EW: "Thanksgiving Turkeys in TV"

[JamesG]

Turkeys! TV That Flamed Out in Spectacular Ways
by EW Staff
Nov 26, 2014



TV Shows Starting with the Words "The New"

In television, shows with the words "The New" in their titles might just as well carry signs reading "TURKEYS AHEAD" instead.

Sometimes "The New" signals an attempt to trade on audience goodwill for a series that's downright dull. Examples: "The New Dick Van Dyke Show" or "The New Andy Griffith Show".

In other cases, producers are just trying the equivalent of television CPR; witness the syndicated disasters "The New Gidget" and "The New Monkees".



Occasionally, "new" doesn't mean new at all, but very, very old (see the entire cast of 1985–89's "The New Leave It to Beaver").

In 1984, "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels tried to reduce the concept to its essence with his prime-time NBC variety hour "The New Show". It lasted less than three months.









"Turn-On" (1969)

ABC's comedy revue from "Laugh-In" executive producer George Schlatter was expected to be another fast-paced laff riot. Advance publicity promised lots of psychedelic stop-action photography, groovy electronic music and a repertory cast with a make-believe computer playing the part of "host."

Flash forward to Feb. 5, 1969, when "Turn-On's" single-episode run made it the shortest-lived network series in history. Viewers were turned off by what they thought was bad taste and the show's sexual double entendres.

The general manager of ABC's Philadelphia affiliate even fired off a telegram to ABC Television president Elton Rule calling the show "just plain dirty…If you naughty little boys have to write dirty words on the walls, please don't use our walls."









"Supertrain" (1979)

At the time NBC conceived "Supertrain", programming whiz Fred Silverman was at the top of his game, coming off such hits as "Charlie's Angels", "Happy Days", and "Laverne and Shirley".

Playing off the success of ABC's "The Love Boat", Silverman decided to transplant that show onto a trans-continental luxury train complete with a swimming pool and a disco, where guest stars would work out their personal lives every week with the help of a friendly crew.

Cost: $12 million.



"Supertrain" went off the tracks after less than a month and marked the beginning of the end of Silverman's winning streak. NBC worked frantically to streamline the show's format, but when "Supertrain" returned about a month later, it failed again.

The show became a symbol of Silverman's inability to bring NBC out of third place, and he dropped out of sight in 1981 until regaining the touch as a successful independent TV producer of such shows as "Matlock" and "In the Heat of the Night".









"Pink Lady and Jeff" (1980)

After springing "Supertrain" on the American public, NBC president Fred Silverman needed a hit for his network in early 1980.

Working with bright, young Brandon Tartikoff, the newly promoted president of NBC Entertainment, the TV whizzes developed a show around Pink Lady, a Japanese superstar singing duo of two young ladies named Mie and Kei.



Not only were the singers virtually unknown to Americans, they didn't speak much English. To solve the language-barrier problem, comedian Jeff Altman was called in to play their tuxedo-clad interpreter. Dolled up in fishnet stockings, hot pants, and halter tops, Mie and Kei sang and joined Jeff in witty repartee.

Trouble was, only the laugh-track operator could understand it. "It could've been funny had we been a little sarcastic about ourselves and not taken the girls so seriously," Altman later admitted. "Pink Lady and Jeff" was canceled in a month and Mie and Kei bid sayonara to the States.









"The David Letterman Show" (1980)

Letterman was a frequent sub for Johnny Carson in 1980, so NBC figured he was ready for his own program.

NBC president Fred Silverman thought the comedian would be ideal at 10 a.m. as an alternative to the standard morning fare of quiz shows and "The Jeffersons" reruns. Actually, this show wasn't much different from its late-night descendant, except that nobody watched.



Letterman interviewed celebrities, toured RCA offices, employed a core of regulars, including newsman Edwin Newman, and made surprise phone calls to "the folks at home."

There were even crowd-pleasing Stupid Pet Tricks.



