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What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events In Television History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Were_They_Thinking%3F_The_100_Dumbest_Events_In_Television_History

'What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events In Television History'  is a 2004  book by David Hofstede which as the title would imply, chronicles and examines the very worst of television. It could by anything ranging from individual plot points or elements, poor network decisions, or even entire shows. It should be noted that the book focuses solely on American television. As a result, it does leave out some of the most infamous television events in other parts of the world. The foreword was written by Tom Bergeron, hosted Fox's ill-fated FOX After Breakfast, which is #23 on the list.

List

 * 1) The Star Wars Holiday Special
 * 2) Dallas revealing that Bobby Ewing didn't actually die at the end of Season 8, which meant that the entire ninth season was just a dream of Pamela's.
 * 3) The Jerry Springer Show turning from an issues-oriented and political talk show, into a trashy, violent, sexually deviant filled freak show
 * 4) Jackie Gleason's ill-fated game show You're in the Picture, which was cancelled after only one episode.
 * 5) CNN trying to promote their new journalist Paula Zahn as "sexy"
 * 6) The 1950s quiz show scandals
 * 7) The inclusion of Scrappy-Doo into the Scooby-Doo franchise (1979-88)
 * 8) Geraldo Rivera 1986 report on the discovery of Al Capone's vault only to wind up finding nothing but debris
 * 9) Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?
 * 10) The Heidi Game
 * 11) The Brady Bunch Hour
 * 12) My Mother the Car
 * 13) Televangelist Oral Roberts announcing in January 1987 that God will "call him home" if he didn't receive $8,000,000 from his flock
 * 14) The Anna Nicole Show 
 * 15) How flawed the Primetime Emmy Awards' system is when it comes to choosing the winners
 * 16) Rampant product placement, particularly in televised sports
 * 17) William Shatner's spoken word take on Elton John's "Rocket Man" at the 1977 Saturn Awards.
 * 18) Dateline's 1992 report on exploding General Motors trucks
 * 19) The "Big Three" networks each producing their own TV movies about Amy Fisher (ABC and CBS' aired on the same night)
 * 20) Supertrain
 * 21) Life with Lucy
 * 22) The Goddess of Love starring Vanna White
 * 23) FOX After Breakfast
 * 24) The Lost in Space episode "The Great Vegetable Rebellion"
 * 25) Turn-On
 * 26) The Magic Hour
 * 27) St. Elsewhere's series finale which revealed that the whole series was a figment of an autistic child's imagination
 * 28) The $1.98 Beauty Show
 * 29) Cop Rock
 * 30) Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell
 * 31) The violent and sexually suggestive epilogue of Michael Jackson's 1991 "Black or White" music video
 * 32) Dynasty re-casting Emma Samms as Fallon (beginning April 1985) after being originated by Pamela Sue Martin for the first four seasons
 * 33) Pink Lady and Jeff
 * 34) Twin Peaks' second season
 * 35) Drudge
 * 36) Moonlighting's poor handling of Dave and Maddie as a couple
 * 37) Chuck Cunningham's abrupt and unexplained disappearance on Happy Days
 * 38) Colby losing to Tina on Survivor: The Australian Outback
 * 39) CBS' many failed attempts at morning shows (such as The Morning Show, Calendar, The Morning Program)
 * 40) The Dana Carvey Show and how ABC set it up to fail
 * 41) Several TV adaptations of films, including a 1983 Casablanca adaptation with David Soul as Humphrey Bogart's character Rick Blaine
 * 42) Burger King's "Where's Herb?" commercials
 * 43) Small Wonder
 * 44) The Dukes of Hazzard replacing Bo and Luke with Coy and Vance (1982-83)
 * 45) Fish Police
 * 46) The Reagans
 * 47) Cousin Oliver joins The Brady Bunch for its final six episodes
 * 48) The XFL
 * 49) The 1960s era TV rule against showing navels on women (directly affecting such shows as Gidget, Gilligan's Island, and I Dream of Jeannie)
 * 50) Thicke of the Night
 * 51) Shelley Hack taking over for Kate Jackson on Charlie's Angels in Season 4
 * 52) The 61st Academy Awards telecast (March 29, 1989)
 * 53) Dan Rather using "Courage" as his signoff on the CBS Evening News beginning on September 1, 1986
 * 54) The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer
 * 55) NBC's 1983 Fall schedule, which featured eight series that were canceled before their first seasons ended (including Manimal, Jennifer Slept Here', Bay City Blues, and We Got It Made).
 * 56) The Brothers Grunt
 * 57) NBC failing to allow David Letterman to use the proper names of his NBC-era segments on CBS' Late Show
 * 58) The New Monkees
 * 59) Dusty's Trail
 * 60) The Wilton North Report
 * 61) Dark Shadows' "Leviathan" storyline
 * 62) WWF Raw's Mark Henry/Mae Young storyline
 * 63) Land of the Lost (1974)'s third season
 * 64) Madonna's "Like a Prayer" music video debut
 * 65) Joanie Loves Chachi
 * 66) Roger Ramjet and Underdog both getting scrutinized by moral guardians due to allegations of glamorizing drug abuse
 * 67) Days of Our Lives' 1994-95 storyline involving Marlena Evans being the victim of a demonic possession
 * 68) The failed attempts to Americanize Fawlty Towers (such as Chateau Snavely, Amanda's and Payne)
 * 69) The erasure of countless TV shows
 * 70) The Chevy Chase Show
 * 71) The Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Spock's Brain"
 * 72) Any shows centering on talking babies (such as Happy, Baby Talk, and Baby Bob)
 * 73) Roseanne Barr's awful rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at a San Diego Padres game in 1990
 * 74) Nick @ Nite replacing classic shows from the 1950s-60s such as I Love Lucy and The Patty Duke Show in favor of more recent shows from the 1980s-90s.
 * 75) The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island
 * 76) Paul Lynde as a bachelor on The Dating Game
 * 77) Harold Robbins' The Survivors
 * 78) Janet Jackson's Wardrobe Malfunction at Super Bowl XXXVIII in Houston
 * 79) Bewitched recycling scripts after Dick Sargent took over as Darrin Stephens
 * 80) The Flying Nun
 * 81) The Woops! episode "Say It Ain't So, Santa"
 * 82) Battle of the Network Stars #18 (March 23, 1985)
 * 83) Me and the Chimp
 * 84) ABC's 1974 Wonder Woman TV-movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby
 * 85) Connie Francis performing poorly as a celebrity partner on The $10,000 Pyramid
 * 86) Elvis Presley being shot only from the waist up (due to Standards & Practices rules at the time that believing that Elvis' swiveling hip dances were too risqué) on The Ed Sullivan Show
 * 87) Cartoons of the 1970s that took place in space such as Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, Partridge Family 2200 AD, Yogi's Space Race, and Gilligan's Planet
 * 88) Laverne & Shirley writing Shirley (Cindy Williams) out of the show for the final season (1982-83)
 * 89) QVC selling the Poopin' Moose
 * 90) Bad Ronald
 * 91) USA Network's Up All Night
 * 92) The Aldrich Family's obscene amount of recasts (only House Jameson remained for all four seasons)
 * 93) The Dick Van Dyke Show episode "The Bad Old Days"
 * 94) 3's A Crowd
 * 95) The overabundance of westerns by the late 1950s (with approximately 30 in total).
 * 96) Quark
 * 97) Farrah Fawcett's awkward 1997 interview (where she appeared to be disoriented and incoherent) on The Late Show with David Letterman
 * 98) The addition of Dawn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Connor on Angel respectively
 * 99) AMC beginning to incorporate commercial breaks
 * 100) The Price Is Right's Professor Price game

