10 TV Shows That Were Unrecognisable When They Finished

There are few properties more essentially 80's than Baywatch. You name every single 80's T.V. trope, and Baywatch has not only done it, but has kept a detailed checklist of when, where, and how many times. The original incarnation of the show has been parodied so many times that you could construct at least two whole episodes out of those parodies.

You would think more of those spoofs would reference Baywatch Nights, but I imagine there's an unspoken rule that mentioning Baywatch Nights in any real capacity is punishable by being forced to listen to David Hasselhoff sing Jekyll And Hyde again.

While the show was never UN-successful, the producers felt that the exclusive beach setting was narrowing their appeal somewhat. After all, there are only so many stories you can tell on a Californian coastline. A reasonable conclusion in itself, but their solution - Baywatch Nights - was to try and make the winning Hasselhoff formula work in a gritty prime-time cop drama. Obviously, this did not work AT ALL.

So their solution to this problem that they created to solve a problem that - again - they only THOUGHT they MIGHT have in the future? Do what the rest of Hollywood was doing and rip off the X-Files! Now Hasselhoff was fighting vampires and sea monsters!

Yeah the show got cancelled pretty quick afterwards.