Think about the weirdest television show you've ever seen. Now think about this... the network thought that show was a safe bet, at least compared to the pilot episodes we're about to talk about.
What's a pilot, you ask? Nobody has ever described it more concisely than Jules did in Pulp Fiction: "The way they make shows is, they make one show. That show's called a pilot. Then they show that show to the people who make shows, and on the strength of that one show they decide if they're going to make more shows. Some pilots get picked and become television programs. Some don't, become nothing."
For the most part, the first episode of every television series you've ever seen was the pilot. If the network thought the pilot was good, they made the whole series. But again, for every pilot episode that went to series there are probably dozens that didn't get picked up. Sometimes these episodes wound up airing as "Made for TV Movies," but most of them languish in complete obscurity. At least until the internet came along and some of the weirdest footnotes in television history found their way into the hands of TV geeks everywhere.
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