10 Dumbest:
Walker, Texas Ranger
The stories were simpler than a Deal or No Deal contestant. Zero plot intricacy, even less character development—just Chuck Norris karate-kicking dudes toting uzi's. And it kicked ass.
Saved by the Bell
Just think what you could have made of your life had you not spent every Saturday morning of your adolescence watching this mindless high school "comedy" about a demographically engineered group of popular white kids and their vaguely ethnic friends. Screech alone set human development back 10 generations closer to primordial slop.
Dinosaurs
ABC tried to pass off a sitcom featuring people dressed as a family of dinosaurs—complete with a baby who would brain his father with a frying pan while screaming "not the mama!"—as a satire of modern American society. If you've made it this far, you clearly didn't register the part about "people dressed as dinosaurs."
Joey
We don't know anyone with two brain cells to rub together who made it through an entire episode of this show. Yet this character on Friends who could barely wipe his own shoes, NBC thought could carry his own show. This couldn't have gone worse if his last name was Buttafuoco.
The War at Home
Michael Rappaport got his own family sitcom. Michael Rappaport is the real-life Joey.
The Mind of Mencia
Thanks to Carlos Mencia's inimitable brand of racially- and ethnically-charged sketch comedy, we no longer see color anymore. Because we stabbed our eyeballs into mint jelly four minutes into the series opener.
Growing Up Gotti
If Italian-Americans were offended by The Sopranos, they must have been rolling in their pizza boxes over this reality show, which evidently examined how homosexuals have taken over the Mob.
24
Our nation's terror policy was once compelling and suspenseful, too. But when it started focusing more on John Ashcroft's love relationship with Condoleezza Rice instead of the plot by his brother, Ayman al-Zawahiri (who didn't see that coming?), to nuclear-bomb Del Amo mall, we lost interest in the war on terror, too.
MTV's Next
Find the one-date format of shows like Elimidate and Change of Heart too high-minded? Then you'll love watching the same person go on five dates. Not stupid enough? MTV shrewdly anticipated this, throwing all the potential suitors in a bus and driving them around aimlessly until somebody gets Chlamydia.
Deal or No Deal
If you've ever quietly seethed while your girlfriend waffled for hours between two-dozen wallpaper patterns at Home Depot, you've beheld the skill required to win up to 20 years' salary on DND. Wanna liven up this TV version of millionaire whack-a-mole for Wheel of Fortune rejects? Put a hungry wolverine in one of the briefcases.
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10 Smartest:
Frasier
Mensa Says: The repartee was sensational; the main characters were very good. Even though they portrayed people who were likely of high intelligence, they also showed their weaknesses. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: Since Frasier and Niles would have been the poster boys for Mensa, this only makes sense. Well played, Mensa leader guy.
The West Wing
Mensa Says: You had to pay attention to stay up with it. The repartee was fast and furious and you needed a fairly high level intelligence to keep up with it. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: Yes. Uh-huh. We agree with what he said. Especially about needing to be smart to keep up with it. Which we definitely were.
Boston Legal
Mensa Says: It's primarily because of the characters. The story lines are OK, but the characters are incredible and the writers give them great dialogue. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: Sure, David E. Kelley consistently delivers quirky, complex, deeply-flawed characters. But "Boston Legal" is so goofy and over the top that we would never rank it in our top 10 smartest list -- if we had been smart enough to come up with one.
Jeopardy
Mensa Says: It's about the only game show that really tries to test people's intelligence. There's very little luck involved, and there are few game shows like that. I don't watch it all that much honestly, but from what I've seen it tests more than knowledge, it tests intelligence too. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: "Jeopardy" seems like it was handcrafted for Mensa by Mensa. Like the smart guy says, there are very few game shows that require book smarts to win the big prize; a couple of our other favorites would be "Cash Cab" and "Win Ben Stein's Money."
Cosmos
Mensa Says: [Carl] Sagan was able to communicate something extremely complicated to the layman and do it well, and that's unusual for a scientist at his level. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: At first we gave ourselves extra smarty-pants points for having watched Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" as children. But when we learned that over 600 million people worldwide have seen it, we revoked our points and issued each other a layman's gold star.
House
Mensa Says: Again, it's high level type of show; it's the personality that makes it a winner, plus it deals with science. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: Does this endorsement mean all the crazy medical mystery stuff that happens on "House" is actually possible?
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Mensa Says: The way they use science to solve their programs is intriguing to viewers. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: More science. We've identified a trend.
All in the Family
Mensa Says: The show dealt with social issues before its time and was on the forefront of trying to show people's feelings, beliefs and the complexities of personality, in both a serious and comedic way. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: We find it ironic that a show that featured the most infamously ignorant TV character found its place on Mensa's Top 10 list. We not only agree with this decision, more importantly we hope we used the word "ironic" properly.
Mad About You
Mensa Says: It’s a personal favorite, I loved the characters and the back and forth. It was very smart. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: This is surprising. "Mad About You" is a very sweet and likable show, but not overly brainy. Maybe we were distracted by Murray the dog. That happens sometimes.
M*A*S*H
Mensa Says: It had smart repartee and was so much more than a comedy. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: We 100% agree. M*A*S*H was brilliant in its ability to intertwine deep moral issues with laugh-out-loud comedy.
