Worst Ideas Ever

by Daniel B. Kline

  Theodore Rex did little for the careers of its other major players, as director Jonathan Beutel’s filmography literally ends with the film for which he also received a writing credit. Mueller-Stahl faired slightly better, moving onto a career of guest appearances on decent television dramas, including The X-Files and The West Wing.

  Worst Talking-Animal Movies Ever

  Howard the Duck. Executive produced by George Lucas before he realized that he should only make movies with Star Wars or Indiana Jones in the title, Howard the Duck was about a duck from another planet who ended up stuck in Cleveland. Based on a comic book, Howard the Duck did introduce the martial arts style “Quack Fu,” a precursor to Shaquille O’Neal’s “Shaq Fu,” which went on to become a lousy rap record and video game. Lucas actually spent $2 million for the duck suit, which was only slightly more believable than your average dime-store Halloween costume.

  Monkeybone. Another big-budget, box-office bomb, Monkeybone paired Brendan Fraser with a monkey who began the story as a comic book character, but came to life after Fraser’s character fell into a coma. Highly regarded and distinguished actor John Turturro provides the voice for Monkeybone, a fact he most assuredly leaves off his resume. Whoopi Goldberg appears in the film as a character aptly named Death.

  Babe: Pig in the City. This movie sequel wasn’t so much wretched as unnecessary. Though the film got some decent reviews, its dark tone and the fact that one talking-pig movie may be cute, but two is redundant, doomed it at the box office. Sadly, this movie proved that there really aren’t that many leading roles for talking pigs, and trying to design a plot for one treats the audience to a movie as forced as the Crocodile Dundee sequels.

  25

  Worst TV Spin-Offs Ever: A Successful Show Does Not Always Mean a Successful Spin-Off

  NBC’s long-running megahit show Friends was built around a group of six somewhat unlikely friends and their love lives, which often involved each other. Even though all six characters were billed as equals, in reality, the show’s true leads were usually Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer as the “will they or won’t they?/why would she date him?” couple Ross and Rachel and the eventual, more plausible couple of Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Monica (Courtney Cox). Lisa Kudrow’s dim-witted but loveable Phoebe and Matt LeBlanc’s similarly dim-witted and loveable Joey were more comic relief characters. Sure, they occasionally got lead plotlines, but usually they were used to add jokes as their characters were less real people than the other four, more traditional sitcom archetypes.

  That made Joey a poor choice for a spin-off as he hardly seemed to have the depth of character required to carry his own show. This wasn’t Frasier Crane on Cheers with an unexplored life as a psychiatrist, this was Newman from Seinfeld where some was good, but a lot might be too much.

  Much like what happened with Frasier, Joey involved taking a familiar character and moving him to a new place. Instead of New York where Friends took place, Joey took place in Los Angeles. And much like Frasier was given a brother and a father we had never heard about on Cheers, Joey was given a sister (Drea de Matteo) and a nephew (Paulo Costnazo).

  Joey was put into Friends’ familiar 8:00PM Thursday timeslot by NBC, and expectations were very high. Friends had been one of the most popular shows in television history, and its final episode was one of those major TV events that seemingly the entire nation watches. In retrospect, given the cost of securing LeBlanc and the hype surrounding the parent series, the bar for this spin-off was being set impossibly high, and Joey was pretty much doomed to failure unless it was very cleverly done, with great writing and a plausible expansion of the simplistic Joey character.

  Sadly, none of those things happened, and California Joey, though slightly less dumb and a lot more successful, was mostly still just a guy that women liked who talked about food a lot. Ratings were decent for the first year—not anywhere near what was hoped for, but good enough for a renewal that was likely balanced against the money guaranteed to LeBlanc that the show would be given two years.

  NBC had initially given the show a huge push, and the debut episode was watched by nearly nineteen million people. Those numbers quickly decreased through the show’s two-year run with Joey averaging ten million viewers in its first season, then just over seven in the second. By the time the final episode was broadcast, just over four million people were watching, and NBC actually did not air episodes that had already been shot.