Honorary mentions

 * 1) Saturday Night Live's sixth season (1980-81)
 * 2) Fred Silverman's tumultuous tenure at NBC (1978-81)
 * 3) Boohbah
 * 4) Are You Hot?: The Search for America's Sexiest People
 * 5) The Tortellis
 * 6) Batman often relegating Batgirl to a damsel in distress
 * 7) The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of Peter Marshall
 * 8) Santo Gold infomercials
 * 9) Jabberjaw
 * 10) The Morton Downey Jr. Show
 * 11) Made for TV sequels from the 1990s such as Revenge of the Nerds III and IV, and Problem Child III
 * 12) Playing It Straight
 * 13) It's About Time
 * 14) Rudolph's Shiny New Year
 * 15) MTV's (as well as MTV2) dramatic decline in quality
 * 16) The New Leave It to Beaver
 * 17) CBS bleeping Janet Jackson saying "Jesus" on The Late Show with David Letterman
 * 18) USA Today: The Television Show
 * 19) James Stockdale's performance in the 1992 vice presidential debate
 * 20) Frank Zappa hosting Saturday Night Live (October 21, 1978)
 * 21) The Love Boat Follies
 * 22) Playboy's 50th-Anniversary Celebration
 * 23) Baywatch Nights
 * 24) She's the Sheriff
 * 25) AfterMASH
 * 26) The Lingerie Bowl