The Worst Actor-Actress You Have Ever Hissed and Boohed

[dulcinea]

While surfing through IMDB.COM, I came--don't know how that happened--to the BATTYMAN board, where I read part of a review in which some feebleminded form of humanity told about how hard he laughed at the episode where a fight of Battyman and the Pencilguin against some goons was narrated as an sports event by a couple of sports commentators. That sequence--which I had mercifully forgotten--brought back very terrible memories.
Back when I was 11 going to 12, nobody in Puerto Rico was more excited than me at the prospect of a live-action BATMAN show. I pictured as the title character some larger than life performer of the heroic stature of a Kirk Douglas, a Burt Lancaster, a Charlton Heston, a Steve McQueen and a Sean Connery--a real MAN'S MAN! Imagine my shock and distress when I beheld the CRITTER who was supposed to portray the Caped Crusader: a THING with a blank expressionless face, eyes with a disturbing expression of guilt and fear, an out of shape body, and an outfit that was a cheap Halloween costume from some fifth-rate costume shop. Still, there were only four TV stations available to me at that time, so I watched the show regularly, even though I was bothered by such idiosyncrasies as the strange oaths of Robin: HOLY BULL CAKES! HOLY HORSE FEATHERS! HOLY BIRD DROPPINGS! WTF?!--I thought--Real people don't talk like that! Incidentally, I was spared the stilted artificial delivery of the original actors; the voice actors who did the Spanish dubbing actually tried to speak like real people speak.
And then came the episode of the sports reporters. I watched the entire scene in horror: WHAT THE F-----G F--- IS THIS F----D-UP F---???!!!--I asked myself. It was then that I realised the horrible truth about that show: it was not a real adventure show, but instead simply a very rotten unfunny ,,comedy'' that dared to make fun of my beloved Batman and Penguin. From that moment on, I watched that pile of guano no more, and Adam West-eofair earned my nomination as the worst actor I had ever seen, a distinction that he still holds.
When Tim Burton started his search for the actor to play Bruce Wayne in his version of Batman, West-eofair asked to be cast in the role again, saying the public had gotten used to seeing him as the Batman.
I could not help myself from thinking: What a conceited ego this PENDEJO=loser, jerk, dork, creep, tosser, d---head, wanker, a------, m----- f----- has! He actually dares to think that what he did in BATTYMAN counts as one of the great performances in history, right up there with Fairbanks, Sr, as d'Artagnan and Zorro, Tracy as Father Flanagan, Flynn as Robin Hood, Gable as Rhett Butler, Wayne as Ringo Kid and Rooster Cogburn, Welles as Charles Foster Kane, Cagney as George Cohan, Cooper as Sergeant York, Olivier as Richard III, Ustinov as Nero, Heston as Moses, Ben-Hur and El Cid, Brynner as King Mongkut and Rameses II, Douglas as Spartacus, Lancaster as Elmer Gantry, Connery as 007, Quinn as Zorba and HH Pope Kiril I, Burton as Becket, O'Toole as TE Lawrence, Newman as Cool Hand Luke, McQueen as Henri Charriere, and Reeve as Superman! I pity whoever is the significant other of West-eofair; it must be torture to live with such a self-important vainglorious fool.

[Wallingford]

Sorta takes me back to that one memorable evening in '81, when I saw at the student cinema Kramer Vs. Kramer (my third-best-liked movie at the time) for the second time. This Greeley, Colorado crowd I was in HISSED and BOOED Meryl Streep's character (in all her bawlbabyish glory).....I mean, they were so wrongheaded (believing Streep just up and abandoned her poor family), but it was still so COOL! ('Fact, I led everyone in an applause when Dustin Hoffman threw his wine in her face!!)

[jbuck919]

I can also remember being disappointed by Batman because I was expecting a superhero show and not a spoof, and at the age of eleven was not sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate it for what it was (which does not mean that I did not religiously watch every single episode). I think I finally got the point in the episode where they put a coded message from a bowl of alphabet soup through the "Bat Alphabet Soup Analyzer."

[dulcinea]

I can also remember being disappointed by Batman because I was expecting a superhero show and not a spoof, and at the age of eleven was not sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate it for what it was (which does not mean that I did not religiously watch every single episode). I think I finally got the point in the episode where they put a coded message from a bowl of alphabet soup through the "Bat Alphabet Soup Analyzer."

'tis most aggravating how often a medium often condemned as puerile and fit only for very slow children fails to understand the spirit and mind of children. Children never sneer at superheroes; instead they admire them and wish to emulate them.

