History Horrible / GameShow

* ''Series/SetForLife'' was a mercifully short-lived game show from Endemol (the people behind ''Series/DealOrNoDeal''). Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, it ultimately ended up being a poor attempt to play FollowTheLeader with ''themselves.'' The contestant was on a LuckBasedMission that required literally nothing but pulling out "light sticks" (giant Lite-Brite pegs) and going up the money ladder. White ones advanced you, red ones knocked you down; pulling all four reds ended the game. But there was a twist which easily led to a ShockingSwerve — offscreen, the player had a "Guardian Angel" who could stop the game at any time, but ''their decision wasn't revealed until the player finished their game'' (either by pulling out all the white pegs, getting all the red ones, or simply quitting themselves), meaning entire '''chunks''' of the game could be for naught. Even worse, while the show used a qualifying game that determined how much each player would be playing for (Kimmel [[WordOfGod stated]] it involved twelve numbers and an envelope), it was never shown! The aforementioned qualifying round was done differently and actually shown on-air on the British version, ''For the Rest of Your Life'': the couple picked a dollar amount, then played a variation of the stick-pulling game with three reds. White sticks added to the pot, red sticks subtracted; the couple could stop at any time, but only after they picked a white one. While this made the game more truthful and transparent in its methods, it also made an already tedious game even ''more'' tedious.

* In 1992, International Family Entertainment had announced plans to launch a game show-oriented channel known as Game Network, which would feature classic game shows and interactive features. However, it already faced competition out of the gate from the impending launch of Creator/GameShowNetwork. As part of the lead-up to its (aborted) launch, The Family Channel began to air several game shows with interactive segments, all of which were produced and hosted by Wink Martindale, beginning with ''TabletopGame/TrivialPursuit''. The hour-long show was divided into two halves [[InsistentTerminology treated on-air as distinct shows]]; ''Trivial Pursuit: The Interactive Game'' was a qualifier, where 9 players competed to answer multiple-choice questions on keypads as quickly as possible, with the top three players advancing to the main show (''Trivial Pursuit: The Classic Game''). The show was essentially a tutorial for the "Playbreak" segments in commercial breaks throughout the network's game show block, where viewers could call a 1-900 number on a touch-tone phone to answer questions in a similar format ([[CorruptCorporateExecutive only $4.98 per-call!]]). The horrible part came when they introduced several other "interactive" shows -- ''Boggle'', ''Shuffle'', and ''Jumble''; all three shows were bare-bones, [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks with nearly the same format and mechanics]] as each other (designed for use on a touch-tone phone, hence making them glorified tutorials for the Playbreak segment [-(give us your money)-] yet again), and little variation (same scoring system, no bonus round or returning champions, and nearly identical sets too), and once again they were all . In an entire block to boot. Win the game, and the only prize you won is permission to briefly express an emotion to Wink about the sub-$3000 trip you just won, after spending the remaining 29:00 of the show as a silent, question-answering robot.

* In 1992, International Family Entertainment had announced plans to launch a game show-oriented channel known as Game Network, which would feature classic game shows and interactive features. However, it already faced competition out of the gate from the impending launch of Creator/GameShowNetwork. As part of the lead-up to its (aborted) launch, The Family Channel began to air several game shows with interactive segments, all of which were produced and hosted by Wink Martindale, beginning with ''TabletopGame/TrivialPursuit''. The show was divided into two halves; the "interactive game" was basically a qualifier for the main game, where 9 players competed to answer multiple-choice questions on keypads as quickly as possible, with the top three players advancing to the main show. The show was essentially a tutorial for the "Playbreak" segments in commercial breaks throughout the network's game show block, where viewers could call a 1-900 number on a touch-tone to answer questions in a similar format (only $4.98 per-call!). The horrible part came when they introduced several other "interactive" shows -- ''Boggle'', ''Shuffle'', and ''Jumble'' -- which ended up being very weak and bare-bones. All three shows were [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks carbon copies of each other]] with nearly the same format and mechanics (designed for use on a touch-tone phone), and little variation (same scoring system, no bonus round or returning champions, and nearly identical sets too), and once again they were all glorified tutorials for the Playbreak segments. In an entire block to boot. Win the game, and the only prize you won is permission to briefly express an emotion to Wink about the sub-$3000 trip you just won, after spending the remaining 29:30 of the show as a silent, question-answering robot.

* In 1992, International Family Entertainment had announced plans to launch a game show-oriented channel known as Game Network, which would feature classic game shows and interactive features. However, it already faced competition out of the gate from the impending launch of Creator/GameShowNetwork. As part of the lead-up to its (aborted) launch, The Family Channel began to air several game shows with interactive segments, all of which were produced and hosted by Wink Martindale, beginning with ''TabletopGame/TrivialPursuit''. The show was divided into two halves; the "interactive game" was basically a qualifier for the main game, where 9 players competed to answer multiple-choice questions on keypads as quickly as possible, with the top three players advancing to the main show. The show was essentially a tutorial for the "Playbreak" segments in commercial breaks throughout the network's game show block, where viewers could call a 1-900 number on a touch-tone to answer questions in a similar format (only $4.98 per-call!). The horrible part came when they introduced several other "interactive" shows -- ''Boggle'', ''Shuffle'', and ''Jumble'' -- which were [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks all carbon copies of each other with nearly the same gameplay mechanics (designed for use on a touch-tone phone) and little variation, barely-different sets, and once again all being glorified tutorials for the Playbreak segments of these games.]] In an entire block to boot. Win the game, and the only prize you win is permission to briefly show some personality to Wink in reaction to the sub-$3000 trip you just won, after spending the remaining 29:30 of the show as a silent, question-answering robot.

* In 1992, International Family Entertainment had announced plans to launch a game show-oriented channel known as Game Network, which would feature classic game shows and interactive features. However, it already faced competition out of the gate from the impending launch of Creator/GameShowNetwork. As part of the lead-up to its (aborted) launch, The Family Channel began to air several game shows with interactive segments, all of which were produced and hosted by Wink Martindale, beginning with ''TabletopGame/TrivialPursuit''. The show was divided into two halves; the "interactive game" was basically a qualifier for the main game, where 9 players competed to answer multiple-choice questions on keypads as quickly as possible, with the top three players advancing to the main show. The show was essentially a tutorial for the "Playbreak" segments in commercial breaks throughout the network's game show block, where viewers could call a 1-900 number on a touch-tone to answer questions in a similar format (only $4.98 per-call!). The horrible part came when they introduced several other "interactive" shows -- ''Boggle'', ''Shuffle'', and ''Jumble'' -- which were [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks all carbon copies of each other with nearly the same gameplay mechanics (designed for use on a touch-tone phone) and little variation, barely-different sets, and once again all being glorified tutorials for the Playbreak segments of these games.]] In an entire block to boot. Win the game, and the only prize you win is permission to briefly show some personality to Wink in reaction to the sub-#3000 trip you just wonk, after spending the remaining 29:30 of the show as a silent, question-answering robot.

* In 1992, International Family Entertainment had announced plans to launch a game show-oriented channel known as Game Network, which would feature classic game shows and interactive features. However, it already faced competition out of the gate from the impending launch of Creator/GameShowNetwork. As part of the lead-up to its (aborted) launch, The Family Channel began to air several game shows with interactive segments, all of which were produced and hosted by Wink Martindale, beginning with ''TabletopGame/TrivialPursuit''. The show was divided into two halves; the "interactive game" was basically a qualifier for the main game, where 9 players competed to answer multiple-choice questions on keypads as quickly as possible, with the top three players advancing to the main show. The show was essentially a tutorial for the "Playbreak" segments in commercial breaks throughout the network's game show block, where viewers could call a 1-900 number on a touch-tone to answer questions in a similar format (only $4.98 per-call!). The horrible part came when they introduced several other "interactive" shows -- ''Boggle'', ''Shuffle'', and ''Jumble'' -- which were [[ItsTheSameSoItSucks all carbon copies of each other with nearly the same gameplay mechanics, and once again all being glorified tutorials for the Playbreak segments of these games.]] Win the game, and the only prize you win is permission to briefly show some personality to Wink in regards to the sub-#3000 trip you just won after spending the remaining 29:30 of the show as a silent, question-answering robot.

* One of the shows PAX (not to be confused with the Webcomic/PennyArcade Expo) aired on its first day (August 31, 1998) was a game show called ''The Reel-to-Reel Picture Show''. It was a painfully-dull movie trivia Q&A created to sell [[http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13283/the-reel-to-reel-picture-show an equally-dull movie trivia Q&A board game]] with NoBudget. While Peter Marshall was a master on ''Series/TheHollywoodSquares'' and other games, he was a deer in the headlights here — often tripping over questions, forgetting the rules, and making unintentional ''Squares'' references. It's not as if he had old age or health to blame; he seemed perfectly fine as GuestHost on a ''Squares'' revival in 2003 despite pushing 80 at the time. The celebrity guests looked like they would've rather been somewhere else, and some of them were clueless. The production company had financial difficulties and had to pull the plug after only 25 episodes, which is truly bad for a traditional game show and '''one-eighth''' of what PAX had ordered. Worst of all, '''nobody ever got paid!''' The show ran from August 31 to October 2, after which repeats aired for a brief period. (Interestingly, this was the second time Marshall hosted a game show where both he and the contestants never got paid. The first was a somewhat better-received game show adaptation of ''Yahtzee'' in 1988.)

