Many shows have a clip show as their series finale:
Full House used Michelle getting amnesia from a fall from a horse as a Framing Device for the second half of the two-part finale "Michelle Rides Again". This was the only all-out clip show of the series, but several other episodes did have short montages looking back on certain characters' pasts to prove a point in the present, such as Jesse's less-than-stellar musical gigs in Part One of "Captain Video".
Leave It to Beaver did it, pioneering not only many clip shows to come but setting an early precedent for series finales altogether.
Seinfeld aired a 70-minute retrospective on the series immediately preceding the finale, which mostly took the form of clips from previous episodes. The final episode itself also heavily featured clips and callbacks to previous episodes. Consequently, it was infamously poorly received.
Each of the four series of ''SClub'' ends this way... which was very annoying as they often used clips used in previous series finale clip shows. Though, given that the rest of the series finales revolved around being as depressing as possible, it may not have been such a bad thing. They also did this when Paul left.
Air Crash Investigation: The "Science of Disaster" episodes can be counted as this, as it's usually half a recap of air disasters centering around a theme (ATC, bad weather, pilot errors, etc.) and half an explanation about the theme itself and how to prevent similar disasters in the future.
The 100th episode, aired in December 1974, was a "best of" clip show hosted by Henry Fonda. Unlike many clip shows before or after, there was no plot per se; it was merely Fonda introducing clips and providing commentary.
The 200th episode, which came in early 1979, was an updated "best of" clip show, this time hosted by series creator Norman Lear. As was the case with the original, the plot was discarded in favor of a montage of clips and commentary from Lear.
Generally of dubious quality, but Andromeda's "Unconquerable Man" proved a deft use of the mechanism, changing the context of every clip.
The first two series of An Idiot Abroad each ended with an episode called "Karl Comes Home". The framing device of Ricky and Steve asking Karl about his travels was similar in tone to their conversations on The Ricky Gervais Show. The clips were also interspersed with unused footage from previous episodes.
The A-Team: the episode "Curtain Call" has several of the main characters remember scenes from previous episodes.
Big Wolf on Campus did this twice. The first time was during the Season Two finale to show the Grim Reaper that Tommy Dawkins was too good to die. The second time was during the Third Season finale in which the ACTORS presented clips of the fans' favorite moments as well as clips of their favorite villains.
Birds of a Feather had "The Chigwell Years", which featured Tracey, Sharon, and Dorien thinking back over the past six series as Tracey writes her memoirs.
The series finale of Boy Meets World, although it had a plot going on at the same time.
Castle, "Still": Used to reminisce about Castle and Beckett while the latter is standing on a Pressure Plate with a bomb attached.
Happens several times on Charmed. The first and most innovative clip show was season 5's "Cat House", which has Piper cast a spell before recounting (with her hubby, Leo) many memories to a shrink... which has the side effect of putting Phoebe and Paige into scenes of those memories (although some of the memories have been tweaked to excise Prue... Phoebe sort of hangs a lampshade on how Paige replaced Prue by noting, "You wanted to meet Prue," while they're in a memory featuring her as a wolf). Other clip shows include "Crimes and Witch Demeanors, "Someone To Witch Over Me" and "Generation Hex".
The Cosby Show has some clip shows, including one that aired outtakes, bloopers, and deleted scenes.
The CSI episode "Lab Rats" served as both a Clip Show and a Recap Episode for the Miniature Killer arc.
In the first season of Dead Like Me they had a clip show episode. But still managed to be interesting because it gave some insight on Daisy for the first time, and tried their best to make the time between the clips interesting to watch.
Dead Man's Gun: In the clip show based Grand Finale "A Just Reward", a criminal is hired to retrieve the gun for the enigmatic Mr. Smith, killing the guns' previous owners in the process. But his employer seems to know quite a great deal about the gun...and some of its previous owners.
In its very first season, Diff'rent Strokes has an episode where Mr. Drummond reminisces with Arnold and Willis while they prepare to celebrate their first Christmas together. That's right: not only did they give us a Clip Show a mere nine episodes into the show's run, they combined it with a Christmas Episode in the bargain! And it was a two-part episode, to boot. In the framing sequence, Mr. Drummond wakes up the kids in the middle of the night to remind them that it's the 8-week anniversary of their arrival.
Dinosaurs did two clip shows, both having the framing device of a modern-day paleontologist making conclusions about dinosaur society that are shown to be completely wrong by the interspersed clips.