The critics loved Dave, but the show proved to be one big stupid programming trick. "There was nothing wrong with the show, except that it wasn't a morning show," said one affiliate executive later.

Before NBC pulled the plug after 14 weeks, Letterman resorted to phoning program managers at stations and begging them to stick with it. NBC wisely refused to give up on the former weatherman, reportedly continuing to pay him $20,000 a week to stay with the network.

About a year and a half later "Late Night" premiered, and the turkey host became golden.









"Dolly" (1987-88)

"It takes a lot of money to make me look this cheap," was Dolly Parton's oft-quoted crack at the time ABC launched her variety show in September 1987. Indeed it did.

The network sank $44 million into the production, partly to build a rustic living-room set. ABC execs boasted that the show would single-handedly revive the musical variety genre. Part of the "Dolly" buildup was Dolly's slim-down. She took off so much weight that the Parton waist contracted to an itty-bitty 17 inches.



ABC promised it would stay with the show for two years. But after one season of cellar ratings, "Dolly" was put out to pasture. It's not that the country curioso didn't try. She sang 'Hey, Good Lookin' with Pee-wee Herman, vavoomed through a music video with Hulk Hogan, took on-screen bubble baths, and — thanks, Carol Burnett — matched wits with the studio audience.

Parton did not prove a natural comedienne though and, as research and common sense indicated, few Americans wanted to watch a variety show.









"USA Today: The Television Series" (1988–89)

The concept for this half-hour show sounded brilliant: Bring the nugget-size niblets of news in USA Today, the nation's second-largest-selling daily at the time, to the small screen in a nightly syndicated program.

Spearheading that attempt to revolutionize broadcast news were two superstar television producers: Grant Tinker (best known for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Lou Grant") and Steve Friedman ("Today").

Gannett Co., the publisher of USA Today, cheerfully bankrolled this syndicated venture.



The loud, frenetic, superglitzy "USA Today" on TV quickly repulsed many viewers and potential advertisers — those who could find it. In New York City, it originally aired at 2 a.m. The show lived through three overhauls and the departure of three of its four original anchors.

After a little more than a year and an estimated cost of $50 million, the show was finally canned.



"People say USA Today on TV was one of the biggest failures in syndication history," Friedman told EW. "But it lasted 15 months. You know what big failures are? Shows that don't get on the air — those are failures. We just didn't succeed."









"Chicken Soup" (1989)

Jackie Mason's ABC sitcom "Chicken Soup" was supposed to be the big hit of the 1989 fall season. The borscht-belt comic had just come off a long-running one-man-show on Broadway that drew critical raves.

This would be his first TV series. Cast as his foil and love interest: Lynn Redgrave.



Each week, "Chicken Soup" floundered in the ratings, losing millions of viewers from its top-rated lead-in, "Roseanne".

What went wrong? "Maybe my own personality is not the kind of a personality that appeals to the average American," speculated Mason after the show's seventh and final episode.

Maybe Mason should have kept quiet off the set, too. During New York City's '89 mayoral election, he described candidate David Dinkins as a "fancy shvartzer with a moustache," a comment that embarrassed even his most ardent fans.









"The Chevy Chase Show" (1993)

It was September 1993. David Letterman started the "Late Show". Conan O'Brien took up residence on "Late Night". Hip young network Fox wanted to get in on the late-night action with a hip new late night show.

Unfortunately, the frontman they selected for their grand late-night experiment was Chevy Chase, settling into a mid-career rut and ludicrously unprepared for the nightly gig.



While there have been plenty of ill-conceived nighttime chat shows (ahem, "The Magic Hour"), the fact that this seasoned comedian made such a mess of the format was perhaps what hurt the most.

At the time, EW TV critic Ken Tucker gave the show an F, and Fox cut the "Chase" after five weeks.









