Game Show Appearance

The answer is D, for those wondering.^note "Garagiola" is the name of a famous American baseball player.

Characters appear on a real or fictitious Game Show, but typically they won't win any significant amount of money. Often, two or more characters will be pitted against each other, despite the unlikelihood of two people who know each other being competitors on a real game show.

If a group of people love a game show with one holdout pointing out the show's silliness, chances are the holdout will be the one who becomes a contestant and/or gets obsessed.

Compare Jeopardy! Intelligence Test, where the characters reveal their knowledge or lack thereof by their reactions to watching a game show. Talk Show Appearance is this tropes talk show equivalent.

Typically, using a real game show will involve the genuine set, props, and staff.

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Examples with real Game Shows:

American Gladiators

• September 18, 1992: In a particularly unrealistic example, the Family Matters episode "Surely You Joust" had Carl Winslow and Steve Urkel squaring off against each other on the show. Justified In-Universe by Waldo calling in a favor from his cousin, who played Sabre.
• May 21, 1993: A spoof of the show is used in Hot Shots! Part Deux, as Ramada and Michelle compete for Topper's love.
• November 22, 1994: An episode of Taz-Mania had Taz and his mom on "Tasmanian Gladiators".
• March 1, 1995: Ellen DeGeneres once appeared on the show in the Ellen episode "Gladiators".

Beat The Clock

• November 20, 1954: One of the so-called "lost" episodes of The Honeymooners had Ralph Kramden and his wife Alice on the show (and Bud Collyer, naturally, playing himself). After completing the $100 Clock and time running out during the $200 Clock, the two practice the stunt for the next week. Alice becomes unable to participate due to her sister having twins, and Ed Norton is brought in as her substitute. He and Ralph complete the $200 Clock, after which Norton wins the Jackpot Clock and TV set. Collyer then gives Ralph a pair of strollers that were to be used in a later stunt for the newborn twins.

Big Brother

• October 20, 2003: In the Yes, Dear episode "Big Brother-in-Law", Jimmy becomes a contestant to get money so he and Christine can get their own place. Jimmy quickly becomes well-liked by the others due to his wit and storytelling skills, and all signs clearly point to him winning the $500,000... until Greg, wanting to see Jimmy win, breaks in to warn of a blindsiding which was actually a joke.
• June 11, 2005: An episode of Doctor Who ("Bad Wolf") had the Ninth Doctor ending up on a future version of the show (although it's only one of several dozen simultaneous "houses") where the evicted contestants die.
• December 27, 2007: Done tragically in the Grand Finale of Extras, the show representing the lowest point in Gervais' character's career. Culminates in an incredible Moment of Awesome.

Bumper Stumpers

• February 26, 2013: On this episode of Late Show with David Letterman the Top Ten List was 'Pope Benedict Achievements'. Number 2 was 'Hosted his own game show' — Poper Stumpers. A clip is shown of him trying to figure out XKMU NK8.^* "Excommunicate"

Cash Cab

• September 30, 2010: In the 30 Rock episode "When it Rains, it Pours", Tracy Jordan manages to get sidetracked somehow and needs to get to the hospital to witness the birth of his wife's new child (he missed it the last two times). However, when he hails a taxi, he ends up getting a cab driven by none other than Ben Bailey. Tracy answers every question correctly, and arrives at the hospital in time to witness the birth of his third child.

Countdown

• July 2, 2010: In "The Final Countdown," an episode of The IT Crowd, Moss shatters all the records on Countdown, and is invited to join the "8+ Club," an exclusive club for the Countdown elite. His success rankles the former Countdown king, who challenges Moss to an intense match of "Street Countdown".

The Dating Game

• Feb 6, 1970: Brothers compete for a bachelorette's attention in a "Dating Game" expy Boy Meets Girl in the Love, American Style episode "Love and the First Nighters".
• c. 1979-1980: "The Dating Zone", a sketch on Saturday Night Live, begins as a typical Dating Game parody before the camera pans over... and there's Rod Serling (Harry Shearer).
• December 1980: Laverne & Shirley: The aptly-named episode "The Dating Game" has Lenny and Squiggy appear as contestants. Jim Lange – complete with a very early 1980s hairdo – makes a cameo appearance as the host. ^note (At this point in the series, Laverne & Shirley was set in the fall of 1965, several months before the actual series debuted on ABC that December.)
• May 17, 1992: An In Living Color! skit from the Season 3 finale had Wanda (the ugliest woman to ever exist) on The Dating Game, with Jim Carrey as the host. You can pretty much tell where this went.
• March 12, 1993: A Comic Relief sketch had Mr. Bean as one of the bachelors on the UK version, Blind Date.
• March 8, 1996: On the first episode of Muppets Tonight a sketch featured Muppet Match-up, with Kermit as host, Michelle Pfeiffer as contestant, and Prof Honeydew, Beaker, and Animal as the bachelors.
• 2000s: This Comcast promo had "The Digital Game".
• January/February 2007: Rules of Engagement (premiered February 5) did a promo with Jim Lange himself (albeit somewhat balder and grayer up top) reprising. Sadly, there was no big 'ol KISS like the old days.

Deal Or No Deal

• March 16, 2007: Comic Relief had Catherine Tate, as her filthy-grandmother character "Nan", appear on the British version. Played straight throughout, with Nan proceeding to remove the Power Five in the first round. The subsequent offer of £199 is taken, as Nan had already looked inside her box and saw that it contained £50. Only a few actors were used aside from Tate (those holding the boxes Nan picks), with the audience and other contestants held over from an actual taping; based on their reactions, they either A) weren't told this "taping" was for Red Nose Day or B) have some really good acting skills.
• September 16, 2007: Kim and Sharon went on the Australian version in an episode of Kath & Kim. Faced with either $100,000 or 50¢, Sharon says "No Deal" and wins the $100,000.
• September 23, 2007: In the first part of the Family Guy Star Wars parody Blue Harvest, Princess Leia (Lois) hides the plans to the Death Star in "one of these 26 suitcases".

Dragons' Den

• Top Gear series 19 episode 1 had Jeremy Clarkson inventing a new car then driving it to an "important business meeting" which turned out to be an appearance on Dragons' Den where he pitched his new car. He receives exactly one offer... £1 for 1%.
• Moss of The IT Crowd is invited on after he invents a new kind of bra that "never goes bad". Of course, once the meet occurs, his prototype skips "bad" and goes straight to "worse" — spontaneously catching on fire.

Family Feud

• 1970s: An episode of Saturday Night Live featured the Coneheads playing against a family headed by a lettuce salesman played by Steve Martin. Dawson was played by Bill Murray, and the set was very unrealistic — the usual SNL thrown-together style.
  Richard Dawson: Name something you like to bite.
  Connie Conehead: The Big One.
• November 20, 1979: An episode of Angie had the titular character's immigrant family face off against her fiance's wealthy family on a reasonable facsimile of the Feud set with Dawson hosting and announcer Gene Wood making a cameo.
• Early 1980s: Funky Winkerbean: The gang from Westview High School appears on a special teen week of what was at the time TV's most popular game show. Richard Dawson makes an appearance in the strip, which was in its gag-a-day heyday.
• February 19, 1983: An episode of Mama's Family had the cast appear on the original (syndicated) Richard Dawson era... and lost.
• 1980s: On The Tonight Show, a "Mighty Carson Art Players" sketch featured Johnny Carson as Ronald Reagan on Dawson's Feud.
• 1980s: A bit on Late Night with David Letterman had Paul Shaffer's band respond to a "Viewer Mail" letter detailing an error Ray Combs made on a syndicated episode.
• November 19, 1988: The cast of 227 once appeared on the syndicated Combs version and won the game, but lost Fast Money.
• November 17, 1991: In Living Color! brought in Ray Combs for a parody featuring the Royal Family and the Jackson family.
• 1993: in another Saturday Night Live sketch host Alec Baldwin and his brothers (played by his real brothers) appear on the Feud, except for brother Danny who isn't available so they have the author James Baldwin (no relation) fill in.
• 1994-95: An episode of The Critic had Jay Sherman taking his son to the movies. While waiting in line, Jay looks up at a poster for "Family Feud: The Movie" (showing the original Dawson set) and declares that "It stinks!"
• October 23, 2001: An episode of Scrubs had a brief pre-opening cutaway to Louie Anderson's version, with the question "Name one thing guys want to see more than anything in the whole wide world."
  Louie: Show me boobs!
• May 20, 2003: The Grand Finale of Watching Ellie had the cast go on the show, with Richard Karn as himself. Here's a brief clip.
• 2005-06: WDJT (aka CBS-58)'s two promos for their "10 At 10" newscast.
• January 3, 2010: The beginning of the Family Guy episode "Big Man On Hippocampus" had the Griffins appearing on the original Dawson version. The family loses Fast Money, and Peter suffers from amnesia after getting into a fight with Dawson.
  Dawson: Take your hands off me! I'm a veteran of the Pretend Army!
• In another episode of Family Guy, Peter has a Cutaway Gag to a time when he hosted the original series - instead of kissing the female contestants like Dawson did, he puts his hand under their top and feels them up.
• In a Neighbours storyline in October 2016, the Canning family appeared on the Australian version of the series (normally aired half an hour earlier on the same channel), with Grant Denyer making a guest appearance. Despite the game almost being derailed by the family learning about Gary's affair with Terese Willis just before walking on set, as well as Xanthe's stage fright, they won the first game and $10,000 in Fast Money.
• 2019-2020: The Teen Titans Go! episode "Cartoon Feud" and its sequel "Superhero Feud" has Control Freak abduct the Titans and a crossover team (the Mystery Inc. gang in "Cartoon Feud" and the DC Super Hero Girls in "Superhero Feud") and have them play the Feud in a recreation of the 1976-1985 set (using the 1988 theme).

