The lowest-rated TV show released the year you were born

Maybe you know what television shows aired the year you were born. But do you know what kind of show it would need to be to snag the bottom of the ranks? Maybe it’s subpar acting, unbelievable plotlines, amateur production value, horrible writing, sensationalism, or perhaps it’s new concepts audiences are not yet ready for at the time. Ratings are a mysterious game, as this list will show.

Stacker analyzed IMDb data on English-language TV shows and ranked the lowest-rated for each year. To qualify, the show had to have an IMDb user rating and a premiere date in the year given. For shows before 1990, a minimum threshold of 250 votes was used. For shows past 1990, the minimum vote threshold was 1,000. Data were included from IMDb from 1951 up through Jan. 23, 2022.

No genre was spared, from television talk shows to animated series, this list includes a reality television empire based around the antics of a celebrity Hollywood family, an early sci-fi anthology, a silly sitcom about a talking car, and a British soap opera (or several!). Some shows aired for one season, while others remained on TV for decades. Many started off on the right foot and derailed somewhere along the way; others had a rocky start and improved, becoming cultural forces whose legacy is still tangible today.

Keep reading to see which of your favorite shows (or the shows you loved to hate) made the top slot for one of the last 72 years.

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