J. Fred Muggs Awards - TV Guide magazine's annual award honoring the bleeps, blunders and monkey business seen on television. As they put it "Here is our salute to the foot-in-the-mouth utterances and other minor disturbances of the past TV season." Named after J. Fred Muggs the chimpanzee who shared the morning spotlight with newscaster/host Dave Garroway on NBC'S TODAY SHOW in the 1950s, this in-print booby prize premiered in the 1/9/82 issue of TV Guide. The award (pictured as a "golden banana") was discontinued and replaced by the Annual Zap Awards introduced in January 6, 1990. The award (named the "Zapper" a.k.a. the "remote control"), was the video equivalent of "thumbs down." In 1999 with the debut of the TV Guide Channel, TV Guide magazine presented its first "TV Guide Awards" on February 1, 1999 on the Fox Channel. The awards (honoring TV favorites in 14 categories) reflected a tally of 1,266,440 ballots gathered from 28 million ballots distributed by TV Guide readers. The following is an excerpt from the first 1999 annual TV Guide Awards program as the children's education show SESAME STREET accepts their award. 

Roscoe Orman:	Wow! This is great. Isn't it it wonderful Big Bird?
Big Bird:	It's really great. Boy, everybody here seems to be very excited. Why are they so excited?
Roscoe Orman:	Because Big Bird we just won this wonderful award.
Ruth Buzzi:	And over a million people voted!
Big Bird:	Over a million people! Well, ah what does "voted" mean?
Roscoe Orman:	Voting, Big Bird, is when people put a check mark to someone's name on a piece of paper called a ballot.
Ruth Buzzi:	And then the ballots are counted and then whoever has the most check marks next to his or her name...is the winner.
Big Bird:	Wow! Well, what happens to the winners after the win?
Ruth Buzzi:	They get impeached! [ a comic poke at then President Bill Clinton and his Lewinsky/Whitewater affairs]