(Las Vegas) Gambit/Catch 21

• October 24, 1980: Audience members, allegedly upset at NBC canceling The David Letterman Show in favor of Las Vegas Gambit, appeared on the last episode holding up signs saying - among other things - "Wink Who?" and "Kill Wink". At the end of the episode, Dave had a lounge singer sing a tribute to the Gambit revival (to the tune of the David Letterman Show theme), while people dressed as giant playing cards danced around (a mockery of LVG's "Living Deck" element...which didn't actually get used in the series).

The Gong Show

• December 17, 1976: In an episode of Sanford and Son called "Sanford and Gong", following Lamont meeting Chuck Barris, Fred, Lamont, and Bubba perform on Fred's favorite show. Barris and the correct prize of $516.32 are present, but the set's a knockoff, the logo's vastly different, and the panelists are fake first-name-only people.
  Fred Sanford: This is Fred G. Sanford... the G stands for "Gong"!
• February 12, 1977: A Carol Burnett Show "Family" sketch had Eunice appearing on the show (with Barris, Jamie Farr, Jaye P. Morgan, and Allen Ludden as themselves)... and torturing the panel through her awful singing. She was Gang-Gonged at the panel's first opportunity. Here's the first part.
• December 16, 1993: In The Simpsons episode "$pringfield, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling", Homer claims that being a blackjack dealer is his life-long dream, and Marge reminds him of another of his past life-long dreams — a flashback reveals that said dream was appearing with Barney Gumble on a 1977 episode (they each wore one leg of a giant pair of overalls and played a giant harmonica).
  Homer: (waxing nostalgic) We got more gongs than the breakdancing robot that caught on fire...

The Hollywood Squares

• 1976: A Rich Little TV special featured "The Towering Inferno Squares," where a major fire breaks out on the set during a TV taping and the guests eventually flee the set, despite host Peter Marshall trying to move the game along as though nothing was wrong.
• 1978: A pilot episode for the Alex Trebek-hosted revival of High Rollers featured a VCR (then a novelty) playing back an episode of Squares.
• 1978: The movie Rabbit Test, a comedy starring Billy Crystal about the world's first pregnant man. A short segment includes a brief cameo by Peter Marshall during a Squares episode, commenting about the situation and then tearfully explaining why all the questions about pregnancy they've asked the past 12 years were wrong.
• Late 1970s: A driver's education movie featured a fictional episode of Squares, with two obviously drunk contestants and most of the celebrities also drunk, as a sober Peter Marshall asks questions about alcohol, drunk driving and the social consequences of alcoholism.
• 1990s: The Simpsons: Twice, spoofed as "The Springfield Squares." Kent Brockman, the series' local newsanchor, hosts both times:
  • 1993, in "Krusty Gets Kancelled," where the show's on-location episode taping is interrupted by a tidal wave. All of the stars flee except for a Charley Weaver Expy, who is swept away. (A parody of an actual Squares taping that was stopped as a major earthquake was striking Los Angeles; Paul Lynde refused to leave his seat.)
  • 1999, in "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder." Homer is the center square after becoming a minor local celebrity (for bowling a perfect game).
• 1993-94: "East Hollywood Squares", a recurring sketch during the final season of In Living Color!, featured a pretty accurate contestant area and Peter Marshall hosting once again. Gary Coleman appeared as himself in one skit, while Fred Berry did the same in another.
• November 11, 1993: In the episode of Frasier entitled "Selling Out", Dr. Joyce Brothers appears and inspires a short discussion between Martin and Frasier about the classic version (specifically, the placement of regulars Charley Weaver, Wally Cox, and Rose Marie). Note that this was still during the period where the entire 1966-81 era was believed to be gone.
• November 18, 1998: In an episode of The Nanny, Maxwell Sheffield was invited to be a celebrity guest on the Tom Bergeron version when Andrew Lloyd Webber couldn't make it. Bergeron, Whoopi Goldberg, and Bruce Vilanch all appeared as themselves.
• February 9, 2003: At the end of the King of the Hill episode "Vision Quest", Bobby dreams of himself appearing on Bergeron's version... as a panda (makes sense in context). Bergeron does a voice cameo, while a cartoon version of Vilanch is shown in his square.

I've Got A Secret

• July 14, 1959: In It Happened To Jane, the title character appears on the original version. Garry Moore and the panel (Bill Cullen, Jayne Meadows, Henry Morgan, and Betsy Palmer) appeared as themselves in the only surviving color footage of the 1952-67 era.
  • Also in the film were Robert Paige (on The Big Payoff, shortly before its demise and which is also pretty rare) and an uncredited Gene Rayburn (as himself, a WTIC reporter).

Jeopardy!

