“What you are about to see is a matter of human record. Explain it: we cannot. Disprove it: we cannot. We simply invite you to explore with us the amazing world of the Unknown … to take that One Step … Beyond.” -Opening Tagline by John Newland

In the mid to late 1950′s, Science fiction short stories were popular among young boys and young men. With space exploration taking off, the genre of Sci-fi were taking over comic books and landing in the laps of everyone in television form. With the theme of science fiction mixed with subtle shock, men like Alfred Hitchcock, Rod Serling, and John Newland had taken the night time spots on the tube. What? You’ve never heard of John Newland?

One of the greatest series in television history. Awards a plenty. How can a well written and well acted show like “lost” have bad characters? Well, they probably not bad in a sense that they are terrible, they are the most annoying of a good batch. Kind of like chocolate chip cookies. Some are nice and round, while others are broken and weird looking, but they all taste great. Some of these characters were better off being pulled through the engine like the guy on the first few minutes of crashing.

1. Kate Austen – (Evangeline Lilly)

Originally to be the leader of the crash survivors, Kate was to be a middle-aged woman whose husband was in the bathroom at the tail of the plane when it crashed. Thankfully she wasn’t given the leader part. With her constant bawling and wanting to tag along, this character is always asking “why”. She would have been better suited as a secondary character who dies at the hands of The Others.

Ah, the first of April. A day you can sit down with your breakfast, switch on your television and find out about newly discovered islands, dogs that drive cars and all sorts of other weird stuff.

Of course, as everyone laughs at you at work for repeating these ludicrous stories you swear that next year you won’t fall for a single April Fool’s Day joke. If only it were that easy, though. The following are some of the pranks which have fooled and bemused us over the years.

Where Does Spaghetti Come From?

1957 was such an innocent time, wasn’t it? Some hip young cat called Presley was young and fresh and might not even have eaten his first peanut butter coated hamburger yet, the lovably annoying Frisbee was invented and the Brits believed that pasta grew on trees. The respected TV show Panorama produced one of the earliest and finest April Fool’s pranks when they went to Switzerland and showed how spaghetti grows on trees. The public loved it and many people contacted the BBC to ask how they could grow their own spaghetti trees.

The person who first thought of making reality shows should really be ashamed of themselves. As well as inflicting some of the dumbest shows in the history of the world on us they have also caused many scandals, or at least let us enjoy scandals we wouldn’t otherwise have known or cared about.

However, in amongst the fun there have also been some truly shocking moments.

Survivor Thailand Winner Scandal: From Surviving Thailand to Shooting Puppies

Brian Heidik has had an interesting few years, hasn’t he? You would think that winning a million bucks on Survivor: Thailand would have been enough of a claim to game, but not for Brian it wasn’t. He then took the frankly unusual step of shooting a puppy in the head with an arrow. He claimed that he thought it was a coyote and it’s hard to argue with that kind of logic. To top it off, he was reported to police by his wife, who used to be a Playboy model, whom he also allegedly attacked. He used to be a porn star too.

Wikipedia.com/

The Marriage That Never Made It to Our Screens

The idea of a VH1 reality series with newly married NFL star Chad Johnson (Ochocinco) and his new wife Evelyn Lozada sounded quite promising. Then he got arrested. For beating her up. With his head. He got dropped by his team and then they got divorced. The show got dropped before we even got to see any of this, which I suppose makes this a not-quite-reality-show scandal but, hey, let’s not get too picky over our scandals here.

Big Brother Knife Scandal

If you were live on National TV in the Big Brother house you might like to play a little joke. After all, it would help make you appear to be a charming and more likeable person in the eyes of your housemates and the voting public.

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Maybe you could, I don’t know, hold a knife to someone’s throat and ask them if they would still love you if you killed them. Yeah, that ought to do it. The hilarious prank played by Justin Sebik was misunderstood by those bores at CBS and he got kicked out of the house because of it, although to be fair it wasn’t his first bit of controversy in the house. It was then discovered that he had a criminal record and the person whose throat he held the knife to (Krist Stegall) sued CBS.

Big Brother Brazilian Drunken Rape Scandal

Big Brother has also produced scandals in other countries and one of the most sensational ones happened in Brazil. Monique Amin appeared to be sexually attacked by a fellow contestant while she was asleep in a drunken stupor. He got booted off the show and investigated by police while she went on to make a career for herself as a saucy model.

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Megan Wants a Millionaire Tragic Murder and Suicide Scandal

A genuinely shocking incident caused the new Megan Wants a Millionaire show to get dumped by VH1 after only 3 shows. Megan Hauserman had 17 millionaires trying to win her love but one of them got involved in a terrifying scandal. Ryan Jenkins was the only suspect in the horrifying murder of his swimsuit model wife Jasmine Fiore and the police charged him with the crime. Jenkins then killed himself in a hotel room and the show disappeared from our screens.

Jerry Reed is probably the most recognized trucker musician. He was a singer/songwriter and actor. His personality shined through in a way that drew people into to what he was doing. In 1959, Reed’s song “Soldier’s Joy” hit the charts of the Bubbling Under The Top 100 and Cashbox Country. Reed continued his run as a hit maker in the 1960′s with “Guitar Man” and he wrote songs for Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.

The 1970′s

The 1970′s were good to Jerry Reed and he made the most of it! He hit number eight on the U.S. billboards with “Amos Moses” in 1970, a hybrid of rock, country, cajun and funk. In 1971 his song “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot”, became the number one song in America on the country music billboard charts. He also performed the song on the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.

On December 9, 1972, Reed became a mainstream star when he was made into cartoon form as himself in the hit television show “The New Scooby-Doo Movies” in the episode “The Phantom of the Country Music Hall”. Reed played the infectious “Pretty Mary Sunlight” in order for the Scooby-Doo gang to find him after his guitar went missing. This episode of Scooby-Doo was his jumping on point to his acting career as he was about to become a star!

In 1974, Reed began his acting career along side of close friend Burt Reynolds in “W.W. and The Dixie Dancekings”. “Gator” followed in 1976 as well as 1978′s “High Ballin’” and 1979′s “Hot Stuff”. His biggest movies were the “Smokey and The Bandit” trilogy, the first in 1977, that featured Reed as a truck driver helping his friend Burt Reynolds. His song “East Bound and Down” landed him a spot at number two on the charts. Reed delved into many things toward the end of the 1970′s with “The Jerry Reed Show”, a guest spot on television show “Alice”, a tribute album to his good friend Jim Croce called “Jerry Reed Sings Jim Croce”, and a made for television movie “Concrete Cowboys”.