[dulcinea]

I can also remember being disappointed by Batman because I was expecting a superhero show and not a spoof, and at the age of eleven was not sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate it for what it was (which does not mean that I did not religiously watch every single episode). I think I finally got the point in the episode where they put a coded message from a bowl of alphabet soup through the "Bat Alphabet Soup Analyzer."

So who would you nominate as the worst waste of celluloid in movie and/or TV history?

[jbuck919]

I can also remember being disappointed by Batman because I was expecting a superhero show and not a spoof, and at the age of eleven was not sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate it for what it was (which does not mean that I did not religiously watch every single episode). I think I finally got the point in the episode where they put a coded message from a bowl of alphabet soup through the "Bat Alphabet Soup Analyzer."

So who would you nominate as the worst waste of celluloid in movie and/or TV history?

I've been working on that one all day and there's just too much to choose from.

[dulcinea]

Believe it or not, West-eofair Battyman's is not my choice for the very worst performance that I have ever excruciatingly endured. That dubious distinction belongs to:




Ben Queensly as GOONDHI




In their indecent haste to portray the Mahatma as the reasonable alternative to fire breathing quarrelsome Pres Reagan, director Attenburro and screenwriter John Blimey idealised and bowdlerised Gandhi to such an extreme that the result was, at best, an insipidly impossibly perfect plaster saint that bore no resemblance to the real historical Gandhi, and at worst, a conniving hypocrite whose obvious phoniness reminded me of Tartuffe, Fagin, Pecksniff and Uriah Heep.
Sad infuriating irony: while the deluded Sir Richard treated his Oscar as if it were the Nobel Peace Prize, the real Gandhi--who was a candidate no less than five times--never won the real thing; in the opinion of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the Mahatma never did anything that would make him deserving of the prize that instead has gone to worthies such as Arafart, Crater, Algorethm and Wee Tiny Little BHO Peep.

[jbuck919]

Believe it or not, West-eofair Battyman's is not my choice for the very worst performance that I have ever excruciatingly endured. That dubious distinction belongs to:




Ben Queensly as GOONDHI




In their indecent haste to portray the Mahatma as the reasonable alternative to fire breathing quarrelsome Pres Reagan, director Attenburro and screenwriter John Blimey idealised and bowdlerised Gandhi to such an extreme that the result was, at best, an insipidly impossibly perfect plaster saint that bore no resemblance to the real historical Gandhi, and at worst, a conniving hypocrite whose obvious phoniness reminded me of Tartuffe, Fagin, Pecksniff and Uriah Heep.
Sad infuriating irony: while the deluded Sir Richard treated his Oscar as if it were the Nobel Peace Prize, the real Gandhi--who was a candidate no less than five times--never won the real thing; in the opinion of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the Mahatma never did anything that would make him deserving of the prize that instead has gone to worthies such as Arafart, Crater, Algorethm and Wee Tiny Little BHO Peep.

Jeepers, I loved that movie. I always thought that Gandhi was one of the few unrevisable heroes of the 20th century, that what we saw was what we got.

[dulcinea]

Believe it or not, West-eofair Battyman's is not my choice for the very worst performance that I have ever excruciatingly endured. That dubious distinction belongs to:




Ben Queensly as GOONDHI




In their indecent haste to portray the Mahatma as the reasonable alternative to fire breathing quarrelsome Pres Reagan, director Attenburro and screenwriter John Blimey idealised and bowdlerised Gandhi to such an extreme that the result was, at best, an insipidly impossibly perfect plaster saint that bore no resemblance to the real historical Gandhi, and at worst, a conniving hypocrite whose obvious phoniness reminded me of Tartuffe, Fagin, Pecksniff and Uriah Heep.
Sad infuriating irony: while the deluded Sir Richard treated his Oscar as if it were the Nobel Peace Prize, the real Gandhi--who was a candidate no less than five times--never won the real thing; in the opinion of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the Mahatma never did anything that would make him deserving of the prize that instead has gone to worthies such as Arafart, Crater, Algorethm and Wee Tiny Little BHO Peep.

Jeepers, I loved that movie. I always thought that Gandhi was one of the few unrevisable heroes of the 20th century, that what we saw was what we got.

Put the blame on Attenburro and Blimey, who thought that the movie public was too dense to understand and accept Gandhi as he really was. Like all humans, G got angry once in a while; like all humans, he often said foolish things. For ex, during the process that led to the partition of Pakistan from India, G--who wanted very badly to prevent that partition--suggested to Nehru and the Congress Party that they put the Islamics in charge of the govt of India in order to gain their loyalty to an united independent India. That idea was so obviously stupid that Nehru and the Congress Party simply ignored it altogether.
The damnable hypocrisy of most film makers!; first they say that they want to make movies about complex characters with multifaceted personalities, and then, when they do shows about historical characters, they caricature them into one-dimensional cartoons that bear no resemblance whatsoever to the real historical person.

