Hide behind your couch cushions, because these TV moments are painfully hard to watch! Join us as we count down the most awkward, uncomfortable, and downright embarrassing scenes that somehow made it to air. From misguided musical numbers to inappropriate romantic gestures, these cringe-worthy clips will make you want to melt into your sofa!
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00:00That's my kitchen radio.
00:01Yeah, I need to borrow it.
00:03Finn, what's this?
00:05Welcome to Miss Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the embarrassing TV scenes
00:09that left us wondering how anyone could think this was a good idea.
00:13For this list, we'll only be looking at moments that weren't intended to be cringe,
00:17or somehow feel way more cringeworthy than intended.
00:20She's still going.
00:21I know I got to be right now,
00:25cause I can't get much wronger.
00:30Number 10, The Jackal, The West Wing.
00:33CJ's going to do The Jackal.
00:34Oh, where she lip syncs to The Thing?
00:36Yeah.
00:36I love that.
00:37Aaron Sorkin's political drama is more like a fairy tale
00:40than a sobering or hard-hitting glimpse into the American political system,
00:44and that's by design.
00:46But the view through its rose-colored glasses can sometimes skew towards the ridiculous.
00:51Press Secretary CJ Craig's lip-sync to a funky spoken word track,
00:55The Jackal, is a prime example.
00:57The stereotypical speaker.
01:00But he really didn't need them
01:02When they caught him
01:04The Jackal.
01:07Actress Alison Janney sells it because she's Alison Janney.
01:11But it's an uphill battle the show loses as soon as Rob Lowe
01:15starts throwing up some questionable gestures.
01:18Maybe President Bartlett should have issued an executive order
01:21to prohibit this level of cringe.
01:23You can do The Jackal for me, right here, right now.
01:29Go home.
01:31Okay.
01:32Number 9. Beer Bad.
01:34Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
01:35Buffy Summers and her Scooby gang dealt with all kinds of monsters.
01:39Vampires, ghosts, demons, you name it, they fought it.
01:42This infamous season 4 episode tries to deal with alcohol use disorder, like a villain of the week.
01:48Want more beer?
01:50Well, I've cut you off.
01:53Did it hurt?
01:55Out you go.
01:56Oh!
01:57Ow!
01:57Oh!
01:57Want beer?
01:59Like beer.
02:00Beer good.
02:01Beer bad.
02:03In a plot that's more at home on a very special episode of a sitcom
02:06rather than Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
02:08Buffy is almost taken down by, of all things, college drinking.
02:12Of course, there's more supernatural mayhem than that,
02:14but that's the obvious parallel.
02:16Why are we talking about beer?
02:17The guys are...
02:20The beer.
02:23Neat, huh?
02:24My brother-in-law's a warlock.
02:25He showed me how to do that.
02:26When Xander and Giles find Buffy,
02:29she's already regressed to cavewoman status.
02:32The weirdly ham-fisted comparisons to alcohol use disorder
02:35come off as too weird to be funny
02:37and too goofy to translate any deeper meaning.
02:40Giles, don't make Cave Slayer unhappy.
02:45Buffy's strong.
02:47Yes, Buffy's strong.
02:49Buffy get beer.
02:50Buffy get...
02:52Ow!
02:54Giles!
02:55I'm fine, just...
02:56Get her.
02:57Number 8.
02:58Winning.
02:59Two and a Half Men.
03:00When Charlie Sheen was fired from his hit show
03:02due to some increasingly bizarre behaviour
03:04and a public breakdown,
03:05it was clear there was bad blood.
03:07You can replace me with some other guy?
03:08Go ahead.
03:09It won't be the same.
03:11You may think I'm losing,
03:12but I'm not.
03:13I'm...
03:14Anyway, you get the idea.
03:15The show's last moments see a stand-in
03:17for Sheen's character walk up to the house
03:19only to be crushed by a grand piano.
03:21Then, series creator Chuck Worry appears,
03:23spouting Sheen's trending catchphrase,
03:26only to be crushed by another piano.
03:28Winning.
03:29A vanity card at the end
03:30takes a further shot at Sheen.
03:32It's just a hat on a hat at this point.
03:35That the show went out of its way
03:36with such a pointed jab at its former actor
03:38is like getting a look at a workplace chat log
03:41that we'd rather not be privy to.
03:43It was humiliating, it was embarrassing,
03:45it was all kinds of stuff,
03:47and I couldn't watch Two and a Half Men reruns
03:49for years because I just couldn't enjoy it.
03:52Number seven, Die Jerk, Gilmore Girls.
03:55Someone wrote something on our door, Die Jerk.
03:59It says Die Jerk?
04:00It's not coming off.