"Homeboys in Outer Space" (1996-97)

UPN at its UPN-iest, "Homeboys in Outer Space" was a back-of-the-napkin pitch conceived in what we can only assume was a boredom-induced boardroom fugue state. Enough people thought it was a good idea to put it on TV.

Beyond its hilariously literal, pre-Snakes on a Plane title, "Homeboys" was most notable for an incredible array of guest-stars, including but not limited to Erik Estrada, Gary Coleman, Natasha Henstrige, George Takei (as himself!), and—why not? — Little Richard.

Also for lasting an entire season.









"Father of the Pride" (2004-05)

"The Office" would save the day for NBC's comedy block in 2005, but the previous fall saw the Peacock trying to retain its audience with a "Friends" spin off and… an animated show about Siegfried and Roy's white lions?

"Father of the Pride" was a strange fit for just about any network. The mixed messaging of an animated show in primetime that could be surprisingly adult never really found its voice or viewers.

The timing also didn't work in the show's favor — it debuted about a year after a white tiger attacked Roy on stage and ended the duo's long-running show.









"Cavemen" (2007)

Everyone loved the Cavemen in the GEICO commercials.

Everyone hated those same Cavemen when they suddenly starred in their own TV show, possibly because said TV show made the incredibly awkward decision to use Cavemen as a blunt, not-very-well-thought-through race metaphor.

Hey, it gave Nick Kroll a paycheck for awhile!









"Viva Laughlin" (2007)

A murder mystery set in a sleazy Las Vegas casino, executive produced by Hugh Jackman? Hmm, sounds intriguing. Wait, it's also a musical? Uh...sure? Okay!

Viewers who actually watched the adaptation of Brit series "Viva Blackpool" (and there weren't many) found it to be surprisingly flat and lifeless, from its obvious song choices ('One Way or Another', 'Viva Las Vegas') to its boilerplate plot.

CBS agreed, canceling its experiment after airing just two episodes; it'd be two years before "Glee" made television a safe space for musicals again.









"Terra Nova" (2011)

Want to watch a weekly Jurassic Park-like drama on TV? Of course you do! So Fox made "Terra Nova"… but forgot to actually make the show interesting.

Pegged as a major tentpole series, an example of how great TV effects could stack up to those in film, "Terra Nova" spent so much time on the (admittedly nice-looking) dinosaurs that the story and characters felt like afterthoughts.

Never able to find much of an audience, "Terra Nova" died a slow death over 13 episodes, its most surprising achievement was showing that an alternate Earth filled with dinosaurs could actually be boring.









"The Playboy Club" (2011)

Remember watching that one episode of "Mad Men" where Lane Pryce visits New York City's Playboy Club and thinking, "Hey, I'd watch a whole series of this!"

No? Well, apparently NBC did.



Unfortunately, the show was pretty much doomed from the start; the dialogue was groan-inducing, the soapy plot was more eye roll-worthy than cheesy fun, the female empowerment angle was questionable at best, and, perhaps most importantly, "Playboy" star Eddie Cibrian was no Don Draper.

No wonder NBC pulled the plug after three episodes had aired, making it the first cancellation of 2011. Poor Laura Benanti deserved better.









"Utopia" (2014)

Fox spent $50 million on a reality concept imported from the Netherlands. It was a bold gamble since "Utopia" didn't have any of the usual reality-genre competition elements.

And, when early returns made it clear that the show would not be the post-American Idol ratings juggernaut that the network was hoping for, the series immediately fell into mission drift, shaking up the format by adding in weekly eliminations.

Intended to last an entire year, "Utopia" was yanked after two labored months. Perhaps they should have taken a cue from YA megahits and called it Dystopia?

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20876472,00.html

[king of comedy]

The only 2 I saw were Terra Nova and Father of the Pride. The rest I never heard or saw.

[Regulus]

Last year I saw a copy of Father of the Pride at a Big Lots store, three bucks took it away. (I haven't watched it yet).

[dakert]

I haven't seen any of these programs.