* America's 72nd most-watched network America One brings us America's 72nd most-popular big-money game show, ''The Million Dollar Word Game'' (1999). The player must unscramble words (either a single word, or coming up with multiple words of specified length using the letters of one word). A few milestone points award cash and a trip, and getting past all 14 "levels" apparently allows the player to win a prize from the cheap-looking board, such as maybe, just maybe, $1,000,000. It was ostensibly attempting to [[WhoWantsToBeWhoWantsToBeAMillionaire clone]] ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'', but had 1989-level production values, if not worse (they couldn't even afford to show a countdown clock on screen!), and none of the atmosphere or substance that makes a game show legitimately exciting. The "set" is literally just a wall with the show's logo and the "prize banks" for the BonusRound on it (the credits contain the plug "Signage by [=Fastsigns=]". The joke writes itself), two cheap-looking podiums, and effects lighting borrowed from the local rock and bowl. The host, Ian Jamieson (who you may remember from such shows as ''The Lonely Chef'' and America One's hit variety show ''The Ian & Clare Show'' - whose co-stars are the producers of ''MDWG''), has laid-back mannerisms that contribute to gratuitous {{Padding}}. Overall, the show had a dull, public access atmosphere that makes ''Shoppers Casino'' (see the Syndication section) look like ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' in comparison.

* ''Knock Knock Live!'' was a reality show that pretty much mixed everything about the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, celebrities, and everything bad about a reality show in one mix, [[TakeThat plus Ryan Seacrest]]. In this show Seacrest went door-to-door with various celebrities to give regular people anything from cash to big prizes to the chance to play and win a big game. The problem was how it went went about doing so; where some boring white-bread suburban development in Dallas got cleared out for fun and games where the entire mostly-Caucasian population got money (along with a meeting with David Beckham where a family got free iPhones), a "knock-knock" in an urban neighborhood was much different; the mostly minority neighborhood had to chase money distributed at random or the usual generic 'help out a church' story which hardly helps any individual family that might deserve a reward. Despite Ryan Seacrest's star power, along with other minor celebrities, it failed to rate well and was canned after only two episodes.

* Another oft-cited example of a terrible game show revival is the 1990s ''Series/TicTacDough''. The pot reset to '''zero''' after each tie [[labelnote:*]](doubling the money amount of each box with each tie supposedly helped alleviate that issue, but some players ended up winning less than what the previous tie game had gotten up to)[[/labelnote]], [[WereStillRelevantDammit a Dragon and Dragonslayer rapped in the bonus round]], a special week had divorced couples playing against each other, and [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking Henry Mancini composed the uncharacteristically kiddie theme music]]. [[TheScrappy Patrick Wayne]] was an all-around terrible host who read the questions in monotone and explained the rules very slowly. However, he amped everything else up whenever a contestant blocks their opponent or wins the game, [[SuddenlyShouting shouting "YOU BLOCK!" or "YOOUU WIIIIIIINNN!"]] respectively. One must wonder if Dan Enright [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs was high when he produced this version]] as, along with a revival of sister show ''Series/TheJokersWild'', it would be the last game show he would work with before his death. It didn't even last a full season before getting axed. Website/GameShowGarbage talks about it [[http://gameshowgarbage.com/ind001_patrickwayne.html here]] and [[http://gameshowgarbage.com/ind021_ttd90raps.html here]]. If you're brazen, you can see an episode [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W73lLTtUFyc here.]]

* ''Knock Knock Live!'' was a reality show that pretty much mixed everything about the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, celebrities, and everything bad about a reality show in one mix, [[TakeTaht plus Ryan Seacrest]]. In this show Seacrest went door-to-door with various celebrities to give regular people anything from cash to big prizes to the chance to play and win a big game. The problem was how it went went about doing so; where some boring white-bread suburban development in Dallas got cleared out for fun and games where the entire mostly-Caucasian population got money (along with a meeting with David Beckham where a family got free iPhones), a "knock-knock" in an urban neighborhood was much different; the mostly minority neighborhood had to chase money distributed at random or the usual generic 'help out a church' story which hardly helps any individual family that might deserve a reward. Despite Ryan Seacrest's star power, along with other minor celebrities, it failed to rate well and was canned after only two episodes.

* ''Knock Knock Live!'' was a reality show that pretty much mixed everything about the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, celebrities, and everything bad about a reality show in one mix, plus Ryan Seacrest. In this show Seacrest went door-to-door with various celebrities to give regular people anything from cash to big prizes to the chance to play and win a big game. The problem was how it went went about doing so; where some boring white-bread suburban development in Dallas got cleared out for fun and games where the entire mostly-Caucasian population got money (along with a meeting with David Beckham where a family got free iPhones), a "knock-knock" in an urban neighborhood was much different; the mostly minority neighborhood had to chase money distributed at random or the usual generic 'help out a church' story which hardly helps any individual family that might deserve a reward. Despite Ryan Seacrest's star power, along with other minor celebrities, it failed to rate well and was canned after only two episodes.

* In 2002, Fox aired a quiz show called ''Series/TheChamber'' which stands tall as a textbook example of how ''not'' to do a quiz show. It was [[DuelingShows rushed to air]] to compete with ABC's ''Series/TheChair'', a decent game show hosted by tennis player John [=McEnroe=] that quizzed contestants while subjecting them to events intended to raise their heart rate - which itself aired only a half-season. ''The Chamber'' taped six episodes and aired only ''three''. Unlike the fairly mild stimuli, very-unlikely-to-kill-you brought on for ''The Chair'' contestants (like [[CastingGag tennis balls]] and a ''fake'' alligator), contestants on ''The Chamber'' were subjected to extreme heat, extreme cold, high winds, simulated earthquakes, etc. - and we didn't even get SceneryPorn from it. Even worse, if the producers had done their homework, they'd know that the winds at Levels 4+ were enough to cause extreme frostbite in the Cold chamber... and only the producers at Fox know what went on in the Water, Insect, and Electric chambers that were only used in unaired episodes. It's believed that one contestant sued the network over health issues brought on by the show's stimuli. You can see a portion of one of the aired episodes [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA4HzEU3nMc here.]]

* All the Flemish entries of the entire PhoneInGameShow genre from 2005-2007, which consists of VT4's ''Toeters En Bellen'', VijfTV's ''Cinco'', ''WinTonight'', which aired on the two previously mentioned networks, VTM's ''Bel Menu'' and Play2Day and Play2Night on KANAALTWEE. You know that you have abysmal television if [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VMxjAPAoTg&hl=nl&gl=NL youtube video's pointing out how these shows switch out solution cards so that no one ever gets to win the prize]] are more entertaining to watch than the actual game show. They aren't even all that profitable, because when VT4 and VijfTV started experimenting with afternoon programming in 2008 and decided to cancel these phone-in game shows it turned out that it gave them such a ratings boost that it was much more profitable to stick with the then current programming than to look back to the programming in the phone-in game show genre. Belgian laws in 2007 that were used to limit it did actually limit it and gave them a somewhat dedicated demographic of mathematicians and literacists trying to solve those shows.

* America's 72nd most-watched network America One brings us America's 72nd most-popular big-money game show, ''The Million Dollar Word Game'' (1999). The player must unscramble words (either a single word, or coming up with multiple words of specified length using the letters of one word). A few milestone points award cash and a trip, and getting past all 14 "levels" apparently allows the player to win a prize from the cheap-looking board, such as maybe, just maybe, $1,000,000. It was ostensibly attempting to [[WhoWantsToBeWhoWantsToBeAMillionaire clone]] ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'', but had 1989-level production values, if not worse (they couldn't even afford to show a countdown clock on screen!), and none of the atmosphere or substance that makes a game show legitimately exciting. The "set" is literally just a wall with the show's logo and the "prize banks" for the BonusRound on it (the credits contain the plug "Signage by [=Fastsigns=]". The joke writes itself), two cheap-looking podiums, and effects lighting borrowed from the local rock and bowl. The host, Ian Jamieson (who you may remember from such shows as ''The Lonely Chef'' and America One's hit variety show ''The Ian & Clare Show'' - whose co-stars are the producers of ''MDWG''), contributes to a dull, public access-grade atmosphere that makes ''Shoppers Casino'' (see the Syndication section) look like ''Series/ThePriceIsRight''.

