The Top 5 Worst Things That I Inducted

Text by: Cyndi Seidelman

Game Show Garbage has come to an end and it's time to answer the question a lot of people asked me: What is the worst thing you've ever inducted? Well, here is my personal top 5 and these may vary. Now I want to make note that this includes things that I have personally reviewed and not things that Jim Williams or others have inducted. To be honest though, the only two that would have been in contention were the Jeopardy Porno Parody and The Diamond Head Game. Anyways, here is the Top 5 Worst Things I've ever Inducted.

5: Three's A Crowd - One of the earliest inductions on the site and it is pretty terrible. It takes a certain type of show to make the wonderful Jim Peck look pretty pedestrian as a host, but this wife Vs. Secretary game managed that. While it may be fun to know about the aura of Newlyweds, trying to get an admission of whether a boss was schtumping his secretary while married was atrociously bad. This type of show however, wasn't just a Newlywed Game clone like The Neighbors was, it bordered on offensive and was the show responsible for tanking Chuck Barris' reputation. The ripple effects of this show were such that every single one of his shows was cancelled before September 1980.

4: Charles Ingram - While the specter of the scandals was risen with the Our Little Genius scandal, Charles Ingram's cheating caused an actual one for the UK's version of Millionaire. The absolute gall of him and the lengths he would go to secure the million with his partners in crime was sad in hindsight. The whole trial gave the show a massive black-eye because the trial went three years until a verdict by a judge saying that Ingram and friends did cheat. After putting up the induction in 2014, it's gotten a bit weirder because now they claim they never did it and she never coughed. Just admit to doing this hackneyed scheme and get out of our lives. It's here because I absolutely hate what he did. Yes, this list is completely personal.

3: Shoppers Casino - Oh yeah. This drek was torturous to sit through. I had to go through a couple of trades in order to procure it. It's one of the cheapest produced shows and while you can hide it, they never did. What also hurts is Jeff Maxwell might be one of the worst hosts of all time and the only person on the set that's borderline competent is the dealer "Dirty Harry" What put it over the top was the viewer call-in segment. You'd think that they'd not fudge this one...but they did. The call was actually coming from the booth because no phone call had that type of quality in 1987. Everything about this show was a complete waste and I doubt this lasted longer than the one paid programming show.

2: The Chamber - It almost killed contestants. Not only that, this show was a rush-job to beat ABC's ballyhooed The Chair. The problem with that is the Chair didn't go out of their way to torture the contestants and had a decent enough format. The Chamber had a lame see-saw opener and that was only matched by the Chamber itself. Everything about it was shockingly bad, especially the judging. On one episode, a contestant gave the last name of Glenn to the question "who was the first american to go up in space?" Apparently, they sat on their hands for 10 or so seconds before the contestant blurted out another name and causing her to lose. Dick Clark Productions was sued because of another contestant almost dying after winning $23,000 and had to pay out $100,000 in damages. It was so bad it KO'ed this show and The Chair.

1: There's Something About Miriam - Where do I even begin with this one? Not only is it a lame Bachelorette style show, but everything about it was already tired in 2003. Then we get to the titular Miriam and parading her as this beautiful freak. What I hate about this show is the deception and the lengths to do that to the contestants on the show. At the end, the winner was mocked by the losers for falling in love with someone who was AMAB. Because of the mocking, he decided against the trip with Miriam. After the show wrapped, all the guys sued and won. It was offensive in every sense of the word. Shows like The Chamber may have been bad on a gameplay standard or a production standard, but Miriam is the worst because it's bad in every single aspect of being. It's the worst show I watched for this show for those reasons.

That's it, that's the list.

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