The 1970s was a golden age for television, but behind the celebrated classics like All in the Family and MASH, a graveyard of spectacular failures was being built, one disastrous decision at a time. From a nuclear-powered train that literally derailed in front of the press to a sitcom starring a chimpanzee that critics called an insult to the audience, the decade produced a litany of shows so profoundly misguided they have become legendary. These were not just low-rated shows; they were multi-million-dollar bets that crashed and burned, forcing networks into corporate restructuring and leaving actors with career scars that never fully healed.
The sheer audacity of these failures is what makes them so fascinating today. NBC, desperate to escape the ratings cellar in 1979, gambled $5 million on Supertrain, a show conceived as The Love Boat on rails. The premise involved a nuclear-powered, double-decker train traveling from New York to Los Angeles, offering passengers the most luxurious experience imaginable.
The production was a nightmare from the start, with three scale models built at enormous cost. One of these models famously derailed during a press demonstration, offering a prophetic glimpse of the disaster to come. Each episode cost around $1 million, making it the most expensive television show ever produced at that time, yet the scripts were formulaic and the characters utterly forgettable.
The financial damage from Supertrain was so severe that it forced NBC into a major corporate restructuring, changing how the network operated for years. The failure was a spectacular implosion that executives could not contain, and the show became a byword for unchecked ambition and creative bankruptcy. Meanwhile, ABC was busy destroying a beloved franchise by turning the wholesome Brady family into disco-dancing performers.
The Brady Bunch Hour was a bizarre musical variety show that forced the cast into tight, shiny outfits and synchronized swimming routines, a far cry from the suburban sitcom audiences adored. The producers, Sid and Marty Krofft, known for their surreal style, were a terrible fit for the family, and the cast was visibly uncomfortable.
The show became so unbearable that Eve Plumb, who played Jan, refused to return, forcing producers to hire a lookalike whom viewers immediately dubbed “Fake Jan.” Robert Reed, who played Mike Brady, hated the show with a passion but was contractually obligated to perform pop songs he clearly despised. The show was cancelled after just nine episodes, leaving a stain on a franchise that had once been a ratings powerhouse.
In an even stranger twist, CBS tried to build a sitcom around a chimpanzee named Buttons in Me and the Chimp. The show, created by Garry Marshall before his Happy Days success, followed a dentist whose life is upended by a stray chimp, which was later revealed to be a genius escapee from a secret military space program.
The humor was basic, relying on the chimp ripping up wallpaper while a laugh track did the heavy lifting. Critics savaged the show, with TV Guide later including it on its list of the worst shows ever made, and CBS pulled the plug after just 13 episodes. The failure of these shows was not limited to the United States, as NBC also attempted to import a Japanese pop duo for Pink Lady and Jeff.
The two singers, Mitsuyo Nemoto and Kei Masuda, did not speak English and had to memorize their lines phonetically, leading to awkward, unnatural performances that confused viewers. The network tried to salvage the show with big-name guest stars and a bizarre hot tub segment, but the ratings plummeted, and it was cancelled after only six episodes.
The decade was also rife with shameless rip-offs and misguided attempts to capitalize on trends. Dusty’s Trail was a blatant copy of Gilligan’s Island, featuring Bob Denver in a similar outfit as a bumbling scout leading a group of pioneers lost in the desert. The characters were carbon copies of the original cast, and viewers rejected the show almost immediately.
Similarly, Co-ed Fever was CBS’s desperate attempt to cash in on the success of Animal House, but the jokes were forced and the characters unlikable. The network was so confident that they aired the pilot as a special preview, but the reaction was so poor that the show was cancelled after a single episode, with six more episodes locked away in a vault, never to be seen.
The trend of terrible shows extended to the sci-fi genre, where Quark tried to mix a space parody with broad comedy but ended up confusing both science fiction fans and casual viewers. The production costs were astronomical, with expensive sets and alien creatures, but the dry, deadpan humor failed to connect with audiences, leading to cancellation after just eight episodes. Far Out Space Nuts, another Bob Denver vehicle, was a Saturday morning kids show with cardboard sets and cheap rubber masks, which felt outdated compared to the smarter cartoons of the era.
The show was cancelled after 15 episodes, marking Denver’s third failed attempt to recreate his Gilligan’s Island magic.
Even the most respected producers were not immune to these disasters. Aaron Spelling, known for Charlie’s Angels, produced The San Pedro Beach Bums, a show about five unemployed, shiftless young men living on a messy houseboat. The characters were so irritating that viewers rooted for them to fail, and even a crossover with the Angels could not save the sinking ship.
Norman Lear, a legend in television, produced A Year at the Top, a musical sitcom about two rock musicians who sign a literal contract with the Devil. The show mixed dark occult themes with cheesy pop songs, and it was neither funny enough to be a comedy nor serious enough to be a drama, leading to cancellation after five episodes.
The failures also extended to crime dramas, with Khan attempting to feature an elderly Chinese-American private investigator in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The show was rushed into production to fill a scheduling gap, but the pacing was slow, the scripts were predictable, and the casting of Kee Dye, an actor of mixed Anglo-Egyptian descent, was seen as dated and inauthentic. The show was pulled after just four episodes, with two more never broadcast.
The absolute pinnacle of absurdity, however, was The Ugliest Girl in Town, a show about a Hollywood talent agent who dresses in drag to follow his British love interest to London. The entire premise was built around the gimmick of him trying to hide his identity while working as a female model, and it was cancelled after 17 episodes, with three more never aired.
These shows were not just failures; they were cultural touchstones of bad decision-making. They represented a time when networks threw millions of dollars at anything that seemed remotely trendy, without considering whether the concept could sustain an audience. The legacy of these shows is a cautionary tale about the dangers of chasing fads, ignoring the fundamentals of storytelling, and underestimating the intelligence of viewers.
While they were terrible when they aired, they have become great stories in retrospect, serving as a reminder that sometimes the most entertaining television is the television that fails spectacularly. The question remains, however, which of these train wrecks had the absolute wildest premise, and the debate continues to rage among television historians and fans of pop culture oddities.
