History Main / ThePointsMeanNothing

** The show rewards contestants with points based on how interesting they are (and deduct points for obvious wrong answers). Occasionally, the host will say they get points for it; but by the end, there are often looks of shock from the contestants over the score. Creator John Lloyd said that he himself doesn't understand the scoring system -- they apparently just hire someone to sit in a room and record scores, and no one knows quite what logic he uses, if any. One rule that is clear though, is that 10 points are deducted for an answer that "everyone knows" but is wrong, such as Sweden having the world's highest suicide rate. [[note]]actually, it's Lithuania[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/TheWitchsHouse'', because it was created in VideoGame/RPGMaker, gives the protagonist hit points. Besides counting down with your steps [[spoiler:if you eat a bowl of poisoned soup]], though, they do nothing. In the one case where they have any function, they're still useless since it's impossible to keep them from hitting 0 at that point.

* Mocked by ''Radio/ImSorryIHaventAClue'', where the scorekeeper, the lovely and [[ReallyGetsAround possibly sex-mad]] Samantha, is introduced at the beginning of each episode with more fanfare than the contestants -- and then the score is never mentioned again. This is perhaps not a surprise, given that Samantha [[TheVoiceless doesn't exist]]. Tis a shame.

* In ''Manga/QueensBlade'', Alleyne gives Nowa, her apprentice, points on how well she handles a situation.

The PanelShow format has been around for a long time - it's cheap to make and easy to film. But when it's aimed towards being funny or entertaining, the points cease to matter. What may have started as a quite a serious point system falls to the wayside, or maybe they don't care about points in the first place but liked the format. Add to this gratuitous editing which removes answers to questions or entire questions, and the viewer will have a hard time figuring out how that team is winning when they haven't answered a single question yet.

--> '''Ian:''' It is getting rather sad that I can't win against Paul when he's accompanied by a tub of lard and the questions are in a foreign language (trails off laughing).
--> '''Angus''': We did everything we could, Ian.

** The show rewards contestants with points based on how interesting they are (and deduct points for obvious wrong answers). Occasionally, the host will say they get points for it; but by the end, there are often looks of shock from the contestants over the score. Creator John Lloyd said that he himself doesn't understand the scoring system - they apparently just hire someone to sit in a room and record scores, and no one knows quite what logic he uses, if any. One rule that is clear though, is that 10 points are deducted for an answer that "everyone knows" but is wrong, such as Sweden having the world's highest suicide rate. [[note]]actually, it's Lithuania[[/note]]
-->'''Stephen Fry''': I think we can all agree that nobody ''in this universe'' understands QI's scoring system!\\
'''David Mitchell''': What about the person who does QI's scoring? Wouldn't they now feel rather sad? They, at least presumably, are sitting there thinking that they know.\\
'''Stephen Fry''': His name is Colin, he's very brilliant; he works for Lumina, the scoring system people, and, ''he'' knows what he's doing, but it is a little bit of a puzzle to the rest of the world.

** Like ''[[Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou HIGNFY]]'' above, at least some of the apparent randomness of the points is due to editing down two hours of material into a half-hour broadcast - if someone gets forfeits or right answers during this time, their points gained in the half hour can vary wildly from those shown at the end (most recently a panelist ended up with a score of -15 despite seemingly getting no forfeits at all), but of course, they can't change the points for the edit. It becomes clearer in the extended editions, but one presumes that even more is lost from the original recorded length.

** There was a round where team captains, Rory Bremner and Hugh Dennis, provided the voices to a clip of film. When Bremner left they kept the round but using Dennis and Frankie Boyle - even though Hugh and Frankie were on the same team.

* Averted by ''Series/AQuestionOfSport'' - while it is a celebrity panel show and is both funny and entertaining, the panelists are all sportsmen and women and therefore ridiculously competitive...

* The Australian quiz show ''Series/TalkinBoutYourGeneration'' takes this approach, to an extent (mainly to make fun of [[ButtMonkey Generation Y.]]) The host, Shaun Micallef, often gives a bizarre number of points that are in no way relevant to the number of questions answered correctly in a round. One time a contestant actually traded places with Micallef and reassigned points between teams. The points are doubly irrelevant - the last round awards [[GoldenSnitch the number of points needed for any of the teams to win]].

* [[Series/ChappellesShow Dave Chappelle]] held a quiz segment called "I Know Black People", selecting non-actors and genuinely testing them on whether they did 'know black people'. The points didn't matter for most questions, as some question gave points for any answer, and some where:
--> '''Chappelle:''' ''"'I don't know' is an acceptable answer! Even black people don't know that shit."''

-->'''Guest:''' Hang on, hang on. How come they get more points than us when ''we'' got the right answer?
-->'''Corbett:''' You foreigners with your "[[ScareQuotes logic]]"...

--> '''RuPaul''' "And the winner is...who cares!"

--> Dealing cards with the old men in the club car\\
Penny a point, ain’t no one keeping score

--> '''Hobbes''': Okay, so now the score is oogy to boogy.\\
'''Calvin''': I already ''had'' oogy!

* Mocked by ''Radio/ImSorryIHaventAClue'', where the scorekeeper, the lovely and [[ReallyGetsAround possibly sex-mad]] Samantha, is introduced at the beginning of each episode with more fanfare than the contestants - and then the score is never mentioned again. This is perhaps not a surprise, given that Samantha [[TheVoiceless doesn't exist]]. Tis a shame.

