@@not-so-smartaleck8987 It's funny, when My Space was a thing, she actually put in a request to be a friend or whatever you called it on that site. And yes, she was calling herself Jan Brady. Nice lady, though.
@@davidharrison7014 The Paul Lynde show didn't fail because of him; it failed because network TV's scope was woefully inadequate for his sense of humor. In today's age of a million outlets, he would have been a much bigger star. He was genuinely about a generation ahead of his time.
I always wondered what happened to him on Happy Days. I thought when Arnold married Was her name Momo? That's why he left and when he returned she didn't return with him.
@@sheriheffner2098 I think he ended up back on HAPPY DAYS after Al was spun off into JOANIE LOVES CHACHI. Joanie & Chachi got to go back to HAPPY DAYS for its last season, but Al didn't go back to Milwaukee from Chicago until they were married in the finale.
They gave David Cassidy that show based on a episode of "Police Story" he did that was really good. He played an undercover police officer in a high school.
I remember that one! And yeah, that was a good episode of "Police Story." I believe Alison Arngrim's (Nellie from "Little House On The Prairie") was also in that episode.
David Cassidy also received an EMMY nomination in the Category of Best Single Performance By A Lead Actor In A Drama Series for his excellent guest work on Police Story.
Hello Larry was a spinoff of Different Strokes. Supertrain was NBC's answer to The Love Boat which didn't take off. originally broadcast in 1979 and by the way Kami Cotler eventually ended up on The Waltons she was in me and the chimp thank you for sharing these Fred some of these I remember when I was a kid and remember watching them
i would gladly watch these shows all over again...no matter how bad, I'm sure they're still better that most of the reality junk and other "stuff" that's on TV today!!😭😄😄😄
I was thinking that while watching the video !! I miss those days !! Funny story about " Me & The Chimp , " It was originally called : " The Chimp And I , " but Ted Bessel did not want second billing after a lower primate ( The Chimp !! ) .
I'm proud to say that I have the DVD box set of Pink Lady & Jeff. Did you know that when Fred Silverman discovered that the Japanese pop duo he'd hired to head up a variety show couldn't speak English, a frantic call went out for a young comic who could pretend to be their American friend helping them get by in America, talk to the guest stars, participate in sketches, etc? And the list of names he went off was in alphabetical order, so the job went to Jeff Altman. If Jeff and a bunch of others had turned the gig down, it could have been Pink Lady & David Letterman! BTW, one of the bright spots on this otherwise mess of a variety show was a cast regular who helped out in sketches playing a much wider assortment of different characters than he was later known for. Jim Varney, who most of us know as Ernest, the "Hey Vern!" guy.
They made a box set for 6 episodes? I was 16 when that brief show was on and i actually liked it. Jeff was silly and the ladies were charming. I've never put this together until now but i suppose they were the start of why i love Japanese bands to this day.
Fun fact: "Supertrain" was bought by the BBC for the UK, following its disastrous US reception they decided not to show it while the series has never been shown here, the pilot movie did show up on "The other side" (ITV). By the way, TV also ran "Me and The Chimp".
They called it David Cassidy - Man Undercover, then actually had the chrome-plated cojones to admit you might not be paying much attention, so they said "starring David Cassidy"...as if it might have had that title and starred Bobby Sherman...you knew it was gonna suck out loud when they did that. On top of that they tried to stack the deck and had Danny Bonaduce guest star in the very first episode...it didn't help.
I think we got the answer... but if you dig up old Hollywood Squares episodes, you will see that he was an extremely funny and very clever man. I can't think of anyone like him today; if Rupaul wore suits and did horror shows, maybe they could pull it off.
The Police Story episode that it was based on was good enough for NBC to give it a chance at a 5 episode limited-run series. However, the critics disagreed.
