List of television shows notable for negative reception
This list includes a number of television shows that are notable for negative critical reception.
Criteria
Factors that can reflect poorly on a television series include inherently poor quality, lack of budget, rapid cancellation, very low viewership, offensive content, and negative impact on other series on the same channel. Multiple outlets have produced lists ranking the "worst" television series, including TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly and Mail Online. TV Guide published lists in 2002 and 2010, each of which had contemporary shows near the top of the list.The following is a list of television series notable for negative reception — i.e. shows that are considered to be the "worst of all time" by critics, network executives, and viewers. Situation comedy shows have been given their own list, as they make up a large percentage of the shows considered the "worst".
This list also includes non-fictional programs.
Animated shows
; The Adventures of Paddy the Pelican: Created and directed by Sam Singer, who is most famously known for very low-budget cartoons. Only six animated episodes of this series were produced, all bearing the date 1950, making it one of the first ever efforts at a made-for-television cartoon ; the characters were originally from a local TV puppet show on Chicago's WENR-TV that began airing in 1950. It is exceedingly rare, but has gained some fame for appearing on Jerry Beck's "Worst Cartoons Ever". Two episodes of this show have appeared on DVD, but Jerry Beck states that he has not found any evidence that it was aired on TV. The show received a 1.4/10 rating on IMDb. This show is known for its seemingly unfinished nature, making use of looped pencil tests, a single voice actor, and general low-budget problems.; Allen Gregory: The Fox series was generally panned by critics and was cancelled after 7 episodes. Chris Swanson of WhatCulture gave the first episode a rating of 0.5 out of 5, stating he was "seriously disappointed" by the episode. Robert Bianco of USA Today also gave the episode a negative review, calling it "nasty and brutish", and "rarely funny". Metacritic has an overall review of 40% for the show.
; The Brothers Grunt: Created by Danny Antonucci, who would go on to create Ed, Edd n Eddy, The Brothers Grunt premiered on MTV in August 1994 as an attempt to capitalize on the network's earlier success of Beavis and Butt-Head. The show was cancelled after seven months and derided by critics and viewers for its gross-out content. Kenneth R. Clark of the Chicago Tribune wrote that MTV "created the most repulsive creatures ever to show up on a television screen". Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times deemed it a "sophomoric half-hour that leaves the viewer longing for the refined good taste of Alice Cooper". The Boston Globe called the show "moronic", while Steve Hall of The Indianapolis Star commented: "Compared to this... Beavis and Butt-Head looks like a masterpiece of social satire". Jean Prescott of The Pantagraph, in 1999, cited The Brothers Grunt as an "animation disaster". Authors William Beard and Jerry White called the series a "failure". Writer David Hofstede included the show among his selection of "The 100 Dumbest Events In Television History" in 2004: "Given the... grotesque appearance of the characters, it's not surprising that the series didn't last".
; Bucky and Pepito: This 1959 syndicated series has been criticized for its very poor production quality and perceived racial stereotyping. It was produced by Sam Singer, who is referred to as "the Ed Wood of animation" by Jerry Beck for his very low-budget and generally ill-reviewed style. The show was described by Fast Company technology editor Harry McCracken as setting "a standard for awfulness that no contemporary TV cartoon has managed to surpass". Author Alvin H. Marill wrote that the show "managed to set TV animation back to the early crude days", and castigated Pepito—who was voiced by white actor Dallas McKennon — as "pure Mexican stereotype—from the huge sombrero that covered his eyes to slow, lazy ways... mentioned in the show's theme song". Writer David Perlmutter described Bucky and Pepito as being "racially troubling" and having "very poor animation and cliché-ridden writing". Media historian Hal Erickson called Pepito "non-politically correct stereotyped" and the show's animation "arguably the worst of any TV cartoon of the 1950s". One episode was featured on Beck's Cartoon Brew webseries Cartoon Dump in 2007.
; Caillou: This Canadian children's series aired from 1997 to 2010 and then in the United States on PBS from 2000 to 2021. Although Caillou initially received positive reviews during its original run, it has drawn heavy viewer criticism in the years following its debut on TV, notably for the title character's mean-spirited behaviour and reputation for throwing tantrums starting in the first and second seasons; this resulted in four episodes of the show being banned by PBS Kids. Tristin Hopper of National Post, in 2017, called the show "quite possibly the world's most universally reviled children's program". Caroline Bologna of the Huffington Post published a 2017 feature of viewer responses titled "This is How Much People Hate Caillou". Comic Book Resources called the show "the Nickelback of cartoons", and the Detroit Free Press deemed the character "the worst role model to come out of Canada since Justin Bieber". Distractify remarked in 2020, "If you've managed to go your entire life without watching an episode of Caillou, you're one of the lucky ones". The Arizona Republic and The A.V. Club rated Caillou among the worst children's shows.