* '''''Series/SetForLife''''' was a mercifully short-lived game show from Endemol (the people behind ''Series/DealOrNoDeal''). Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, it ultimately ended up being a poor attempt to play FollowTheLeader with ''themselves.'' The contestant was on a LuckBasedMission that required literally nothing but pulling out "light sticks" (giant Lite-Brite pegs) and going up the money ladder. White ones advanced you, red ones knocked you down; pulling all four reds ended the game. But there was a twist which easily led to a ShockingSwerve — offscreen, the player had a "Guardian Angel" who could stop the game at any time, but ''their decision wasn't revealed until the player finished their game'' (either by pulling out all the white pegs, getting all the red ones, or simply quitting themselves), meaning entire '''chunks''' of the game could be for naught. Even worse, while the show used a qualifying game that determined how much each player would be playing for (Kimmel [[WordOfGod stated]] it involved twelve numbers and an envelope), it was never shown! The aforementioned qualifying round was done differently and actually shown on-air on the British version, ''For the Rest of Your Life'': the couple picked a dollar amount, then played a variation of the stick-pulling game with three reds. White sticks added to the pot, red sticks subtracted; the couple could stop at any time, but only after they picked a white one. While this made the game more truthful and transparent in its methods, it also made an already tedious game even ''more'' tedious.
* With '''''The One: Making a Music Star''''', Endemol tried to bring its ''Star Academy'' format - which is sort of like ''Series/AmericanIdol'' but with ''Series/BigBrother''-style interactions and conflicts in a music academy between performances - to the U.S., with horrific results. Critics, despite the format originally premiering in other countries (particularly the UK, where it was known as ''Fame Academy'') at around the same time as the British version of ''Idol'', concluded that ABC was [[FollowTheLeader late to the party]]: the fact that advertising touted it as "the show Creator/{{Fox}} doesn't want you to see" probably made matters worse. Viewers voted with their remotes, scoring some of the worst ratings for a series premiere on a major U.S. network in history. The ratings on the following episodes were ''even worse''; ABC pulled the plug on ''The One'' after only ''four episodes'', and the winner was left undecided. As if the poor reviews weren't bad enough, ''The One'' also became entangled in controversy in Canada; the show was hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos, a Creator/{{CBC}} radio and (now former) talk show host. To tie in with his involvement, CBC actually bought the Canadian rights to ''The One'', and aired it in simulcast with ABC, preempting its traditional 10:00 p.m. newscast ''The National'' in much of the country. Critics felt it was very out of character for CBC to be airing an U.S.-produced series in primetime, as the network has historically focused its efforts on Canadian productions -- in contrast to the remaining commercial networks, whose business models involve acquiring rights to popular U.S. shows, then simulcasting them so they can force TV providers to replace U.S. feeds of the show with their own, advertising included, and scheduling Canadian content as an afterthought. Additionally, CBC's president at the time had explicitly stated that they "[didn't] do reality television." At the same time, CBC was planning to produce a Canadian version of the format (which would compliment the French-Canadian version produced by Creator/{{TVA}}). However, after the ratings disaster of ''The One'', CBC resorted to Canadian versions of the Creator/AndrewLloydWebber talent searches instead.

* America's 72nd most-watched network America One brings us America's 72nd most-popular big-money game show, '''''The Million Dollar Word Game''''' (1999). The player must unscramble words (either a single word, or coming up with multiple words of specified length using the letters of one word). A few milestone points award cash and a trip, and getting past all 14 "levels" apparently allows the player to win a prize from the cheap-looking board, such as maybe, just maybe, $1,000,000. It was ostensibly attempting to [[WhoWantsToBeWhoWantsToBeAMillionaire clone]] ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'', but had 1989-level production values, if not worse (they couldn't even afford to show a countdown clock on screen!), and none of the atmosphere or substance that makes a game show legitimately exciting. The "set" is literally just a wall with the show's logo and the "prize banks" for the BonusRound on it (the credits contain the plug "Signage by [=Fastsigns=]". The joke writes itself), two cheap-looking podiums, and effects lighting borrowed from the local rock and bowl. The host, Ian Jamieson (who you may remember from such shows as ''The Lonely Chef'' and America One's hit variety show ''The Ian & Clare Show'' - whose co-stars are the producers of ''MDWG''), contributes to a dull, public access-grade atmosphere that makes ''Shoppers Casino'' (see the Syndication section) look like ''Series/ThePriceIsRight''.
** One wonders if the show could even afford to give away $10,000, let alone $1,000,000, given that it clearly has NoBudget. Though, according to a post discussing the show on newsgroup alt.tv.game-shows, contestants rarely made it to the higher levels to begin with, and one contestant had made it to Level 14 but lost. In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yn1HxqqXSo episode posted on YouTube]], Ian boasts at the top of the show that the next round of tapings would add a top prize of '''''$5,000,000!''''' Later on, he announces a planned tournament between the United States and Canada as a contestant plug. Of course, the number to call to be a contestant is a 1-900 number. Once again, the joke writes itself.

* '''''Series/DontScareTheHare''''' was an utterly pathetic attempt by BBC One to try and make a "family" game show, but instead ended up becoming a notorious flop. Two teams of adults competed in a series of challenges in which the object was to not "scare" (read: wake up) a [[NightmareFuel giant, robotic hare]]. The winning team played for a top prize of £15,000 in prize money. It premiered on Easter weekend in 2011 before the Series 6 premiere of ''Series/DoctorWho'' and ended up with spectacularly low ratings (1.93 million); the producers had attempted to blame the heat wave rolling through England at the time, but backfired when the ratings for ''Doctor Who'' ended up being the series' highest yet. Worse yet, since it premiered on Easter weekend, audiences were under the impression that it was a one-off to tie in with Easter, so they were surprised to find out that there were still ''8 more episodes''; the ratings got so bad that the BBC pulled it after six episodes, with the remainder burned off in a mid-afternoon graveyard slot. Critics and audiences lambasted the show mercilessly; many mentioned that its concept would have fit better on Creator/CBeebies rather than a network meant for adult television, and the games themselves were also criticized for being either too easy or embarrassing to watch.

* '''''The Thousand-Dollar Bee''''', a children's game show filmed in Atlanta for the now-defunct and little-seen Black Family Channel. It was a televised spelling bee/vocabulary game with a very odd Creator/BillCosby-type host named [[NamesTheSame Sinatra]] Onieyewacki (credited as simply "Sinatra, the wacky host") who wore a {{geek}}y bow tie. The contestants were [[RougeAnglesOfSatin dreadfully bad at spelling]] and it's not like they had any incentive to try, as the prize for the '''entire season''' was [[UndesirablePrize a $1,000 savings bond for college]], enough in these days to buy maybe books for a year. It also had the lowest production values ever seen on cable TV in the 21st Century — a creepy CGI bee straight out of the Creator/VideoBrinquedo handbook, [=PowerPoint=]-grade captions done in ''Comic Sans'', a "theme song" consisting of the [[EarWorm same two bars of music and chipmunk vocals]], a KidSidekick in a bee costume who provided overly precocious commentary about the contestants and their progress, and an entire round that involved spelling out words with ''refrigerator magnets'' (though that last one could be forgiven as a homage to the Scrambleboard of ''Series/SoulTrain''). [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfNdwlywXuM Here's some gameplay, if you dare.]]

* The first season of '''''Top Design''''' fell squarely into this. Bravo thought people who loved ''Series/TopChef'' and ''Series/ProjectRunway'' would love to see more takes on that formula, and so they made a show like those two shows, but with interior designers. They also decided to combine the host and mentor roles into host Todd Oldham. Now, this ''can'' be done right — HGTV had a competitive reality show for interior designers that worked. But ''Top Design'' didn't get it right. The challenges were not engaging enough to viewers, the elimination catchphrase "[[LameComeback See you later, Decorator]]" was dull and Todd Oldham had negative charisma. The show was a flop in the ratings.

* '''''Series/YoureInThePicture''''' is almost a byword for bad ideas executed badly — or it would be if it was better known. It was a 1961 game hosted by Jackie Gleason, in which a four-celebrity panel (in the one episode that aired, the panel consisted of Pat Harrington Jr., Pat Carroll, Jan Sterling and Arthur Treacher) stuck their heads through pictorial cut-outs and tried to guess what picture they were in. Within five minutes of the January 20 premiere, it was clear that the game was nigh-impossible and far from interesting; even the ''prize'' was lame — 100 CARE packages donated in that celeb's name (if nobody guessed correctly, they were donated in Gleason's name).

* '''''The Girlie Show''''' was a 1990s attempt to cash in on the {{Ladette}} fad and "girl power" ethos embodied by the Music/SpiceGirls. The show mainly consisted of a group of female presenters childishly daring each other to say rude words on TV; while a bunch of male counterparts would be shown attending various places such as clubs or sporting events and acting like LowerClassLout stereotypes. Critics trashed the show for being amateurish and highly staged, with the hosts' lack of professional TV experience being very apparent. Meanwhile, audiences found it to be offensive and sexist against both men and women. It lost viewers rapidly and was canned after two series.