* You might expect ''Radio/WaitWaitDontTellMe'' to be like this, but it actually keeps a fairly rigid scoring system. Subverted in that the prize is essentially bragging rights for the panelist. What does matter is how callers do - they get announcer Carl Kassell to record a message on their answering machine.

* [[Creator/PhilthonJones Caught Chatting]] - amounts of points have included "Jones", "sine minus one ninety", and "WebAnimation/HomestarRunner".

-> ''"Welcome to ''Whose Line is it Anyway?'', the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter. That's right, the points are kinda like Canada."''

* "Welcome to ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway''; the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter! That's right, the points are like [[PornWithoutPlot the plot of a porn movie]]; they don't matter!" The phrase was used in the U.S. version by Drew Carey, to highlight American audiences being unused to {{Panel Game}}s. The same principle applied to the Clive Anderson-hosted British seasons, but at least it could be demonstrated that Clive was, in fact, awarding points (and deducting them for references to baldness). Drew Carey himself didn't seem to keep track of the points he was awarding; eventually, he just defaulted to saying "a thousand points to everyone" after every game, and later they only seemed to come up when Drew was using that tag-line.
** The score recap the only time Drew did one: Wayne: Who knows, Brad: Who Cares, Colin: I Forgot, [[ButtMonkey Ryan: -73]]
** Other "recaps" go along the lines of "If you're keeping score at home; medical help is on the way."
** Averted on one occasion where the points actually ''did'' matter.
** The points did mean something in an outtake, as Drew accidentally said "five hundred points a peach" instead of "apiece". Ryan and Colin quickly jumped on it, raising their hands and yelling "I got a peach!"
** In one episode, Drew gave away $100 bills instead of points.
** In yet another episode, Colin got the 1 millionth point ever awarded on the show, and they celebrated with balloons falling down from the ceiling as they cut to commercial.
** After a Foreign Film Dub set in a beer garden, Drew gave out 100 beers instead of points.
** In yet another episode, Drew simply brought in a ''tape recorder'' of himself saying "One thousand points!" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41oHePob_Nw Wayne stole it during a commercial break]] and overwrote the tape with himself chanting "My ass... my ass... my ass..."
** One episode featured Drew telling the viewers to go out and buy "the official Whose Line Is It Anyway? Scorebook...ya big dope."
** "You don't get points for this round, instead you get the new mega-points. They are 25% bigger and worth 50% less."
** "A billion points to everybody. [[Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire Hear that, Regis?]] One ''billion''."
** In early seasons of the Clive Anderson original, whoever had the most points at the end of the show won the "prize" of getting to read the end credits in a style of Clive's choosing. Styles included gangster, pirate, Double Rainbow guy, man who's looking for a bathroom, etc..
** [[http://www.reddit.com/r/whoselineisitanyway/comments/x3oqn/the_points_that_dont_matter_for_each_cast_member/ Someone calculated who won, by adding up all the points.]]
** Part of the reason the points didn't matter was because not all games were actually shown - they typically filmed more games per episode than were needed for a half-hour program, and then cut out the less entertaining ones to keep show quality up. Because the home audience wouldn't see some of the points being awarded, there was no real point in keeping up a running total.

* ''Series/RuRaulsDragRace''
** Matching the celebrity contestants while playing "Snatch Game" means nothing.

* The Australian quiz show ''TalkinBoutYourGeneration'' takes this approach, to an extent (mainly to make fun of [[ButtMonkey Generation Y.]]) The host, Shaun Micallef, often gives a bizarre number of points that are in no way relevant to the number of questions answered correctly in a round. One time a contestant actually traded places with Micallef and reassigned points between teams. The points are doubly irrelevant - the last round awards [[GoldenSnitch the number of points needed for any of the teams to win]].

* ''VideoGame/TheWitchsHouse'', because it was created in RPGMaker, gives the protagonist hit points. Besides counting down with your steps [[spoiler:if you eat a bowl of poisoned soup]], though, they do nothing. In the one case where they have any function, they're still useless since it's impossible to keep them from hitting 0 at that point.

* ''[[Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook That's Numberwang!]]''

* In Creator/{{Yuriofwind}}'s Bullshit Creepypasta Storytime segment, sometimes he removes points from the stories he reads, which doesn't really matter, given that he doesn't score the stories at all.

* Mike Tyson's Punch-Out awarded points for punches landed and knockdowns, the final tally determining whether or not the player would win a decision. However, since fights ''very'' rarely went the distance, this was largely meaningless (pretty much just a way to make the Tyson fight a little less painful); what was more, many of the more difficult fights were rigged such that ''you couldn't win by decision''. Since time of the match didn't figure into the score, it was useless even as bragging rights.

* ''VideoGame/YumeNikki'' allows you to collect money from NPCs that you stab, which isn't technically useless since you can in fact use the money at vending machines to buy food to raise your HP. Your HP, though, does literally nothing, so both are examples either directly or indirectly.

* The original MegaMan has a point system, including a randomly generated point bonus for beating a level. This was dropped in all installments afterward, probably because it didn't have any purpose.

* You might expect ''Radio/WaitWaitDontTellMe'' to be like this, but it actually keeps a fairly rigid scoring system. Subverted in that the prize is essentially bragging rights for the panelist. What does matter is how callers do - they get announcer Carl Kassel to record a message on their answering machine.

-> ''"Welcome to Whose Line is it Anyway; the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter. That's right, the points are kinda like Canada."''