• October 23, 1976: A memorable Saturday Night Live sketch was Jeopardy! 1999, complete with clues like "Comedian whose career fizzled after leaving NBC's Saturday Night" (which was lampshaded with none of the players even ringing in, including the one played by Chevy Chase). The game board and wager cards were eerily accurate to the end of the original series (complete with bad punctuation and shortened wording to fit on the former's pull-cards), giving the impression that they had been sitting around at NBC's 30 Rock studios in New York for over a year... and the sketch even used the actual board reveal sound and think music! ^note (As for being prophetic, pretty much the only things they got right were Don Pardo still being around and Chase not having much of a career. The latter eventually bounced back in the late 2000s, and it wasn't until 2005 that a Jeopardy! player accumulated over $3,000,000.)
• October 24, 1980: As David Letterman started the final episode of his pre-Late Night morning show, he pressed a buzzer behind his desk and said "I'll take Famous Rivers for $20, Art".
• December 10, 1982: In Airplane II: The Sequel, one character remarks to another that "You're putting the passengers in JEOPARDY!" Cut to the passengers playing Jeopardy! on the plane with Art Fleming. (Interestingly, the board is based on the 1978-79 version with the 1964-75 dollar values; also, trilons.)
• 1984: "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody song "I Lost On Jeopardy", set during the classic Art Fleming era. The song featured Don Pardo, while the music video (filmed on May 24 and 25) featured Pardo and Fleming. Notably, while Art doesn't speak, he still manages to go way Out of Character by giving Al a "raspberry" just before the "Complete Loser" is taken from his podium.
  • The music video features a near-accurate rendition of the set (slightly shrunk down) and logo, although the latter omits the exclamation point (likely to not run up against trademarks).
• February 13, 1988: In a Mama's Family episode, Thelma Harper (aka "Mama") appears on the show and takes second place — a trip for four to Hawaii, leading into the subsequent two-parter. Here's the full episode, and this is only the relevant portions (from a more recent TBS repeat than the other).
• February 27, 1989: During the TV special What's Alan Watching?, the main character channel surfs and eventually stops on a Jeopardy! episode with the categories of Geography, Literature, History, Alan's Family, Jewish Presidents, and State Capitals... and it is here that Alan learns about his father's World War II affair with a Samoan nurse. Incredulous, Alan turns the TV off right after the Daily Double sound plays when "Jewish Presidents for $100" is picked.
  • Interestingly, the "Alan's Family" category already has two clues picked off.
• Late 1980s: A Cold Opening for an episode of D.C. Follies featured Sam Donaldson hosting "Political Jeopardy!" with contestants Ted Kennedy, Lee Iacocca, and NYC Mayor Ed Koch.
• January 18, 1990: Cliff Clavin of Cheers appeared on the show and had enough going into Final Jeopardy! (nearly $18,000 more than his opponents combined thanks to a "dream board" for the Jeopardy! Round) to easily secure a large payday, but bet everything and got it wrong. ^note (For the record, this is how Cliff should've played.)
  • Alex Trebek, who appeared as himself, referred to this on actual Jeopardy! shows as "pulling a Clavin".
  • "Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?" has since become a stock answer to questions that stump players. The earliest reference to this was during the May 1990 College Tournament by eventual winner Michael Thayer, who answered "Who was someone I never met?" in Final Jeopardy, to which Alex said "Michael, looks like you were watching that episode of Cheers!". Another was on June 6, 2000, by a contestant when he had the Daily Double clue of "Hedda Tesman, Helen Alving, Knut Brovik". The category was "Who Created 'Em?", which made his response even more incorrect than Clavin's a decade earlier. (Henrik Ibsen was the correct response.)
  • On May 10, 2005, the Double Jeopardy! categories were from Cliff's "dream board".
• February 8, 1992: Dorothy of The Golden Girls tried out for the show and, while not making it, played against Rose and Charlie in a Dream Sequence. Alex Trebek, Johnny Gilbert, and Merv Griffin all appeared as themselves.
• March 27, 1992: In White Men Can't Jump, Gloria was a contestant and won handily. The bit is also notable for showing the 1991-96 set through some unusual camera angles, and "Foods That Begin With The Letter Q" did end up getting used on the actual show (October 1, 1997).
• 1992: An episode of Late Night with David Letterman had "Rude Jeopardy!" during, you guessed it, a "Viewer Mail" segment.
• October 11, 1993: An Animaniacs short had the Warners' teacher quizzing them on social studies through the familiar setup. Wakko got a Daily Double and was tasked to name all 50 states and their capitals, which he did (in song, no less)... but was ruled wrong because he didn't phrase his response in the form of a question.
  • This short, as well as a prior short which introduced the teacher, suggested that all "ordinary" methods to teach the siblings just didn't work. Since the Warners love having fun, not to mention sprinkling pop-culture references around...
• September 18, 1995: In The Nanny episode "Franny and the Professor", Fran goes on the show and, to everyone's amazement, wins a measly $200 when she's the only one to get Final Jeopardy! correct.
• November 7, 1996: On the episode of Seinfeld called "The Abstienance", George stops having sex and finds he starts getting smarter. This is illustrated by him giving correct answers to an episode of Jeopardy!, inspiring Jerry to ask if the episode is a rerun. All the clips are audio, except for one of Alex confirming the answer "Tungstan".
• December 7, 1996 to May 16, 2009: The "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketches on Saturday Night Live, with Will Ferrell as Alex Trebek. The real Trebek appeared As Himself during the May 18, 2002 sketch, which was part of Ferrell's last episode as a castmember.
• December 21, 1997: In The Simpsons episode "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace", Marge goes on the show to try and win money to pay back the neighbors after Bart scams them on Christmas Day. She somehow ends up owing the show $5,200.
  • This scene has two versions. In both, Alex and two hulking people he refers to as "The Judges" try to bully Marge into paying back the money. After Marge gets away, one of the "Judges" originally said to Alex "We'll break her signaling finger." (redubbed for reruns as "She ain't getting the home version!").
• An episode of Pinky and the Brain (originally aired on Animaniacs, then on January 9, 2000 as a stand-alone with another short) had the Brain go on "Gyp-parody", sweep the board, then bet it all on the final clue — and lose because he hadn't paid attention to Pinky's comments earlier in the episode. (The episode is a Shout-Out to a classic episode of The Honeymooners when Ralph goes on a music trivia show and can't recognize "Swanee River" despite Ed constantly playing it as a tune up.)
  • Another Jeopardy spoof appeared in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "K-ACME TV", also titled "Gyp-parody". Buster hosts this, and his tolerance is tested against the contestants - Dizzy Devil was only interested in eating his podium, Calamity Coyote's buzzer was broken, and Elmyra could only answer "A bunny." When the final question asked what animal was commonly associated with Easter, she answers "George Washington" (which was the answer to the first question), causing Buster to finally snap.
• Ellen went on the show in a Dream Sequence where she played against Albert Einstein and her old roommate as part of Epcot's Universe of Energy ride. She only won when her neighbor, Bill Nye the Science Guy, spirited her away during the commercial break to teach her all about energy conservation.
• 2005-06: WDJT (aka CBS-58)'s promo for their "10 At 10" newscast.
• March 12, 2006: In the Family Guy episode "I Take Thee Quagmire", in one of the many brief cutaway clips that are often the best part of the show, Mayor Adam West appears on the show with a secret agenda — he's not there to compete, but rather send Alex Trebek "back to the Fifth Dimension where he belongs!" He does this by writing Trebek's name backwards as his Final Jeopardy! response.
  • On June 15, 2007 the same trick was tried on the actual show. It didn't work, though some fans claimed this was because Alex pronounced "Kebert Xela" wrong.
• October 13-17, 2010: Larry of Pearls Before Swine appears on Jeopardy! and performs exceptionally well given his usual status as The Ditz. He bets it all on Final Jeopardy! and loses because he spells "zebra" in his Funetik Aksent ("zeeba").
• November 13, 2020: Alex Trebek guest-stars (posthumously; the episode aired five days after Alex passed away from pancreatic cancer) in the Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? episode "Total Jeopardy!", wherein Velma and Shaggy appear as Jeopardy! contestants only for the episode's taping to go awry when the computer/robot Shaggy and (mostly) Velma are up against, Max Kilobyte, goes rogue. In the end, the robot and Velma both bomb out on the Final Jeopardy! question, resulting in Shaggy winning the game (it certainly helped that the question was a food-related question, Shaggy's specialty) and the robot going beserk is found to be the result of being hacked by a disgruntled Jeopardy! camerman. Announcer Johnny Gilbert also appears in the episode, announcing the contestants at the start of the episode like usual.
• Bones: It’s not shown onscreen, but one of the interns, Vincent Nigel-Murray, appeared on Jeopardy! during the year between seasons 5 and 6. He won a lot of money, but blew it all partying.

Legends of the Hidden Temple

• November 11, 2017: The Loud House episode "Legends" revolves around Lincoln and his dad participating in a father-son episode of Legends of the Hidden Temple (despite the original show having ended in 1995).

Let's Make A Deal

• February 23, 1973: A famous episode of The Odd Couple (1970), helpfully titled "Let's Make A Deal", had Felix and Oscar playing on a New York-based version... dressed as an ass. Monty Hall, naturally, played himself.
• November 20, 1973: An episode of the animated sitcom Wait Till Your Father Gets Home featured Ink-Suit Actor Monty Hall, as Erma attempts to win money for her upcoming anniversary and ends up with both Monty's and her fingers stuck in a bowling ball.
• May 5, 1977: On the third TV movie pilot for The Love Boat (the one that introduces Captain Stubbing), one of the couples mention they won the cruise trip on Deal.
• An episode of The Nanny showed Sylvia yelling "Don't take the curtain!" at her TV. The camera then shows a bit of what she's watching — a tape of herself on Deal trading a trip to Paris for what's behind the curtain... which turned out to be a Zonk. Amusingly, Wayne Brady brought the current version to Fran Drescher's talk show.
• February 18, 2015: David Letterman started his Late Show monologue with the "These people, dressed as they are..." opening, backed by Paul playing the theme to The Price Is Right.
• Similar to The Price is Right episode of The Young and the Restless mentioned below, there was an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful that crossed over with Brady's LMAD.

Love Connection

• April 15, 1990: The very first skit on In Living Color! had Jim Carrey playing Chuck Woolery. A later skit (February 24, 1991) was more of the same, with recurring character Andrea Dice Clay.
• An example that uses the actual show, Chuck Woolery and all, is in the It's Garry Shandling's Show episode "It's Garry and Angelica's Show". The audience recommended her with an unheard of 80%, but it doesn't pay off...
• February 18, 1996: An episode of Martin had Sheneneh on "The Love Jones Connection", with a pretty similar set. She ends up winning a date with a guy played by Chris Rock, which... doesn't go too well.
• An February 18, 1989 episode of 227 had Sandra tell Chuck Woolery the story about how she ended crossing paths with her date's ex-wife in Mary's apartment.

The Masked Singer

• Here's a "Scoob" promo, which Scooby-Doo himself is on The Masked Singer and is unmasked as the Sandwich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkyM7DXP3ZA

Masquerade Party

• February 28, 1975: In The Odd Couple (1970) episode "Laugh, Clown, Laugh", Oscar watches what he identifies as an episode of the 1974-75 revival of Masquerade Party. We can hear host Richard Dawson talking as if to the panelists, but it's hard to tell if this is an actual clip from an episode or a recording Dawson did specifically for this.

Match Game

• February 3, 1994: The Simpsons had a rather interesting example in "Bart Gets Famous", where Bart dreams he's a panelist on Match Game 2034. He ends up knocking over, and breaking, Kitty Carlisle's head-in-a-jar.
• September 5, 2001: The Family Guy episode "Mr. Saturday Knight" did a brief parody of the 1973-78 era◊ where Rayburn◊ asks "Forgetful Freddy was so forgetful-" HOW FORGETFUL WAS HE?! "He's so forgetful that when he couldn't remember someone's name, he drew a BLANK." Cue stares◊ from the panel, including Brett Somers (who Word of God admits got seated incorrectly), Charles Nelson Reilly, Richard Dawson, and Betty White.
• By contrast, the MST3K skit in the Hercules episode (with Crow as a one-robot version of the show) cheaps out on the set replication, but according to the episode guide the staff took great pains to make sure each panelist was put in their proper locations... and yet they still got them wrong. (From left to right, top to bottom, it should have been Nipsy, Brett, Charles, Fanny, Richard, and Betty.)
• 2003: Comic Relief presented a "lost" Terry Wogan episode of Blankety Blank, with a pretty accurate set and Peter Serafinowicz as Wogan.
• 2012: The Victorious episode "April Fool's Blank" featured Cat appearing on the Match Game parody "Match Play" (which featured eerie mimicry of the show's 1970's set, right down to the host's wardrobe and microphone, and the mapping of characters to the usual Match Game lineup — with Cat seated in the poor-game-playing starlet of the week fourth chair), where she responds to "April Fools..." with the word "Blank" written on her card.
• A recurring Maxi-Challenge on RuPaul's Drag Race is the "Snatch Game", where the queens impersonate different celebrities with real celebrities playing the contestants.