* '''''Canada's Got Talent''''' is often considered by many to be the worst out of the "Got Talent" shows, for many different reasons. The show was forced to make plenty of inexplicable changes from the British and US versions due to budget constraints, and it shows.\\

* '''''Series/PakDePoenDeShowVan1Miljoen''''' is fondly remembered as one of the most spectacular flops in the history of Belgian television. Offering up to 20 million Belgian francs (around $667,000) in conjunction with the postcode lottery, up to 1 million (around $33,500) in a BonusRound for the winning contestant, and hosted by the stars of one of the most critically-acclaimed sitcoms in Belgian history, one wonders what could possibly go wrong. For the premiere, it was ''everything.'' The hosting was so overly formal that it [[PoesLaw bordered on parody]]. The trivia rounds had glitchy buzzers and inconsistent judging that would make [[Series/BallsOfSteel Alex Zane]] proud. To top it off, the phone for a home game segment didn't work, and the final challenge to determine who would play for the million francs - an RC car race across the set - had a car that wouldn't move. Even worse was the irony that a random audience member ''[[DisproportionateReward could win twenty times more cash than what the winning contestant would have had if they answered all the questions of the final round correctly]]''. The interval acts, that were filled with SoCoolItsAwesome performances, saved the program as a whole from being a total trainwreck, though.

* '''''Series/MysteryDiners''''', a "reality show" that comes off as unbelievable for several reasons:

* '''''Series/RestaurantStakeout''''' has pretty much the same concept as ''Series/MysteryDiners'', and many of the same flaws. The premise is like ''Series/KitchenNightmares'' [[FollowTheLeader Lite]] — hidden cameras placed around a restaurant are supposed to catch chefs and waiters acting unprofessionally so the Donald Trump-like host can reveal himself and come down on them at the end of the episode. Great idea, but just one little problem — this could be filed as [[http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/food_network/2012_Mar_27_restaurant-stakeout-fake a scripted show.]] Actors are hired, employees are ''told how to act'', everyone is aware they're on-camera, and the audio is never muddled down with restaurant activity like on other Food Network restaurant shows. One restaurant owner admitted that nothing that happened was real ''during the second episode''. Add in a blustering, uncharismatic host who uses the phrase "[[ADateWithRosiePalms We banged/pounded another one out, America!]]" [[ThatCameOutWrong without any irony]] as his victory catchphrase, and you have an absolute joke of a program.

* In 2002, Fox aired a quiz show called '''''Series/TheChamber''''' which stands tall as a textbook example of how ''not'' to do a quiz show. It was [[DuelingShows rushed to air]] to compete with ABC's ''Series/TheChair'', a decent game show hosted by tennis player John [=McEnroe=] that quizzed contestants while subjecting them to events intended to raise their heart rate - which itself aired only a half-season. ''The Chamber'' taped six episodes and aired only ''three''. Unlike the fairly mild stimuli, very-unlikely-to-kill-you brought on for ''The Chair'' contestants (like [[CastingGag tennis balls]] and a ''fake'' alligator), contestants on ''The Chamber'' were subjected to extreme heat, extreme cold, high winds, simulated earthquakes, etc. - and we didn't even get SceneryPorn from it. Even worse, if the producers had done their homework, they'd know that the winds at Levels 4+ were enough to cause extreme frostbite in the Cold chamber... and only the producers at Fox know what went on in the Water, Insect, and Electric chambers that were only used in unaired episodes. It's believed that one contestant sued the network over health issues brought on by the show's stimuli. You can see a portion of one of the aired episodes [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA4HzEU3nMc here.]]

* '''''I Wanna Marry "Harry"''''', a 2014 dating show, is without a doubt one of the most tasteless and downright awful ideas for a dating show ever thought up. A bunch of women are flown to London, and are led to believe that they are competing for the affection of Prince Harry (while not outright being told that it's Prince Harry until the 5th episode). The Prince Harry impersonator in question (Matthew Hicks, an environmental consultant) is always surrounded by helicopters and high security everywhere he goes and the women are only to refer to him as "sir". The show was horribly received from both critics and audiences, with many reviewers noting its blatant ripping off of one of Fox's own older shows (''Joe Millionaire''), and also going so far as to slam its lack of shame from deceiving these poor women, and its apparent enjoyment of their foolishness. The show was a bomb in the ratings department and was pulled after four episodes (though all the remaining episodes would be released on Hulu and the series was shown in full in the UK and Australia, but suffered awful ratings there as well).
* '''''Knock Knock Live!''''' was a reality show that pretty much mixed everything about the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, celebrities, and everything bad about a reality show in one mix, plus Ryan Seacrest. In this show Seacrest went door-to-door with various celebrities to give regular people anything from cash to big prizes to the chance to play and win a big game. The problem was how it went went about doing so; where some boring white-bread suburban development in Dallas got cleared out for fun and games where the entire mostly-Caucasian population got money (along with a meeting with David Beckham where a family got free iPhones), a "knock-knock" in an urban neighborhood was much different; the mostly minority neighborhood had to chase money distributed at random or the usual generic 'help out a church' story which hardly helps any individual family that might deserve a reward. Despite Ryan Seacrest's star power, along with other minor celebrities, it failed to rate well and was canned after only two episodes.
* '''''Love Cruise: The Maiden Voyage'''''. First off, production must have had a lot of balls to assume they’d be able to do a sequel. But throw in a boatload of confusing seemingly on-the-fly rules, a motley collection of shallow contestants, and one "Bug-Eyed Toni" (Ferrari), and it's pathetically easy to see why the ship ultimately sank without a trace.
* In the first half of the 2003 miniseries '''''Married by America''''', a series of men and women were matched up with potential spouses; their families and viewers' call-in votes ultimately arranged their engagements sight-unseen. The 2nd half of the series followed the 10 couples thus created to a retreat where they spent the next few weeks "preparing for the wedding" and competing to avoid getting "voted out". In the finale, it was down to two couples and two weddings — and if either couple agreed to say "I do" at the altar, they won a ridiculous sum of money. [[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules Neither couple agreed to go through with it]], making the whole series [[ShaggyDogStory a wash]].

* '''''Mr. Personality''''', a 5-episode series from 2003 hosted by Monica Lewinsky (the former White House intern at the center of the UsefulNotes/BillClinton sex scandal). It was like ''Series/TheBachelorette'' — a woman picks a husband out of a field of suitors — but in this case all the men wore creepy-as-hell masks so she could pick the right guy without considering looks. It was a good concept with horrible execution — the vast majority of the guys were movie-star handsome, with the one or two "ugly" ones HollywoodHomely at best.
* '''''The Swan''''', unlike most makeover shows, took [[HollywoodHomely plain-looking women]] with bad health, self-esteem problems, etc. and put them through months of therapy, strenuous training, and painful, extensive surgery in order to transform them into plastic facsimiles of the "Hollywood Ideal" - all for a beauty pageant at the end. A few women got sent home early because of accidents or mishaps under the knife, leaving them worse off than they were before. And during the pageant finale, the girls came down the catwalk to the tune of Groove Armada's "If Everybody Looked the Same", or at least a version that [[IsntItIronic never got to the next line]] — "We'd get tired of looking at each other." ''Entertainment Weekly'' called it [[http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20283069_20630364,00.html the worst reality show ever made]], and it's been described as nothing more than a thinly-veiled advert for the plastic surgery industry.

* '''''Utopia''''' [[note]](no relation to [[Series/{{Utopia}} the British conspiracy thriller of the same name]])[[/note]], an ambitious $50 million program that Fox premiered in Fall 2014, and which quickly went down as one of the biggest bombs in TV history. Based on a Dutch reality show, fifteen people from all walks of life were sent to live on a compound in southern California in the hopes of building a new society, with a working farm, a lake stocked with fish, and a 24/7 live camera feed that anybody could watch online. While the original Dutch show it was based on was a success, the American version completely botched the execution, as the cast was composed of {{Jerkass}}es and exaggerated stereotypes picked out specifically to cause tension with each other (a minister and an atheist, a hunter and an animal rights activist, etc.), pretty much defeating the whole point of the show right from the start. [[http://communityvoices.post-gazette.com/arts-entertainment-living/tuned-in/item/38334-fox-s-folly-utopia One critic]] called it nothing but non-stop "farming, fighting, and fornicating -- but mostly fighting," few of the people involved (in either the cast or the production) seemed to have any idea what they were doing or what the point of the show was, and some cast members were overtly saying on camera that they couldn't wait to get voted off so they could [[MoneyDearBoy collect their paychecks]]. The show's swift cancellation after only one month strained the Fox network and deepened its slump in the mid '10s, and sparked much discussion about whether RealityTV, at least on the broadcast networks, was wearing out its welcome.
* The 2-hour reality special '''''Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?''''', aired in February 2000, is one of the lowest points in Fox's long run of horrible ideas. The premise was that 50 gold-diggers competed to marry a "multi-millionaire" named Rick Rockwell. The woman he chose would be married to him on the spot and win $100,000 and various prizes; said winner, Darva Conger, wound up getting a divorce less than two months after the show aired... but not before capitalizing on her FifteenMinutesOfFame by almost immediately posing for ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}''.