; Father of the Pride: Father of the Pride was a 2004 primetime computer-animated series that centered around a family of white lions whose eponymous patriarch stars in a Siegfried & Roy show in Las Vegas. Pre-release publicity was affected by Roy Horn being attacked by a tiger during a 2003 performance while the show was in production. Despite DreamWorks Animation marketing the show to younger audiences, NBC was forced to return $50,000 in funding to the Family Friendly Programming Forum after airing a series of promos during the 2004 Summer Olympics that showed characters making sexual references, and the program itself was panned by critics for its crude adult-oriented humor. The Las Vegas Sun commented: "Father of the Pride isn't suitable for children. Unless, of course, you consider references to sex acts and bestiality OK for younger ears". The combination of pre-release issues, negative reviews and poor ratings led to the show's cancellation after only thirteen episodes. Newsday named Father of the Pride one of the "worst shows of the 21st century", and The Daily Beast rated it among NBC's "most embarrassing flops of the last decade". Chris Longridge of Digital Spy described the show in 2017 as a "catastrophic misjudgment," and that the incident involving the tiger attack on Horn "didn't help" the show.
; The Problem Solverz: This series was created for Cartoon Network by Ben Jones, co-founder of art collective Paper Rad. It received largely negative reviews, with writers of entertainment-related publications criticizing the visual style and writing. Rob Owen writing for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called the style reminiscent of Atari 5200 video games and wrote that viewers could "thank" or "blame" Jones for his creation. For the magazine Variety, Brian Lowry disregarded the series as uninteresting and challenging to watch, the visuals and sounds weird for weirdness' sake. Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media defined the series as misguided, its stories as undeveloped, and its visual style as unappealing. The Weekly Alibis Devin D. O'Leary gave the show a more positive review, acknowledging the style as Paper Rad's own and found the writing more solid than that of Adult Swim's programming for which it could be mistaken. The jokes were not instantly funny according to O'Leary, but the visual style combined with the writing would provide amusement for Paper Rad's existing fans.
; Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon": The Ren & Stimpy Show creator John Kricfalusi rebooted his original 1991 series for the relaunch of The National Network as Spike TV, as part of its new adult animation block. Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" premiered in June 2003 and contained significantly more vulgar content than its predecessor, which resulted in only three of six ordered episodes being aired by the network. Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described it as "just plain gross.... They don't pay me enough to watch cartoon characters eating snot". Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times criticized the show as "'adult' only in the sense that you wouldn't want kids watching them". Tucson Weekly and Exclaim! both labeled it "disastrous". DVD Talk praised the show's animation, "but the weak stories epitomize empty, heavy-handed shock value". Matt Schimkowitz of Splitsider opined that the show's intended audience was "the 16-year-olds who grew up on the show and are ready to handle such hilarious topics as spousal abuse and eating boogers". Comic Book Resources, in 2018, called it "perhaps the most hated animated reboot ever". The negative reaction to the show tainted Kricfalusi's reputation and resulted in a 2016 pitch for a Ren & Stimpy feature film being rejected by Paramount Pictures. Billy West, who voiced Stimpy in the original series, had turned down Kricfalusi's offer to reprise the part in Adult Party Cartoon: "It would have damaged my career. It was one of the worst things I ever saw".
; ThunderCats Roar: A second revival of the original 1980s Thundercats cartoon, created by Victor Courtright and Marly Halpern-Graser. The show first aired on February 22, 2020, and ended on December 5, 2020, after only one season of 52 episodes. The show received a mixed reception from critics, and was widely panned by fans of the original show, receiving a "1.9/10" score on IMDb. Common fan criticisms included its character designs, humor, and characterizations, with many finding it a "messy and tonally inconsistent adaptation." It was seen as a "wild departure" from previous ThunderCats iterations and was "hailed as absolute trash" even before airing. Reviewers noted that "many of the jokes land with a painful thud" and that the "divisive art shift... is actually the least of the problems with the show's visuals." Specific complaints included characters and objects growing and shrinking inconsistently, hard-to-follow action sequences, and Snarf being turned into a "Deus ex Machina." Many fans felt it was "disrespectful to the hallowed source material" and an example of "mockstalgia." Some criticism also targeted an episode of Teen Titans Go! called "Teen Titans Roar!" that seemingly mocked ThunderCats Roar critics, with fans viewing it as the show's creators being "defensive" and not caring about established fans. The show was accused of "dumbing down all the characters to insulting themes" and throwing in "modern-day references and political issues." Raven Dubique-Ashton of Screen Rant, in a retrospective review, opined that Roar "did so badly that it threatened the integrity of the franchise as a whole," while holding out hope that the upcoming live-action movie could allow the franchise to "recover from its devastating 2020 failure". Another particularly controversial aspect was the perceived disrespect shown to the late voice actor Earle Hyman by making fun of his voice acting.
; Velma: An adult-oriented spin-off of the popular Scooby-Doo media franchise, with the title character voiced by comedian Mindy Kaling, this HBO Max cartoon received overwhelmingly negative reviews from its audiences, and later became one of the lowest-rated television shows on IMDb, receiving a "1.3/10" rating. On Rotten Tomatoes, Velma'