  Joey, however, was not the first or even the worst TV spin-off from a massively popular show whose finale was an event that rivaled the Super Bowl in viewership. That honor instead goes to M*A*S*H pin-off, AfterMASH. This show was doomed because they couldn’t get any of the main characters from the parent series to reprise their parts. The public might want to know what Hawkeye did after the war that he hated so much, but Alan Alda wasn’t available. The producers of AfterMASH couldn’t get Hawkeye, B.J., or even Hotlips and Frank Burns, so this ill-fated spin-off stars Colonel Potter, Klinger, and Father Mulcahy as they leave the high-pressure life-or-death stress of the Korean War for the much less dramatic happenings at a veterans hospital.

  Of course, without the stress of war and the running gag that Klinger wore a dress to be found crazy so he could get a “section 8” that would send him home, there wasn’t much interesting about these characters. Colonel Potter was an interesting character on M*A*S*H while he balanced the needs of the army with his decidedly nonmilitary unit, but here, he was just an old guy starring in a sitcom.

  Spin-off failure, though, was not just reserved for older characters or side characters as the results were equally as poor when the decision was made to spin-off Scott Baio’s Chachi and Erin Moran’s Joanie on Joanie Loves Chachi. Happy Days had already successfully spun-off Laverne & Shirley and successfully, albeit less plausibly, Mork & Mindy. Given that logic, perhaps this show should have been called Joanie & Chachi. Unfortunately, what made these characters interesting was their prolonged mismatched courtship. Making them a couple pretty much ended that and made this show hard to watch.

  Even harder to watch was The Brady Brides, a sad attempt to revive the original corny magic that was The Brady Bunch. It’s hard to choose between this mess and the Brady variety hour, but it’s impossible to equal the awfulness of a show that somehow manages to have both Marcia and Jan Brady—and their husbands buying a house together. Of course, wacky hijinks ensue, but fortunately, they only ensued for ten episodes.

  Perhaps even less plausible than having the Brady sisters move into the same house with their husbands was the idea that a lifeguard could be some sort of mystery-solving detective at night. That was the premise behind Baywatch Nights. This show was for the people who thought Baywatch had too many sexy women and not enough David Hasselhoff solving mysteries. This series actually made it two seasons, and in season two, they started ripping off The X-Files and having Hoff and the gang battle ghosts, vampires, and other paranormal creatures.

  SPORTS

  26

  Michael Jordan Leaves Basketball for Baseball: No Really, It Wasn’t a Gambling Suspension

  Despite being the best basketball player in the world at the absolute height of his career, Michael Jordan announced in the fall of 1993 that he would be leaving basketball to attempt to make it as a pro baseball player. Coming off of three straight NBA titles, Jordan decided that he would not go for four but would, instead, try to make himself into a right fielder.

  This might make sense if Jordan had been a dual-sport college athlete or someone who had a long tradition as a baseball player. Instead, he was just a bored millionaire who assumed that since he was really good at one sport, he would probably be pretty good at another.

  Since no athlete, no matter how talented, could go from one sport to another without at least a little practice, Jordan was signed by the Chicago White Sox and sent to the Double A Birmingham Barons. At the time, Jordan announced that he had lost his passion for basketball. The public did not buy that particular exc
use, and to this day, many people assume Jordan’s exit from basketball was a secret suspension due to gambling. Those allegations were never proven—though they linger to this day—and as far as history is concerned, Jordan simply left a sport he may well be the greatest to ever play for one where he was not nearly as good as your average high school all-star.

  Despite his staggering natural athletic ability, Jordan proved to be a lousy baseball player. Though he practiced ferociously and made impressive progress for someone who didn’t play baseball, Jordan still played like someone who didn’t play baseball. Despite his inability to play, Jordan was still one of the most famous people in the world, and his every action drew a media circus. Nearly forty media outlets covered his initial “I’m going to play baseball” press conference, and the Barons were covered on the road as if they were a Major League team rather than an obscure AA team.