The episode of Drake & Josh where the title characters go on "Dr. Phyllis"'s talk show.
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman had several of these. Two were of Dr. Quinn and Sully reviewing their relationship (one during their premarital counseling, the other while he was trying to keep her awake after a head injury), the other was Dr. Quinn discussing her most interesting cases with daughter Colleen, who was preparing to go to medical school herself.
Due South ended its second season with a clip show. Until the show was resurrected that fall, it also served as the series finale, to the annoyance of fans.
Earth: Final Conflict had several. Usually the episode did have a story to tell outside of simply showing clips.
"Interview" was about a news reporter interviewing Zo'or, and this was used to ow clips from previous episodes.
In "The Art of War" Howlyn interrogated Sandoval and Ra'Jel, looking for a way to subjugate humanity, and being shown previous attempts by the Taelons to do just that.
In "The Journey" Ra'jel speaks to Renee and the two argue, Ra'jel insisting that Renee can't escape her destiny whle she tries to do just that, each one using clips to illustrate their points.
The '70s show Emergency! ended its run with a clip show, "The Greatest Rescues of Emergency!" as part of the two main characters reminiscing when they both get promoted to Captain. However, it was NOT a Grand Finale, as two further movies aired after it.
The Eureka episode "You Don't Know Jack", which centers around a memory-recording device that starts erasing people's memories.
Family Ties had several of these. In one, the family members share stories with Alex's girlfriend Ellen; another has Alex's second girlfriend, Lauren, asking family members to relate past stories while working on a research paper ; still another has the men and women of the family rehashing past incidents while arguing at a restaurant; finally, there's one where everyone reminisces while Andy works on a time capsule he's planning to bury.
The Flash (2014) did this partially in its 100th episode, where Barry and Nora (his Kid from the Future) have to go back in time to collect the parts for a gadget to defeat Cicada. They travel back to pivotal moments in the show, such as the defeat of Savitar and the original particle accelerator explosion. These clips are interspersed with new footage of them interacting with the past.
Forever Knight, "Close Call": Schanke starts putting together all the strange things he's noticed about Nick (and comes this close to confirming that Nick is a vampire).
An unusual example occurs in the third act of the episode "Daphne Returns"; over the course of the episode, Niles and Daphne have been experiencing difficulties in their relationship, and in an effort to help, Frasier talks Niles through some of the significant moments in their relationship (their first meeting, their first dance, etc) — however, both the current Frasier and Niles are inserted into the scenes with their past selves, thus allowing the characters (and audience) to view the scenes in question from different perspectives. Not only are the clips worked into the episode in a logical and interesting fashion, but they only appear towards the end.
"Crock Tales" also subverted the trope, in which new scenes depicting the cast in previous seasons were shot, with the cast recreating their mannerisms, and in some cases, wearing wigs.
In-Universe, Frasier's radio producer Roz occasionally mentions having to switch to a pre-made Best of Frasier Crane compilation whenever he's unavailable.
The first one was in Season 4, episode 21, where Ross's decision whether or not to invite Rachel and her decision whether or not to attend are accompanied by flashbacks of every memorable scene in their relationship over four seasons. There are about a total of four new scenes, period, including the two bookends. One of the flashbacks also included footage not seen in the original episode (the shot of Ross screaming "We Were On A Break").
Subverted in "The One Where Everyone Turns 30" which showed clips of what the gang did when they each turned 30, which was all new footage.
"The One With Christmas in Tulsa" in Series 9 played with this: half of the episode was a clip show, but the rest was new footage, and contained a very plot-relevant development. Namely Chandler quitting his job.
The Golden Girls featured a clip show in every season between seasons 3 and 7 - and every one was a double episode! For added benefit, the vast majority of clips were new footage and not from previous episodes.
Hannah Montana's clip show was in the form of an interview, and not subtle at all.
Home Improvement had two: "Tool Time After Dark", where Tim watches tapes of the Show Within a ShowTool Time, and the second part of the three part finale, where Tim, Brad and Mark reminisce about their life in Detroit while preparing to move.
Horrible Histories has ended each series after the first with a clip show of the ten best music videos (in chronological order) from that series under the title "Savage Songs".
iCarly: iBloop is a clip show of bloopers, which makes it easier to digest than a normal clip show.
Imagination Movers combined this with Remember When You Blew Up a Sun? in "Mouse Scouts Clip Show," in which the Movers remind Warehouse Mouse of various great things he's done in the past and clips of those things are shown.
"The Stoop Sessions" from Impractical Jokers comprised of this and some behind-the-scene footage.
