History Main / AlwaysALiveTransmission

* Parodied in an episode of ''Series/ThirtyRock''. Elisa's (Creator/SalmaHayek) grandmother hates Jack because he bears a [[ActingForTwo striking resemblance]] to TheGeneralissimo, the villain of her favorite soap opera. Jack (being the President of NBC) acquires Telemundo and attempts to have the Generalissimo killed off. Unfortunately, since the show is apparently broadcast live, the actor playing the Generalissimo goes OffTheRails when the female protagonist attempts to shoot him.

* ''WebVideo/SMPLive'': [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] - while most popular [=SMPs=] prior to [=SMPLive=] were pre-recorded and uploaded to [=YouTube=], players online on [=SMPLive=] are always required to be livestreaming. As a result, AudienceParticipation is even more present than other servers, which already tend to have it as an element.

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000:'' From season 11 onward, the show is broadcast via Kinga Forrester's proprietary liquid video technology, which is great at [[StealthPun streaming video]] but terrible for recording. So instead of recording the show's opening theme, Kinga forces Jonah and the rest of the cast to reenact it, every episode. This hasn't resulted in the opening song going off-script (yet), but every ColdOpen ends with Jonah getting rudely pulled away from whatever he's doing so he can start the reenactment.

[[folder: Puppet Shows]]

* There's a bit of [[ExaggeratedTrope exaggeration of this trope]] ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'' when the knights read a text and it ends with "Aaargh" and they argue about whether this is possibly because the person writing it died while writing and went "aaargh". Maybe he wads dictating it?

* ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'': In the episode "Cartoon Buffoon", Dedede gets a bunch of the residents of Cappy Town to work for him to make a cartoon. On the day the cartoon premiers, he and the crew have the animation broadcast and the voice work done and recorded live on television. After the cartoon bombs, Dedede has his own soldiers make another one that they '''animate''' live, [[ExaggeratedTrope drawing and inking in real time while feeding the projector]].

* Parodied in an episode of ''Series/ThirtyRock''. Elisa's (Creator/SalmaHayek) grandmother hates Jack because he bears a [[ActingForTwo striking resemblance]] to the Generalissimo, the villain of her favorite soap opera. Jack (being the President of NBC) acquires Telemundo and attempts to have the Generalissimo killed off. Unfortunately, since the show is apparently broadcast live, the actor playing the Generalissimo goes OffTheRails when the female protagonist attempts to shoot him.

* In ''Series/OnlyFoolsAndHorses'', the game show ''Gold Rush''in the episode "If They Could See Us Now" is live, hence when Del calling Rodney as one of his lifelines is MistakenForPrankCall, the entire nation hears Rodders telling Jonathan Ross to piss off. It also means that all Cassandra has to do is turn on the TV for him to realise his mistake.

* Since a large part of the comedy of ''Franchise/TheMuppets'' is that TheShowMustGoWrong, it's always live. In the case of ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' it's not actually clear if the show is being televised "in-universe" or is just a stage show, but ''Series/MuppetsTonight'' is definitely broadcast live (justified in the first episode as being because they suddenly realised KMUP had nothing scheduled in the timeslot and had to throw a show together immediately), and it seems that so is ''Up Late With Miss Piggy'' in ''Series/TheMuppets''. Played with in ''Series/MuppetsNow'': the sketches are pre-recorded, but Scooter has to upload them all as it's being broadcast.

* In the ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' universe, [[NoInnerFourthWall the inner fourth wall is flimsy enough]] that even a cartoon can somehow be a live broadcast. The episode [[Recap/StrongBadEmailE126BestThing "best thing"]] features the cartoon ''[[BandToon Limozeen:]] [[RecycledInSpace But They're In Space!]]'', which gets canceled in the middle of broadcasting the pilot episode. The cartoon characters have just enough time to react to their impending cancellation.

