It’s good to push the boundaries and be forward-thinking sometimes.The Simpsonsmanaged to upset people by being edgier than the average sitcom, and it still is around 30+ years later. Likewise,South Parkstill pushes people’s buttons (for better and worse) after 20+ years. However, it doesn’t take a multi-decade run to be popular.Breaking Bad,Firefly, andScrubsare still remembered fondly today after having run their course years ago.
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Other shows aren’t so lucky. Whether it’s due to bad taste, viewer backlash, or irritating the wrong people, theseTVprograms were canceled so quickly it’s a wonder they were approved in the first place.
8The Chop
This show from the UK’s Sky History channel was tempting fate with that name. The premise was innocent enough: ten of the country’s best carpenters compete in challenges to earn the title of Britain’s Best Woodworker, complete with their own exhibition at the William Morris Gallery. Its lethal dose of rot came in the form of one of its contestants: a heavily-tattooed man called Daniel Lumsden.
He gave away his white supremacist sympathies when viewers spotted an 88 tattoo on his head, which is a code number for neo-Nazis. He tried to explain this away as a reference to 1988, the year of his father’s passing. Sky thought this was a good-enough excuse until his father revealed he was alive and well. That, and Lumsden’s head had other, more obvious racist tattoos too. In the end, Sky canned the rest of the series to avoid the bad PR.
7Heil Honey, I’m Home!
At leastThe Chopcould’ve lasted if the producers had vetted the contestants better.Heil Honey, I’m Home!wasa bad idea from the beginning. Yet someone at theBBCin 1990 thought it was workable enough to film a full series. It was a spoof of 1950s US sitcoms, as Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had to learn to get along with the Goldensteins, their new Jewish neighbors.
Its single broadcast episode played out more likeI Love Lucy, with Hitler sounding like he came from Brooklyn than Austria. Either way, it was detested as soon as it was shown and canceled, with the remaining episodes locked away. All that’s known about them is that they would’ve featured other cuddly characters like former UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and Herman Göring turning up for the Christmas Special.
6Who’s Your Daddy?
Let’s cool things down with something that doesn’t involve Nazis, though it proved to be just as controversial. FOX’sWho’s Your Daddywas a reality show where former adoptees had to find their biological father among a host of impostors. If they guessed correctly, they won $100,000, and if they didn’t, then the fake daddy would’ve got the money instead.
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The show managed to broadcast a single 90-minute pilot ‘special’ where a woman managed to guess correctly. While that was good for her, it wasn’t good for FOX, as it received bad press, low viewing figures, and backlash from their affiliates. They shelved the 5 remaining episodes until years later when they needed to fill space on their now-defunct FOX Reality channel. Even though the controversy had blown over by then, viewers still didn’t tune in.
5Videos After Dark
Before YouTube and TikTok made it obsolete,America’s Funniest Home Videoswas the top place to see wacky videos of ordinary people pratfalling, having accidents, and generally getting into trouble. Still, they only broadcast the family-friendly stuff. They must’ve had something spicier in their vaults.ABCcertainly did, as they planned to showcase them in 2019 inVideos After Dark.
It was a more adult take onAFHVpresented by itsoriginal host Bob Saget. The show debuted with a ‘special first look’ episode, promising to make more if it proved popular. It didn’t because, aside from the internet being a thing by then, the show was more uncomfortable and gross than funny.
4Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos
At leastVideos After Darkgot a single episode shown in its entirety. The Australians beat ABC to the punch by 16 years withAustralia’s Naughtiest Home Videos. It was a spin-off of their own version ofFunniest Home Videosfor TCN-9 and featured racy clips featuring nudity (both accidental and intentional), sex jokes, and other naughty things.
Only half of its 60-minute run made it to air because Kerry Packer, the owner of the channel’s network, was actually watching it at the time. He was so upset that he called the studio and demanded it be taken off the air immediately. They complied, despite complaints from viewers who had been enjoying the show. It wasn’t shown in full until 2008, 3 years after Packer’s death, and even then, parts of the show were censored.
3Turn-On
People didn’t have to go Down Under to find another show pulled before it finished airing. Broadcast in 1969,Turn-Onwas supposed to be a futuristic take onLaugh-In, under the premise that its sketches were written by a computer. It would’ve had different guest hosts like Tim Conway taking part, making risqué jokes with a cybernetic twist. By today’s standards, it’s rather tame, but the racy jokes weren’t the biggest part of the problem; it was its presentation.
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The 4-way split screens, bright white backdrops, quick cuts, and Moog synthesizer laugh track really got on people’s nerves. The show was shut off roughly 10 minutes into its run, with its remaining time taken up with an old emergency screen instead. Conway said it was ahead of its time, and he might’ve been right, as today’sAI-produced scripts and artcan be just as messy as this show.
2Dude, This Sucks
If there’s anything worse for a show than being canceled mid-broadcast, it has to be getting shut down in the middle of filming.MTV’sDude, This Suckswas going to be a Noughties twist onThe Gong Show, where teams perform talent-based feats to earn cash. If they fail to entertain the judges or audience, they get told by everyone they suck and are disqualified.
One act especially sucked for two teen girls in the audience. An act known as the ‘Shower Rangers’ did a performance where they blasted jets of stool water out of their butts because gross-out humor was stillbig at the time. The stool water coated the two girls from head to toe, leaving them and their parents none too happy. They sued MTV, who stopped all work on the show soon afterward. Whatever was filmed hasn’t leaked onto the net thus far.
1Seriously Dude, I’m Gay
If FOX wasn’t straining taste withWho’s Your Daddy, they snapped it in half withSeriously Dude, I’m Gay. FOX thought they’d capitalize on therise of LGBTQ mediain the mid-2000s by revealing “every heterosexual man’s worst nightmare: turning gay overnight!”. The show was about two men pretending to be gay to their friends, family, and other loved ones.
They’d have to prove their new sexuality by living with an actually gay roommate, going to gay clubs, and performing daily challenges. The most convincing man would win $50,000, and draw the ire of anyone who thought they had actually come out. Not that either contestant got the chance, as its 2-hour special was pulled from the schedules 11 days before it was meant to debut.
