You often have to wonder what kind of stagnant air these TV executives are inhaling when you consider some of the television shows that got the green light to air.

Most of these shows have disappeared with a blink, but trust me, they’re more frightening than a very COVID Thanksgiving with your out-of-state snowflake cousins. Sleep with the lights on.

Psychotic Robotic: The absurdly unfunny, “Small Wonder, (1985-89) managed to savage the few television viewers who bought into this plot: A science fiction/comedy that chronicled the family of a robotics engineer who secretly creates a robot modeled after a human girl and passes her off has the adoptive daughter named Vicki – some sort of weird acronym for Voice Input Child Identicant. Well, they got the “can’t” part right. The bizarre moppet (or is that Muppet?), portrayed by young actress Tiffany Brissette, walks around like a monotone cyborg on a heavy dose of Ritalin. She speaks like a robot, has an access panel in her back, and electrical outlet in her right armpit. Charming. Sadly, this show aired before USB ports were devised, otherwise this kid would have made one heck of a charging station.

Mommy needs a tune-up: “My Mother the Car” ran for one dreadful season in 1965 and detailed the weird relationship between a man and his mother, the latter having been reincarnated as a 1928 Porter automobile. It starred Jerry Van Dyke, poor soul, who had to play opposite an antique car, who was actually his dead mother. The two conversed through the car radio. Zoiks. I would have changed the radio station, called a priest and fired my agent.

Klink, take this man to the cooler: What’s funnier than a POW camp during WW II? Anything but this German spectacle. “Hogan’s Heroes” (1965-71) was a tasteless sitcom starring that creepy, porn-loving rapscallion Bob Crane and Werner Klemperer as the bumbling, gullible commandant. The prisoners had all the amenities of home, wave radios, cocktails and bunks that led to tunnels out of the camp which were mainly utilized by Bob Crane’s Hogan to have clandestine dates* with women. (*Wink.) Despite being an open parody of the Nazis, the series was unknown on German television for decades due to the language barrier. Dummkopfs.

No bunny watched this show: “The Girls Next Door” (2005-10) was a reality show on E! (the “E” here stands for execrable), which centered on Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends at the time: a flim, a flam and a floozie. Hefner’s crabby behavior made the aforementioned Germans look like Barney and Friends. The show had nothing to do with healthy relationships or monogamy, and had everything to do with three babes and a Barbie complex – literally. As sex romps go, I imagine it took three women to please Hefner: one to stir his Metamucil, one to apply Ben Gay and the other to put new tennis balls on his walker.

Jiggle room: “Baywatch” aired from 1989-2001 on several networks, but it remained consistent with its horrifically bad acting, raving sexism and blatant lack of diversity, with plots that usually involved the slow-motion running characters fighting crime. But I think having lifeguards solve crimes is like teaching your cat to bark. The show is so awful that they tried to make a parody of it with a 2017 movie version. You can’t parody parody. The only redeeming lesson learned from this show is that in the event of a water landing, buxomly lifeguard Pamela Anderson may be used as a flotation device.

To protect and to serve (up a dance number): A musical police procedural which aired in 1990, “Cop Rock” has been named by many as the worst television series ever. A critical and commercial flop, police officers would often break into song and choreographed dance as they were questioning a perp, a jury would suddenly turn into a glorious church choir, and a parade of judges would do line kicks like the Radio City Hall Rockettes. Scary and disturbing, it was yanked from the schedule and stamped “Dead on Arrival.” Don’t leave flaming poo on a neighbor’s doorstep; leave a DVD of this series instead. Boo!

A Very Brady Crudfest: In 1976, there was a little hocus-pocus going on at ABC, when some clodpate executive decided to pump life into a tired franchise. “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour” starred the kooky clan from the original series, minus Eve Plumb’s Jan (she had the good sense to skip this roadkill). Suddenly, the Brady’s were TV stars with their own variety show yet still had Alice as a maid. The “Hour” also included the Bradys “at home” in stupid skits with zero point. And the episode plots had to have been written in a padded cell: Episode #1.2: Bobby recruits Milton Berle to write for the show. Episode 1.4: Mike begins rehearsing with Charo, which makes Carol jealous. Episode #2: Cindy bumps into impressionist Rich Little and gives him amnesia. This show doesn’t need a fine tuning; it needs waste management. This inanity will give you nightmares. Happy Frightfest!