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"For my next trick, I will make your regular host reappear! ... the cat, not so much."
"Welcome to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Ironically enough, I'm Stephen Colbert."

Most light entertainment shows (be it morning news, chat show, or quiz show) will have a host. Generally speaking, it's almost always the same person(s) hosting day in, day out and providing seamless links, interesting conversation, probing questions, and needed stability to the show. But what if they want to go on holiday, or — heaven forbid — fall ill? What then? The Show Must Go On, after all.

Cue the guest host, a temporary stand-in until the full-time host returns. It may be one guest host, or a succession of guest hosts. If you're lucky, it's somebody appropriate and even chosen by the full-time host (or, in some cases, a previous regular host or the presenter of a foreign iteration of the show). If not, you could end up with a wild change of tone in the show.

There's another version of this where a show only has guest hosts on instead of a regular.


Examples:

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    Talk Shows 
  • The Daily Show uses the correspondents when the host is unavailable.
  • The NBC talk show Later had a long string of guest hosts after the departure of Greg Kinnear in 1996; Friday Night host Rita Sever was the most prominent mainly because she was already there. Cynthia Garrett became permanent host on January 31, 2000, but NBC did little to promote the show and it ended in January 2001. For a year it became Later Presents SCTV, a slot for reruns of the 1980s sketch comedy show, before Last Call with Carson Daly replaced it.
  • The Late Show with David Letterman went to guest hosts while Dave had heart surgery in 2000, and again when he was ill with shingles in 2003. When he was recovering from heart surgery, almost all of the guest hosts refused to sit in his chair. Letterman still made use of guest hosts until he retired.
    • Musical director Paul Shaffer guest-hosted the night Dave couldn't be there because his son was being born, and at least one of the aforementioned episodes from 2003.
    • Once during Letterman's Late Night years, Dave was in his cabin in the woods while Larry "Bud" Melman guest hosted. Throughout the show, we see Dave in his cabin watching on TV.
  • The Late Late Show had guest hosts for several months after Craig Kilborn suddenly left. Several people rotated as guest hosts, until it was whittled down to week-long auditions from Craig Ferguson, D.L. Hughley, Damien Fahey, and Michael Ian Black. note  Ferguson, who hadn't been interested in becoming a talk show host before he started guest-hosting and decided he liked it, ended up with the job. When he departed at the end of 2014, the same template was used by CBS while James Corden gets in some rehearsal time before taking over the series in March 2015.
    • In the James Corden era there have been several guest hosts, but all-time favorite guest Jeff Goldblum holding down the duties in the December 12, 2019 episode (Corden was busy promoting Cats and the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special) was particularly elaborate — complete with an opening musical number about being this trope, a monologue that included a Take That! at Carpool Karaoke (actually his second after that July's "Drop the Mic" rap battle with Corden) and an Enforced Plug for his Disney+ show The World According to Jeff Goldblum, and the "Animals Riding Animals" game being changed to "Animals Riding Jeff Goldblum". He and his jazz band The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra also served as the musical guests.
  • The Paul O'Grady Show had guest hosts take over when Paul had a heart attack and again when he was ill with the flu. The show must go on.
  • The Tonight Show had several examples over the years:
    • During the Steve Allen era, Steve got a primetime Sunday-night show in 1956 which necessitated being absent Monday and Tuesday nights. Ernie Kovacs hosted on these nights until both men left due to the show's short-lived format change to a Nightline-style show in March 1957.
    • After Jack Parr left the show in 1962, there was a six-month period of guest hosts including Hugh Downs, Groucho Marx, and Jerry Lewis due to ABC holding Johnny Carson to his contract as host of Who Do You Trust?
    • Carson had various guest hosts over the years, starting with Joey Bishop in the 1960s (who left to host his own rival late-night laugher, which — like all of Johnny's competition — didn't last long). In 1980 as the result of a plum contract renegotiation (having leveraged being one of the struggling NBC network's few successes at the time) he reduced his schedule to three days a week, 37 weeks a year (and the show was reduced from 90 minutes to 60, which it has remained ever since). Fridays were for Best of Carson reruns but Mondays, as well as his weeks off generally, were given to the newly-created "permanent guest host", a phrase referred to by Penn & Teller as the "rare triple oxymoron". Garry Shandling was the first, but he left to produce and star in It's Garry Shandling's Show. Next came Joan Rivers, who discovered (in the run-up to the show's 25th anniversary and Carson's rumored milestone retirement) that she was not even on the short list to succeed him, so she left to host her own late-night laugher on the nascent FOX network (ending her friendship with Carson in the process). Her replacement was Jay Leno, who remained for the rest of the show and was able to edge out David Letterman as his replacement.
    • On May 12, 2003, Leno swapped places with Katie Couric as a publicity stunt: he co-hosted Today with Matt Lauer, while she hosted The Tonight Show later that night. This marks the only time in either of Leno's two tenures as Tonight Show host that the show had a guest host.
    • Conan O'Brien, in keeping with his avoidance of guest hosts on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (and his subsequent Conan), did not feature any guest hosts during his brief tenure on Tonight.
    • Jimmy Fallon repeated Leno's publicity stunt, this time swapping with his rival Jimmy Kimmel on April Fools' Day 2022. Other than that one occasion, he has yet to feature a guest host, although he co-hosted with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters once in 2021.
  • In the run-up the the debut of the original The Arsenio Hall Show, Arsenio contemplated having a guest host for the first episode, as a gag.
  • In an attempt to boost its sagging ratings, producers of CBS's The Pat Sajak Show decided to make several changes in February 1990. The biggest change was having a guest host on Fridays. This didn't save the show, and it was cancelled two months later, on April 10. The kicker? Sajak was out of the country when CBS brought down the axe. The entire final week of his show consisted of guest hosts. He Never Got to Say Goodbye.
  • The syndicated talk show Live! (with Regis and Kathie Lee/Regis and Kelly/Kelly and Michael/Kelly and Ryan) had guest hosts replace each co-host as they left: in 2000 between Kathie Lee Gifford's departure and Kelly Ripa's arrival; in 2011 between Regis Philbin's departure and Michael Strahan's arrival; and again in 2016 between Strahan's departure and Ryan Seacrest's arrival.
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live!: In June 2020, Jimmy Kimmel announced he would take a hiatus from the show, so he had guest hosts fill in for him before returning after hosting the 2020 Emmy Awards in September 2020. This has since become a yearly tradition, inviting guest hosts to fill in for him during the summer months.