The Incredible Hulk (1977) had a clip show centering around Jack McGee talking to his new boss, trying to justify his continued pursuit of the Hulk.
Another episode, "Interview with the Hulk," another reporter manages to get an interview with David Banner and several clips are shown during the story.
JAG had only one: "Lifeline" in season 6. Though there were a couple of brief clip-show-style moments in a few other episodes.
The Jeffersons' clip show came midway through the fourth season (1977-1978), when George and Louise – after interrupting a burglary at their apartment, are tied to chairs while the robbers get away – reminisce about their first three years in Manhattan. As a bonus, the show flashes back to their days on All in the Family and their conflicts with Archie Bunker.
Kamen Rider Build has two that occur over the first half of their respective episodes before the main plot resumes during the second half. Interestingly, the clip shows are used by the heroes to make deductions that advance the plot. The first clip show is the heroes reviewing footage of previous battles and explaining how the Transformation Trinkets work in order to figure out a way to safely use the Hazzard Trigger. The deductions they make lead to the development of the Mid-Season Upgrade form. Later, the heroes do a more comprehensive recap of the series events in order to figure out what the Big Bad is currently planning based on his plans thus far. They end up figuring out that his early attacks on the heroes all followed a pattern, except for one that seemingly didn't until they did some further digging and found it had a very important connection.
Kamen Rider Dragon Knight has a rare and completely ridiculous example of a clip show that flashes back to another clip show. The show has a total of three. What's worse, the final battle and main resolution of the story takes place in the penultimate episodes, with the actual final episode being a clipshow of the whole series, which tied up some of the loose ends in passing. "Kit's dad and Sting? Oh yeah, they got better." No wonder the series was cancelled before either of these got to air...
La Femme Nikita had a clip show episode - "Down a Crooked Path" - where all the regular cast were ordered to visit a memory recording/wiping machine (because of reasons). Most of their memories were about Nikita, which helped to disguise that she did not appear in any of the new footage that week.
LazyTown: "Pixelspix", "Dear Diary", "LazyTown's Greatest Hits" and "Sportacus on the Move" are all examples of this.
The twelfth episode of Legend of the Seeker is a recap of the events of the early episodes, using the frame of Rahl tapping into Richard's mind with a spell and trying to get information out of him. The second season has another one, this time the frame being The Creator putting Richard on trial.
Because of the massive number of storylines running at any given time and the fact that networks have moved away from actually airing reruns for long-running serialized shows, ABC produced a good number of clip-shows for Lost and Desperate Housewives, usually airing them whenever the show's new season started or after a brief hiatus between new episodes during the season. The purpose of these clip shows was to get returning fans up to speed with the plotlines or in the case of Lost, to clarify plot-points for viewers.
Ironically, while Lost's clip shows have yet to show up in syndication, the Desperate Housewives clip shows HAVE.
MacGyver (1985) did at least three: "Friends", "Unfinished Business" and "Hindsight".
The Season 7 M*A*S*H episode "Our Finest Hour" has reporter Clete Roberts, previously used in the acclaimed Season 4 episode "The Interview", returning to the 4077th to interview the doctors and nurses for a black-and-white TV documentary. However, whereas the earlier episode featured all-new material and never broke from its concept, "Our Finest Hour" awkwardly inserts a large number of (color) clips from earlier episodes in a manner that destroys any kind of narrative flow in the Roberts segments. All of this goes a long way toward explaining why "Our Finest Hour" is regarded by many M*A*S*H fans as one of the weakest episodes in the show's run, making its title more than a little ironic.
The Miami Vice episode "A Bullet for Crockett" has most of the characters reminiscing about past missions when Crockett is shot during a drug bust gone bad.
Minder did one as a Christmas Episode, with the principals sitting around the pub remembering the events of the year.
Mr. Show had three mid-season specials that acted as this. The first was about them appearing on an infomercial, the second was them doing a press conference (which wasn't include on any of the DVDs), the third was the cast dubbing over an old news program.
In the episode "The Devil Inside", a murderer who claims to be possessed by the spirit of James Gilles prompts William and Julia to relive their previous encounters with him.
In the episode "Manual for Murder", a copycat killer is duplicating past cases based on Murdoch, Dr Odgen and Constable Crabtree's book Solving Murder. Flashbacks from the relevant episodes are shown with the characters reading the book in voiceover.
In the episode "The Trial of Terrence Myers'', Murdoch's testimony on his past encounters with Agent Myers is related through clips from the Once a Season Myers episodes.
