He’s big, he’s bad, and he’s babysitting: 19 least essential entertainments from 1993

8. The Beverly Hillbillies
In 1993, The Fugitive demonstrated that Hollywood was capable of building a respectable, crowd-pleasing blockbuster out of the component parts of an old television show. Unfortunately, the mold for such TV-to-film adaptations was set not by Dr. Richard Kimble’s Oscar-nominated pursuit of the one-armed man, but rather the seventh-highest grossing movie of 1991, The Addams Family. Dragging Charles Addams’ macabre creations out of syndication and into the ’90s inspired plenty of imitations—like The Beverly Hillbillies, whose “cloistered bozos get duped by outsiders” plot mirrored both the original Addams Family and its ’93 sequel, Addams Family Values. In updating the story of a man named Jed (a poor mountaineer, but he kept his family fed) who hits pay dirt thanks to some bubblin’ crude (oil, that is), director Penelope Spheeris and four credited screenwriters dropped the Clampett clan into a Southern California of movie stars and swimming pools as well as cell phones, high-larious post-riot road rage, and Dolly Parton cameos. But a tired premise and instantly dated gags waste a stacked cast, which includes Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin, Dabney Coleman, and Jim Varney in the only role he was more suited for than Ernest P. Worrel. Though the film’s success may have paved the way for Brady Bunch movies to come, it at least opened the door for a more enjoyable mapping of worn-out material onto Clinton-era Beverly Hills: 1995’s Clueless.

9. Carmen Electra, Carmen Electra
Prince has launched the careers of a number of female musicians, from Sheila E to his latest protégée project, 3rd Eye Girl. In 1993, The Purple One propelled Carmen Electra to eventual Baywatch stardom by aiding in the release of her absolutely horrible self-titled record. Electra’s not much of a singer, so Prince (whom she was also dating) turned her into a female rapper with the help of Monie Love. Singles like “Go-Go Dancer,” “Fantasia Erotica,” and “Fun” were anything but, and the record flopped, essentially ending Electra’s recording career. Fortunately she had her acting to fall back on.

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10. Super Mario Bros.
There had been plenty of live-action films about video games by the time Super Mario Bros. jumped, stomped, and flopped its way into theaters, but none had attempted a direct adaptation. “Attempted” being the key word because other than a vague “save the princess” arc and a bunch of random references, the film has little to do with the 8- and 16-bit games that inspired it. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo star as the titular brothers (the film claims their shared surname is “Mario,” making Hoskins’ full character name “Mario Mario”), while a check-cashing Dennis Hopper stars as the evil King Koopa. Toss in some nonsense about super-evolved dinosaurs, an infamously troubled shoot (both Hoskins and Hopper described it as a “nightmare”), and a dark, kid-unfriendly production design courtesy of Blade Runner art director David L. Snyder, and you have a film that bob-ombed at the box office, making back less than half its reported $50 million budget.

11. The Paula Poundstone Show
As a stand-up comedian, Paula Poundstone aims for a wry mix of wised-up dryness and childlike, “Can you beat that?” wonder. She tried to translate that style into The Paula Poundstone Show, an uncategorizable mix of variety, chat show, and educational program. Dressed as if to present the valedictorian address on Graduation Day at rodeo clown college, Poundstone would sit on a bare stage and welcome such guests as track star Carl Lewis, ABC news personality Sam Donaldson (who read Where The Wild Things Are in its entirety during the second episode), and Paul Simon (the senator and 1988 presidential candidate, not the singer). ABC canceled the show after two episodes. One of the people caught up in the disaster was Joel Hodgson, credited as a “consultant.” It was his first TV gig after his departure from Mystery Science Theater 3000 earlier that same month.

12. Son Of The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther franchise—which began 50 years ago with The Pink Panther—has produced more lame cash-ins than comedy classics. Although Peter Sellers’ iconic turn as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau was what made the series popular, his death in 1980 didn’t stop Blake Edwards from making more Pink Panther movies. Son Of The Pink Panther—which attempted to anchor the series around Roberto Benigni—doesn’t even have the distinction of being the first or, for that matter, the second Pink Panther movie to be made after Sellers’ death. That the movie finds Benigni, in his Hollywood debut, playing Clouseau’s illegitimate son only underscores how desperate Edwards had become to recapture some piece of Sellers’ comic energy. Like its predecessors, Trail Of The Pink Panther (1982) and Curse Of The Pink Panther (1983), Son was a commercial and critical failure. It proved to be Edwards’ last film, and seemingly killed the franchise off. Of course, a lucrative property like the Pink Panther never stays dead for long, and the series returned in 2006 with Steve Martin as Clouseau; despite actually being worse than Son Of The Pink Panther, Martin’s version made a bundle.

13. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
The first live-action feature based on Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics was made for a paltry $13.5 million in 1990 and grossed 10 times that. Although the hurried sequel, released almost exactly a year later, made just over $75 million, it turned enough of a profit to merit a third film in the trilogy—albeit without the advanced animatronics previously provided by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. (But they got a couple guys missing from the first sequel: Corey Feldman as the voice of Donatello and Elias Koteas!) Somehow already out of material in present-day New York, the third film takes advantage of the third descriptive adjective in the title by transporting the turtles back to feudal Japan. On a mission to save April after she accidentally activates a “weird, Japanese, antique egg timer” (a scepter) that causes her to swap places with a Japanese prince, the turtles have 60 hours to find April, prevent a war, and get back to the right time to avoid damaging the space-time continuum. References to Quantum Leap and The Addams Family abound, along with other side-splitting comic set pieces of Japanese Honor Guards thinking hockey is only about fighting and Michelangelo teaching feudal Japanese villages about New York-style pizza.