04:01Much of this lovable and quirky mother-daughter dramedy
04:03relied on the viewer thinking Rory Gilmore
04:05was a cinnamon roll who could do no wrong.
04:08On the rare occasion that she had to face consequences,
04:10she was usually shocked, such as in this
04:13really uncomfortable episode.
04:15Remember me?
04:16I don't think so.
04:17That's very flattering.
04:18Can I help you?
04:19Let's see if this jogs your memory.
04:20I have the grace of a drunken dock worker.
04:22Oh, remember me now?
04:24Desperate to be taken seriously
04:25on the Yale Student Newspaper,
04:27Rory writes a devastating review of a ballet
04:30that disparages one of the dancer's bodies.
04:32Criticism is one thing.
04:34Her review is a cruel hatchet job
04:36designed to make Rory look like
04:37she has something interesting to say
04:39at the expense of another student's self-esteem.
04:42How much ballet experience do you have?
04:44You must have a lot
04:45since you write about it with such authority.
04:47Well, none to speak of.
04:48I had a few years of beginner's class and I stunk.
04:51Anybody write about it in the paper?
04:54No, good point.
04:54Number six, we just reported the news.
04:57The newsroom.
04:58A group of cable news employees
04:59are stuck on a grounded airplane
05:01just before the news breaks
05:02that Osama bin Laden
05:03has been found and killed by U.S. armed forces.
05:06Producer Don Kiefer addresses the passengers,
05:09effectively commandeering the plane.
05:10None of your friends and family are in danger.
05:13The president will be speaking in just a few minutes.
05:15Listen, they're just nervous.
05:17I don't care.
05:17You do not take over control of the cabinet.
05:20When the flight attendant and pilots confront him,
05:22he suddenly realizes that his entitlement
05:24isn't the problem here.
05:25Oh no.
05:26It's that a man taking control of an airplane
05:28has a face-palm-inducing parallel
05:30to a certain thematically relevant historical event.
05:33He then tells them what's really happened
05:35in the most self-important way possible.
05:38We work for Atlantis Cable News
05:39and we wanted you and your first officer
05:42and flight attendant crazy lady
05:44to be the first ones on this plane
05:46to know that our armed forces
05:48killed Osama bin Laden for you tonight.
05:51You're serious?
05:54Yes, sir.
05:55The hushed reverence,
05:56the treacly musical score,
05:57the smug self-satisfaction of the characters,
06:00it all comes together in a symphony of cringe.
06:03We reported the news.
06:07Number five, pick me, choose me, love me.
06:10Grey's Anatomy.
06:11In 2022, TikTok users revived this 15-year-old scene
06:15from the long-running medical drama
06:17and it was purely for laughs.
06:20Surgical intern Meredith Grey
06:21begs her married ex, Derek Shepard,
06:23to be with her.
06:24I lied.
06:25I'm not out of this relationship.
06:29I'm in.
06:29I'm so in, it's humiliating
06:31because here I am begging.
06:33Meredith, just shut up.
06:35You say Meredith and I yell, remember?
06:37The whole lead-up is just as desperate
06:39as her immortal line
06:40and, as Meredith says herself,
06:43it's also humiliating.
06:45Not even actress Ellen Pompeo liked the scene.
06:47As she told co-star Katherine Heigl,
06:49in Variety's Actors on Actors conversation,
06:52she fought against it,
06:53not wanting to have to beg this man to love her,
06:56even in character.
06:57I was like, why would I beg a man?
06:59I can't beg a man on TV.
07:01I know.
07:01This is so embarrassing.
07:03It's so hard, right?
07:03And then it turns out to be, like,
07:05one of the most successful scenes.
07:06She may not have been the first pick-me girl,
07:08but Meredith Grey's speech
07:10probably did more to cement that archetype
07:12than any character before or since.
07:15So pick me.
07:17Choose me.
07:19Love me.
07:20Number four, you're having my baby.
07:23Glee.
07:24There's an element of cringe to this infamous scene
07:26that is intentional.
07:27Finn decides to tell his girlfriend's parents
07:29she's pregnant through song.
07:31I can see it.
07:33Your face is glowing.
07:37I can see it in your eyes.
07:40I'm happy you know it.
07:43That you're having my baby.
07:45This just adds insult to injury for Quinn's family,
07:48who are horrified.
07:49It's doubly bad because Finn is not even the baby's father.
07:52But aside from story considerations,
07:54ultimately, it's just another moment
07:56when the show fails to balance the dark humour
07:58with its earnest after-school special sentimentality.
08:01Hold the seat inside your baby.
08:04Do you...
08:05Paul Anker's song,
08:13You're Having My Baby,
08:14is far from beloved.
08:15Trying to salvage it from a misguided declaration of love
08:18just hits all the wrong notes.