In My Name Is Earl, Earl was in a coma, and his coma dream consisted of a Dom Com where he was married to Billie Cunningham. A clip show (where Earl and Billie and all their friends are now elderly and reminiscing) marks the episode where Earl finally comes out of the coma in the "real" world.
Mystery Hunters: The first and second season finales "The Best of Mystery Hunters" has the team discussing their favorite moments from the mysteries, alongside some bloopers.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 has an episode, The Hellcats, where the host segments were in Clip Show form; it was admitted in the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide that doing the narrative glue took up just as much time and money as making wholly new ones.
The "Buster Special" blends several clips of Buster getting trashed with footage of the rebuild.
The "Outtakes Special" is just what it says — clips that didn't make it into the show.
One could argue that "MythBusters Revealed" qualifies as well, with clips mixed with interviews with the team.
During the first season(s), several myths with similar themes (explosions, animals, etc.) were combined into one episode, while sacrificing some of the "filler" material from the original segments.
As part of Discovery Channel's 25th anniversary celebration, MythBusters did a two-hour "Top 25 Moments" Clip Show special.
One "Shark Week" special was a collection of shark-themed clips.
Night Court did a two-part clip show where a city auditor (played by Les Nessman) demanded an explanation for the outrageous expenses filed by the people in Harry's court. Then Judge Harry's office is taken hostage by a clown with a gun played by Mr. Carlin.
"Like Brothers", which focused on Leonardo and Raphael fighting, each one using clips to show the other's foibles, and the other turtles using clips to try and stop the fighting.
"Who Needs Her", where Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo reflect on their experiences with having Venus de Milo on their team.
The Odd Squad episode "Welcome to Odd Squad" is this, although in addition to the A-plot of Orpita needing to film a recruitment video for future Odd Squad agents, it also has a separate B-plot in the form of the Mobile Unit needing to stop a Sandbeast on the loose.
The season 6 episode of The Office, "The Banker". Though one of the first known mockumentaries to have a clip show, the episode followed a fairly standard clip show format, having characters recall past moments and grouping clips into accidents and injuries, Jim's pranks, romantic moments, etc. Though at least a third of the episode was new footage, the show got flack for being on hiatus for over a month and coming back to a clip show rather than a new episode.
Pee Wee's Playhouse marks yet another series that used a clip show as its finale. Miss Yvonne mistakenly thinks that Pee-wee is selling the Playhouse and thinks back to all the fun everyone's had there in the past.
There was another episode that was a clip show, as well: when Cowboy Curtis comes over to visit, the Playhouse characters think back to all the fun they had with Curtis in the past.
The Pinkertons episode "Review" has someone doing a performance review of the titular detectives as a pretext for showing clips.
"HAL" in Pixelface. An incomplete update cause the Console to go insane. As she torments the characters, she keeps playing clips from her "archive" to illustrate her points.
The finale episode of Planet Ajay, "Highlights Show", is a clip show depicting some of the highlights of the series. In this episode, the main character Ajay packs up to leave on a very long trip around the universe (it's 2,517 years long, to be precise), and Chips the robot reminds Ajay of all the friends he has on Planet Ajay. Ajay remembering all that his friends did for him is used as the framing device for the clips, which are supposed to be Ajay's memories.
Power Rangers tends to play it straight with its seasonal clip shows, generally either as a form of recap or an attempt by the Rangers to piece together several past clues they originally missed to try and figure out what the enemy is really planning.
Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Until Sunset features a captured Leo and Damon (thanks to Captain Mutiny) recalling all the major events that happened to them since the season began up until the Rangers' travels into the Lost Galaxy.
Power Rangers Time Force: The first half of A Calm Before The Storm (the penultimate episode before the three part finale) features the Rangers recalling three major story lines that brought them to this point: Wes and Jen's growing relationship, the Rangers of the 31st century growing accustomed to the year 2001, and Wes and Mr. Collins reconciling their estranged relationship.
Of particular note is the 500th episode, "Legacy of Power", in which the incumbent team (Dino Thunder) is caught up on the entire history of the Power Rangers in a series of archived videos narrated by Tommy Oliver. Dino Thunder later had its own clip show, "A Test of Trust", after an Internal Reveal shook the team up a bit.
Power Rangers S.P.D.: Insomnia has the B-Squad Rangers staying up all night after overhearing Cruger make a comment about the M.I.A. A-Squad Rangers, making them wonder if what they were doing was enough. They also recall all the materials Emperor Gruumm stole over the course of the season and realize he is planning something big.