I was going to mention why was The Brady Bunch Hour came in 8th instead of 1st & then there was "Me & The Chimp" on top of the dung heap. Thanks again, FredFlix. 🤣
Few things of note here. There were 2 actors mentioned here that left hit TV shows to pursue their own interests only for those shows to shop. One was McLean Stevenson who left MASH to do Hello Larry(he was essentially Frasier Crane before there was a Frasier Crane). Hello Larry, which was a spinoff of Diff'rent Strokes believe it or not, lasted 2 seasons and was pretty much career suicide for Stevenson who never really rebounded. The 2nd was Pat Morita who left Happy Days to make Mr. T. & Tina which flopped miserably getting cancelled after only 5 episodes. Fortunately for him his career was saved by The Karate Kid. Also, Holmes & Yoyo I remember and it's because of this show that my 35 year fantasy football team is named the Bunko Squad(a different spelling of the word bunco which is a division of a detective squad that specializes in fraud). Yoyo used to skip like a record while saying "the bunco squad". And the Brady Bunch Hour flopped because they couldn't get Eve Plumb and it kind of killed the cast.
I'm glad Me and the Chimp didn't stay on because The Walton's wouldn't have been the same without Kami Cotler as Elizabeth, who is my favorite sister and Jim Ben was my favorite brother.
I missed most of this mess because I was overseas serving with the US Navy from March 1972 to OCT 1977..except for about 13 months...Yesh..what a mess. I do remember Supertrain.. might have watched one show...maybe....
@@testodude - You can see it on Ted Bessell's face in the credits for "Me & the Chimp". "I went from a highly successful show That Girl to this slop?!?"
@@davester1970 "Planet of the Apes" was what started this "monkey business". Along with the Saturday morning kids' program, "Lancelot Link and the Secret Chimp"!
BJ and the Bear, as bad as it was, was still wayyyy better than the list of croppers here. However, its spinoff, The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, probably does deserve to be on here - that show was epically, crater-blastingly awful.
Thank you Fred. Yes these were real tomato magnets. I just remember how sad it was to see Sonny without Cher. I still miss the simplicity of that time. Great job as always.
Apparently, the 'Brady Bunch Hour" was 59 minutes too long. Considering David Cassidy's supposed fan base, wasn't he a heartthrob, you'd think his series would've succeeded somewhat.
The one show that deserves dishonorable mention was the Donnie & Marie episode when they did a Star Wars show. The can-can line of Stormtroopers was classic. There was also an episode of the Dinah Shore show that had R2-D2 for a guest. Painfully bad but everybody was trying to jump on the Star Wars bandwagon.
If you asked a fairly knowledgeable TV viewer what show McLean Stevenson left “MASH” for, the knee-jerk answer would likely be “Hello Larry.” But his first show after “MASH” was actually “The McLean Stevenson Show,” which probably could be on this list.
I love Miller but his problem is that he makes comedic references that even Dennis himself doesn't get. Remember his stint on "Monday Night Football"? "The Raiders offensive line is so dry Maurice Chevalier couldn't find a glass of Vichy water".
There is a show in one of these bad show comps called Holmes and Yoyo that aired on ABC that Universal produced. Now that I think of it, Baretta was produced by Uni and that was a hit for ABC. There are other ABC shows produced by Uni that aired in the '70's, and they sold series to the Alphabet Network over the following decades as well.,
UTV and its predecessor Revue Studios produced a number of shows for ABC in the 1960s as well, including Leave It To Beaver, McHale's Navy, It Takes A Thief and Marcus Welby M.D.
Too bad David Cassidy didn't _stay_ undercover. Man, this is some low-hanging fruit. Now I remember why I gave up on network television in the seventies.
The Number One Commandment of Television: Cast McLean Stevenson in anything except *M*A*S*H* and the result will be horrible: Hello, Larry, In the Beginning, The McLean Stevenson Show, The Doris Day Show, etc.
Your timeline is a bit off. To be precise McLean left The Doris Day Show to star on MASH. Doris Day was successful even though they changed the format every season.
David Cassidy Man Undercover: Starring David Cassidy ( Who else would it star?) How did Simon Oakland get involved w/ that? Supertrain was suppose to be NBC's answer to The Love Boat. One of Fred Silverman's high profile disasters after leaving ABC for NBC. How many times did they try to make The Brady Bunch into a 1 hr variety show? Mr T and Tina and Holmes & Yoyo ( from Get Smart , McMillan & Wife EP Leonard Stern) ran back to back on ABC on Saturday nights. Ted Bessell never could get his own successful series. Can't believe Garry Marshall co- created that mess.
kyokogodai I can understand that. But I think there would've been better choices. David must've had a deal w/ Columbia Pictures Television (fka Screen Gems) which produced Partridge Family.
