The Dumbest Ideas That Became Successful TV Series or Movies?

There are lots of good ideas that become successful.

There are lots of good ideas that do not become successful for various reasons.

There are lots of dumb ideas that do not become successful.

But what about the dumb ideas that (in the case of television and movies) become successes? Especially big successes.

On television, a series that comes to mind was Knight Rider. Strip away everything and it was still basically about a sarcastic talking car.

Even one of the television series books admitted it was one of the dumbest ideas to ever make it to screen.

Star Trek (1966)

BJ & The Bear - Pairing up anyone with an animal is immediate cause for a shitfest. But a truck driver with his own monkey, that is totally fucking stupid.

Every single reality TV show.

The Flying Nun! Anyone with a smidgeon of sense can see that the surface
area and shape of her nun's hat would never, ever give her enough lift to fly......UNLESS she was shot out of a cannon. But then she wouldn't need any hat at all really.

MythBusters needs to cover this!

BAYWATCH NIGHTS. Take a successful, simple formula (bouncing boobs), add aliens 'n stuff. Disaster.

Not that I ever saw a single episode of either, mind you. Yes, that's me. I'm the one person who never watched BAYWATCH.

Super Gran.

I've never watched Baywatch either, but adding aliens actually sounds intriguing.

I'll put in Who wants to be a Millionaire - 95% contrived suspense, the rest school-style multiple-choice test of trivia that's not even particularly interesting.

I've never even heard of that, now I must see it.

The Deadliest Catch, and similar reality shit. stuff like that makes an interesting one hour documentary, after which you know everything you'll ever need to know on the subject. But it's beyond me how they've lasted for multiple seasons.

Enterprise-

Of course, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

The series description should've been

"How to ruin a 40 year old franchise in only three seasons".

I believe Enterprise ran four seasons.

The fourth season sucked a hairy ballsack. The only reason why geeks seem to excuse the fourth season is because it was filled with fanboy wank material. Nevertheless, it still sucked. It's a fact.

Yes, but by the end of the third season the show and the franchise it was the showcase for was dead man walking.

All it took to revive it was a few years, Treks first big named director in 18 years, a casual fan friendly reboot

...and a 100 million dollars

I'm thinking the one with the guy and his talking car fighting crime by jumping over stuff, or the one with the high school cheerleader slaying vampires.

My Mother the Car.

You really needed someone to tell you this?

Mr. Ed.

Revolution

Ah, those old chestnuts.

Wow. I somehow managed to forget you already did Knight Rider just while reading the few posts in this thread. Sorry.

Um, she like totally gave up the cheerleading when she was slaying.







/jk

Once Upon A Time.

Why is this show still on the air? It's beyond horrible.

Anything involving a Kardashian.

Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo.

Baywatch is another example that could be described as one of the dumbest ideas to ever make it to screen. My take away is that casting David Haselhoff in the lead role for a show with a dumb premise is a brilliant idea.

The whole "hot babes with their breasts bouncing in slow motion" thing probably didn't hurt the show any.

Then explain Knight Rider! It's the Hoff!

I don't think "Enterprise" inherently was based on a dumb idea ("show the founding of the Federation while forces from the future try to undermine it") -- it just was pretty poorly executed.

I also don't know if one could call it "successful," unless you mean "actually got on the air" as the definition of successful.

True story.

When my dad first saw "Knight Rider" he thought he was seeing "My Mother the Car: The Next Generation (though he didn't call it that).

Ironically, dad thought both series ideas were completely idiotic yet he enjoyed Knight Rider considerably.

I think that if a series lasts three but most definitely four seasons it is generally considered a "success".

Because traditionally four season and 90-100 episodes was enough to sell a series into a nice syndication package.

I threw golden trollbait out there, and nobody pounced on it.

[yt=Here's how I feel about that.]84zY33QZO5o[/yt]

Agree with Forbin about tuna/crab/etc. fishing...
and logging.....
and duck/deer hunting.....

BTW it's official - there are now more reality shows about Alaska than there are residents of that state.

Also, Honey Boo-Boo lives near Macon, which has a lot of bears on the outskirts.
Just sayin'.....there's a great series ender right there.

No you don't. I caught part of one episode, and it was just embarrassingly bad. Not "Oh my God! This is so bad, its hysterically funny!" bad. It was inspired by how popular the X-Files was at the time, and seemed to have been written and directed by people who thought Sesame Street was intellectually challenging to adults. The bit I saw was the opening of one episode, and featured a scantily clad woman standing under a tree on a moonlit night, wearing a cape and vampire fangs, flapping her arms while hissing.

I'll nominate The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer (a sitcom about slavery) or Small Wonder (a sitcom about a scientist who built a robot daughter).

Homeboys in Outer Space wasn't wildly successful but was on TV for 2 years somehow.