  During his time in Birmingham, Jordan and hit .202 with 51 RBIs, 30 stolen bases and 114 strikeouts in 127 games. He also took part in the 1994 Arizona Fall League, where he posted a .252 average for the Scottsdale Scorpions. Jordan’s baseball career was interrupted by the 1995 baseball strike, which sent “His Airness” back to the basketball court.

  Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf charitably says that he believes that if the strike had not occurred, Jordan would have made the big leagues as a fourth of fifth outfielder. Even if that was true, the greatest basketball player in the world gave up more than a season and likely two championships for the possibility of being a bench player in another sport.

  Other Ill-Advised Exits

  David Caruso leaves NYPD Blue. After one season and four episodes, David Caruso left his hit television program to become a film star. Sadly, that choice did not turn out so well as Caruso’s two major films, Kiss of Death and Jade, both bombed at the box office. Caruso’s return to TV in the series Michael Hayes also bombed as NYPD Blue kept chugging along, ultimately running for twelve seasons. Caruso remained out in the cold—essentially out of the business for eight years—until his ultimate comeback on CSI Miami.

  Michael Ovitz leaves CAA for Disney. As the founder and leader of the Creative Arts Agency, Michael Ovitz was an enormously powerful agent and one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. That made it quite odd when in 1995—for no obvious reason—he quit CAA to become president of Disney. Though Disney was a large company, it was run by another powerful man who didn’t want to share his power, Michael Eisner. At Disney, Ovitz had few responsibilities. He lasted about a year before he was fired by Eisner and largely faded into obscurity.

  Apple shows Steve Jobs the door. Though he had created the company and was its symbolic and intellectual leader, Steve Jobs was actually forced out of Apple Computer during a sales slump in 1985. During his exile, Apple continued to struggle, and Jobs went on to lead a little company that would become Pixar—the incredibly successful animation studio that was ultimately sold to Disney for billions. In 1996, Apple realized its mistake and spent nearly $500 million to buy another Jobs’s company, NeXT, bringing their iconic leader back into the fold. That, of course, led to the iPod, iPhone, and Apple’s complete turnaround—a remarkable comeback that almost didn’t happen since Apple nearly went out of business after foolishly pushing its leader aside.

  27

  Legendary Coach Jimmy Johnson Endorses Penis-Enhancement Pill: Go Long

  Normally a celebrity only endorses products of questionable legitimacy when nobody will hire him for anything else. Kind of the equivalent of appearing at a car show or signing autographs in a high school gym, the dubious product endorsement is usually a money-making tactic of last resort.

  That makes me wonder if former college and NFL coach Jimmy Johnson has a gambling problem or if someone has been blackmailing him over something he really does not want to become public. Johnson, who won a national title at Miami and two Super Bowls coaching the Cowboys, hardly seems down on his luck. He currently stars on Fox’s NFL pregame show (probably a seven-figure gig for one day of work a week less than half the year), and he would be an in-demand, highly paid corporate speaker. And of course, don’t forget that Johnson was one of the highest paid coaches in the game during his stint with the Cowboys and his later, less-successful gig with the Dolphins. Plus, if he needs money, he would likely be an in-demand coach at $5–$7 million per year or could get one of those easy, lucrative, team president gigs like Mike Holmgren has with the Cleveland Browns that pays millions per year.

  With all of those financial options available to him, one has to question why Johnson instead chose to endorse ExtenZe, an extremely dubious “male enhancement” pill touted in late-night television commercials. ExteZe isn’t Viagra, Cialis, or any other legitimate drug prescribed by a doctor or approved by the FDA. Instead, it’s one of those “it couldn’t possibly work, but I’ll try it anyway” pills found on the checkout counter at less-reputable convenience stores.

