Fan outrage didn't just start in the Twitter era. Get ready to learn about the "X-Files" episode
that was too gross, the "Seinfeld" finale outcry, and more '90s TV moments that had fans fuming.
The X-Files is no stranger to unnatural horrors. Throughout most of the 90s, it shocked, awed,
delighted, and disgusted its devoted fanbase with stories featuring supernatural terrors,
extraterrestrial threats, and other disturbing subject matter.
And perhaps no other episode generated quite as much controversy as 1996's "Home,"
part of the show's fourth season. The horrifying events in this particular
episode stemmed not from alien appendages or paranormal palms, but human hands.
"Home" kicks off with protagonists Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigating the
circumstances behind the death of a deformed baby. This leads them to the Peacocks,
a family with some truly gruesome secrets. It turns out that they're actually three inbred
brothers who are hiding the existence of their quadruple amputee mother,
who had been breeding with them over the years. By the end of the episode,
she and one of her children successfully escape, ready to grow their family once again.
The sheer gruesomeness of "Home" earned it a TV-MA rating upon its debut,
a first in the history of American TV programming. Fans and network executives
found the episode so revolting that Fox took it out of circulation for three years.
The episode isn't without its defenders, though. The A.V. Club, for one,
included it on a list of "10 must-see episodes of The X-Files" in a 2012 article.
"You know your boy will do anything for his mother."
For most of its run, the ABC sitcom Roseanne enjoyed fairly stable popularity and reviews.
It featured the blue-collar life of Roseanne Conner and her family, and it resonated with
audiences thanks to its relatability and surprisingly progressive ways of tackling
real-world themes. And then Season 9 aired, and everything went completely off the rails. This
was the final season of the show's original run before it was rebooted in 2018, and the big change
was due to the Conners winning the lottery. "We won the lottery! This is the winning
lottery ticket! I've got it right here! Remember you told me to watch it on TV?"
"What are you talking about?"
From ordinary working-class struggles, the show's focus shifted to pop culture parody and a
self-conscious approach. Additionally, Roseanne's husband Dan was sidelined for most of the season,
explained away by subplots involving him taking care of his mother and cheating on his wife.
The finale didn't offer much satisfaction. It completely invalidated the entire season
by revealing that it was all happening in Roseanne's imagination. Dan had actually
died from a heart attack after Season 8, the Conners didn't really win the lottery,
and Roseanne was actually writing her memoir as she spiraled further down
into sadness. It was the show's lowest-rated season, and it left a bad taste in fans'
mouths that wasn't fully washed away until the revival undid some of the most hated decisions.
Lasting nine seasons from 1989 to 1998, Seinfeld was one of the most successful
and beloved American sitcoms of the decade. Featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld delivering
his signature brand of observational humor, the so-called "show about nothing" featured him and
his three friends George, Elaine, and Kramer in mundane situations that brought out the best,
or worst, in them in New York City. One infamous example was the 1997 episode
"The Puerto Rican Day," which invited a ton of backlash to the show's doorstep.
The premise was simple enough: the main characters found themselves
unable to move through traffic because of the city's Puerto Rican Day parade.
This triggered a series of events that led to Kramer accidentally burning the
Puerto Rican flag with a sparkler. The outrage in response to that moment was swift and tremendous,
as it offended many New Yorkers, particularly the Hispanic population. This was enough for Columbia
TriStar to knock it out of circulation in New York for almost five years.
Among all the reasons why fans would feel angry and betrayed by their favorite TV show,
you would think that the lead character getting a haircut would be
pretty low on the list. But that's not how things turned out for Keri Russell,
star of The WB's college-set drama Felicity. In one episode that aired
in 1999, she cut off her famous curly hair, which seemingly summoned the apocalypse.
In a 2017 interview with W Magazine, Russell noted that the haircut was intended to be part
of the character's post-breakup actions in the series. And while the actress herself enjoyed
her new hairstyle, she quickly realized that the fans didn't share that opinion. As she put it,
"I did not expect all the hysteria. Strangers did come up to me on the
street and say things like, 'You were so pretty before you cut your hair.'"
The show's ratings reportedly plummeted to the point that WB Entertainment president Susanne
Daniels believed that the haircut turned off many of the show's male fans. As she put it,
"You diluted that icon. I think it turned some [of the] audience away,
in particular men and some women."
The move generated so much negative buzz that it's even been immortalized
in contemporary lexicon as "pulling a Felicity."
"Gutsy move. It's like a whole new you."
If you take a look at Rotten Tomatoes' scoreboard for each year of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
you'll notice that Season 6 sits at the bottom with 63 percent. This isn't just
a case of critics being overly critical. As recounted by Vanity Fair, the sixth season
of the iconic supernatural 90s show was also the "most hated" by its fans, for numerous reasons.
For an important bit of perspective, Season 5 ended with Sarah Michelle Gellar's title
character heroically sacrificing herself to save the world. Season 6 then dealt with her
friends attempting to bring her back and eventually succeeding. However, the series
took an overall depressing tone, mired with weird plot twists, gratuitous sex, and a protagonist
who had trouble dealing with her resurrection. To make matters worse, the cast reportedly had
difficulty communicating their issues with the story to showrunner Joss Whedon, who was busy
balancing his workload with two other shows in addition to Buffy. Fans even coined a pair of
derogatory nicknames for the less-than-stellar season: "Season Sex" and "Season Sucks."