Name That Tune

• March 3, 1997: A famous episode of Cybill, helpfully titled "Name That Tune", has the title character becoming a vocalist on The New Name That Tune (hosted by Tom Kennedy with the later 1950s logo). Thanks to an overly-knowledgeable female contestant (the male player is an imbecile), Cybill can barely get more than two words out at a time and resorts to stealing the female player's buzzer so she can finally sing; she gets carted off by security.
• Since June 14, 2011: Conan O'Brien's Basic Cable Name That Tune, using a nice recreation of the 1978-81 logo with "Basic Cable" in the same font. Conan explained that, unlike NBC, TBS can't afford the licensing fees for real songs. To work around this, the band plays the intro only followed by a song "that sorta sounds like the original". For example, instead of Born in the USA they sing a parody called C-Section in America. Conan also offered the audience members Bid-A-Note style clues like "If we were to play the real version of this Stadium classic chant, Queen's lawyers would undoubtedly say, 'We will, we will, sue you'."

The Newlywed Game

• March 20, 1981: An episode of The Brady Brides (helpfully titled "The Newlywed Game") featured Jan, Marsha, and their husbands competing on the show. No points for guessing who played the host.
• 1987: An episode of Late Night with David Letterman went over here during a "Viewer Mail" letter.
• 1994-95: A cutaway clip on The Critic showed Jay Sherman and his then-wife on the show... winning.
• September 1998: The Nanny did a "new season" promo with Fran and Maxwell on the show, with Eubanks as host and the three-couple version of the 1998-99 set. And yes, they made reference to the urban legend.
• August 8, 1999: Kenan & Kel go on "The Honeymoon's Over" (a Newlywed Expy with a very similar set, Eubanks hosting, and a grand prize of a house) as Kenan and Kelly, who had been instructed to answer with girly answers. When the final, tiebreaker question was "What is Kelly's favorite soft drink?", Kenan ecstatically ran around the studio celebrating his win with the answer "orange soda"...only to find out that Kel had answered "root beer", which he thought was more girly.
  • The fact the grand prize is a house may be a reference to the Eubanks-hosted revival of Dream House, which aired in 1983-84.
• Circa 2002-03: This Comcast promo with Eubanks, Todd Newton, and Kennedy spoofing the show; the GSN announcer even talks about Comcast's offer!
• January/February 2007: A promo for CBS' Rules of Engagement featured the three main couples on the show with Bob Eubanks (who else?) appearing as host. Eubanks' question, to the surprise of nobody, was the urban legend.
• A Saved by the Bell: The New Class had couples Tony and Maria and Nicky and Katie appear on a similar show called "Two of Hearts." But it turns out the show is rigged and Tony and Maria were given the questions in advance.

Password

• December 1, 1972: "Password", a famous episode of The Odd Couple (1970) had Felix and Oscar playing on a New York-based version of Password ABC with Allen Ludden and Betty White as themselves, and Oscar constantly being frustrated by Felix's incredibly obscure and obtuse clues (like "Aristophanes" when the password is "Bird", because Aristophanes wrote a play called The Birds). Here's the full episode (the Password scenes begin at 7:18 of Part 2). These not only provide a rare glimpse into the long-since-destroyed ABC era of Password, but Felix and Oscar even Lampshade the set's obvious differences from the TV version.
  Oscar: Doesn't that look bigger on TV?
  Felix: That's often the case.
• 1980s: An episode of Late Night with David Letterman featured a skit where Dave beat his partner's head into the desk for not getting "Ball" on the clue "BaskeT" (reading the latter with a higher voice at the end).
• 1988: Another episode of Late Night featured Dave and Paul Shaffer playing a word upon reading a Bert Convy question (dated August 26, 1988) in "Viewer Mail".
• July 25, 2000: The Family Guy episode "Wasted Talent" had a cutaway◊ to Peter on CBS (resembling the later 1960s set) trying to get Tony Randall to say "Flaming". Likely doubles as a reference to the aforementioned Odd Couple episode, since Randall was one of the stars of that series.
• Since January 18, 2011: An occasional segment on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and later The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, is a game of Password hosted by Steve Higgins on a really accurate rendition of the later 1960s set; typically played with the night's celebrity guests, the rules are slightly downgraded (word values begin at six points, with no Lightning Round; most points after a set number of words wins). They also have an offstage announcer whispering each password, a shot of the audience clapping as the logo appears, and even a rendition of the later CBS-era theme! On top of all this, the very first game had Password stalwart Betty White as a guest, who went on to prove that she was still very good at this game. The popularity of these segments led to NBC reviving Password in 2022 with Keke Palmer as host and Fallon as executive producer and regular celebrity guest.
• January 16, 2012: One segment of the NBC special Betty White's 90th Birthday Celebration featured a reasonably accurate recreation of the Password set with a fake game hosted by Joel McHale between the teams of Valerie Harper & Vicki Lawrence against Gavin MacLoed & Ed Asner. The password: "Betty White".

Pointless

• One episode of Not Going Out had Lee and Daisy go on an episode of Pointless, winning the Jackpot not entirely fairly on their second attempt.

Press Your Luck

• April 1, 2008: In The Irate Gamer's review of Q*bert, he says that the transport disks are as random as Press Your Luck. This leads to a Cutaway Gag where Chris is a contestant on Press Your Luck, and he stops on a Whammy.
  Whammy: You lost big time! Kiss my ass, bitch! You're a loser!
  [Chris flips the bird at the Whammy]
• March 28, 2014: The Irate Gamer recycles this joke as he discusses the McDonald's Changeables Happy Meal toys. This time, the Whammy robs Chris at gunpoint.

The Price Is Right

• The May 9, 1992 Saturday Night Live featured a "Sabra Price is Right" sketch, in which a foreign salesman (Tom Hanks) runs a fake version of the show as a con to sell low-quality electronics to unwitting contestants as "prizes". The host often lies about what the product actually is, haggles the contestants' bids, and then has the "winners" dragged backstage to make them pay for their "prize".
• 1995: An episode of The Late Show with David Letterman during a week in Los Angeles featured a clip showing Dave as a car model in Master Key... and subsequently managing to get his hand stuck in the steering wheel. Unfortunately, the skit has two errors which foul up what could've looked like a legit outtake - 1) at least one prize has to be unlocked by a key before it can be tested as the Master Key (neither of the first two locks have their "WIN" card showing), and 2) "The Big Banana" (one of Price's many prize cues) was played instead of the Price theme.
  Bob Barker: (seeing Dave with his hand stuck in the steering wheel) What a bonehead.
• September 26, 1998: The premiere of Martial Law had Sammo Law (Sammo Hung) help an injured person just outside of Studio 33. A few moments later, Rod Roddy calls him down to be a contestant.
• October 22, 2001: An episode of Yes, Dear had Jimmy getting a ticket. A brief sequence shows him forcing the Big Wheel to go backward from 35¢ to the dollar. Barker's speech to Jimmy, while within context refers to the quiz show scandals and the subsequent 1960 law that made rigging a felony, has a different meaning if one knows the legal troubles Bob found himself in during the latter part of his career.
  Barker: Every day, millions of people watch The Price Is Right. They trust us. When you try cheating, as you are right now, you are compromising the integrity of the show, and we can't have that. I will not stand for that.
• November 29, 2001: The Family Guy episode "Screwed the Pooch" had a brief cutaway with Peter on Survivor... which was actually fake, and on the same set as Price. Bob Barker played himself.
• November 27, 2005: The Family Guy episode "The Fat Guy Strangler" had a brief bit with Barker as himself.
• April 30, 2007: In How I Met Your Mother, Barney Stinson went on the show intentionally to meet his "father", Barker. (As he explained, his mother told him that Bob was his father — and Bob got the ladies all the time just as Barney did.) Barney ends up winning everything he bids on, including both Showcases (through a perfect bid, no less). This Price segment was taped after a real episode of the show with audience members held over from that episode's taping. Barney's $500 bonus and Bonus Spin were not shown, although according to reports the former did happen in the studio.
• November 16, 2008: Another Family Guy cutaway ("Tales of a Third-Grade Nothing") had Prince on the show. Again, Barker played himself.
• Donna Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful, the first time this Trope was used with Drew Carey's Price. Pam gets into an argument with Stan Blits, the then-contestant coordinator, but manages to make it into Studio 33 where she talks to Donna about Rich Fields while he's studying his script. Rich calls Donna down instead of Pam to be a contestant. Donna wins a car in Let 'Em Roll and later both Showcases, winning a total of $65,661.
• January 9, 2011: An episode of Family Guy had Peter, loaded up on Red Bull, appearing on Drew's version. He spins the Big Wheel, and as it goes around (and around, and around, and...) says hello to about half or so of the main cast. Right after he finishes, however, the moment we all dreaded finally happens — the Big Wheel breaks out of its casing and rolls over Contestant's Row into the quickly-scattering audience, flattening about a dozen or so people before plowing through the back wall.
• November 6, 2011: Yet another Family Guy cutaway showed quite possibly the cheapest Showcase ever, making the intentionally-low-budget ones of early Season 1 look lavish by comparison. While former Price announcer Rich Fields plugged this on his Facebook page (claiming he had done the announcing), the announcer in the episode as-aired is played by series writer and occasional V/O artist John Viener.
• 2016: An episode of Scorpion has Sylvester competing on the show in order to get enough money to pay for a proper homage to Megan, who had passed away. The problem: his immense mathematical smarts, extensive studying of the show, and overly-eager delivery of his answers (to the point that Drew Carey barely had time to give the questions a couple of times) ends up with CBS being under the pretty understandable belief that he's cheating. The fact he asks for all the prices to be displayed at once after placing the groceries in Pay the Rent (the game played for $100,000 cash) probably had something to do with it.
• 2020: CBS did a series of surreal promos for the season finale of its suspense drama Evil, crossing over with some of its daytime shows. One ad featured a relatively normal bumper for the show, followed by a scene with a contestant bidding $665 in Contestant's Row, and George the sleep demon responding by bidding $666.