[MarkC]

Not to be a d1ck but........I don't think I'd ever hiss or boo an actor/actress.

But.......if we can broaden it to bad acting with or without booing:
Joyce Randolph. In fairness, I don't think she did a lousy job of "Trixie," but alongside Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, and Audrey Meadows, she did sort of stand out.

I understand she's still living and enjoys talking about that show -- and is appropriately modest about where she stood among those four.

In the category of acting that was 'so bad it was good,' I nominate:
Margaret Dumont.
I guess it was just a traditional old style of theater acting that happens to be preserved on film and watched over and over again.

[jbuck919]

Put the blame on Attenburro and Blimey, who thought that the movie public was too dense to understand and accept Gandhi as he really was. Like all humans, G got angry once in a while; like all humans, he often said foolish things. For ex, during the process that led to the partition of Pakistan from India, G--who wanted very badly to prevent that partition--suggested to Nehru and the Congress Party that they put the Islamics in charge of the govt of India in order to gain their loyalty to an united independent India. That idea was so obviously stupid that Nehru and the Congress Party simply ignored it altogether.
The damnable hypocrisy of most film makers!; first they say that they want to make movies about complex characters with multifaceted personalities, and then, when they do shows about historical characters, they caricature them into one-dimensional cartoons that bear no resemblance whatsoever to the real historical person.

Not to turn this into a Pub thread, but I did happen to know a thing or two about Gandhi before I saw the movie. The suggestion that the Congress Party give the entire subcontinent to Mohammed Ali Jinnah to avoid the greater evil of partition stretched inspired possibility past the breaking point, but I can only view it as an extreme manifestation of idealism in service to the greater good, hardly grounds for moral condemnation. Also, considering that (especially in light of current events) the consequences of the partition may still end up being viewed as one of the central world disasters of the last hundred years, Gandhi was not at all on the wrong track or lacking in almost preternatural prescience.

The fact that Gandhi was not thoughtful of his wife, indulged in personal peculiarities like sleeping next to beautiful young women to test his continence, and indulged a lifestyle that may have been to one degree or another posturing (we will never know) only means that he was not in fact a visitor from celestial realms but a human being. It is still hard to think of a more admirable specimen.

[dulcinea]

Put the blame on Attenburro and Blimey, who thought that the movie public was too dense to understand and accept Gandhi as he really was. Like all humans, G got angry once in a while; like all humans, he often said foolish things. For ex, during the process that led to the partition of Pakistan from India, G--who wanted very badly to prevent that partition--suggested to Nehru and the Congress Party that they put the Islamics in charge of the govt of India in order to gain their loyalty to an united independent India. That idea was so obviously stupid that Nehru and the Congress Party simply ignored it altogether.
The damnable hypocrisy of most film makers!; first they say that they want to make movies about complex characters with multifaceted personalities, and then, when they do shows about historical characters, they caricature them into one-dimensional cartoons that bear no resemblance whatsoever to the real historical person.

Not to turn this into a Pub thread, but I did happen to know a thing or two about Gandhi before I saw the movie. The suggestion that the Congress Party give the entire subcontinent to Mohammed Ali Jinnah to avoid the greater evil of partition stretched inspired possibility past the breaking point, but I can only view it as an extreme manifestation of idealism in service to the greater good, hardly grounds for moral condemnation. Also, considering that (especially in light of current events) the consequences of the partition may still end up being viewed as one of the central world disasters of the last hundred years, Gandhi was not at all on the wrong track or lacking in almost preternatural prescience.

What about Yugoslavia?

[jbuck919]

Put the blame on Attenburro and Blimey, who thought that the movie public was too dense to understand and accept Gandhi as he really was. Like all humans, G got angry once in a while; like all humans, he often said foolish things. For ex, during the process that led to the partition of Pakistan from India, G--who wanted very badly to prevent that partition--suggested to Nehru and the Congress Party that they put the Islamics in charge of the govt of India in order to gain their loyalty to an united independent India. That idea was so obviously stupid that Nehru and the Congress Party simply ignored it altogether.
The damnable hypocrisy of most film makers!; first they say that they want to make movies about complex characters with multifaceted personalities, and then, when they do shows about historical characters, they caricature them into one-dimensional cartoons that bear no resemblance whatsoever to the real historical person.