Debuting in 1994, the ABC sitcom Ellen featured the day-to-day life of a thirty-something
bookstore owner as she balanced the little struggles and triumphs of life in Los Angeles.
It catapulted its star, future talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, to superstardom. This was for
two main reasons. For one, it was the vehicle for many viewers to get acquainted with her
quirky sense of humor. And furthermore, the show made history by having its main character reveal
her true sexual orientation at around the same time the actor playing her did so in real life.
Unsurprisingly, this move prompted both congratulations and controversy.
The plan to have the onscreen Ellen come out on the show had been in the works since 1996.
And so, in 1997's two-part "The Puppy Episode," she admits the truth to her love interest Susan,
played by Laura Dern, via an unintentional and humorous public declaration.
"Susan, I'm gay."
"The Puppy Episode" garnered 42 million viewers, becoming the highest-rated outing of the series.
DeGeneres' bold move earned the episode and the show many accolades, awards, and recognition.
Unfortunately, it also drew the ire of multiple advertisers and religious groups,
as well as angry fans who reportedly sent hate mail and even threatened to bomb the production.
Both DeGeneres and Dern suffered career setbacks after the episode aired, although
they've since managed to recover and continue to work on popular projects.
Sometimes a TV show has a premise so fundamentally problematic you wonder
how it ever made it onto the air in the first place. Consider the case of Heil Honey I'm
Home!, a British sitcom that followed a fictionalized Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun
as a quirky couple in a corny 1950s-inspired setting. Their next-door neighbors were a
Jewish couple called the Goldensteins. Only one episode aired in 1990 before a combination of
behind-the-scenes disagreements, production woes, and protests from groups offended by
the idea of trivializing Hitler took it off the air completely.
In a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly,
series creator Geoff Atkinson explained the thought process behind the show.
The idea was that he wanted to beat the bully by laughing at him. As he put it,
"If you have a monster like that, and everyone says, 'You can't make
fun of him,' then we've made him even more [of] a monster. That's what fascists want,
to keep people in fear of them, when surely we should be debunking and destroying them."
In December 1997, hundreds of children in Japan tuned in to get their regular dose of Pokémon.
But by the end of this particular episode, they found themselves experiencing seizures,
and in the days that followed, many more were rushed to hospitals.
The root of this medical emergency was a six-second sequence of bright, flashing lights.
The episode, entitled "Electric Soldier Porygon" generated so much controversy that the show aired
no new episodes for four months. The series was ultimately saved from the jaws of cancellation,
but Nintendo ended up banning the episode in all countries.
Furthermore, the Pokémon character Porygon and its evolutions have yet
to appear or display their powers on the show since the incident.
And that's not the end of the story. A 2001 study looked into the incident and found that the cases
of children suffering seizures after the episode aired may not have been due to epilepsy. Instead,
they were likely the result of mass hysteria, a phenomenon in which people
experience severe physical symptoms due to stress or a perceived threat.
Sometimes, even the most well-intentioned attempts at social awareness can backfire,
especially when you attempt them in a children's cartoon. One major example
is the 1991 Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Elephant Issues," whose satirical segment
about the dangers of drunk driving caused it to be banned from reruns on FOX Kids.
The episode's third short, entitled "One Beer," features Buster Bunny, Plucky Duck, and Hamton J.
Pig engaging in some car-stealing shenanigans after drinking a single bottle of beer. As soon
as they get intoxicated, they manage to carjack a police vehicle. They then end up driving off a
cliff, seemingly killing themselves and ascending into heaven as angels. But then the true punchline
arrives seconds later, when the camera pans to reveal the three characters alive and unscathed
in a studio. The whole thing was just a scripted gag to teach kids about the horrors of alcohol.
Despite its important message and clear self-awareness, it was taken off the air and
rarely re-broadcast, reportedly due to backlash from parents. However, it did eventually make it
onto the third volume of the Tiny Toon Adventures DVD collection that was released in 2013.
Nobody really has high expectations concerning morality and ethics when it comes to Beavis
and Butt-Head. The MTV cartoon influenced an entire generation with its crass and irreverent
brand of humor. It's no surprise that a number of episodes have been edited or even outright banned.
But there's one particularly infamous episode that was completely removed from circulation,
due to a real-world tragedy it allegedly inspired.
As reported by The New York Times, a five-year-old boy from Ohio who saw the 1993 episode "Comedians"
set his family's mobile home on fire a month later, leading to the death of his younger sister.
The episode features the title characters burning down a comedy club, and the boy's mother claimed
that the episode promoted the idea that playing with fire was fun. When the local NBC station
reported on the story, they asked some viewers of the show who they thought bore responsibility.
"I don't think it's MTV's fault at all. I think it's the parent's fault for maybe letting
kids like 5 years old watching the show."
Notably, this wasn't the first time that the show was associated with a real-world fire in Ohio,
as there was an incident months earlier in which three young girls nearly burned their house down.
According to the police, they admitted that a Beavis and Butt-Head gag inspired them to use an
aerosol can and a match to set clothing on fire.
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