Walker, Texas Ranger
The stories were simpler than a Deal or No Deal contestant. Zero plot intricacy, even less character development—just Chuck Norris karate-kicking dudes toting uzi's. And it kicked ass.
Saved by the Bell
Just think what you could have made of your life had you not spent every Saturday morning of your adolescence watching this mindless high school "comedy" about a demographically engineered group of popular white kids and their vaguely ethnic friends. Screech alone set human development back 10 generations closer to primordial slop.
Dinosaurs
ABC tried to pass off a sitcom featuring people dressed as a family of dinosaurs—complete with a baby who would brain his father with a frying pan while screaming "not the mama!"—as a satire of modern American society. If you've made it this far, you clearly didn't register the part about "people dressed as dinosaurs."
Joey
We don't know anyone with two brain cells to rub together who made it through an entire episode of this show. Yet this character on Friends who could barely wipe his own shoes, NBC thought could carry his own show. This couldn't have gone worse if his last name was Buttafuoco.
The War at Home
Michael Rappaport got his own family sitcom. Michael Rappaport is the real-life Joey.
The Mind of Mencia
Thanks to Carlos Mencia's inimitable brand of racially- and ethnically-charged sketch comedy, we no longer see color anymore. Because we stabbed our eyeballs into mint jelly four minutes into the series opener.
Growing Up Gotti
If Italian-Americans were offended by The Sopranos, they must have been rolling in their pizza boxes over this reality show, which evidently examined how homosexuals have taken over the Mob.
24
Our nation's terror policy was once compelling and suspenseful, too. But when it started focusing more on John Ashcroft's love relationship with Condoleezza Rice instead of the plot by his brother, Ayman al-Zawahiri (who didn't see that coming?), to nuclear-bomb Del Amo mall, we lost interest in the war on terror, too.
MTV's Next
Find the one-date format of shows like Elimidate and Change of Heart too high-minded? Then you'll love watching the same person go on five dates. Not stupid enough? MTV shrewdly anticipated this, throwing all the potential suitors in a bus and driving them around aimlessly until somebody gets Chlamydia.
Deal or No Deal
If you've ever quietly seethed while your girlfriend waffled for hours between two-dozen wallpaper patterns at Home Depot, you've beheld the skill required to win up to 20 years' salary on DND. Wanna liven up this TV version of millionaire whack-a-mole for Wheel of Fortune rejects? Put a hungry wolverine in one of the briefcases.
----------------------
10 Smartest:
Frasier
Mensa Says: The repartee was sensational; the main characters were very good. Even though they portrayed people who were likely of high intelligence, they also showed their weaknesses. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: Since Frasier and Niles would have been the poster boys for Mensa, this only makes sense. Well played, Mensa leader guy.
The West Wing
Mensa Says: You had to pay attention to stay up with it. The repartee was fast and furious and you needed a fairly high level intelligence to keep up with it. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: Yes. Uh-huh. We agree with what he said. Especially about needing to be smart to keep up with it. Which we definitely were.
Boston Legal
Mensa Says: It's primarily because of the characters. The story lines are OK, but the characters are incredible and the writers give them great dialogue. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: Sure, David E. Kelley consistently delivers quirky, complex, deeply-flawed characters. But "Boston Legal" is so goofy and over the top that we would never rank it in our top 10 smartest list -- if we had been smart enough to come up with one.
Jeopardy
Mensa Says: It's about the only game show that really tries to test people's intelligence. There's very little luck involved, and there are few game shows like that. I don't watch it all that much honestly, but from what I've seen it tests more than knowledge, it tests intelligence too. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: "Jeopardy" seems like it was handcrafted for Mensa by Mensa. Like the smart guy says, there are very few game shows that require book smarts to win the big prize; a couple of our other favorites would be "Cash Cab" and "Win Ben Stein's Money."
Cosmos
Mensa Says: [Carl] Sagan was able to communicate something extremely complicated to the layman and do it well, and that's unusual for a scientist at his level. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: At first we gave ourselves extra smarty-pants points for having watched Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" as children. But when we learned that over 600 million people worldwide have seen it, we revoked our points and issued each other a layman's gold star.
House
Mensa Says: Again, it's high level type of show; it's the personality that makes it a winner, plus it deals with science. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: Does this endorsement mean all the crazy medical mystery stuff that happens on "House" is actually possible?
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Mensa Says: The way they use science to solve their programs is intriguing to viewers. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: More science. We've identified a trend.
All in the Family
Mensa Says: The show dealt with social issues before its time and was on the forefront of trying to show people's feelings, beliefs and the complexities of personality, in both a serious and comedic way. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: We find it ironic that a show that featured the most infamously ignorant TV character found its place on Mensa's Top 10 list. We not only agree with this decision, more importantly we hope we used the word "ironic" properly.
Mad About You
Mensa Says: It’s a personal favorite, I loved the characters and the back and forth. It was very smart. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: This is surprising. "Mad About You" is a very sweet and likable show, but not overly brainy. Maybe we were distracted by Murray the dog. That happens sometimes.
M*A*S*H
Mensa Says: It had smart repartee and was so much more than a comedy. (Read the full interview on Fanscape.com)
Yahoo! TV Says: We 100% agree. M*A*S*H was brilliant in its ability to intertwine deep moral issues with laugh-out-loud comedy.
