10 TV Pilots That Thankfully Didn't Get Picked Up

It's painful to imagine watching shows about a family who builds and adopts a robot child, a mom who is reincarnated as her son's car, or the exploits of four elderly women. And these were the shows that actually ran for a season or more! With all the trash that's made it on TV, it's hard to believe that networks reject any idea, but there have actually been some series pilots that just didn't impress the bigwigs. If you have nothing else to be grateful for in your life, at least thank your lucky stars that these 10 pilots never got picked up.

1. The Adventures of Superpup

   Because The Adventures of Superman were such a huge hit in the '50s, producers thought audiences would go crazy for the same story idea on a planet populated by dogs. Well, a planet populated by dwarfs wearing dog heads. Those producers were wrong. The characters are all aptly named after the Superman icons, with the canine Clark Kent called Bark Bent, but none of them have the superpower of blinking (though they occasionally move their mouths almost in time with the dialogue). To be fair, it was made in 1958 before special effects were really in use, but if this show had been picked up, it would've been like watching teenagers in Chuck E. Cheese costumes perform at birthday parties every week.

2. Heil Honey I'm Home!

   British television producers normally get away with more controversial things than those in the U.S., but even networks across the pond realized that Heil Honey I'm Home! wasn't going to sit well with audiences. The show was canceled after the pilot aired because the public found it absurdly offensive. The premise was that Heil Honey was a lost sitcom from the 1950s, allowing the makers to parody American shows of the time like Leave It To Beaver. Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, a bickering German couple, live next door to the Goldensteins, their meddlesome Jewish neighbors. The plot is purposely ridiculous but painful to watch after about 30 seconds, not just because it trivializes the Holocaust but because the acting itself is a tragedy.

3. Shangri-La Plaza

   Even if you hate Glee, you'll agree that it's the lesser evil when compared to this musical comedy. Shangri-La Plaza tells the story of a mini-mall in California and its inhabitants. One woman (Melora Hardin, known from the successful, non-musical show, The Office) takes over a donut shop after her ex-husband dies; two brothers who run a mechanic shop fall for her. All of this might be OK if the characters didn't sing every other line and break out into full-out musical numbers. You could probably get away with the goofy dialogue and music if it were a kids' show, but the fact that the very first scene involves the brothers discussing sex in a car probably means it's not intended for young audiences. Who did the producers think would enjoy this?

4. Knee High P.I.

   The title of this show is a little misleading. The main character is probably closer to waist high, which is far less ridiculous than a knee high private investigator who has to fight 6-foot-tall criminals from such a short stature. This dwarf tackles mysteries while insulting everyone he meets, shamelessly indulging his sexual appetite, and cracking cases in a way only a little person could. Who else could hide in a watermelon Trojan-horse style or dress convincingly as a lawn jockey? The world should be eternally grateful that the networks passed on this series and saved everyone from sitting through scenes of unfunny political incorrectness and the dwarf's promiscuous mom. Unfortunately, Comedy Central did make the pilot into a TV movie, so the show didn't completely disappear like it should have.

5. Poochinski

   Peter Boyle's sarcasm was loveable as the grumpy father on Everybody Loves Raymond, so it's got to be even better when he combines that persona with being a flirtatious cop named Sgt. Poochinski. But this 1990 pitch for an NBC show didn't stop there. In the pilot, Boyle's character is killed and reincarnated as a bulldog — a bulldog who can talk to his former partner, but only when he's a creepy puppet dog. This show probably would've done better, stupid premise and all, if the director had just let the audience assume the real dog could speak telepathically rather than a corny puppet opening and closing his snout. As it is, we'll never know whether Poochinski caught his killer or whether fighting crime is easier when you can urinate on suspects.

6. Wishman

   There are plenty of successful series (or at least series that made it past their pilot episodes) that feature bizarre creatures. Alf, for example, is ugly and eats cats, but people loved him anyway. Wishman, on the other hand, was downright disturbing. The pilot episode of Wishman in 1983 showed the networks a frightening genetics experiment gone wrong. A scientist at the lab feels bad for the giant baby-like troll he's helped create and takes it home to his wife, who surprisingly doesn't just leave him on the spot. The two then have to go on the run to save the grotesque being from people at the lab who want to destroy it. The networks obviously realized the audience would be rooting for the bad guys, screaming "Kill the beast!" at the TV, if the show were made into a series.

7. Battletoads

   Battletoads was a relatively successful video game with decent graphics for Nintendo in 1991. The cartoon show that came out right after the game was not such a hit. Battletoads, the TV show, tried to explain how the three fighter toads became the strange creatures they are. The story, though, involves an intergalactic battle, a potion that turns three Earthlings into an ancient breed of amphibious security guards, and really bad surfer accents. Many also found the idea of Battletoads too similar to the wildly popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Just add a shell and some pizza, and the two would basically be the same show, probably one of the reasons that the networks passed.

8. Heat Vision and Jack

   The star power in this 1999 pilot would probably make you tune in if it were aired on TV today, so the networks were really just saving you from yourself. Heat Vision and Jack was directed by Ben Stiller and features Jack Black and the voice of Owen Wilson. The writers are famous for their work on The Sarah Silverman Program, so it might be a surprise that this pilot failed to find a home for the series. Black is an astronaut whose mind was altered during a mission so he knows everything when the sun's up, and his motorcycle, Heat Vision, is his old college roommate. It's a little confusing and a little funny, but way too bizarre for a television series.

9. Who's Your Daddy?

   Based on the quality of reality TV shows that actually run on TV, it's hard to believe that there could be any that are so much worse that they don't get picked up. But Who's Your Daddy? was just that awful. The idea of reuniting a father with the now-grown child he put up for adoption as a baby is touching, and this show manages to foul even that up. Instead of just staging the meeting between the two family members who have been apart for decades, producers put the adoptee together with eight men all claiming to be her biological dad. If she chooses the right one, she wins $100,000; if one of the men fools her into picking him, he wins the money. If that weren't bad enough, the pilot episode, which was eventually run as a special on Fox, featured soft-core porn actress T.J. Myers, whose films include Seduction of Innocence and The Dallas Connection. Did the producers actually think this had a chance?

10. Steel Justice

    The death of a child is never comical — unless that child is reincarnated as a fire-breathing dragon robot. Because just being a dragon or a robot really isn't exciting enough. A police officer's son is killed when the boy follows his father to work, but the kid comes back as one of his toys. As a robot, he can continue to love his dad while also keeping him safe. How can he protect him, you ask? Logically, when this robot gets angry (because robots are known for their strong emotions), he becomes huge, spits fire at his enemies, and causes lots of general destruction. And all of that happened in one show. Maybe the networks were just saving our weak little hearts from all the inevitable excitement.

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