* In '''''Who's Your Daddy?''''', a person who had been adopted as an infant is forced to pick out his/her biological father from a group of 25 men. Picking the right man won $100,000, but otherwise the "impostor" got the money. In other words, this is essentially a UsefulNotes/PrimeTime version of the {{Daddy DNA Test}}s on ''Series/{{Maury}}''. After being hit with poor ratings, massive public backlash, and the Raleigh-Durham affiliate (WRAZ, the same station that refused to air ''Married by America'') refusing to broadcast the show, Fox canned it after one episode, quietly burning off the other five episodes they had filmed on the (now-defunct) Fox Reality cable channel.

* GSN's [[NetworkDecay entries into the reality genre]] are usually forgettable, but none more so than '''''Carnie Wilson: Unstapled'''''. The series is a documentary on an attitude-ridden Carnie trying to shed her pregnancy weight. Add plastic acting, an annoying supporting cast and a mention of a diet where she ''gained'' weight and you have the makings of a dark point for GSN. It lasted 13 episodes before being relegated to late nights and cancellation. It's no wonder she was replaced as host of their version of ''Series/TheNewlywedGame'' by Sherri Shepherd soon after.
* '''''Faux Pause''''', from 1998. The concept was basically a game show version of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' — find a lame old game show and [[{{MST}} riff on it]]. However, it failed on so many levels: the hosts (obscure comedians Mary Gallagher and Sean Donnellan) were extremely [[DudeNotFunny unfunny and often mean]] in their riffs (e.g. calling everyone in Oregon a hick, implying that New Jersey girls are all ugly, or making a joke about excessive chain-smoking when [[Creator/BillCullen the host of the show they were riffing on]] died of lung cancer); their shows of choice were often {{Cult Classic}}s (most notably ''Series/{{Go}}'', ''Series/HotPotato'', and ''TreasureHuntUS'') or at least [[SoOkayItsAverage unremarkable shows]] not bad enough to warrant the MST treatment; and the interstitial skits were both unfunny and poorly-acted. Read a ''GameShowGarbage'' review of the series [[http://www.gameshowgarbage.com/ind132_fauxpause.html here]], and a rundown of the ''Hot Potato'' episode [[http://web.archive.org/web/20051102064345/http://www.xanfan.com/hotpotato/fauxpause.htm here.]]

* '''''Hidden Agenda''''' was one of several major GSN flops in 2010: it was literally just a hidden camera show in which a wife had to get their husband to perform embarrassing activities to win money. Whatever "game" this game show had was almost entirely downplayed in favor of just having family members "reacting" to the ordeal: even worse, you also had the host ''encouraging the contestant to get their hubby drunk'' to supposedly make things easier. With ratings as low as 74,000 viewers, you knew you had a major flop on your hands.
* '''''Series/HowMuchIsEnough''''', from 2008, was probably the most tedious game show ever created: four contestants attempted to gauge how greedy they were by locking in a value on a "money clock" going up from $0 to $1,000; they kept whatever value they stopped at, unless they had the highest amount, which meant they got nothing. This continued with a $2,000 round played in reverse (the earliest to stop got nothing), and then they did ''three more rounds'' with increasing amounts, alternating between these formats, until the final, where the middle two players played for the collective pot... with ''another'' round. As a look into human greed it's an interesting experiment (it employs the same thought processes that create the drama that made ''Series/DealOrNoDeal'' a hit). As a game show, it lacks most of the elements necessary to make it watchable, besides Corbin Bernsen [[TookTheBadFilmSeriously actually hosting it well]]. It lasted only two months.

* '''''Celebrity Wrestling''''' was a concept that might have worked, had they managed to fill the cast with people who actually knew how to wrestle, or at the very least were known for athleticism. Instead, we ended up with a bunch of reality TV stars and other D-listers who clearly weren't even cut out for ''arm-wrestling'', much less the real thing. On top of that, the selection of contests didn't even resemble wrestling, but rather a heavily watered-down version of what you'd see in shows like ITV's own ''Gladiators'', meaning that there wasn't even any pleasure to be taken in watching the "celebrities" fail miserably. Incredibly, ITV had enough confidence in the show to not only run a hugely expensive promotional campaign, but scheduled its first episode against the newly relaunched ''Series/DoctorWho''... specifically, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek the episode]] which featured the return of the Daleks. Cue tabloid headlines about the show being "exterminated" in the ratings. After two more weeks of being thrashed by ''Doctor Who'', ITV unceremoniously shuffled the series to a Sunday morning graveyard slot and left it to die.
* '''''The Colour of Money''''' (2009) tried to turn those radio contests where the contestant is read off increasing amounts of money and has to stop before they hit the {{Whammy}} and lose everything, into a full show. Yes, it was as tedious as you thought it was going to be: the goal was to collect a target amount of usually £50,000-100,000 (and ''[[GameShowWinningsCap no more than that]]'') in this manner from 10 of 20 cash machines. The machines were colour-coded (hence the name of the show) and counted in £1,000 intervals, and each contained a maximum value ranging from £1,000 to £20,000. There was only one machine of each amount, however, as gauged by a ''Series/DealOrNoDeal''-style tote board. Making matters worse, it had the [[WhoWantsToBeWhoWantsToBeAMillionaire stereotypical aesthetics of an American big money game show]], complete with bonus [[Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire Chris Tarrant]] (appropriately, he had hosted the most famous British version of the "bong game" whilst serving as host of Capital FM's morning show). The game was tedious and repetitive, lacking something that added unpredictability and personality to the proceedings; the rapidly decreasing ratings led ITV to can ''Colour'' right before its season finale.
* '''''Series/RedOrBlack''''' (2011), created by producer slash MeanBrit [[Series/AmericanIdol talent]] [[Series/BritainsGotTalent show]] [[Series/TheXFactor judge]] Simon Cowell, subjected a group of 1,000 contestants to a series of {{luck based mission}}s, designed to whittle them down to 8 for a live studio round, which in turn would determine the one person who would have a chance to win £1,000,000 on a single spin of a big roulette wheel. This game required absolutely no skill at all, besides predicting the outcome of luck-based scenarios (sometimes involving celebrity guests) by picking either "red" or "black", or just having said choice randomly forced upon them without any user input at all. Even the titular final round fell into this pattern; [[SceneryPorn giant roulette wheel]], 36 spaces. Half red, half black. Send the ball down and hope your luck doesn't run empty at the end of your long journey. The first series was broadcast as a 7-day long event in September 2011; while the ratings were actually pretty good by ITV standards, ''Red or Black'' was lambasted by critics for being dull and utilizing stereotypical reality show tropes. Plus, controversy brewed when it was revealed that the first million-pound winner had a criminal record (while they didn't strip his winnings as demanded by the media, several contestants were silently disqualified from the live round on later episodes).

* '''''Tease''''', a laughable show that tried to replicate the formula of ''Series/IronChef'' [-[[RecycledINSPACE WITH HAIRSTYLISTS!]]-] The show tried to aim for the {{Blaxploitation}} vibe of hairstylist-themed movies such as ''Barbershop'' and ''Hair Show''; they had [[ButNotTooBlack "black"]] celebrity Lisa Rinna as host, and many of the contestants had a "ghetto-fabulous" schtick going for them. But the show was '''terrible''', featuring dated and unfunny humor and unlikable hosts, and ran only six episodes in 2007, done in by Oxygen being bought by NBC shortly after its premiere and NBC not wanting it to cannibalize their much better show in Bravo's ''Shear Genius''. The show appears to be an OldShame for Oxygen nowadays, as they've literally pulled ''every'' single clip of the show from the internet, and who could blame them?

* One of the shows PAX (not to be confused with the Webcomic/PennyArcade Expo) aired on its first day (August 31, 1998) was a game show called '''''The Reel-to-Reel Picture Show'''''. It was a painfully-dull movie trivia Q&A created to sell [[http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13283/the-reel-to-reel-picture-show an equally-dull movie trivia Q&A board game]] with NoBudget. While Peter Marshall was a master on ''Series/TheHollywoodSquares'' and other games, he was a deer in the headlights here — often tripping over questions, forgetting the rules, and making unintentional ''Squares'' references. It's not as if he had old age or health to blame; he seemed perfectly fine as GuestHost on a ''Squares'' revival in 2003 despite pushing 80 at the time. The celebrity guests looked like they would've rather been somewhere else, and some of them were clueless. The production company had financial difficulties and had to pull the plug after only 25 episodes, which is truly bad for a traditional game show and '''one-eighth''' of what PAX had ordered. Worst of all, '''nobody ever got paid!''' The show ran from August 31 to October 2, after which repeats aired for a brief period. (Interestingly, this was the second time Marshall hosted a game show where both he and the contestants never got paid. The first was a somewhat better-received game show adaptation of ''Yahtzee'' in 1988.)

