LOL: The Worst TV of All Time

Jimmy Fallon's talk show debuted last night. It wasn't half bad. Sure the interviews were clunky. He'll get better. Also, the part where they brought products on stage for audience members to lick was way, way too obviously a product placement scheme. But Fallon is okay, even if Seth MacFarlane has a point. And the Roots? They freaking jam.

But though good TV is fun to watch, bad TV is fun to mock, jibe and ridicule. That's way better. Bad TV makes you feel superior, because laughing at others is how we feel better about ourselves. And, really, isn’t that what comedy is all about? Feeling good.

This got us thinking about the worst television show of all time. Not just the bad stuff, mind you. We don't mean reality shows beneath the intelligence of a chimp or daytime talk that makes you certain devolution has begun. Nor did we merely want bad TV along the lines of "that chase scene wasn't realistic" or "that character is poorly drawn." Also, of course, we weren't looking for anything ironically bad, made with a wink and nod. No camp aloud. The show must have been created by people who truly though they were doing top quality work. The worst TV of all time must be the kind of television that makes your jaw drop; that makes you stare in wide wonder, mystified that anyone could possibly have let such an atrocity be made.

Episode 1 of Chevy Chase's ill-fated talk show pops immediately to mind. So does every movie about a wronged woman ever to air on Lifetime. Rosie O'Donnell's canceled-after-a-single episode variety show is so terrible that it's mesmerizing. We can't stop watching. Friends are threatening to stage an intervention. Still, none of that offal compares to the exquisite crappiness that was, is and forever will be "Viva Laughlin," a "musical-dramedy" about a small-time casino owner who dreams of opening a resort in Laughlin, NV. CBS aired the pilot on October 18, 2007, broadcast the official premiere October 21, promptly cancled the show the next day.

If you watch "The Soup," you know that VL was a Joel McHale favorite -- at least for the all-too-brief time it aired. Conan made fun of it, too. But, although it's gone, the world shan't soon forget just how wondrously awful this show was.



This is, Ripley Holden, the main character singing "Sympathy for the Devil." Which is bad enough. There are some songs you don't touch. Like, it's okay to cover Led Zeppelin, but some obscure. Don't do "Stairway to Heaven." It's okay to cover the Rolling Stones, but "Sympathy" belongs to Mick Jagger

Here's the kicker, though. He isn't singing instead of Jagger. He's is singing over him. The show used the Stones' original recording and and had XX sing over the track -- exactly what it sounds like when you are driving and singing over the radio.

The word "desecration" pops to mind.