08:20Actors Cory Monteith and Diana Agron
08:22are innocent, though.
08:24All this baby drama is making my rosacea act up.
08:27No, I just feel bad for them
08:28having to go through this on their own.
08:30Number three, Ross's crush on his cousin.
08:33Friends.
08:34Ross Geller is one of those characters
08:35who hasn't aged well.
08:37But throwing himself at his cousin
08:39was pretty upsetting then and now.
08:41The season seven episode,
08:43the one with Ross and Monica's cousin,
08:45is frequently cited as one of the show's worst.
08:48Oh my God, you do a great Chandler.
08:54Uh-huh.
08:56Yeah, I have a knack for impressions.
08:59Well, maybe after we get reacquainted,
09:01you could do me.
09:02Yeah, no!
09:03Ross responds to his crush on his blood relative
09:06by trying to surprise her with a passionate kiss.
09:08It's made so much more painful by Ross's voiceover,
09:12where he reasons that his cousin
09:13is actually trying to seduce him.
09:16Oh, I know that book.
09:17Forget it.
09:20I want it.
09:21She wants it.
09:23I'm going in.
09:24Given that it's such a clear taboo,
09:26it's surprising enough this made it to air.
09:28We'd have preferred if this episode was called
09:30The One Everyone Decided Not To Air.
09:33Just say something!
09:38I haven't had sex in a very long time.
09:45Yeah, you really shouldn't have said anything.
09:47Number two, Betty's Pole Dance, Riverdale.
09:50You don't want to know.
09:52Uh, yeah, I do.
09:55I want to know everything.
09:57In Riverdale, life isn't all it's cracked up to be.
09:59Sometimes you have to drop out of fourth grade
10:01to seek other employment opportunities.
10:04And other times, you have to do a seductive pole dance
10:06in front of your mom and a room full of adult bikers
10:09in order to join your boyfriend's gang.
10:11Sorry, sweet belly high.
10:13If you want to join the club,
10:14you got to do the dance.
10:16The serpent dance.
10:18Excuse me?
10:18Serpent dance?
10:20It's some outdated sexist serpent tradition.
10:22Try to get it outlawed.
10:24Misogyny dies hard.
10:25It has a lot of competition,
10:27but the scene where 16-year-old Betty Cooper
10:30does a strip tease to a lethargic cover of Mad World
10:33by Tears for Fears
10:34is the show's cringiest moment.
10:36But what else would you expect
10:37from someone who would date such a weirdo?
10:39Riverdale takes a lot of big swings.
10:41This one was better left unswung.
10:44Probably will get hurt.
10:45I can't let that happen to you.
10:48It's not your decision to make.
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11:06Number one, the doll.
11:07Curb your enthusiasm.
11:09Oh, you want to give it a little
11:10kind of Dorothy Hamill thing, huh?
11:12Yeah.
11:13Boy, she's got really thick hair.
11:15Uh-huh.
11:16At least she'll be shorter.
11:18Mm-hmm.
11:18We're aware that the cringe of curb your enthusiasm
11:20is more than intentional.
11:22Larry David is the master of ramping up
11:24any awkward situation to attend.
11:26But having said that,
11:27there are countless moments that,
11:29though hilarious,
11:30are truly hard to watch.
11:32Arguably none more so than this season two episode
11:35in which Larry makes the mistake
11:36of cutting the hair of a doll
11:38belonging to the daughter of a TV executive
11:40upon her request.
11:42You walked into my daughter's room
11:43and you cut her Judy's hair?
11:45It's not fair!
11:45Well, she asked me to give it a haircut.
11:47Uh-huh.
11:47And did you have to tell her
11:48that maybe it wouldn't grow back?
11:50He didn't tell her it wouldn't grow back.
11:51It won't go back!
11:52I thought it was understood!
11:53He manages to replace the doll's head,
11:55but not without inadvertently
11:56giving himself a rash in the process
11:58as he stowed it for safekeeping
12:00in his undercarriage.
12:02When the little girl thanks Larry
12:03for fixing the doll,
12:05she happens to have run into him
12:06while he was in the bathroom.
12:07The rest is cringe history.
12:10Hello.
12:11Oh, hi!
12:12Thank you for fixing Judy's hair.
12:14Oh, you're welcome.
12:20Mommy, mommy!
12:21That bum man's in the bathroom
12:23and there's something hard in his pants!
12:27There are tons of scenes
12:28that we could have included here.
12:29So, what's TV moment
12:31made you cringe the hardest?
12:33Tell us in the comments.
12:34You have to forgive me.
12:36Do you agree with our picks?
12:45Check out this other recent clip
12:47from Ms. Mojo
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