack Masters" who lived on the inside of [[Cool Starship|Thunderbird 5]] (renamed "Hacker Command" ...but really, who cares) and called Jeff Tracy [[The A-Team (TV)|"Mr. T"]] ([[Mr. T|WHAT THE HELL, FOOL!?]]). Worst of all, the original dialogue was edited out completely and replaced with "ironic post-modern" jokes. Anderson was ''outraged'' when he found out what had been done to his creation, and as a result it was canceled almost immediately. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqZCAJJhsJc&feature=related Here's their take on the "Martian Invasion" episode,] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Sk6itJ7f4 if you dare.]
* ''Turn-On'' was a [[Totally Radical]] sketch-"comedy" program on [[ABC]] in 1969. Inspired and produced by some of the same people who made the ''actual'' hit show ''[[Laugh In]]'', it took everything in '''that''' show and turned it [[Up to Eleven]]. It was canned before the premiere had finished its half-hour run, though most of ABC at least let it finish running. It tried to be psychedelic and [[Totally Radical]] (something television as a medium has never been good at) and surreal (which it perhaps succeeded at too well) along with being more openly sexual than shows normally got back then. Two ABC affiliates didn't make it through the only airing (Cleveland's WEWS and Denver's KBTV {now [[NBC]] station KUSA} cut away from the network for a documentary on gun safety), and at least two more (KATU in Portland, Oregon and WHNC {now WTNH} in New Haven-Hartford) didn't air the show at all. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zny4LxAC0C8 Here's a sampler.]
* ''Where Do I Sit?'' Comedian Peter Cook was riding high with his comedy show ''[[Not Only but Also]]'' when he was offered his own vehicle with full creative control. Foolishly, he decided to do a combination chat show, sketch comedy, and music show. The premiere had Peter interviewing [[SJ Perelman]], who just sat in his seat yawning while Peter couldn't think of anything to ask. An interview with Kirk Douglas featured an inebriated Peter asking Kirk "Who are you?" followed by a long, awful silence. The show also featured the unedifying sight of Peter ripping into an audience member who had complained about a sketch he had performed and phoning up a viewer at home who had pondered whether Peter was on drugs (the call took over five minutes as the person was in the bath). Peter also insisted on performing a song in each show, and he was a notoriously bad singer. The show managed to last three episodes, after which it was canned and the tapes wiped.
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** ''[[Without a Trace (TV)|Without a Trace]]'' did a [[Deconstruction]] of this, with the missing person being a contestant on a ''Swan''-like show and later realizing she shouldn't have changed.
* ''Tease'', a laughable show on Oxygen that tried to replicate the formula of ''[[Iron Chef]]'' <small>[[Recycled in Space|WITH HAIRSTYLISTS!]]</small> The show tried to aim for the [[Blaxploitation]] vibe of hairstylist-themed movies such as ''[[Barber Shop]]'' and ''Hair Show''; they had [[But Not Too Black|"black"]] celebrity Lisa Rinna as host, and many of the contestants had a "ghetto-fabulous" schtick going for them. But the show was '''terrible''' and ran only six episodes in 2007, done in by Oxygen being bought by NBC shortly after its premiere and NBC not wanting it to cannibalize their much better show in Bravo's ''Shear Genius''.
* ''Thousand-Dollar Bee'', a children's game show filmed in Atlanta for the now-defunct and little-seen Black Family Channel. It was a televised spelling bee/vocabulary game with a very odd [[Bill Cosby]]-type host named [[Name's the Same|Sinatra]] who wore a [[Geek|Geeky]]y bow tie. The contestants were [[Too Dumb to Live|dreadfully bad at spelling]] and didn't have any drive to be better, as the prize for the '''entire season''' was [[Undesirable Prize|a $1,000 savings bond for college]], enough in these days to buy maybe books for a year. It also had the lowest production values ever seen on cable TV in the 21st Century — a creepy CGI bee straight out of the [[Video Brinquedo]] handbook, Powerpoint-grade captions done in ''Comic Sans'', a "theme song" consisting of the [[Ear Worm|same two bars of music and chipmunk vocals]], a [[Kid Sidekick]] in a bee costume who provided overly precocious commentary about the contestants and their progress, and an entire round that involved spelling out words with ''refrigerator magnets'', though that last one could be forgiven as a homage to the Scrambleboard of ''[[Soul Train]]''. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfNdwlywXuM Here's some gameplay, if you dare.]
* ''Top Design'', especially Season 1. [[Bravo]] thought people who loved ''[[Top Chef (TV)|Top Chef]]'' and ''[[Project Runway]]'' would love to see more takes on that formula, and so they made a show like those two shows, but with interior designers. They also decided to combine the host and mentor roles into host Todd Oldham. Now, this ''can'' be done right — HGTV had a competitive reality show for interior designers that worked. But ''Top Design'' didn't get it right. The challenges were not engaging enough to viewers; the elimination catchphrase "[[Lame Comeback|See you later, Decorator]]" was dull; and Todd Oldham had negative charisma. The show was a flop in the ratings. Instead of canceling it right then, Bravo gave it a second chance, giving production of the Season 2 to the studio behind ''Top Chef'' and ''Project Runway'' and ordering a major [[Retool]] of the show to get it closer to the formula of ''Chef'' and the Bravo seasons of ''Runway''.
** India Hicks became the new host; Oldham was demoted to mentor, but unfortunately was still there. The elimination catchphrase was changed, the challenges became more elaborate, and the Season 2 finale was a two-parter. Despite the changes, the retool failed to bring in new viewers. Nowadays, when ''Top Design'' is mentioned in articles or forums related to Bravo shows, the reaction is always negative. Despite this, '''three years later''', [[Nine Network]] launched an Australian version.
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[[Category:So Bad Its Horrible (Darth Wiki)]]
[[Category:Live Action TV]]
[[Category:So Bad It's Horrible]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
{{Darth Wiki}}
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