Not to turn this into a Pub thread, but I did happen to know a thing or two about Gandhi before I saw the movie. The suggestion that the Congress Party give the entire subcontinent to Mohammed Ali Jinnah to avoid the greater evil of partition stretched inspired possibility past the breaking point, but I can only view it as an extreme manifestation of idealism in service to the greater good, hardly grounds for moral condemnation. Also, considering that (especially in light of current events) the consequences of the partition may still end up being viewed as one of the central world disasters of the last hundred years, Gandhi was not at all on the wrong track or lacking in almost preternatural prescience.

What about Yugoslavia?

There, is a Google hit summary for a page at History Speaks that reads ""In 1931, Mohandas Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian ... voted to elect the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," but that is a coincidentally grammatical conflation of two unrelated stories. I guess you're thinking of something else, huh?

[dulcinea]

Put the blame on Attenburro and Blimey, who thought that the movie public was too dense to understand and accept Gandhi as he really was. Like all humans, G got angry once in a while; like all humans, he often said foolish things. For ex, during the process that led to the partition of Pakistan from India, G--who wanted very badly to prevent that partition--suggested to Nehru and the Congress Party that they put the Islamics in charge of the govt of India in order to gain their loyalty to an united independent India. That idea was so obviously stupid that Nehru and the Congress Party simply ignored it altogether.
The damnable hypocrisy of most film makers!; first they say that they want to make movies about complex characters with multifaceted personalities, and then, when they do shows about historical characters, they caricature them into one-dimensional cartoons that bear no resemblance whatsoever to the real historical person.

Not to turn this into a Pub thread, but I did happen to know a thing or two about Gandhi before I saw the movie. The suggestion that the Congress Party give the entire subcontinent to Mohammed Ali Jinnah to avoid the greater evil of partition stretched inspired possibility past the breaking point, but I can only view it as an extreme manifestation of idealism in service to the greater good, hardly grounds for moral condemnation. Also, considering that (especially in light of current events) the consequences of the partition may still end up being viewed as one of the central world disasters of the last hundred years, Gandhi was not at all on the wrong track or lacking in almost preternatural prescience.

What about Yugoslavia?

There, is a Google hit summary for a page at History Speaks that reads ""In 1931, Mohandas Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian ... voted to elect the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," but that is a coincidentally grammatical conflation of two unrelated stories. I guess you're thinking of something else, huh?

Not at all. Y was a country that was very unsuccessful at continuing to exist, even though most of the world wanted its continued existence. Why would India have been any different?

[dulcinea]

Most people don't like considering the idea that a country might possibly fall apart, but the truth is that many countries have the kind of weaknesses that brought down Yugoslavia; the Congress Party had good reason to be concerned about that fact.

[jserraglio]

The Worst Actor-Actress You Have Ever Hissed and Booed
-------------------------------------------------------
a tossup:

Keanu Reeves in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing
Kenneth Branagh in Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

[jbuck919]

The Worst Actor-Actress You Have Ever Hissed and Booed
-------------------------------------------------------
a tossup:

Keanu Reeves in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing
Kenneth Branagh in Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

I don't know what it is about Branagh that makes him want to mar his Shakespeare movies with horrible miscastings of stars. Jack Lemmon was also dreadful as Marcellus in Hamlet; thankfully, it is a minor part that disappears after one early scene. He already had Julie Christie as a (sensational) Gertrude, and Michael Keaton was great as the gravedigger. It's not like adding another name like Lemmon was going to make a box office difference.

Of course, Branagh is not the only one guilty of this. Leonardo di Caprio was a horrible Romeo, and Robert Downey Jr. was awful as Hastings in Ian McKellan's Richard III. For that matter, Mel Gibson was the only weak actor in his Hamlet.

[jbuck919]

Not at all. Y was a country that was very unsuccessful at continuing to exist, even though most of the world wanted its continued existence. Why would India have been any different?

Oh, is that what you meant? I thought we were still talking about reasons to dislike Gandhi (the person).

Yugoslavia was from the beginning an unstable federation of nations who could not see beyond the end of their ethnocentric noses. Pakistan as a separate and Muslim entity was an artifact created by the partition. It had no prior identity; even its name is a fabrication. Famously, many thousands of people were killed in the migrations that ensued in order to conform the two countries to their artificially mandated and mutually toxic separate destinies.

[dulcinea]

The Worst Actor-Actress You Have Ever Hissed and Booed
-------------------------------------------------------
a tossup:

Keanu Reeves in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing
Kenneth Branagh in Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Please, tell me who is the agent of Reeves. The way he still manages to drum up business for the extremely limited abilities of his client, he obviously is one superlative agent!