Pyramid

• 1979: In this episode of The Soupy Sales Show, Soupy and Pookie appear on $20,000. Although Dick Clark played himself, the genuine set was not used. Considering that both Sales and Clark ended up with face-fulls of pie, it's just as well. Dick's usual warning about not using your hands takes on new meaning when addressed to Pookie (a hand puppet with non-working hands).
• 1980s: An episode of Muppet Babies (a CBS show) had Miss Piggy play "The 25,000 Dollhouse Pyramid". Dick Clark, through footage from a real episode and new narration, guested as himself.
• On Dr. Dre's 1992 album The Chronic: a skit titled "The $20 Sack Pyramid". The grand prize: "a $20 sack of endo and a $35 gift certificate to the Compton Swap Meet!"
• March 7, 1992: In Living Color! did a spoof of $100,000 with the Brothers Brothers as guests. Jim Carrey played Dick Clark, although John Davidson had most recently been host. The spoof aired the day after the last week of Davidson repeats.
• Circa 2003: The Jamie Kennedy Experiment did a prank called "Rock-N-Roll Pyramid" (using the actual Donnymid set, graphics, host, and even announcer), with Jamie playing the victim's celebrity partner... who couldn't speak very much English. Cue a makeout with Carmen Electra, arbitrary rule changes, accusations of cheating, and a disastrous Winner's Circle where the victim gets "You've Been X'd" as the top category. Interestingly, an actual rock music-themed version, Pyramid Rocks, had been piloted for VH1 in 1999.
• February 5, 2004: In Friends, Joey Tribbiani once had a disastrous stint on Donnymid. The absurdity increased when his first-game partner (Gene Lester), who couldn't stand him, won the second game with the other celebrity (Leslie Charleson of General Hospital)... and Osmond told him he'd be playing the Winner's Circle with Joey.
  Joey: Paper! Snow! A ghost!
• February 9, 2005: On an episode of The King of Queens, Arthur watches GSN and sees an episode of the show on which he was a contestant (the clip shown being genuine, but of Jerry Stiller as a celebrity), then remarks that he never got his Rice-A-Roni Consolation Prize.
• Since March 2012: Jimmy Fallon occasionally plays this with his guests, albeit only the front game.
• Times Like This: On Cassie's Bucket List is "Appear on a classic game show, preferably with celebrities." She's pictured playing New $25,000 in 1983.
• In Rebecca Stead's Young Adult novel When You Reach Me, Miranda's mother is a contestant on $20,000 in April 1979. Much of the book is about her practicing for the show. They also show her as a contestant describing the studio and Dick Clark. This is actually a side issue for Miranda, but it becomes very important in Miranda finally solving the mystery of the notes.

Shark Tank

• November 8, 2013: Characters from The Neighbors appear on the show in the episode "We Jumped the Shark (Tank) !". One of the sharks is so impressed with the character (as opposed to her invention) that she kicks off a story arc by offering to help her quest to go to business school.
• November 1, 2014: In a Saturday Night Live sketch, a group of terrorists (including one played by host Chris Rock) pitch ISIS to the sharks.
• The Phineas and Ferb character Dr. Doofenshmirtz once appeared in a segment of Shark Tank while trying to sell his Shrinkinator.

The $64, 000 Question

• September 18, 1955: The Season 6 premiere of The Colgate Comedy Hour opened with "The $64,000,000 Question", hosted by Hal April (Dean Martin) and sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive (naturally). Returning champ Morty M.M. Morton (Jerry Lewis) is forced to go for $32,000,000 and manages to survive... then is submerged underwater for the long-winded final question, leading to many ad-libs by Lewis.
• September 25, 1956: On an episode of The Phil Silvers Show, conman Sgt. Bilko tries to cheat on the show. Cue Hilarious in Hindsight several years later, when the quiz show scandals proved The $64,000 Question was actively cheating to help contestants it wanted to win and force contestants it didn't like to fail.
• October 26, 1958: In the teaser for the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Crooked Road", Hitchcock is placed in the game show's Sound Proof Booth and told to identify "What the following person just ate, drank, or drove." Hitchcock pauses, then says "Ah yes... the answer is..." and the shot fades out to commercial.

Skatoony

• Skatoony features different cartoon characters as recurring contestants: the original UK version uses characters created specifically for the show, while the Canadian version features characters from Total Drama and (exclusive to the third season) Jimmy Two-Shoes.

Studs

• The Real World Los Angeles included Tami competing on the sleazy dating show. She conspired with one of the male contestants to rig the game but still lost.

Supermarket Sweep

• 1992: Late Night with David Letterman showed a clip of Dave as a "coach" on the show during a "Viewer Mail" segment. "Finally, some damn meat!"
  Paul Shaffer: I love Supermarket Sweep! Where can we see more of that show?
  Dave: I have no idea.

Take Your Pick

• A radio episode of Hancock's Half Hour opened with Hancock appearing on this show (Kenneth Williams played a heightened version of quizmaster Michael Miles) and winning a substantial sum. The rest of the plot concerned Sid James trying to scam him out of the prize money.

To Tell The Truth

• February 20, 1967: The Monkees episode "Captain Crocodile" features the boys doing two game show parodies What's My Scene? and To Tell a Fib with Micky as host and Mike, Peter and Davy on the panel.
  Micky Dolenz: Will the real Davy Jones please stand up?
  Davy Jones: I am standing up!
• December 25, 2002: The movie Catch Me If You Can stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale Jr. The real Abagnale appeared on an episode of To Tell the Truth, and the movie is framed by actual footage of this appearance with DiCaprio digitally inserted.
• 2009-10: This DirecTV commercial, one of several with Alex Trebek (who hosted the show in 1991) and a really accurate rendition of the 1973-78 set. Still, for all their work on the set, they certainly botched the rules.

Truth or Consequences

• The Golden Age Superman appeared on the radio version of "Truth or Consequences" in "Action Comics" #127 (1948).

University Challenge

• The Young Ones appeared on the show, in the episode "Bambi".
• The central premise of the novel and film Starter for 10.

The Weakest Link

• An episode of My Family centered around Michael getting the entire family onto the show. He thought he was sure to win since he was the Teen Genius of the bunch, but lost to Alfie in the last round.
• June 11, 2005: The Doctor Who episode "Bad Wolf" had Rose Tyler ending up on a future version of the show, hosted by the "Anne-Droid" (Anne Robinson). And the losers die.
  • Amusingly, the Anne-Droid reappeared for a 2007 special of the actual show with Who cast members (and K-9) playing for charity. The elimination of K-9 after the first round was intentional, due to concerns of the prop's structural integrity (being the same one used in the Classic Series and all).

What's My Line?

• February 20, 1967: The Monkees episode "Captain Crocodile" features the boys doing two game show parodies What's My Scene? and To Tell a Fib with Micky as host and Mike, Peter, and Davy on the panel.
• A commercial for Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies featured Snagglepuss as the "mystery guest" on "What's My Lion?" The panel is stumped, and for good reason: they'd never heard of Snagglepuss.

Wheel of Fortune

• February 16, 1984: Nell and Addy of Gimme a Break! played on a special "Friends Day" episode of the daytime version.
• January 14, 1986: An episode of The A-Team (helpfully titled "Wheel Of Fortune") had Murdock going on the daytime show and winning a trip to Hawaii interrupted by kidnappers. Pat, Vanna, and then-announcer Jack Clark all played themselves.
• 1986: The Dr. Dave song "Vanna, Pick Me a Letter" is about appearing on the show during the shopping era.
• October 4, 1986: An episode of 227 had Mary and Sandra playing on the syndicated version for what Clark called "a special Neighbors version". This is also a good example of why you should call a consonant you know is in the puzzle, so you don't get overconfident and mis-solve.
• May 12, 1988: An episode of Santa Barbara had Gina Lockbridge solving the rather appropriate bonus puzzle BLACKMAIL.
• November 29, 1990: An episode of L.A. Law ("Vowel Play") picked up after the "previously on" trailer as a Bob Goen episode, with no hint that it was anything but (well, minus the $1,250 space already out), despite daytime Wheel airing on CBS and L.A. Law airing on NBC.
• May 2, 1999: The Family Guy "A Hero Sits Next Door" has Peter and Chris watching the game show on TV and the puzzle on the board reads GO _UCK YOURSELF. The contestant on the show correctly solves the puzzle as GO TUCK YOURSELF IN, which stumps Peter (who mentions how he missed the phrase MY HAIRY AUNT, which could go a couple of ways...).
• February 26, 2001: A brief dream sequence on The King of Queens had Doug playing against Carrie and Arthur.
• 2005-06: WDJT (CBS-58)'s promo for their "10 At 10" newscast, using the 1997 "Changing Keys" theme.
• March 12, 2006: The Family Guy episode "I Take Thee Quagmire" began with Peter winning the Bonus Round with no letters showing (thanks in large part to his picks of Z, 4, three Q's, and the Batman symbol). He then goes shopping and buys, among other things (including a $600 ceramic Dalmatian), a week of maid service, setting up the plot.
  Peter: How much is the fat guy in the circle, I don't see a price tag on that.
  Pat: That's you.
  Peter: Oh-oh, embarrassing. Well, in that case I'll just have the rest on a gift certificate.
• March 7, 2007: The South Park episode "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" starts with Stan's dad, Randy Marsh, at the Bonus Round. With the category "People Who Annoy You", the puzzle board reading N_GGERS, and $30,000 on the line, Randy ends up embarrassing himself on national television (and kicking off the plot) by blurting out a certain racial epithet instead of the right answer (NAGGERS)... although in his defense, he was very reluctant to say it.
• Early 2008: A Lexus commercial had the H's disappear from Wheel.
• 2011: The debut sketch of So Random! was "All-Star Wheel of Fortune" with Fred, Taylor Swift, and Willow Smith competing. But their antics (Fred being obnoxious, Taylor singing about everything, and Willow whipping her hair) prevent the game from getting anywhere. (This can also be seen as an Homage to the "Celebrity Jeopardy!" skits on Saturday Night Live.)
• January 26, 2012: Playing off a story in which Sajak recalled doing Wheel after "kicking back a few margaritas with Vanna" in the 1980s, Conan O'Brien showed a clip of Pat and Vanna talking during a credit crawl, slowed down to make him sound drunk. After that, Conan mentioned he also did drugs during the show, then showed a clip of a contestant asking for a T, followed by the board being bathed in odd lights and a dancing brain appearing, followed by Pat blinking and saying "Oh, hi, there."
• October 3, 2017: In the Fresh Off the Boat episode "B as in Best Friends", Honey invites Jessica to be her teammate on a Best Friends episode of Wheel of Fortune. Jessica has always dreamed about being on the show, so she puts pressure on Honey to study, which leads to Honey having an on-air breakdown. Wheel's set is slightly redressed to resemble its appearance in the late 1990s.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

