Creator Provincialism / What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History

Because the book focuses only on American television, it does leave out some of the most infamous television events in other parts of the world. This includes (but not limited to):

• Heil Honey I'm Home!, a British sitcom about Adolf Hitler that only lasted one episode.
• Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos, a take on the America's Funniest Home Videos formula that aired on Nine Network and primarily featured animals having sex. It was pulled off the network in the middle of its only airing at the demand of the network's owner Kerry Packer, leading to the people who made/helmed the show being very acrimoniously fired right away and trespassed from the network until Packer's death.
• The Pokémon: The Series episode "Electric Soldier Porygon", which was never exported beyond the show's native Japan and was outright banned by the Japanese government because it contained strobing visuals that caused an epidemic of epileptic seizures during its only airing and led to new Japanese television practices that are still in effect to this day.
• Much like the American counterpart, the countless erasure of multiple episodes from British TV shows, most notoriously episodes from Doctor Who.
  • And while we're on the subject of Doctor Who, its initial decline and cancellation before its hiatus of nearly 15 years (during the time this book was published) deserves a dishonorable mention.^Why? To make it short, in the 1980's, Doctor Who's reputation was on a decline during the Peter Davison era after Tom Baker left (his last year being the start of the decrease in quality, although some fans may state season 15 being the actual start of the decline due to the complaints of Mary Whitehouse, forcing the change from the established gothic horror to more lighthearted serials), with many sources citing the scripts and production values being the main reason of both the decline and Davison's departure. Colin Baker's era (No relations to Tom) saw an even steeper decline, with many at the time criticizing C. Baker's Doctor's characterization and his usage of violence, as well as the graphic content depicted in his episodes. The chief critic behind this era was in fact the then BBC controller Michael Grade, who has admitted to "hating" the show (and Science Fiction in general) and wanting to outright cancel it, to which he did in 1985 citing both the aforementioned scripts and it's lack of budget (ignoring the fact that Grade was responsible for Doctor Who's budget). Fan and press outrage (not to mention an awful charity single) would force Grade and the BBC to bring back Doctor Who for a 23rd season after a 18 month hiatus, but chose to fire C. Baker after season 23 as they wanted a new Doctor. The series would see some improvement in script quality during the Sylvester McCoy era, but it's poor timeslot and declining rating would force the BBC to pull the plug on the series after 1989. Save for an American-made TV Movie and a few other official bits of one-off media, the BBC would not return Doctor Who to the small screens regularly until 2005.
• The Trouble with Tracy, a 1970s Canadian sitcom that was created solely to fulfill the then-financially struggling CTV's quota on locally produced content, with the producers required to film 130 episodes in a single season. The time and economic pressures involved forced them to take shortcuts such as wholesale recycling of scripts from the old American radio sitcom Easy Aces, shooting whole scenes in a single take, using canned laughter instead of a live studio audience, keeping flubbed lines in the completed episodes due to having insufficient time to shoot retakes, and shooting virtually the entire series inside a poorly-constructed set. The end result was regarded as one of the most poorly-produced sitcoms ever made.
• Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt^note "Help, My Family is Crazy", a German remake of Married... with Children that attempted to recreate the source material frame by frame, down to the looks and gestures of the cast, with virtually no attempt made to adjust the humor or plots to their new cultural surroundings. Its poor audience reception was not helped by its occasional translation issues or the fact that the original had already been exported the year prior to great success and even aired on the same network.
• De oro puro^note "Of Pure Gold", a Venezuelan soap opera that, despite its high production values, was panned by critics for its directionless and incoherent narrative, an issue further exacerbated by being aired in the same time slot as the well-regarded Por estas calles^note "On These Streets". Broadcaster RCTV attempted to resolve the issue by airing segments in which the cast members, alongside a respected character actress, recapped and explained the plot and backstory, which backfired as audiences quickly realized they wouldn't get much from watching it if the creators had to explain the whole thing to them.
• The Spike, an Irish drama serial set in a high school in Dublin which was heavily criticized for its poor acting, writing, and handling of contemporary societal issues. Further controversy arose due to a scene showing a nude model in an art class, leading to the series being officially condemned by the Irish government and promptly cancelled.