* '''''Cabin Fever''''' was a 2003 Irish reality show consisting of eleven contestants with no prior sailing experience tasked with sailing a 90 foot, two-mast schooner around the Irish coast with a professional crew of two. The show was to last eight weeks with one contestant voted to "walk the plank" every week. However after less than two weeks, the ship ran aground and was broken up on the rocks of Tory Island. All aboard were rescued and the proceeds from that week's phone votes donated to the coast's lifeboat coverage. Following this the rest of the show's run was plagued with problems, including the replacement ship suffering from malfunctions and three of the original lineup of contestants declining to return following the accident. As a silver lining, the show did bring in decently sized audience, even if many merely tuned in to see what would go wrong that week.
* '''''Celebrity Farm''''', also from 2003, involved eight C-List celebrities spending a week tending to a farm with one being voted out every evening. The voting system was the reverse of what audiences were used to, as the votes were for who was to be eliminated, rather for who audiences wanted to keep. Hence controversy was drawn from the first episode, as the deviation from the norm and the unclear explanation of the voting system by the hosts resulted in the most famous and popular celebrity of the group being voted out in the first night. Audience frustration at the confusion, as well as the general dullness of the show and the people on it, led to it lasting only one run and becoming a often-ridiculed footnote in Irish televison history.

* The 2001 version of '''''Series/CardSharks''''' is frequently considered a prime example of how ''not'' to revive a classic game show, and it's not hard to see why. Gone were the high-low questions and each player having a row of cards; now there was a single row of seven cards shared by both players, meaning that the [[WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing opponent could win without making a single guess]] if a player swept the first six cards but made an incorrect call on the last. Then there was the out-of-place mechanic of "Clip Chips", where contestants could guess the outcome of a CandidCameraPrank to switch the card. The atrocious hosting of Pat Bullard and the ugly-looking set didn't really help matters either, and neither did the fact that promotional efforts for the series were hampered by the 9/11 attacks the Tuesday before; local stations were rightfully focused on trying to report on the local impact of the attacks rather than promoting some cheesy game show revamp on their fall lineups. It would only last four months before it got thrown in the trash. Fans have referred to this revival as "CASINO" ("'''''Ca'''rd '''S'''harks'' '''[[InNameOnly I]]'''[[InNameOnly n]] '''[[InNameOnly N]]'''[[InNameOnly ame]] '''[[InNameOnly O]]'''[[InNameOnly nly]]") or "Card Guppies". [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJxejRnCsa4 Here]] is an episode if you dare.
* '''''Series/ShoppersCasino''''' was essentially a home shopping {{Infomercial}} disguised as a game show; given that its production values were just as bad as one, it's not hard to see why many claim that it's the worst game show of all time. Jeff Maxwell does a pretty bad job as the host, and the models act like [[MoneyDearBoy they're only there for the paycheck]]. The set is poorly constructed, which makes it hard for the cameramen to get good shots of the games, which were just dumbed-down versions of blackjack, roulette and chuck-a-luck. They attempt to sell "bargain items" to the home viewers that aren't actually bargains at all, and worse, they deceive said home viewers with a "home caller" that sounds like they're actually using the PA system in the studio, thinking the viewers wouldn't know the difference. This "program" was so obscure that, for many years, its mere existence was thought to be an urban legend. Website/GameShowGarbage has a review [[http://www.gameshowgarbage.com/ind135_shopperscasino.html here]]... but if you ''really'' want to see for yourself how bad it really was, it's present in all its glory [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiX0y7yHiBA here.]]
* '''''Three's a Crowd''''', a syndicated show created by Creator/ChuckBarris (best known for creating ''Series/TheNewlywedGame'', ''Series/TheDatingGame'', and ''Series/TheGongShow'', the last of which he also hosted). In it, host Jim Peck asked probing questions of a male contestant, then asked the same questions of both his wife and secretary, to determine which of the two knew him better. The show drew outrage from MoralGuardians, leading to both it and ''Gong'' being cancelled. Outside a couple syndicated revivals of ''Newlywed'' and ''Dating'', the show proved to be more-or-less a CreatorKiller for Barris; the only subsequent original show he mounted was the short-lived ''Camouflage'' (1980-81) before he retired to France at the end of TheEighties.
* Another oft-cited example of a terrible game show revival is the 1990s '''''Series/TicTacDough'''''. The pot reset to '''zero''' after each tie [[labelnote:*]](doubling the money amount of each box with each tie supposedly helped alleviate that issue, but some players ended up winning less than what the previous tie game had gotten up to)[[/labelnote]], [[WereStillRelevantDammit a Dragon and Dragonslayer rapped in the bonus round]], a special week had divorced couples playing against each other, and [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking Henry Mancini composed the uncharacteristically kiddie theme music]]. [[TheScrappy Patrick Wayne]] was an all-around terrible host who read the questions in monotone and explained the rules very slowly. However, he amped everything else up whenever a contestant blocks their opponent or wins the game, [[SuddenlyShouting shouting "YOU BLOCK!" or "YOOUU WIIIIIIINNN!"]] respectively. One must wonder if Dan Enright [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs was high when he produced this version]] as, along with a revival of sister show ''Series/TheJokersWild'', it would be the last game show he would work with before his death. It didn't even last a full season before getting axed. Website/GameShowGarbage talks about it [[http://gameshowgarbage.com/ind001_patrickwayne.html here]] and [[http://gameshowgarbage.com/ind021_ttd90raps.html here]]. If you're brazen, you can see an episode [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W73lLTtUFyc here.]]

* '''''De Gouden Kooi''''' (''The Golden Cage'') was a Dutch reality show based on the original concept for ''Series/BigBrother'', airing a few years after the Dutch version of that show ended. It was even crueler than ''Big Brother'' was — the housemates each had to pay €10,000 to get in, and the prize money of €1,000,000 (plus the fully-furnished house!) was given to the last person left at the end. That's it. No rules. People had to bully each other until everybody except one walked out. It's widely considered the worst television show ''in the history of the world'' by the Dutch. (In case you're wondering how it went, the residents all had massive orgies and the biggest {{Jerkass}} won.)

* In the height of the dance show craze that brought us hits like ''Series/DancingWithTheStars'' and ''Series/SoYouThinkYouCanDance'', TLC took a crack at the genre with the short-lived '''''Master of Dance'''''. Hosted by Joey Lawrence (of ''Series/{{Blossom}}'' and ''Series/MelissaAndJoey'' fame), the show featured ordinary people performing their moves to a wide variety of music. In each episode, five contestants are evaluated on their ability to adjust to an abrupt change in music by a panel of three judges and were progressively eliminated until one is declared a winner and moved on into the [[GrandFinale Tournament of Champions]] for a chance to win $50,000. Alas, this admittedly cool premise was undone by horrendous execution.

* '''''The WB's Superstar USA''''', a 7-episode ''Series/AmericanIdol'' parody from 2004 that was sadistic from start to finish.

* '''''Motormouth''''' was a 2004 reality show in which hidden cameras were put inside peoples' dashboards to catch them while they sang along to their car radios. Then their friends would be sent into the cars to coax more performances out of them. Meanwhile, a sarcastic voiceover guy would mock them. At the end of the show, a camera crew would rush up to the cars and shout, "You've been Motormouthed!". The dashboard camera quality was awful, the subject matter was unfunny, and the voiceover ran from dull to mean-spirited. Basically, the premise of the show hinged on mocking people who weren't professional singers...for not singing professionally. Lots of people like to sing in their cars, so why are we supposed to find this shameful? The show lasted four episodes before VH-1 buried it forever - their website lists lots of old and obscure shows, but not this one. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RyArFDMM3w Here's an episode clip]].

* When Yootoo TV was originally called The Nostalgia Channel, one of the shows they picked up was a game show called '''''Let's Go Back'''''. Its host/producer Scott Sternberg, whose previous work in game shows was TV's first porno game show called ''Everything Goes'' and who would later go on to produce the much-maligned ''Wheel 2000'' and ''Jep!'', was wooden as a host. The format was a complete ripoff of ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'', and the bonus round was a ripoff of ''Series/SplitSecond''. Also, the prizes were incredibly cheap (Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to give a '''pet rock''' as a prize?!), and the top prize for each game was a mere $500 in an era where most cable game shows could give away at least $1,000, and sometimes as much as $10,000. GameShowGarbage rips it a new one [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68KkDQBzdvE here.]]