• November 16, 1999: An episode of Spin City had Paul as a contestant. After some initial idiocy, he ends up winning the Million.
• Russell Gilbert Live (Australia): The titular comedian appears on 8 different sketches (with the real life host Eddie McGuire), in each of which he...
  • ...really needs to go to the toilet.
  • ...confuses the game with other shows.
  • ...is refused help from his girlfriend.
  • ...uses the Phone-A-Friend lifeline to...
    • ...reach a phone sex line.
    • ...ask another game show host.
    • ...call Eddie himself.
  • ...wins half a million dollars thanks to a lot of miscommunication.
  • ..."helps" his friend blow the million-dollar question.
• 2001: A promo for The NHL on ABC has a contestant being asked who the first native of Korea to win the Stanley Cup was. He uses his Phone-A-Friend to call Pittsburgh Penguins player/owner Mario Lemieux for help, and Lemieux tells him the answer is Jim Paek. The contestant locks in Jim Paek as his final answer, and then-host Regis Philbin congratulates him. In response, the contestant shouts, “Hockey rules!”
• 2005-06: WDJT (aka CBS-58)'s promo for their "10 At 10" newscast.
• October 2010: On Pawn Stars, Chumley wins the Million. The old man wakes him up shortly afterward.
• There was the Cartoon Network bumper where Mojo Jojo played.
• The central premise of Slumdog Millionaire.
• Another one from The IT Crowd, one of Jen's boyfriends uses her as his phone-a-friend lifeline.

The Who, What or Where Game

• 2013: In the Jonathan Lethem novel Dissident Gardens, Miriam Zimmer appears as a contestant on the show around 1970. Her experience on the show is recounted in detail, namedropping both the show itself and host Art James, further noting that she was "slightly high" during the taping and privately fumed over the "non-activist trivia". Ron Greenberg, who had created and produced the original show, certainly noticed.

You Bet Your Life

• December 4, 1955: In the host segment teaser for the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Case of Mr Pelham", Hitchcock says "...Following now the sponsor will tell you the secret word. It's an everyday item you can find around the house. And if you don't have one, I recommend you get one as soon as possible."
• An episode of The Jack Benny Program from earlier that year had Jack visiting Groucho posing as one "Ronald Forsythe". The ruse fails as Groucho attempts to make Jack reveal his actual age... and no, it's not 39.

---

Examples with Fake Game Shows:

Anime/Manga

• In an episode of Cromartie High School, after hearing that someone at school won the All-Japan Kingpin Tournament, Noboru Yamaguchi goes there to challenge the title... only to wind up in a game show hosted by the Kingpin Tournament winner (Takashi Kamiyama) himself. Using his rules of comedy, Noboru Yamaguchi wins the title by accident.
• In Ergo Proxy, main character Vincent inexplicably finds himself in a game show. The episode literally starts in the game, with no connection to past episodes or the plot. Eventually, it's revealed that the game show is actually a metaphorical fight against a proxy. Considering Vincent's usual fights are actual... well, fights... the entire episode throws the viewer for a loop.
• In Gravitation, the band Bad Luck's first TV appearance is as a guest contestant on "Quiz de Pon". They win, but since Shuichi asked to forfeit the ¥1,000,000 prize for a song live on TV if they won, what they get is an impromptu concert with a TV audience. This gives them a huge boost in popularity that benefits them more in the long term than if they had just gone with the original monetary prize.

Asian Animation

• Boonie Bears: In Season 5 episode 35, Logger Vick is scheduled to make an appearance on a quiz show and gets help from the bears to memorize as much trivia as possible to maximize his chances of winning the cash prizes.
• In episode 19 of Happy Heroes, Smart S. trains to compete in a quiz show to win enough money to let Doctor H. build a new transportation track in Planet Xing's city. Big M. also wants to win the game show's cash prize. When they are finally ready to play the game, Little M. hijacks the spotlight to pick Big M., but it chooses Careless S. instead.

Comic Books

• In the Disney Ducks Comic Universe story "The Crazy Quiz Show" (by Carl Barks), Donald Duck (having gone through an intense book study in preparation), Huey, Dewey and Louie become contestants on a radio quiz show named "You Say — We Pay". The quiz itself is a massive Refuge in Audacity, giving the nephews questions that take little to no effort to answer correctly, while giving Donald ridiculously impossible questions just because he looks like a professional prize-grabber. They also prevent Donald from coaching the nephews into choosing money over bicycles. Donald answers the last question successfully, but the mental effort taken to answer the question ("How many drops of water pass over Niagara Falls in a week?") was so exhaustive that Donald ends up choosing a trike instead of a barrel of money.
• In an issue of Planet Terry, Terry and his friends end up in a game show where they win a starship, but must go through a series of various arenas such as a pinball machine to reach the exit and win the key.

Film

• National Lampoon's European Vacation begins with the Griswalds winning the titular vacation on "Pig in a Poke".
• The kids-versus-adults quiz show "What Do Kids Know?" from the movie Magnolia.
• Stay Tuned has the Deadly Game "You Can't Win".
• The Horrid Henry film has Henry competing in "2Cool4School".
• 101 Dalmatians: Played with - Horace and Jasper Badun don't actually compete on the show What's My Crime? (a blatent What's My Line? parody), but the episode they're watching features an old acquaintance of theirs, Mr. Percival Fauncewater, whom they refer to as "Old Meathead" when they see him.

Literature

• The novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup, which Slumdog Millionaire was an adaptation of, had the fictional game show "Who Will Win A Billion?"
• One of George MacDonald Fraser's McAuslan stories focuses on an inter-regimental quiz show between the Gordons and Fusiliers... which, despite MacNeill's incredible command of useless trivia, is ultimately won by McAuslan.