Power Rangers Samurai had two in its first year, both as holiday specials. The Halloween one consisted of previous Monsters of the Week retelling their past battles against the heroes.
"Amnesia" (Season 2): Confronting a drug trafficker responsible for a deadly hit-and-run, Jarod gets knocked out and left to freeze. He's saved by Argyle, but he can't remember who he is and experiences flashes of previous events. Meanwhile, the Centre Pursuit Team is put on trial for failing to catch Jarod, and their previous exploits are put under the microscope.
"Mr. Lee" (Season 3): Mr. Lee tries to find Jarod by interviewing people from past episodes: Bernie Baxley ("Curious Jarod"), Susan Granger ("To Protect and Serve"), Rachel Newton ("Potato Head Blues"), Dr. Fein ("Back from the Dead"), and J.R. Miller ("Red Rock Jarod"); Mr. Lyle (a recurring character) is also interviewed. When the pursuit team learns of what he's doing, they track Lee's movements and intercept the list to talk to the same people. Notably, Jarod doesn't appear in new footage until the very end of the episode.
"Ghosts from the Past" (Season 4): Angelo senses that a foe from Jarod's past is coming back for revenge. Looking over materials recovered from past episodes, Angelo experiences flashes of various prior one-off villains with sizable scores to settle.
The Psi Factor episode "Tribunal" is another example. The team is questioned about the cases they investigated and their testimonies are accompanied by footage from earlier episodes.
The season ending episodes of seasons three and four of Punky Brewster when it went into first-run syndication were clip shows. "Remember When" (season three) featured clips as the gang dealt with a power outtage during a blizzard. while "Wedding Bells For Brandon" (season four and series finale) used clips from past episodes as a wedding for Punky's dog Brandon and a female golden retriever named Brenda was arranged.
Radio Enfer: Downplayed. Two episodes feature flashbacks to two or three previous episodes, but it only lasts one single scene before they move on with the rest of the actual plot.
Saturday Night Live: There have been various themed compilation specials of popular sketches with a specific theme, such as a holiday (NBC always brings out Halloween and Christmas-themed specials, inevitably featuring classics such as the Irwin Mainway "Consumer Probe" sketches, "Dick in a Box", and "Schweddy Balls"), sports, commercial parodies, game show parodies, etc.
Saved by the Bell does this three times. One episode uses a framing device of the gang hanging around the Max reminiscing about various scenes/episodes related to dating and romance. Another has Mr. Belding with a group of students from a class many years in the future, watching a video time capsule made by the "present" group of kids. The last has the gang at Zack's house remembering the wacky hijinks of their summer working at the beach club (the 8-episode summer season).
The game show Save to Win had two clip shows to end out the run. Egregiously, one of the clips actually depicts something that never happened on the show. The blink-and-you-miss-it clip shows a team winning the $5,000, having picked products 8 and 12. That’s not how it went down on the actual episode; the team had really only won $1,700 by picking 4 and 16.
A very unusual variant is the Scrubs episode "My Deja Vu, My Deja Vu", in which, after J.D. comments that at this stage of his career it seems like everything's happened before, much of the rest of the storyline consists of re-recorded scenes from earlier episodes. Scrubs also did a regular clip show in season 6 — really more of a montage show, with sequences of "people dancing", "people falling over", etc. The season six clip show is notable for its lampshade hanging and self-mockery. Fans in aggregate have rated it the series's worst episode.
The funny thing is that in the re-recorded scenes of "My Deja Vu, My Deja Vu", there are minor differences in the dialogue, such as the Janitor claiming to have been from Yale instead of Harvard. The entire point of the episode is that while things can repeat themselves, it's the little differences that matter.
The Fully Automatic Clip Show in season six is sometimes credited as showing the writers what Scrubs used to be about - after a long decline in episode quality, the clip show is followed by some very strong episodes, both in drama and in comedy. The first episode broadcast afterwards has a rant by Dr. Cox in which he accurately describes why and how each other major character is funny, and soon after it would have a very dramatic two-parter, the second episode of which won a Humanitas prize, which the series hadn't won since its first season.
In the Shining Time Station episode, "Stacy Forgets Her Name", Stacy Jones loses her memory after she sniffs flowers Mr. Conductor had sprinkled with a potion intended to make bees forget they had to take nectar from the plants. Her nephew, Dan, and Mr. Conductor help jog her memory through clips from previous episodes.