* There's a scene in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' where Cell invades a television studio to announce his Cell Games. In the manga he just barges into the news room which could be justified as a live broadcast, but in the anime he walks through the front door and flies up to the top of the building, crashing through each floor on the way. And the Z Fighters are able to track him by channel hopping, implying [[UpToEleven EVERY show that studio broadcasts is live]].
* ''Anime/KirbyRightBackAtYa'': In the episode "Cartoon Buffoon", Dedede gets a bunch of the residents of Cappy Town to work for him to make a cartoon. On the day the cartoon premiers, he and the crew have the animation broadcast and the voice work done and recorded live on television. After the cartoon bombs, Dedede has his own soldiers make another one that they '''animate''' live, [[UpToEleven drawing and inking in real time while feeding the projector]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' episode "Flash the Wonder Dog", the titular ShowWithinAShow is broadcast live, as are the other shows made at the same TV studio. The episode was made and set in the late 1980s when most of these shows would have been pre-recorded, especially an action series like ''Flash''. That said, the fact that it's live is what enables the Rescue Rangers to clear Flash's name after he becomes the victim of a FrameUp courtesy of Fat Cat and his cronies. [[note]]Fat Cat, disguised as Flash, takes Flash's co-star, Conrad Cockatoo, hostage, but Monty and Gadget turn the cameras on Fat Cat, enabling Flash to unmask the impostor on live TV.[[/note]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' episode "Flash the Wonder Dog", the titular ShowWithinAShow is broadcast live, as are the other shows made at the same TV studio. The episode was made and set in the late 1980s when most of these shows would have been pre-recorded, especially an adventure series like "Flash the Wonder Dog". That said, the fact that it's live is what enables the Rescue Rangers to clear Flash's name after he becomes the victim of a FrameUp courtesy of Fat Cat and his cronies. [[note]]Fat Cat, disguised as Flash, takes Flash's co-star, Conrad Cockatoo, hostage, but Monty and Gadget turn the cameras on Fat Cat, enabling Flash to unmask the impostor on live TV.[[/note]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}''' episode "The Word of the Day", [[BrattyHalfPint Angelica]] overhears a kids' show host saying a "fun phrase" (Miss Carol, the host, [[DepravedKidsShowHost isn't very fond of kids]]) so Angelica decides to say that phrase during the show. When it goes live everyone hears Angelica [[SoundEffectBleep saying the word]], and the exasperated Miss Carol follows through, ruining her career. It might be justified since they were holding a contest, but it still seems unlikely that a little kids' show might go live.

** In "Pygmoelian", Moe becomes an actor on a SoapOpera. When he receives a script in which his character is killed in a skydiving accident, he flips out and teams up with Homer to take revenge on the show. During a live broadcast, Homer arrives in the guise of Moe's character's "guardian angel" and proceeds to spoil every major plot point for the next year. This wouldn't work if the show was pre-recorded, as soap operas are.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Bender Should Not Be Allowed On Television", a robot actor on the soap opera ''All My Circuits'' malfunctions in the middle of a scene and the viewers think it's AllPartOfTheShow. When Bender takes the place of the broken actor, he ad-libs his scenes and his antics make him an audience favorite. The fact that all these mishaps make it to air is HandWaved by lead actor Calculon [[WagTheDirector refusing to do second takes]], claiming that "amateurs do two takes."
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** In "Lisa's First Word", during a flashback we see Homer and Bart watching a Krusty commercial advertising his Olympics promotion by biting into a Krusty Burger, cut to the studio saying the shot was finished... and Krusty immediately spitting the burger now that he is not live.
** In "Pygmoelian", Moe becomes an actor on a SoapOpera. When he receives a script in which his character is killed in a skydiving accident, he flips out and teams up with Homer to take revenge on the show. During a live broadcast, Homer arrives in the guise of Moe's character's "guardian angel" and proceeds to spoil every major plot point for the next year. This wouldn't work if the show was pre-recorded, as soap operas are.

Very prone to be a CoincidentalBroadcast, and depending on the series, also for TheTelevisionTalksBack.