Live-Action TV

• On an episode of Conan O'Brien's Conan, the host explains that TBS asked them to judge new pilots, one of which was a Game Show called "Take... Your... Time", a show that has no time limits for the questions to be answered.
• The Boy Meets World episode "Quiz Show" has Cory, Shawn, and Topanga on a very serious educational game show called "High School Quiz", which gets a Retool in the middle of taping an episode when the producers decide that gearing the show more toward pop culture would improve the show.
• On The Brady Bunch, Bobby and Cindy get a shot at appearing on the children's game "Quiz the Kids", but an overconfident Bobby doesn't make it past the entrance test after failing to study for it. Cindy rubs his nose in this and alienates the rest of the family with her egotism, then suffers her comeuppance when she gets on the show and can't answer any questions due to camera fright. Both kids thus learn valuable lessons about preparation and humility, respectively.
• In an episode of The Burns and Allen Show Gracie appears on (and wins!) an Expy of The $64,000 Question, after being hypnotized into being "the smartest woman in the world".
• Clarissa Explains It All had a Double Dare-esque game with a "sibling rivalry" theme called "Brain Drain", containing elements suspiciously similar to Nickelodeon's much later game BrainSurge.
• In the classic The Dick Van Dyke Show episode "Coast to Coast Bigmouth", Laura appears on a game show and, under pressure from the host, reveals that Alan Brady (her husband Rob's employer and the star of the series' Show Within a Show) is bald. Hilarity Ensues.
• Family Matters: Urkel, Eddie and Waldo appear on the TV dating show "Dudes" (a Studs Expy, only for teenagers). Hilarity Ensues after Laura warns the threesome that she believes the show is sexist and full of inappropriate humor, but they appear on the show anyway.
• In an episode of The Golden Girls, all four of girls played "Grab That Dough!", whose host was played by Jim McKrell (most famous for hosting Celebrity Sweepstakes). Rose and Sophia ended up playing against Dorothy and Blanche. The latter pair won $1,200, but traded it for a mystery prize behind a curtain, which turned out to be a lifetime supply of soup.
• One Goosebumps (1995) episode was "One Day at Horrorland", where the Morris family is placed in a horror-themed-amusement-park-themed game show run by monsters with intent to kill them for their audience.
• The Hardcastle and McCormick episode "Games People Play" centered on a local Los Angeles quiz show called "Trivia Masters" hosted by "Bryce Benson" (Tom Kennedy), which has the lowest ratings of any show in the nation. McCormick appears on the revamped version, "Million-Dollar Trivia Masters", and climbs the money ladder; unfortunately, his game is rigged and Benson is a homicidal maniac. You can read a full recap here.
• In a popular episode of The Honeymooners, Ralph competes on "The $99,000 Answer", a $64,000 Question Expy hosted by "Herb Morris" (Jay Jackson) where a contestant must answer a series of questions in a category of their choosing in order to win the titular prize. ^note ($100—$600—$?—$6,187.50—$12,375—$24,750—$49,500—$99,000; the third hurdle isn't mentioned, hence the question mark. It would probably be $1,200 or $3,093.75, but in either case that's quite a jump.) After stage fright and stuttering badly while choosing his category (Popular Music), Ralph gets a full week to study and doesn't slack around — he grabs Ed Norton and studies like hell, to the point where he can name virtually any song no matter what part of it gets played. Ralph returns to the show a knowledgeable man, confident that he can tackle any and every song Morris may ask him to identify; naturally, the $100 song is the only one he doesn't know, and furthermore it's "Swanee River", the song that Norton always played the first few bars of "to warm up" while he was helping Ralph memorize songs.
• On the I Love Lucy episode "Lucy Gets Ricky on the Radio", Lucy and Ricky were slated to appear on the radio game "Mr. & Mrs. Quiz" with a top prize of $500. Lucy happened to find the answers before going on-air and memorized them, but the questions were changed at the last minute, making her answers quite wrong.
  Host: How long is a term for a U.S. Senator?
  Lucy: The sap runs every three years.
  Host: Why was Marie Antoinette put under the blade of the guillotine?
  Lucy: To scrape the barnacles off her hull.
  • By the end, when they were asked the bonus question ("What did George Washington say while crossing the Delaware?"), Ricky was exasperated and wanted to leave, begging Lucy "Please, let me sit down, I'm tired" — which, of course, was the right answer.
• In the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode "The Gang Goes on Family Fight", the Gang goes on the titular game show, which is a basically a Bland-Name Product version of Family Feud.
• The Jeffersons: "The Wheel of Forever," the Season 9 episode where series protagonist George Jefferson – shortly after refusing to buy Florence a new TV set – takes a nap and has a dream where he dies and is sent into a limbo-type existance wherein he must answer questions about his past treatment of his friends and family to win a key to the Pearly Gates. Even one wrong answer ... well ... George wakes up shortly before he can be sent there and, after buying Florence her new TV, promises to treat everyone better.
• Happened a couple of times in Married... with Children:
  • Al and Peggy once competed in a show for newlyweds (posing as Steve and Marcy) called "How Do I Love Thee?", where they had to torture each other for the prizes; needless to say, it wasn't hard for them. They ended up winning a car... which disappeared before the next episode.
  • In the episode "Kelly Knows Something", Al auditions to be on the sports trivia game "Touchdown Trivia". Though he knew pretty much everything, the producers rejected him for being unsympathetic. He ended up training Kelly, with surprisingly good results.
  • In another episode, Bud goes on "You Can't Miss!" (a Dating Game expy with the host played by Bill Maher) as a potential suitor... and wins.
• In The Mary Tyler Moore Show episode "Ted's Moment of Glory", newscaster Ted Baxter gets a chance to host a pilot for "The $50,000 Steeplechase" — a Game Show with contestants dressed in jockey colors and sitting on hobby horses. He gets the job and is ready to leave the newsroom when Lou convinces him that he's better being a "NEWSMAN" than a "Quiiiiiiiiiiizmaaaaaaaaaaster" (as Lou pronounces both). In addition, Dian Parkinson plays the Lovely Assistant of the Show Within a Show.
• Mama's Family had an episode titled "The Big Wheel", with the titular show being an Expy of The Big Spin.
• Maude is corralled by her friends Vivian and Arthur into participating with Vivian in a show called "Beat the Devil". They win everything in sight, and Maude proclaims that it's the happiest day of her life... only for the prizes to be voided. The host is played by Conrad Janis, while the announcer is none other than Johnny Olson as himself.
• On an episode of McGee and Me!, Nicholas gets chosen to appear on a spoof of Double Dare (1986) called "Trash TV".
• In Miami Vice episode "Phil The Shill", Switek and Zito pretend to be sick so the former can appear on a game show called "Rat Race", which is ran by a con man named Phil Mayhew (Phil Collins). Not only does Switek lose, he's also seen on television by others at the OCB, they're both given a strong dressing down by Castillo, they're given both lousy assignments and docked pay for the deception, but Phil ultimately gets away with his crimes due to his other victims refusing to come forward.
• In an episode of Modern Family called "Lifetime Supply", 15 years ago Phil won a lifetime supply of Genesis Razor Blades on a game show called "Smarty Pants".
• An episode of Monk involved Trudy's father getting Adrian to work out how someone is cheating on his game show "Treasure Chest", and turns out to involve a murder. Adrian did figure out how the cheating was going on, but he had to get to the bonus round to expose those involved, so he started using the clues meant for the cheating contestant first. The questions were multiple-choice and the answer was revealed by which corner of the card the host (who was in on the cheat) was holding. This resulted in Adrian and the cheating contestant racing to hit the buzzer as soon as the host (played by John Michael Higgins) picked up the card to ask the question, with the third player forced to watch in horror.
• In the final follow-up trilogy of Only Fools and Horses, Del goes on "Goldrush", a fictional BBC game hosted by Jonathan Ross in which the top prize is £100,000 and there are three Lifelines. It was an obvious Fictional Counterpart of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, created because ITV refused to let the BBC use the actual show — probably because a plot point was that an answer given as being wrong on the show turned out to be right.
• On The Parkers, Nikki and her family go on "Family Secrets". The host of the fake show was played by George Gray, who went on to host the syndicated version of The Weakest Link and announce for The Price Is Right. The game consists of answering embarrassing questions about family members, but remains pretty harmless and funny until the final round when the host asks Nikki the million-dollar question "Who is your real mother?" Before Nikki could answer, her favorite aunt reveals that she's Nikki's real mother.
• On Perfect Strangers, Balki and Larry go on "Risk It All", which used several actual props and games from Fun House (1988) (which was, like this show, produced by Lorimar-Telepictures).
• In the Sanford and Son episode "The Masquerade Party", Fred, Bubba, and Grady appear not on the concurrent revival of that old 1950s show, but a Let's Make a Deal Expy called "Wheel and Deal" with comedian John Barbour playing "America's Second Greatest Dealer". The episode's writing credits say "Story by Redd Foxx".
• In Sister, Sister, the twins appear on the Double Dare-esque game "Slime Party". Their opponents? The Olsen twins.
• On Small Wonder, the Lawsons and Brindles were opponents on a game similar to Nickelodeon's Family Double Dare. Its host was played by Geoff Edwards.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody had "Risk It All!", complete with a stated lesson about greed (and an unsaid one about how not to host a game show).
• 30 Rock had two:
  • In "The Head and the Hair", a subplot involves Kenneth producing a new game show for NBC called Gold Case, hosted by John McEnroe. It was an expy of Deal or No Deal whose top prize was $1,000,000 worth of gold. There was just one major design flaw: because there were actual gold bars inside the winning briefcase, the model was struggling to carry it due to its weight, and they didn't bother to weigh down all the other cases the same way — leading to too many winners, and a quick cancellation.
  • A Cutaway Gag in "The Beginning of the End" features a game show called Homonym (one of several intentionally bad shows Jack had greenlit for NBC as part of his plot to "tank" the network, except they're all successful instead) where a contestant struggles to give the correct definitions for the words given by the host because the word is actually "the other one." A later episode featured a Freeze-Frame Bonus with an ad for Homonym which shows that it airs weeknights, 8:00 to midnight, while later episodes featured Celebrity Homonym and an Iranian version.
• In Toby Terrier and His Video Pals, "Meet Toby Terrier" has a fictional game show called "You Bet Your Bone" that works like a hybrid between Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, having contestants guess the answers to questions from an array of categories and each correct response bringing up a letter on a Wheel of Fortune style puzzle. The contestant can then choose to either solve the puzzle or answer more questions.
• Victorious:
  • Sinjin is hosting a game show called "Queries for Couples", which he created as a pilot for a potential web series. It was similar to The Newlywed Game with couples answering questions in a way they think the other person would.
  • Another episode had the cast going on a game show called "Brain Squeezers" that involved answering trivia questions. Anyone who couldn't give a correct answer would be "Doinked" as punishment, which involved dropping heavy appliances on their head, punching them in the face with a boxing glove, squirting them with goo, etc.

Puppet Shows

• Fraggle Rock: In "The Secret of Convincing John", Wembley, eager to cure his indecisive nature, seeks out Convincing John so he can convince him to be decisive. Wembley becomes assertive and confident, but also arrogant, bossy, stubborn, and prone to dangerous choices. After he knocks himself out going into Outer Space, his friends drag him back to Convincing John to get him unconvinced. John returns Wembley to normal by having him take "The Definite Challenge". Wembley has to choose between two curtained cave doors, two banana-tree shirts, and so on. When he can't decide between two sweet—and ultra-rare—treats, he's cured.