  Johnson not only endorses the product, he seems to actually truly support it as in his multiple commercials for the pill, he seems to be enjoying himself. Unlike, say, Mr. T in the Flavor Wave Oven infomercial, where he looks like he’s a hostage, Johnson seems quite taken with the idea that this pill will make his penis bigger (though he has to know it won’t). In one ad, Johnson delivers the line, “Most men want to perform the best they can in just about everything. Isn’t that why we buy the biggest and best of everything?” He ends the ad, with the cringeinducing tagline, “Go long with ExtenZe. I do.”

  Before signing on with ExtenZe, Johnson had to know of its less-than-stellar reputation as in 2006, according to the Los Angeles Times, ExtenZe agreed to pay the Orange County, California district attorney’s office $300,000 in civil penalties for unfair business practices and false advertising. At the time of that lawsuit, Susan Kang Schroeder of the DA’s office said the company could not back up its claim that the pills caused users’ penises to grow 27 percent.

  Dr. Ira Sharlip, a spokesman for the American Urological Association, put it even more clearly to Newsday, saying, “There is no such thing as a penis pill that works. These are all things that are sold for profit. There’s no science or substance behind them.”

  Short of major financial problems, one would have to wonder why a still-working former NFL coach would choose to endorse a product whose validity has been publicly questioned and whose use, even if it did work, would be embarrassing to admit you need publicly. Endorsing ExtenZe is the equivalent of going on TV and saying, “I have a small penis,” not usually something most men are willing to do.

  Questionable Celebrity Endorsements

  Mr. T: The Flavor Wave Oven. First the A-Team movie uses someone else as B. A. Baracus, and then Mr. T has to resort to endorsing this odd cooking system. It’s not so much T’s presence in the commercial as it is the lines he is forced to deliver. It’s one thing to make him say versions of his own signature lines like “I pity the fool, who don’t try this salmon,” but it’s truly miserable when T has to deliver lines that weren’t even his from The A-Team. It also appears that T is wearing a press-on Mohawk in these ads, and he looks as happy to be there as Woody Allen would be at a Klan meeting.

  Pope Leo and Cocaine Wine. In the 1880s, Pope Leo XIII, Queen Victoria, and Pope Saint Pius X praised Vin Mariani, a popular drink made from Bordeaux wine laced with cocaine. Though cocainelaced wine may not be the worst thing ever endorsed by a pope, it was a pretty questionable move. Pope Leo XIII even awarded a gold medal to the drink and appeared in a poster endorsing it. The ad stated, “His Holiness the Pope writes that he has fully appreciated the beneficent effects of this Tonic Wine and has forwarded to Mr. Mariani as a token of his gratitude a gold medal bearing his august effigy.”

  Hulk Hogan, Troy Aikman, and Rent-A-Center. The Hulkster’s presence in this ad makes sense. He lost a ton of money in the divorce, “brother,” selftanner, and bandanas cost some serious dough; but Aikman’s presence in these commercials seems odd. Like Jimmy Johnson, Aikman not only has
a thriving TV career, but he made over $100 million in his playing career. While Hulk might have to be here, you would think Aikman could turn down the money offered to trick poor people into dramatically overpaying for TVs, couches, and other household items offered by Rent-A-Center on “rent-to-own” plans.

  Mikhail Gorbachev pitches Pizza Hut. From the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world to a commercial endorsing one of America’s crappy pizza brands, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev fell fast and hard. As if losing the Cold War wasn’t bad enough, the once-powerful leader was reduced to taking a job the average sitcom star would scoff at. At least this deal did not lead to a borscht pizza or Pizza Hut offering fountain vodka.

  28

  Major League Baseball Pushes the Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire Home Run Chase: Please Ignore Their Giant Heads

  Heading into the 1998 season, Major League Baseball had fallen upon hard times. The league had still not recovered from the labor dispute that led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series, and the public seemed disenchanted with what had once been “America’s national pastime.” Football was more violent—plus it had both the betting and the fantasy crowds—and basketball had captured hearts and minds of the youth audience. Baseball, with its slower pace and low scores, it was starting to seem, was a product of a bygone era—something that old men watched as they intermittently nodded off in front of the TV.