* NBC's '''''Series/TwentyOne''''' and CBS' '''''Series/{{Dotto}}''''' and '''''The $64,000 Question''''', the three shows at the center of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz_show_scandals quiz show scandals]] of TheFifties. While the formats themselves were solid, there was just one problem: much like the ''Restaurant Stakeout'' example above, the shows were being rigged by the producers and sponsors in order to give the victory to their preferred contestants and raise tension with close finishes. The resulting scandal triggered Congressional hearings and effectively discredited game shows in the United States for fifteen years, and also got many producers (including Creator/JackBarry and Dan Enright, who later made [[CareerResurrection comebacks]] in TheSeventies) blacklisted from television. The networks also cracked down on how much influence advertisers could have on the shows they sponsored, and took [[ExecutiveMeddling a greater hand]] in production to avoid similar incidents in the future.
** On a related note, the [[TransAtlanticEquivalent British version]] of ''Twenty-One'' (on Creator/{{ITV}}) was also found to be rigged around the same time.
* Referred to by TV Guide as "a despicable travesty on the very nature of charity", '''''Strike It Rich''''' ([[NamesTheSame not to be confused with]] [[Series/StrikeItLucky the short-lived 1986 game show of the same name]]) was a 1947-1950 CBS radio show and later 1951-1958 NBC television show that they and many other critics of its time consider one of the ultimate examples of the exploitation of the less fortunate to the gain of viewers and the show's sponsors. While its premise of destitute people, those with medical needs, or victims of tragedies trying to earn money through answering four simple trivia questions (with the occasional donation of money to the victim's family by charitable viewers phoning in via the "Heart Line" for those who failed all four questions) seemed harmless and wholesome enough in spite of its pedestrian gameplay, the execution was really off-putting.

* One of the greatest game show failures in Spain was a very short-lived show called '''''La Trituradora''''' (The Crusher). Aired in 1999 and hosted by Belinda Washington, who back then was a popular actress and TV host in Spain, it lasted only ''two'' episodes before it was unceremoniously discarded. Part of its undoing was its unusual premise: contestants had to wage a personal belonging (such as a domestic appliance) and take part in a series of games. If they were victorious, they won a hefty prize; if they lost, whatever they waged was destroyed by Deborah, the eponymous crusher. Abysmal audience ratings, almost no volunteers to the contest (since people participate in game shows to ''win'' stuff, not to have theirs destroyed!) and a very high cost per episode marked the death knell not only for the show, but [[CreatorKiller for Belinda Washington's career]].

Good game shows instill excitement in the audience, dread in the contestants, and ratings in the Nielsen box. These failures can't even do one of those things. Here is what the worst that reality TV has to offer.

[[AC: America One (United States)]]
* America's 72nd most-watched network America One brings us America's 72nd most-popular big money game show, '''''The Million Dollar Word Game''''' (1999). The player must unscramble words (either a single word, or coming up with multiple words of specified length using the letters of one word). A few milestone points award cash and a trip, and getting past all 14 "levels" apparently allows the player to win a prize from the cheap-looking board, such as maybe, just maybe, $1,000,000. It was ostensibly attempting to [[WhoWantsToBeWhoWantsToBeAMillionaire clone]] ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'', but had 1989-level production values, if not worse (they couldn't even afford to show a countdown clock on screen!), and none of the atmosphere or substance that makes a game show legitimately exciting. The "set" is literally just a wall with the show's logo and the "prize banks" for the BonusRound on it (the credits contain the plug "Signage by [=Fastsigns=]". The joke writes itself), two cheap-looking podiums, and effects lighting borrowed from the local rock and bowl. The host, Ian Jamieson (who you may remember from such shows as ''The Lonely Chef'' and America One's hit variety show ''The Ian & Clare Show'' -- whose co-stars are the producers of ''MDWG''), contributes to a dull, public access-grade atmosphere that makes the aforementioned ''Shoppers Casino'' look like ''Series/ThePriceIsRight''.
** One wonders if the show could even afford to give away $10,000, let alone $1,000,000, given that it clearly has NoBudget. Though, according to post discussing the show on the mailing list alt.tv.game-shows, contestants rarely made it to the higher levels to begin with, and one contestant had made it to level 14 but lost. In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yn1HxqqXSo episode posted on YouTube]], Ian boasts at the top of the show that the next round of tapings would add a top prize of '''''$5,000,000!''''' Later on, he announces a planned tournament between the United States and Canada as a contestant plug. Of course, the number to call to be a contestant is a 1-900 number. Once again, the joke writes itself.

[[AC: BBC (United Kingdom)]]

* The first season of '''''Top Design''''' fell squarely into this. Bravo thought people who loved ''Series/TopChef'' and ''Series/ProjectRunway'' would love to see more takes on that formula, and so they made a show like those two shows, but with interior designers. They also decided to combine the host and mentor roles into host Todd Oldham. Now, this ''can'' be done right — HGTV had a competitive reality show for interior designers that worked. But ''Top Design'' didn't get it right. The challenges were not engaging enough to viewers, the elimination catchphrase "[[LameComeback See you later, Decorator]]" was dull and Todd Oldham had negative charisma. The show was a flop in the ratings. Instead of canceling it right then, Bravo gave it a second chance, giving production of the Season 2 to the studio behind ''Top Chef'' and ''Project Runway'' and ordering a major {{retool}} of the show to get it closer to the formula of ''Chef'' and the Bravo seasons of ''Runway''. India Hicks became the new host, while Oldham was demoted to mentor but unfortunately still there. The elimination catchphrase was changed, the challenges became more elaborate, and the Season 2 finale was a two-parter. Despite the changes, the retool failed to bring in new viewers. Nowadays, when ''Top Design'' is mentioned in articles or forums related to Bravo shows, the reaction is always negative. Despite this, '''3 years later''', Creator/NineNetwork launched an Australian version.

* '''''Series/YoureInThePicture''''' is almost a byword for bad ideas executed badly — or it would be if it was better known. It was a 1961 game hosted by Jackie Gleason, in which a four-celebrity panel (in the one episode that aired, the panel consisted of Pat Harrington Jr., Pat Carroll, Jan Sterling and Arthur Treacher) stuck their heads through pictorial cut-outs and tried to guess what picture they were in. Within five minutes of the January 20 premiere, it was clear that the game was nigh-impossible and far from interesting; even the ''prize'' was lame — 100 CARE packages donated in that celeb's name (if nobody guessed correctly, they were donated in Gleason's name). The following week's "show" on January 27 consisted entirely of Gleason shotgunning coffee (which an audience member had poured some booze into) and apologizing to everyone who watched the premiere, chalking up its failure to "the intangibles of show business", sharing memories of other failures he was involved in, and making fun of a format that ''seemed'' like a winner when it was being thought up. Incidentally, this half-hour apology (the PoorlyDisguisedPilot for a one-on-one informal Gleason talk show) may be the [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments funniest moment]] of his long and illustrious career.

* '''''Series/PakDePoenDeShowVan1Miljoen''''' is fondly remembered as one of the most spectacular flops in the history of Belgian television. Offering up to 20 million Belgian francs (around $667,000) in conjunction with the postcode lottery, up to 1 million (around $33,500) in a BonusRound for the winning contestant, and hosted by the stars of one of the most critically-acclaimed sitcoms in Belgian history, one wonders what could possibly go wrong. For the premiere, it was ''everything.'' The hosting was so overly formal that it [[PoesLaw bordered on parody]]. The trivia rounds had glitchy buzzers and inconsistent judging that would make [[Series/BallsOfSteel Alex Zane]] proud. To top it off, the phone for a home game segment didn't work, and the final challenge to determine who would play for the million francs -- an RC car race across the set -- had a car that wouldn't move. Even worse was the irony that a random audience member ''[[DisproportionateReward could win twenty times more cash than what the winning contestant would have had if they answered all the questions of the final round correctly]]''. The interval acts, that were filled with SoCoolItsAwesome performances, saved the program as a whole from being a total trainwreck, though. The program was ultimately retooled with new hosts as the ''Pak De Poen Show''; it was an improvement in comparison to the "premiere", but the lingering karma led to poor viewership, and it was cancelled after 2 episodes.

* '''''Knock Knock Live!''''' was a reality show that pretty much mixed everything about the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, celebrities, and everything bad about a reality show in one mix, plus Ryan Seacrest. In this show Seacrest went door-to-door with various celebrities to give regular people anything from cash to big prizes to the chance to play and win a big game. The problem was how it went went about doing so; where some boring white-bread suburban development in Dallas got cleared out for fun and games where the entire mostly-Caucasian population got money (along with a meeting with David Beckham where a family got free iPhones), a "knock-knock" in an urban neighborhood was much different; the mostly minority neighborhood had to chase money distributed at random or the usual generic 'help out a church' story which hardly helps any individual family that might deserve a reward. Despite Ryan Seacrest's star power, along with other minor celebrities, it failed to rate well, and was cancelled after only two episodes.