Radio

• New Dynamic English features "Question of the Week", with Max as the host and Kathy as the player (and it's always this way). The questions were mundane and easy at first, until he starts to ask about American history.

Web Animation

• "Khonjin House" did this in Season 1 Episode 2 where Khonjin hosts a quiz show named "Guess The Answer You Fucking Idiot." Khonjin then tells the first (and only) contestant, named Dumbass, that he has three tries to anwser the question, and, much to Khonjin's dismay, the prize for winning is burning down his house and killing his family. When Dumbass gets the question wrong, Khonjin gives Dumbass the correct answer, and Dumbass gets the question right. Khonjin then blows everything up with gasoline.

Western Animation

• 101 Dalmatians: The Series: Lucky appears on his favorite game show, Squeal of Fortune, with Steven the alligator.
• In an episode of Animaniacs, the Warners were contestants on "Quiz Me Quick!" and drove the host crazy by doing things like answering every question with "Isaac Newton" (except where the answer actually was Isaac Newton).
• In the Arthur episode "Arthur and the Big Riddle", the title character is convinced to go on the quiz show Riddle Quest after successfully playing along with it on TV. However, he ends up throwing the final riddle to his opponent (a long-running champion of the show) after fearing that he might end up being stuck on the show as champion for the rest of his life (cue the Imagine Spot with an elderly Arthur still on the show), and potentially not being able to be with his friends anymore. Said show is hosted by one "Alex Lebek", who, by the way, is voiced by Alex Trebek.
• Cluemaster's backstory in The Batman has him losing a quiz show called "Think Thank Thunk", although in the comics he was a former game show host. Both the Riddler and the Joker have occasionally hijacked game shows for their own devices.
• The Flintstones:
  • Barney Rubble became Fred Flintstone's proxy on "The Prize Is Priced" in the episode "Divided We Sail". Barney wins a fishing pole in the bidding game, and the bonus attached to it was a houseboat (very accurately mimicking how Price would do things, such as a 69-cent lightbulb having a bonus of dozens of appliances in salute to Thomas Edison).
  • One of Barney's fellow contestants briefly mentions a rival prehistoric game show, "Beat the Sundial".
  • In the TV special The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone, the Flintstones and Rubbles appear on the game show "Make a Deal or Don't", which resembles Let's Make a Deal.
• On the Futurama episode "The Duh Vinci Code", Fry appears in the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? parody "Who Dares To Be A Millionaire". He fails spectacularly to answer the first question.
  Morbo: For $1, what tool is used to hammer a nail? Is it A) a hammer, B) a nail, C)...
  Fry: B, nail! Final answer!
• The Jetsons:
  • They appear on a game show called "Family Fallout", facing off against the Spacelys. Mr. Spacely threatens to fire George if he takes the grand prize. George decides to trade the grand prize for the other prize, which happens to be a food-making machine they had always wanted since the old one broke down; Spacely, on the other hand, won a lifetime supply of Cogswell Cogs - the product of his arch-nemesis. (And why not? His family didn't compete, but he did donate the grand prize, and he knew that the winning family was taking what's behind the force field so it's hinted that he did a perfectly good Xanatos Gambit — regardless of who won, Cogswell would still have the publicity, but to see Spacely's face at seeing he won Cogswell products? Well, that's just icing on the cake.)
  • George also appeared on a game show with Astro after Astro got really smart from Elroy’s concoction. George won a lot with Astro feeding him answers, only to lose it all when the stuff wore off and Astro went back to normal during the final round.
• In Episode 58 of Kaeloo, Mr. Cat goes on a game show hosted by Kaeloo to prove that he's right about everything all the time. He wins, but it's a Pyrrhic Victory.
• Looney Tunes:
  • 1950's The Ducksters has Porky Pig as a contestant on "Truth or AAAAUGH!", a radio quiz (and a parody of Truth or Consequences) hosted by Daffy Duck. Daffy subjects Porky to unanswerable questions ("What was Cleopatra's aunt's maiden name?") and Impossible Task challenges (guessing an opera from one note), as well as a set of very painful "penalties" (naming every U.S. state before firecrackers in his mouth and ears go off) and a number of ludicrous booby prizes ("And the gentleman wins the Rock of Gibraltar!"). Porky eventually uses the prize money to buy the station and turn the tables on Daffy.
  • 1956's Wideo Wabbit has Bugs Bunny, on the run from Elmer Fudd, disguise himself as Groucho Marx to host "You Beat Your Wife"; the domestic violence gags were censored on certain television airings. The Bugs-as-Groucho voice is provided in that scene by Daws Butler instead of Mel Blanc, which proved Hilarious in Hindsight as the former later appeared as a contestant on the real show.
  • 1959's People Are Bunny had Daffy appearing on "People Are Phony" (a send-up of People Are Funny), with a cartoon version of Art Linkletter. Naturally, Daffy loses while Bugs cleans up locked in a phone booth.
• In the pilot episode of Cartoon Network's The Looney Tunes Show, Bugs and Daffy go on a relationship Game Show called "Besties".
• The animated version of Punky Brewster had an episode, "Punky's Millions", in which Punky and Henry vied to win a jackpot on a show called "Can You Spend It?", but to do so they had to spend $1 million in one day. Punky and her pals take the task at hand after Henry comes down with chicken pox. Punky and the gang lose the game when Allen reveals that he has change in his pocket. But no Downer Ending here: a lottery ticket Glomer bought earlier won a bundle.
• Rugrats has Tommy's mom Didi on "Super Stumpers", hosted by "Alan Quebec" (voiced by Alex Trebek). It also had elements of old-school Wheel of Fortune, as Didi ended up taking home a gold-plated dalmatian statue.
• The beginning of an episode of The Simpsons has Moe appear in a Millionaire parody, "Me Wantee!". It even made fun of Millionaire's padding habit with Moe "stalling for about 15 minutes". Given a $500,000 question on atoms, he phones Homer for help (since he works at Springfield's nuclear power plant). Lisa gives Moe the right answer, and after winning the $500,000 he decides to walk.
• The cast of Tiny Toon Adventures appeared on two different mock game shows — one was "Win, Lose, or Kerplooey" and the other, "That's Incredibly Stupid!"
  • Also, Max and Elmyra competed against each other in a version of Hollywood Squares. Max was that story's Butt-Monkey.
• Played for laughs on 2 Stupid Dogs where the titular characters try to win the booby prize (dog biscuits) on "Let's Make a Right Price" (a parody of The Price Is Right, with Casey Kasem playing the host and Gary Owens playing the announcer), but keep winning. Eventually, Little Dog tries to rig the Big Wheel by clinging to it and forcing it off the $1 space... at which point the host says "You cheated! You get the car!"
• On an episode of The Venture Brothers it is learned in Flashback that Billy Quizboy got his last name from "Quizboys", a children's game show which he was expelled from after unwittingly participating in a Quiz Show-esque scandal conducted by host Pete White.
• An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes had Jimmy (unknowingly) being put on a game show where he has to keep his word and stay on the same spot. Since the prize is Lucius' fortune, he faces some serious temptation.
• Dexter's Laboratory: Dexter and Dee Dee entered a game show (the notion of the two contestants not being complete strangers is explained by the show being about Sibling Rivalry). Whoever wins can pick either a winged horse or a N.A.S.A. style telescope. Dee Dee is a long time fan of the episode but Dexter never watched it before and only entered for the telescope. Dexter thought it'd be easy for him: answer questions. However, there was a series of physical challenges before. It gave Dee Dee a 30 - 0 advantage. When it was time for the questions, the live-in audience left the place. The host stated whoever answered most questions correctly would win 30 points. Once he said the questions would be about science and technology, Dexter quickly handed him a piece of paper containing answers to everything that could be asked about the topic. Dexter not only got the 30 points (tying the score with Dee Dee) but also a booby prize that's known as "nerd prize" and given to anyone who answers all questions correctly. The tie-breaker was based on how well the contestants knew about each other. Dee Dee won and chose the telescope, so she could spy on Dexter from her own room.
• Bob's Burgers: The Belchers appear on "Family Fracas", a Double Dare (1986) knock-off whose logo resembled the Family Feud one.
• Gravity Falls: Grunkle Stan gets on the Wheel of Fortune parody "Cash Wheel" in the episode "Boss Mabel". He wins lots of money until the end, where he loses it all in a "double or nothing" round because he missed the word "Please".
• The Life and Times of Juniper Lee: The episode "New Trickster in Town" features a game show called "Let's Save Humanity" on which June competes. The show is a somewhat-expy of Let's Make a Deal mixed with a generic quizzer, but at one point, the actual puzzle chimes from Wheel of Fortune are heard.
• Zeke's Pad: In "Luck of the Draw", Zeke's name gets drawn to compete on his favorite TV game show. He's all excited until he finds out that it's a Family Edition. Now he has to compete—with his family—against the smartest family in town! Zeke's family doesn't exactly work together well so he does a draw to make them more of a team. But his family are obsessed with only being a team and don't listen to Zeke when he tries to get them to actually practice for the upcoming show. Can Zeke get his team organized enough to win the prize?

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