"Armed & Famous"

Has "The Surreal Life" become too commonplace for you? Are "Breaking Bonaduce" and "Hogan Knows Best" akin to watching your family's home movies? Then perhaps a reality show with D-level celebrities playing cops in a small Indiana town would be enough high-concept for you. At least, that was the thinking at CBS for 16 days this year. "Famous" had LaToya Jackson, Jack Osbourne, Trish Stratus, "Wee-Man" from "Jackass" and Erik Estrada (in the most inspired choice) moving to Muncie, Ind., to become police officers (while simultaneously arresting perps and signing autographs for them). Amazingly, no one wanted to watch this.

"Father of the Pride"

To everyone outside Las Vegas, Siegfried and Roy were already punch lines when DreamWorks began production on this bizarre, prime-time animation show. Then, as if it wasn't bad enough that the studio had confused recognition with ridicule (What's next, a Carrot Top show?), magician/trainer Roy Horn was mauled by one of his white tigers just months before the show's premiere. After weeks of high-profile Olympics advertising, the show debuted in August 2004, although it was immediately unclear who the target audience was. If it was for kids, why was the humor so ribald? If it was for mainstream America, why would they watch Siegfried and Roy any more than a cartoon about Danny Gans? Soon after the show's absurd $1.6-million price tag (per episode!) was revealed, this clunker about S & R's family of "friendly" white lions was unceremoniously put down.

"The Post-'Seinfeld' Shows"

In some alternate, bizarro universe, perhaps, Michael Richards is the most beloved man on television, and critics are sadly reporting on the triumphant seventh and final season of "Bob Patterson." On our Earth, however, the term "nothing" refers to both the overriding concept of "Seinfeld" and the cast's collective contribution to our entertainment in the years since. Richards was first out of the gate with 2000's "The Michael Richards Show," which cast him as a bumbling private eye who was essentially a live-action Inspector Gadget. Two months later, the show was canceled without receiving a tenth of the viewers of Richards' recent Laugh Factory meltdown. Jason Alexander hit the ground with 2001's "Patterson," an unfunny show about a self-improvement guru that premiered a month after Sept. 11 and actually succeeded in making the country feel even less in the mood to laugh. In 2005, Alexander returned with the sports radio spoof "Listen Up," and no one did. The only star smart enough to leave well enough alone was Jerry Seinfeld, who has maintained a relatively low profile since his show went off the air in 1998. Then, there is the unique case of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, whose 2002 bomb, "Watching Ellie," was finally redeemed by the apparent success of "The New Adventures of Old Christine," which may have finally broken the "Seinfeld curse."

"Joey"

As NBC's comedy juggernaut "Friends" prepared to go off the air, the network frantically put out feelers, hoping one of the six stars would be willing to press on with a spin-off. Eventually, they got around to Matt LeBlanc (who had already proven his lack of discernible taste with the 1996 monkey-baseball movie "Ed"). Sure enough, the only star of the show never to host "Saturday Night Live" relocated the most-one-dimensional "Friend" to the absurdly overpromoted "Joey," which told the story of his move to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune. The program struggled through its freshman season, receiving disappointing ratings before a mercy pickup for Season 2, in which "Joey's" ratings dropped off by 82 percent. A move to a time slot opposite "American Idol" put the final nail in the coffin and, soon enough, NBC was finally answering Joey's trademark question of "How you doin'?" with a resounding "Not so good"!