Supertrain might have been more interesting if they'd given the sets to Irwin Allen to play with, though it certainly would not have been _anyone's_ answer to _Love Boat_. :) How many smiling, quirky villain characters did Edward Andrews play over the years? Seems like a strange casting choice as the conductor of a Love Train, though, and that probably didn't help the show gain traction.
Brett Middleton Mr Andrews did seem like an odd choice to play that part. The whole concept was a disaster. One of network television's most expensive failures ever. Even though Fred Silverman' s start was really rough he was also responsible for getting shows such as Hill Street Blues on the air.
5:50 Comic Jeff Altman--if I remember correctly, he was on an HBO Rodney Dangerfield comedy special in the 1980s, that also featured Roseanne Barr and Jerry Seinfeld, among others.
5:20 My sister & I , when aged 7 & 8, used to love watching the show about the comical robot policeman, and all the technical fails and misadventures was hilarious! But for many years I couldn't find any reference to it because I always remembered it as being called "EGO (Electronic Government Officer)".
We were just in Lake Tahoe 9/15/19 looking for a vacation home. We used to ski at heavenly valley. He did something not right. We don't ski anymore, I had a bad injury, but when my kids started skiing I forced them to wear helmets... their answer was" God mom we are gonna look like nerds" my reply was better a nerd than dead. Soon afterwards it became a requirement I'm gonna say in or around 1985ish. And snowboarding, I needed a Valium just to watch ! lol im kidding.
Wow Fred, you really came up with some obscure, forgotten shows from the 70s. Ted Bessel in "Me and the Chimp"? I don't even remember that show. I just remember him as Donald Hollinger on "That Girl". Keep digging up these nuggets of nostalgia for all us fans.
I began college in 1973, so I have a vague recollection of "Hello, Larry" and "Mr. T and Tina." I guess it's not "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
In her memoirs, Maureen McCormick admitted that she'd been poisoning herself with cocaine during the "Brady Bunch Hour". She kicked her drug habit later on.
Brinson Harris Kami Cotler who played the daughter on Me and the Chimp portrayed the youngest sibling (Elizabeth) on The Waltons for it's entire run including the half dozen tele- films which followed.
Amazingly BAD. . . . The only one I ever heard of, (until now,) was your #1 choice, with the chimp. Wow, how bad can you get? Thanks for sharing these!!!
Where do you get this stuff, Fred??? I love your collection! Things like "Hello Larry" that I forgot about and then seeing HR Puffnstuff guesting on the Brady Bunch Hour.....my kids can't believe old tv!
Jen, I wanted to thank you for your donation but your email address was not provided by Paypal. As for where I get this stuff, it's easier than it seems. While I do have over 1,000 commercials, probably 2,000 movies and about 7,000 TV episodes (all collected on video over a 40-year period), if I don't have what I need I simply recycle RU-vid clips. As for extracting the material from my collection, I have just about everything converted to computer files, for easy use and for RU-vid to accept. If there's a commercial or a scene I want to upload (but not the whole video), I run it through my movie making software and take what I need and package it as I want. As for any photos I use, they're all downloaded from Google images. Thanks again for your donation and your interest.
There was a period in the seventies that I stopped watching tv. Felt like there were better things to do with my life! Looks like I didn't miss anything!
Good job Fred! Talk about bad, i never even heard of any of them except for Hello Larry and Mr. T & Tina. And the bad part about one was that McLean Stevenson left MASH because he wanted his own show and ended up on that piece of garbage proving he was better off as a co-star than a show's star. Also, i don't remember why Pat Morita left Happy Days, but he to left a great show only to probably never live it down! Plus he was better than Al Molinaro, who replaced him as the proprietor of Arnold's.