An episode during the final season of Sisters had the girls and their mother trapped during a snowstorm. They kept awake by reminiscing about past events.
Sons of Guns had one — Sons of Guns: Guns of Glory on Thanksgiving 2011 listed the crew's favorite projects from the previous episodes.
The series has a clip show episode, "Letters from Pegasus". The characters record messages to be sent to Earth before they die, and footage from earlier in the season is aired again. It was mainly used to drive in the poignancy of that time in their lives as they were unable to describe all the things that had happened to them because the Stargate program is a secret. One memorable scene is footage of Atlantis rising from the ocean with an added voice-over entirely in Czech from Dr. Zelenka. However, the plot is still continued in-between the recorded messages.
They have another clip show in the final season, in which the characters are put on trial by the inhabitants of the Pegasus Galaxy; the clips are flashbacks to the things they're accused of. They got off by basically saying "Yeah, well, we're still the only ones who can save your asses from the Wraith."
Stargate SG-1 has several clipshows, usually in the context of one of SG-1's political enemies trying to convince their superiors to fire SG-1. These were usually late in their respective seasons, done to save the budget for the finale.
"Politics" at the end of Season 1 — the Stargate team tries to persuade a politician to keep funding the project.
"Out of Mind", last episode of Season 2 — the heroes have been captured by the enemy pretending to be friends and asking about past missions.
"Disclosure" — the Stargate program is presented to representatives from other countries.
"Inauguration" — the new President being briefed about the Stargate program. Interestingly enough, one of the clips of this Clip Show is from an original segment of the aforementioned Clip Show episode — "Disclosure".
The Season 8 episode "Citizen Joe" is a quite delightful clip show that actually has very few clips in it — the eponymous Joe is a regular guy who had picked up an alien device seven years previously that gives him a psychic connection to SG-1's Colonel O'Neill. Most of the episode is Joe recounting the events of various SG-1 episodes to the customers in his barber shop, and eventually trying to sell them as short stories. Joe's friends and wife get to play the role of the SG-1 fan as they make comments and complaints that real-life fans have made. They comment on Jonas Quinn, a temporary replacement for Dr. Daniel Jackson (because the actor playing Jackson took a year off from the show), for example.
The second episode of Season 5, "Threshold," is something of a "fake-out". The setup of the show is that the characters have to stay awake with Teal'c, talking to him. Just when the viewer is certain it's going to be a boring clip-show, it turns out every one of Teal'c's past memories is brand-new footage containing tons of character development.
In the Starsky & Hutch episode "Partners," Hutch develops amnesia after a car crash, leading Starsky to recount scenes from previous episodes in order to jog his memory. In the end he admits he was faking it as revenge for Starsky's reckless driving.
Star Trek: The Next Generation has one of the most abysmal clip shows ever in its second-season finale, "Shades of Grey" It was almost literally, "Riker's got a fever and the only prescription is A CLIP SHOW!" It should be noted that this episode was the result of the lengthy 1988 writers' strike causing a shortage of new material. It went over so badly with the fandom and the production staff alike that it resulted in the entire franchise largely avoiding clip shows going forward.
On the other hand, Star Trek: The Original Series has a two-part episode, "The Menagerie", which is often named as a clip show, although all of the clips were from the unaired Pilot episode. This fact is lampshaded in-universe due to the impossibility of things such as overhead shots of the Enterprise and alternating camera angles.
While not strictly a clip show, there is an episode where the ship itself became a clip show of sorts, with different parts of it reverting to moments from different points in time, in a hilarious send-up of clip shows. You can recognize the episodes and even guess them, through all the seasons, reusing all the old hairstyles and everything that changed season to season.
Voyager also has the sixth season episode "The Voyager Conspiracy", which see Seven of Nine hypothesising that various unconnected events over the course of the series are linked together into some big conspiracy theory, dating all the way back to the pilot episode. Extensive use of clips of events from several former episodes are used to help illustrate her points. It was TNG's "Shades of Grey" done right.
The Steve Harvey Show did this when Byron came to do a Where Are They Now-esque show featuring Steve. Unfortunately, everyone wanted to talk about themselves. Byron became frustrated that Steve did not have any juicy secrets and when the show aired, all it said was that Steve was a music teacher.
Stroker and Hoop made an interesting use of this trope during its season one finale (although it didn't get a second season). The heroes were being held in a Death Trap by someone who swore revenge on them. He would only release them if they could identify him. All the clips focused on a minor character who appeared in some (but not all) of the episodes in the series, whom they unwittingly wronged in every episode, either directly or indirectly.