* '''''Utopia''''' [[note]](no relation to [[Series/{{Utopia}} the British conspiracy thriller of the same name]])[[/note]], an ambitious $50 million program that Fox premiered in Fall 2014, and which quickly went down as one of the biggest bombs in TV history. Based on a Dutch reality show, fifteen people from all walks of life were sent to live on a compound in southern California in the hopes of building a new society, with a working farm, a lake stocked with fish, and a 24/7 live camera feed that anybody could watch online. While the original Dutch show it was based on was a success, the American version completely botched the execution, as the cast was composed of {{Jerkass}}es and exaggerated stereotypes picked out specifically to cause tension with each other (a minister and an atheist, a hunter and an animal rights activist, etc.), pretty much defeating the whole point of the show right from the start. [[http://communityvoices.post-gazette.com/arts-entertainment-living/tuned-in/item/38334-fox-s-folly-utopia One critic]] called it nothing but non-stop "farming, fighting, and fornicating -- but mostly fighting," few of the people involved (in either the cast or the production) seemed to have any idea what they were doing or what the point of the show was, and some cast members were overtly saying on camera that they couldn't wait to get voted off so they could [[MoneyDearBoy collect their paychecks]]. The show's swift cancellation after only one month strained the Fox network and deepened its slump in the mid '10s, and sparked much discussion about whether RealityTV, at least on the broadcast networks, was wearing out its welcome.

* Another oft-cited example of a terrible game show revival is the 1990 version of '''''Series/TicTacDough'''''. The pot reset to '''zero''' after each tie[[labelnote:*]]Granted, doubling the money amount of each box with each tie helped alleviate that issue[[/labelnote]], [[WereStillRelevantDammit a dragon and dragon slayer rapped in the bonus round]], special weeks had divorced couples playing against each other and [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking Henry Mancini composed the uncharacteristically kiddie theme music]]. [[TheScrappy Patrick Wayne]] was an all-around terrible host who read the questions in monotone and explained the rules very slowly. However, he amped everything else up whenever a contestant blocks their opponent or wins the game, [[SuddenlyShouting shouting "YOU BLOCK!" or "YOOUU WIIIIIIINNN!"]] respectively. One must wonder if Dan Enright [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs was high when he produced this version]] as, along with a revival of sister show The Joker's Wild, it would be the last game show he would work with before his death. It didn't even last a full season before getting axed. Website/GameShowGarbage talks about it [[http://gameshowgarbage.com/ind001_patrickwayne.html here]] and [[http://gameshowgarbage.com/ind021_ttd90raps.html here]]. If you're brazen, you can see an episode [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W73lLTtUFyc here.]]

* '''''Series/RedOrBlack''''' (2011), created by producer slash MeanBrit [[Series/AmericanIdol talent]] [[Series/BritainsGotTalent show]] [[Series/TheXFactor judge]] Simon Cowell, subjected a group of 1,000 contestants to a series of {{luck based mission}}s, designed to whittle them down to 8 for a live studio round, which in turn would determine the one person who would have a chance to win £1,000,000 on a single spin of a big roulette wheel. This game required absolutely no skill at all, besides predicting the outcome of luck-based scenarios (sometimes involving celebrity guests) by picking either "red" or "black", or just having said choice randomly forced upon them without any user input at all. Even the titular final round fell into this pattern; [[SceneryPorn giant roulette wheel]], 36 spaces. Half red, half black. Send the ball down and hope your luck doesn't run empty at the end of your long journey. The first series was broadcast as a 7-day long event in September 2011; while the ratings were actually pretty good by ITV standards (especially with ''Series/TheXFactor''), the ''Red or Black'' was lambasted by critics for being dull and utilizing stereotypical reality show tropes. Plus, controversy brewed when it was revealed that the first million-pound winner had a criminal record (while they didn't strip his winnings as demanded by the media, several contestants were silently disqualified from the live round on later episodes).

* America's 72nd most-watched network America One brings us America's 72nd most-popular big money game show, '''''The Million Dollar Word Game''''' (1999). The player must unscramble words (either a single word, or coming up with multiple words of specified length using the letters of one word). A few milestone points award cash and a trip, and getting past all 14 "levels" apparently allows the player to win a prize from the cheap-looking board, such as maybe, just maybe, $1,000,000. It was ostensibly attempting to [[WhoWantsToBeWhoWantsToBeAMillionaire clone]] ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'', but had 1989-level production values, if not worse (they couldn't even afford to show a countdown clock on screen!), and none of the atmosphere or substance that makes a game show legitimately exciting. The "set" is literally just a wall with the show's logo and the "prize banks" for the BonusRound on it (the credits contain the plug "Signage by [=Fastsigns=]". The joke writes itself), two cheap-looking podiums, and effects lighting borrowed from the local rock and bowl. The host, Ian Jamieson (who you may remember from such shows as ''The Lonely Chef'' and America One's hit variety show ''The Ian & Clare Show'' -- whose co-stars are the producers of ''MDWG''), contributes to a dull, public access-grade atmosphere that makes the aforementioned ''Shoppers Casino'' look like ''Series/ThePriceIsRight''.
** One wonders if the show could even afford to give away $10,000, let alone $1,000,000, given that it clearly has NoBudget. Though, according to post discussing the show on the mailing list alt.tv.game-shows, contestants rarely made it to the higher levels to begin with, and one contestant had made it to level 14 but lost. In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yn1HxqqXSo episode posted on YouTube]], Ian boasts at the top of the show that the next round of tapings would add a top prize of '''''$5,000,000!''''' Later on, he announces a planned tournament between the United States and Canada as a contestant plug. Of course, the number to call to be a contestant is a 1-900 number. Once again, the joke writes itself.
** Also, said tournament never came to be on TV and was eventually held online, but each contestant had to pony up $100 to approximate the $5 million grand prize. And the winner had to fly to the Caribbean to claim it. Can anyone spell "scam"?

** Also, said tournament never came to be on TV and was eventually held online, but each contestant had to pony up $100 to approximate the $5 million grand prize. And the winner had to fly to the Caribbean to claim it.

* '''''The Moment of Truth''''', a game show based on ''Nada más que la verdad'' (''Nothing but the Truth'') which originated in Colombia. Contestants on this show were hooked up to a polygraph and asked a series of questions which were then asked again on stage for an increasing cash prize. That's right, your fate on this show depends on the results of a LieDetector test and if you refuse or give an untruthful answer, [[AllOrNothing you leave with nothing]] (although a $25,000 safe haven was later introduced). The questions got more personal with each passing level: a first tier question might be "Have you ever admired yourself in the mirror after taking a shower?" while upper tiers might have "Since you've been married, have you had sexual relations with someone other than your husband?". All this happened while the contestant had a support group on stage and in the audience with some even asking the questions. Host Mark L. Walberg admitted that he begged a contestant not to continue on at least one occasion [[ExecutiveMeddling despite warnings by Fox executives]]. He was also reportedly so disgusted with one episode that he tried to talk Fox out of airing it; he wasn't successful so instead he taped a "viewer discretion advised" disclaimer. It premiered after ''Series/AmericanIdol'' as a RatingsStunt (as previously happened with ''Series/AreYouSmarterThanAFifthGrader'' a year prior) although viewership declined with each passing episode. Three seasons were taped but only two aired due to Fox not finding enough room on its schedule to accommodate it. Walberg [[StarDerailingRole hasn't had much success since this show got cancelled]]; he still has ''Series/AntiquesRoadshow'' but that's about it.
** The original Colombian version also deserves a special mention—it was abruptly taken off the air when a woman confessed to ''[[BlackWidow hiring a hit man to kill her husband]]''[[note]]Don't worry, the person she hired didn't go through with it and actually helped the husband escape[[/note]]. This happened three months before the American version was set to air but the obvious red flag didn't deter Fox.

* '''''The Moment of Truth''''', a game show based on ''Nada más que la verdad'' (''Nothing but the Truth'') which originated in Colombia. Contestants on this show were hooked up to a polygraph and asked a series of questions which were then asked again on stage for an increasing cash prize. That's right, your fate on this show depends on the results of a LieDetector test and if you refuse or give an untruthful answer, [[AllOrNothing you leave with nothing]] (although a $25,000 safe haven was later introduced). The questions got more personal with each passing level: a first tier question might be "Have you ever admired yourself in the mirror after taking a shower?" while upper tiers might have "Since you've been married, have you had sexual relations with someone other than your husband?". All this happened while the contestant had a support group on stage and in the audience with some even asking the questions. Host Mark L. Walberg on at least one contestant tried to beg a contestant not to continue. He was reportedly so disgusted with one episode that he tried to talk Fox out of airing it; he wasn't successful so instead he taped a "viewer discretion advised" disclaimer. It premiered after ''Series/AmericanIdol'' as a RatingsStunt (as previously happened with ''Series/AreYouSmarterThanAFifthGrader'' a year prior) although viewership declined with each passing episode. Three seasons were taped but only two aired due to Fox not finding enough room on its schedule to accommodate it. Walberg [[StarDerailingRole hasn't had much success since this show got cancelled]]; he still has ''Series/AntiquesRoadshow'' but that's about it.

Good game shows instill excitement in the audience, dread in the contestants, and ratings in the Nielsen box. These failures fail to do even one of those things. Here is what the worst that reality TV has to offer.