April Fools': Did these TV shows really happen?
April Fools' Day has perhaps lost some of its meaning in an age when the presidential race seems to be a practical joke. But then again, there's nothing new about absurd things on our televisions. Keeping that in mind this April 1, let's look back at some TV shows that seemed too silly to be real:
"Cop Rock" (1990) - After "Doogie Howser, M.D." and before "NYPD Blue," TV titan Steven Bochco thought the world needed to see a cast of cops that amusingly included two of the bad guys from "RoboCop" (Ronny Cox and Paul McCrane) perform musical numbers when they weren't serving justice. ABC canceled the world's first police procedural musical after 11 episodes. You can see "Cop Rock" for yourself when it "finally" comes to DVD on May 17.
"The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer" (1998) - UPN, the network that brought you "Star Trek: Voyager" and ... uh ... some other shows, aired only four episodes of this ill-conceived sitcom starring Chi McBride as Abraham Lincoln's black, British butler. Controversy over the pilot's slavery jokes swirled before the season even began, and UPN aired the second episode instead. According to Wikipedia, here's what we missed: "Abraham Lincoln engages in 'telegraph sex' with a woman he's never seen." Oh my.
"Skating With Celebrities" (2006) - Months after "Dancing With the Stars" became an unlikely hit for ABC, FOX tried to one-up the competition by adding a sheet of ice. The resulting seven episodes were painful for everyone involved, including pro skater Lloyd Eisler's wife, who told the tabloids her marriage ended thanks to her husband's affair with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" actress Kristy Swanson. The dubious duo won the competition, but ABC won the reality TV war - "Dancing With the Stars" is still going strong after 11 years and 22 seasons.
The final episode of "St. Elsewhere" (1988) - NBC's long-running medical drama about a Boston teaching hospital should be remembered for its incredible cast (Denzel Washington, David Morse and Ed Begley Jr., to name a few) and 13 Emmys. Unfortunately, most of us can't get past that head-scratching final episode where the entire series is revealed to have taken place in the imagination of an autistic child. Yes, that really happened.
The opening number of the 61st Academy Awards (1989) - Ten years before getting top billing in NBC's landmark drama "The West Wing," Rob Lowe was dancing on the Shrine Auditorium stage with Snow White in a song-and-dance medley that included "Proud Mary." The embarrassing scene rivaled Lowe's sex tape in the infamy department, but at least the Academy got it right when they handed out best picture later that night. ("Rain Man." Definitely "Rain Man.")
• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.