14. Guns N’ Roses,  “The Spaghetti Incident?”
GNR cemented its status as the world’s biggest band with 1991’s blockbuster quadruple album Use Your Illusion—Part I and Part II, each taking two LPs—just in time for ’80s hard rock to be rendered irrelevant by the rise of alternative rock. So the Gunners came roaring back with… a covers album? The question mark in the title suggests even the band wasn’t sure if it was the right move. The covers included a surprising amount of pre-punk—Iggy And The Stooges’ “Raw Power,” New York Dolls’ “Human Being,” and the Dead Boys’ “Ain’t It Fun”—and a nod to GNR’s newer rivals with Soundgarden’s “Big Dumb Sex” (in a medley with T. Rex’s “Buick Mackane”). But the set also includes some questionable choices, including opening the album with The Skyliners’ 1958 doo-wop hit “Since I Don’t Have You,” and closing it with “Look At Your Game, Girl,” written by Charles Manson. While the album debuted at No. 4 on the charts, it sold only 190,000 copies its first week. To put that in perspective, Chinese Democracy sold 70,000 more copies its first week, in the post-iTunes era of low album sales, and was considered a flop. Spaghetti wasn’t merely a commercial disaster for the band; it was also a loud and clear signal that Nirvana and its ilk had taken over.

15. Raven-Symoné, Here’s To New Dreams
In 1993, pint-sized child actress Raven-Symoné was fresh off The Cosby Show (where she more or replaced Keshia Knight Pulliam as the sitcom’s cute comic relief) and just about to start a four-year stint on Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper. Before starting on the latter, however, the 7-year-old released an album, Here’s To New Dreams.Despite some credible collaborators—Wu-Tang Clan pals Shyheim and RNS have credits on the old-school-sounding “First Day Of School,” while a pre-fame Missy Elliott co-wrote and guested on single “That’s What Little Girls Are Made Of”—Dreams is a weak collection of generic hip-hop and R&B. Raven’s feisty flow shows promise in spots (e.g. lines like “I got more rhymes than Cosby got shows”), but her attempts at sounding tough are more chipmunk-like than effective; worse are the record’s bubblegum slow jams, which require maturity (and vocal chops) that Raven didn’t yet possess. After growing into her voice, she did eventually establish a successful music career as the star of That’s So Raven and The Cheetah Girls.

16. Undercover Blues
Although the career of choreographer-turned-director Herbert Ross produced a few bona fide touchstones (Footloose, Steel Magnolias) and cult favorites (Play It Again, Sam), much of it was taken up with churning out pop-culture inessentials—unnecessary remakes, second-rate Neil Simon adaptations, and forgotten Barbara Streisand vehicles that, at best, serve as time capsules, preserving the middle-brow zeitgeist of yesteryear. It’s hard to imagine, though, that even the most easily pandered-to baby boomers would be eager to watch Undercover Blues, an overstuffed comedy starring Dennis Quaid and Kathleen Turner as a couple of secret agents (“Blue” is their last name) who retire from active duty to raise a daughter. Full of baby reaction shots, warmed-over Cold War gags, and unfunny high jinks involving a mugger named Muerte (Stanley Tucci), Undercover Blues takes all the worst tendencies of the era’s studio comedies and puts them into one easy-to-ignore package.

17. Dudley
A decade earlier, Dudley Moore had been one of the most overexposed talents in movies, with a string of mostly ill-considered starring vehicles after his big success in Arthur. Casting Moore as a father who butts heads with his teenage son, Dudley was the first of two failed attempts to see if Moore could reinvent himself as a TV star. Despite an impressive supporting cast that included Joanna Cassidy, Max Wright, and Lupe Ontiveros, CBS canceled the show after five of the six produced episodes were broadcast. (This does make it almost twice as successful as 1994’s Daddy’s Girls, in which Moore butted heads with three daughters—one played by Keri Russell—and which was canceled after only three episodes.) [PDN]

18. It Had To Be You
The sitcom It Had To Be You originally starred Faye Dunaway as a loveless Boston career woman who bravely hires hunky working-class carpenter Robert Urich to do some chores at her workplace, thus risking Sexual Tension between the two of them. (As if that weren’t exciting enough, Urich’s character is a single father with three sons, which meant it was a ready-made family waiting to happen.) The harsh reviews noted how uncomfortable Dunaway looked, not to mention her lack of chemistry with Urich. After four episodes were broadcast, CBS put the show on hiatus and retooled it without Dunaway, but the new version of the show never aired.

19. The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas’ swashbuckler The Three Musketeers was first published in installments, in 1844; by 1993, it had been filmed roughly 20 times. The most recent English-language adaptation prior to 1993 had been 1973’s classic, slapstick-adventure version directed by Richard Lester, which had a counterculture flavor. Disney’s straightforward attempt is mainly distinguished by how ill suited anyone in the cast—anchored by Charlie Sheen, Chris O’Donnell, Oliver Platt, and Kiefer Sutherland—is for engaging in sword fights in period costume. But with anything pertaining to the Musketeers, another version will inevitably follow—the most recent being the 2011 film starring Orlando Bloom.