Stuck in the Middle: "Stuck in the Diaz Awards" is basically a clip show of moments from the past two seasons as the Diaz family celebrates their annual award show.
The Supernatural episode title "Clip Show" refers to this trope in a characteristically snarky way. The entire episode isn't built around preexisting clips, but enough are included to show why Sam and Dean are upset about the people Crowley is killing.
The 3rd Rock from the Sun episode "Seven Deadly Clips", in which the clips were loosely themed around the Seven Deadly Sins. It includes Harry mistakenly identifying "falling down" as a deadly sin so that they could show a bunch of Slapstick clips. Also, a clip of Evil Dick is included at one point, as though it were demonstrating the behavior of the "real" Dick.
The Time Team episode "Greatest Discoveries" is just the main presenters (Tony, Phil, Mick Aston, Helen Geake, and Tony) discussing past shows and clips thereof.
Tracker (2001) had 'Remember When' where Cole is zapped by his fugitive storage device and loses his memory. It returns by the end, but serves as a convenient Clip ShowPlot Device.
Ultra Series: Due to budget concerns and being a long-running franchise, these kind of episodes have started to become more common place usually serving as the means of introducing newer fans into the franchise's many instalments. They are usually called "Special Episodes"
Ultraman Orb and Ultraman Geed both did these for the halfway point of their series. In the former, the SSP clean up their apartment and reminisce about how far they've come as they dig up old treasures, while in the latter, Riku and Pega accidentally break RE.M. and try to restore her memories. Ultraman Mebius did a partial one ten years earlier. Like with Orb and Geed, it serves as a midway recap, as GUYS looks over some of the kaiju they've fought so far when trying to decide which one would make for a good Maquette Monster. However, at the halfway point, it switches out to bring in the Monster of the Week storyline when their new Maquette Zetton goes rogue.
Ultraman Z has 3 clip shows; 2 in the middle that detail past Ultras and Mechs, and the third one recapping the events of the series after the finale and revealing some small bits of lore. The three special episodes are hosted by Ultraman Zero, Beliarok and the STORAGE AI, respectively.
Ultraman Trigger: New Generation Tiga has 2 Special Episodes, which are hosted by friendly alien, Deban in his in-universe show "Deban Channel" the first talks about the attack teams of the New Generation Series and the second deals with various Ultras and their accomplishments.
Voyagers!: "The Trial of Phineas Bogg" is an unusually good instance of this. The clips are mostly explained in-universe as recordings from the omni of past adventures.
The final episode of Warehouse 13 centers entirely on the Warehouse agents reliving their 'most defining Warehouse moment.' The best part? This is a complete subversion of the "reusing old footage" part of the trope. All of the old footage that is used is only seen for a moment before the new content is introduced. All of the major flashback sequences were filmed especially for this episode, and actually end up being the most satisfying part.
War of the Worlds (1988) uses a clip show near the end of its first season, framed as the Blackwood project's presentation to a international conference on alien-fighting. The clip show section only takes up about half of the episode, however, as the aliens besiege the conference in order to prevent the producers from needing to magic up clips to go along with the presentations of the other countries involved.
The 3000th and 4000th episodes of Wheel of Fortune were clip shows giving glimpses at the show's history, also including some memorable moments (five words: "A group of pill-pushers"). Sister show Jeopardy! also did this for its 4000th.
In the early WKRP in Cincinnati episode, "Mama's Review", Mama Carlson comes to review the progress of the radio station and Andy and Arthur Carlson ineffectually try to explain the bizarre disasters that have occured as seen in the clips. Unlike similar shows, this episode also features significant character development of both Mama and Son Carlson as each own up to their mistakes.
World's Dumbest... has one in the form of a "bracket showdown," in which clips from previous episodes are stacked against each other, tournament-style. Some include new commentary from stars who joined after the clip in question originally aired, as well as NBA star Charles Barkley.
The most memorable is "Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards", which has Gabrielle at bard school, where she sings the praises of Xena. This clip show also uses footage from the Steve Reeves movie sung by the bard Stallonus (as an actor called Sylverster), and footage from Spartacus sung by the bard Homer, who wins the competition by closing his eyes before singing (thus earning the nickname "the blind bard").