Hey, we watched shows like that back in the day because there were only four or five channels and dad’s bullcrap bargain-basement rabbit ears couldn’t always pick them up well enough to be watchable. The other stations were often just showing crappy old movies. We had no video games. We had no computers. No iPads, no Pay Per View. None of that stuff. Our family’s one phone was connected to the wall by a wire and it had two functions: 1) make phone calls and 2) receive phone calls. Nowadays, everyone has their own phones and the only time they’re connected to a wire is when wireless charging. And of course they have so many features and offers a world of instant gratification. I’m not saying that’s bad, just that it’s a different time. For me, it’s the future.
I was in the Army overseas for three years in the 1970s and so was able to avoid exposure to most of these shows. With old TV shows, you can make two lists: One for how bad the show was at the time and another one for how bad you think the show is in hindsight. I have to say that all of these shows are as bad today as they were back then. But thanks for sharing and reminding us!
The Brady Bunch Hour was merely a clone of The Donny & Marie Show (also by the Kroffts). The difference was the Brady were even more saccharine than the Osmonds (if that's even possible).
Somebody needs to write and produce A HIT BROADWAY MUSICAL featuring our most beloved TV characters from horrible shows who are all trapped on a runaway SUPERTRAIN. The passenger list includes : 1. Alf the alien. 2. Vicky in Small Wonder. 3. Sister Bertrille The Flying Nun. 4. Police Detective Sledge Hammer. 5. The Pink Lady girls. 6. The Home Boys from Outer Space. 7. Mrs. Crabtree aka My Mother The Car.
The only time I've watched Fred & got a headache.These were so bad,they were g...nah,they were bad.But I really liked Ted Bessell...,the actor not the show.A good bad job Fred!
I don't think many of those made it over the Atlantic to the UK; the only ones I remember seeing are 'Lanigan's Rabbi' (which I didn't think was too bad at the time) and 'Holmes & Yoyo' (which was definitely complete tosh).
I think she had enough sense to save her self respect. Good for Eve. The BB was ok at best but the spinoffs were beyond painful. Amazing people actually thought any of this garbage was any good. I think some of that must have been summer filler
@@FredFlix Eve was way more pretty than Maureen McCormick. I was stuck on Mike Lookinland as a teenager, maybe that's why I used to watch The Brady Bunch Hour.
Allan Blye was one of the people behind _The Sonny Comedy Revue,_ but he more than redeemed himself with things like The Smothers Brothers and Super Dave Osborne.
Anita Gillette was also a regular panelist on the syndicated version of What's My Line as well. Did you ever hear her sing? Her singing voice makes Barbra Streisand sound just like an amateur. (No offense to Barbra Streisand.) It's so powerful and beautiful! I saw her on a PBS tribute to Glenn Miller back in the 1980's and she sung Skylark. Her singing voice is so beautiful and powerful. She should have been a Top Ten recording artist.
An alternative title for this video could be :"TV Shows That Were So Bad, They Didn't Last Half a Season." Ungainly title, but true. I never heard of most of them & don't think I watched any of them. And I can't help thinking "What were they thinking? Fun video though.
6:20 The TV-G logo shows that this show aired as a rerun in the 90s. So it wasn't so bad that wasn't shown probably on an "old classic TV" cable channel as filler.
I recently started watching popular 70’s shows and I don’t understand how a terrible show like Welcome Back Cotter was so well loved. It tried watching a few episodes and I couldn’t get past the first 10 minutes. 😝
Kotter was the first program to treat the not-so-nice kids as three-dimensional beings, the kids with rough home lives and other problems. The program was one of the first sitcoms to deal with difficult life issues occasionally. It was also a way for "good kids" to vicariously hang out with the kind of students we avoided in real life. Lots of programs are products of their time, and don't necessarily travel well. I liked Kotter back when, but I think it's very much a program for adolescents. I was not a fan of Gabe Kaplan's humor on that program or as a stand-up, though.
I think your list is very accurate. A few other dumb shows deserve some "honor", too, like "Funny Face", "The Sandy Duncan Show", "The Girl With Something Extra", "Needles and Pins", and "Temperatures Rising". This is a nice, and oddly funny, video.
Got to disagree slightly. Some channel I no can receive showed a number of obscure TV shows a few years ago. The Girl with something Extra( it was ESP btw for those hoping for something more scandalous) was one. Saw it's entire short run, and actually thought it was an ok little series. There's a paperback novel out there of the same name if interested.
