The Dumbest Ideas That Became Successful TV Series or Movies?

That was so wrong, it became genius.

ENT was an amazing idea, completely retardedly executed. Whether the producers or the network is to blame for that is up for debate, but it was just horrible.

As an aside, I've said this before, but ENT is the reason I'm here. When I heard about the premise, I absolutely wanted to e-mail Paramount to weigh in with my opinion but it was pretty much impossible to find a decent way to contact them so I wound up joining StarTrek.com. When I could no longer tolerate how absolutely terribly StarTrek.com's BBS was run I eventually made my way to TBBS and later here.

You're not alone. I never watched an episode.

I never willingly watched an episode of Knight Rider or The A-Team, either.

You're a faggot. "The A-Team" is one of the greatest works of art in Western Civilization.

This guy...


Covers a multitude of sins.

Seriously, I watch the show, and i pretty much put up with everything else just to watch him.

(that said, my interest is fading because the other shit is getting TOO tiresome)

several shows mentioned in this thread were not, in fact, "dumb ideas" - they were just poorly executed.

[yt=This]M9Joid6wx3Q[/yt] has GOT to be on the list somewhere.

^"Bosom Buddies" was a similar concept to "Work It" and that managed to work out OK for Tom Hanks.

Also, "successful" would have to be downgraded to "actually made it to air," as "Work It" got cancelled after maybe 2-3 episodes.

Lost, or, how to pile on mystery after mystery and hope your audience doesn't notice you have no idea what direction you're taking the show.

Ice Road Truckers and all of its spin-offs, or, taking something that might make an interesting one-off documentary and running it completely into the ground.

Oh, and Ancient Astronauts, because the History Channel isn't actually about history anymore, so we might as well put fake history on there.

Actually, Ancient Aliens is no longer on History. It's been moved over to H2.

Point still valid.

I'm seeing a mash-up with knight rider here...

Homeland.


God I hate that show. I gave the first season a try and it consistently pissed me off until I stopped watching, about the 8th episode. Is he a terrorist or isn't he? Is he a nice guy or is he evil?

The only good thing about that show was Morena Baccarin's tits.

well yeah,forgot about the "successful"bit.

But Bossom Buddies was stupid too. The CONCEPT is fine, but you have to cast actors that you can plausibly by as passable in drag if your whole gag hangs on them not being clocked. And not give either one of them names like "Buffy" and "Hilldigarde"

Muscle car with hot babe mechanic

I think you miss the entire point of the humor of drag. The humor comes from the man NOT looking passable in drag. Drag is an absurdist comic trope.

Edward Mulhare and William Daniels

I'm astonished Hogan's Heroes got on the air - much less became a hit. A sitcom full of wacky adventures in a madcap Nazi POW camp? Seriously. Whoever pitched that had balls like watermelons.

Especially considering it was what, only about 20 years after World War Two.

HA! I remember Gilbert Godfried talking about this. Imagine Gilbert's squint as he says:

"It's about JEWS in a prison camp. It's a feel-good comedy!"

But I don't know of any TV shows or movies based on your ideas, Dayton.

"Beverly Hillbillies" "Brady Bunch" "Gilligans Island" (Ginger and MaryAnn were hot though )

in the proper context (say, Milton Berle or Flip Wilson) sure. I just find the "suspension of disbelief" element a little high in the shows discussed.

The absurdist idea you mentioned is the equivalent of slapstick, which has it's place as a skit or a gag but seldom holds together a whole series. A sitcom requires a little bit higher level of plausibility, IMO.

"Hogan's Heroes" was wonderful. I demand that Alan Rickman and Bruce Willis reunite to do a big screen version of it.

Mel Brooks has said that by laughing at Nazis, we rob them of their power. No doubt, putting Hogan's Heroes on the air gave the people who were in the war a way to laugh at the things they saw during the war. I think that its telling that many of the actors on the show were people who'd been victims of the Nazis. Being able to portray them as buffoons was pretty much a "Fuck you!" to the Nazi bastards.

[YT="Spoken like someone who's never seen a moment of the show."]mrQRdDui-n4[/YT]

Dear god, is it awful.

That a good idea.

Don't be surprised when you get Ben Stiller and Will Farrel instead.

it was worth it for Doohan as a drunken, pissed off Scotty

Y'know... Ferrel as Schultz might not be bad.

Stiller might be able to pull off a reasonable Klink, but it'd take some effort.