It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time: The Worst TV Shows in History and Other Things I Wrote
by Bruce Vilanch
Chicago Review Press
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0914091929
$28.99 (heavily discounted at Amazon)

The first entry on this last day of The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide is a last-minute addition, swiped from Mark Evanier’s blog. It’s a book by famed comedy writer, Bruce Vilanch, about his involvement in some of the absolutely mind-boggling worst things that ever happened on television.

It Seemed Like A Bad Idea At The Time is the perfect gift for anybody who loves cheesy TV and also likes to laugh their ass off.

Let’s have the publisher explain…

Bruce Vilanch is known as a go-to comedy writer for award shows, sitcoms, and over-the-top variety specials, but he has also been responsible for quite a few of the most legendary disasters ever made.

Some of his work lives in infamy—The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White at the Oscars, and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. How did these ever seem like a good idea?

Well, everyone has screwed up a few times, or had their work screwed up by others. It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time is a lifetime reflection of what Vilanch has experienced, learned, and forgotten in decades of working in show business, specifically the south forty acres known as comedy. It involves very famous people and people who were not very famous but should have been.

It explains to the people in the audience who say to themselves, once they have gotten their jaw off the floor, “’How did this ever get made?”

I have to admit, I haven’t read this yet. I’ve ordered it (it’s way cheap at Amazon as I write this), but you can probably order it from any bookseller. It’s perfect for anyone who ever looked at awful television and asked, “How the hell did that get made?”