Another Gabrielle-based clip show (from "The Debt") was very well done by going over the current arc, which had Xena and Gabby's relationship straining, and put a new spin on the events of a pivotal two-parter by exploring Gabrielle's motives. It also used cut footage to good effect AND served to close a Plot Hole that had been hanging (namely, how did Gabby get to China before Xena?).
There is also a rather unusual example in the fourth season episode "Lifeblood"; the production company had filmed an hour-long pilot for a new series, Amazon High, which never got picked up (among other reasons, it doesn't appear to have been very good). So, instead, they edited a bunch of the footage into a X:WP episode that explained the "origin" of the Amazons through a series of vision quest flashbacks. Ergo: a Clip Show that didn't look like a Clip Show. Clever, yes?
The episodes of both Xena and Hercules that are based in the present day are almost always clip shows, but it's understandable why those aren't discussed often.
Small part of The X-Files series finale, "The Truth," feels like a clip show. In the episode, the characters recap the series Myth Arc as part of Mulder's trial, and the clips accompany their recaps, but after the trial, there are new scenes.
The Young and the Restless has had a number of these over the years, often involving Victor Newman reminiscing on his on-and-off romance with Nikki and/or the importance of family.
Young Dracula has the episode "Fangs for the Memories", which is somewhat helpful since the show was cancelled then Un-Cancelled, meaning much of the footage was from four years ago.
Subversions and parodies:
Subverted in the 30 Rock episode "The Bubble" when Jack mentions that Tracy's contract is up and Liz responds that they sure do have some crazy memories of Tracy. They stand quietly for a moment with Liz remarking "I'm picturing them right now", but no clip starts and both characters shake it off and continue with the episode.
The April Fools' Day episode of iCarly starts out like a typical clip show episode...but soon turns into absolute madness.
Parodied in Community twice, in "Paradigms of Human Memory" and "Curriculum Unavailable". In both episodes, the study group recall past events in a similar set-up to a Clip Show, but all the clips are new scenes, resulting in more of a Noodle Incident Show. In addition there are a couple segments that take place — but not actually in — a few episodes. One example in "Paradigms of Human Memory" is them having a flashback to "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" but not done in claymation, or an extra scene not shown in the episode, and in "Curriculum Unavailable" the whole Greendale Asylum segment. Rather impressively, ''Paradigms of Human Memory' ends in a Jeff Winger speech that takes place during all of the events previously shown.
Subverted with Doctor Who's season 23, "The Trial of a Time Lord", which had a theme of the Doctor being put on trial. The four serials (or one, or three, depending on who you ask) are set out like a clip show but it's all new footage of adventures that the Doctor supposedly had after the end of the previous season, and a major plot point is whether the "evidence" seen in the flashbacks may have been altered by an unknown party to make the Doctor look worse. The "Terror of the Vervoids" section twists things even further, in that the clips shown are of events that have yet to happen, from the point of view of the characters in the courtroom.
Parodied in episode 13 of Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger. The Akibarangers are sent a DVD of their previous adventures in order to find out what they did wrong in order to get a second season. This episode features enough humorous commentary by the team to be a parody alone. Eventually they figure out it was just the producer's way to force a clip show episode.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The season 13 episode "The Gang Does a Clip Show" has the gang sitting at the bar waiting for their cell phones to update (which will take 30 minutes), so they decide to reminisce about their past shenanigans. After a few clip montages, the gang starts to misremember past events, and the altered history starts to change their current reality. One memory recreates the Seinfeld episode "The Contest." Eventually they realize that they're getting "stuck" in each other's minds and have to figure out whose it is to get back to reality.
One episode of the Disney show Kickin' It ended up with Jack getting amnesia, and the rest of the dojo having to jog his memory by reminding him of his life.
Saturday Night Live: When Justine Bateman hosted, they did a "Family Ties" skit. The Keatons would reminisce about a previous episode which was another clip show which would flash back to another episode. Which then flashbacked into an episode of The Jeffersons which was itself a clip show...
In the penultimate episode of Supernatural season eight (actually called "Clip Show"), Crowley starts killing people Sam and Dean have saved, threatening to destroy their entire lives' work unless they stand down. Clips from previous episodes are used so we know who all these people coming Back for the Dead are, but they actually don't take up a large part of the episode.
The season 1 finale of Taxi had a standard clip show format with everyone reminiscing about their times driving a cab that's just been wrecked. However, it was entirely new material.
That '70s Show: The episode "picture day" follows the format of a clip show where the characters reminisce about how they all met, but all the clips shown are new.
frames clips from ten previous episodes in a new story about an object that mysteriously appears in Doc Huers office.