    Interview/Information Shows 
  • Charlie Rose had nothing but guest hosts for a short while.
  • The whole point of The Friday Night Project was to have a guest host on every week while regular hosts will help and support them. Basically, a reverse chat show.
  • At the Movies had a long string of guest co-hosts after Gene Siskel died before settling on Richard Roeper. For medical reasons, Ebert also had guests standing in for him, before Roeper's departure and the show's revamp.
  • One episode of Real Time with Bill Maher featured Seth MacFarlane hosting the webcasted Overtime segment in place of Bill; before this, Bill had never had a guest host on Real Time at all.
  • Sabaton History had to have Spartacus Olsson from TimeGhost's other channels sub in for Indy Neidell on "Night Witches Part 2" because Indy had come down with COVID-19 and was quarantined at his home in Stockholm.

    Panel Games 
  • Have I Got News for You started out with Angus Deayton who, after damaging news stories about himself, was sacked from the show after the second episode of Series 24. They started replacing him with guest hosts; this was intended as a temporary fix until a regular replacement was chosen (and a kind of audition process for the job), but it proved so popular that it became a permanent element of the show.
  • Similarly, Never Mind the Buzzcocks used guest hosts for Series 18 (after Mark Lamarr left the show) until Simon Amstell took over the helm at the start of Series 19. From there Bill Bailey, one of the team captains, left the show with guest team captains filling the gap until finding a permanent one with Noel Fielding. This stable period ended once Amstell left the show following Series 22, leaving the programme with guest hosts once more.
  • Series 51 of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue had Stephen Fry, Jack Dee, and Rob Brydon chair two episodes each because no one could really replace Humph. Dee went on to host all six episodes of Series 52, although he was not stated to be the full-time replacement; regardless, he has hosted every series since.

    Game Shows 
  • Game Show Network had some fun with this on April Fools' Day 2003 with its originals: Mark L. Walberg hosted Friend or Foe? (normally hosted by Kennedy), Kennedy hosted WinTuition (normally hosted by Marc Summers), Graham Elwood hosted Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck (normally hosted by Todd Newton), Newton hosted Russian Roulette (normally hosted by Walberg), and Summers hosted Cram (normally hosted by Elwood). A few things happened in relation to this:
    • Lingo had Marc and Mark playing against Graham and Kennedy, with Newton serving as onstage announcer/comic relief to regular host Chuck Woolery.
    • It was the last first-run episodes of Friend or Foe?, WinTuition, and Russian Roulette. Roulette had the giant Whammy from Whammy! present in the audience, and WinTuition had then-network vice-president and game show fan Bob Boden as the Answer Kid.
    • As part of the weirdness, GSN also aired the last episode of a special Valentine's Week (read: "Aired Pilot Week") of The New Newlywed Game that ABC showed in February 1984, which had Jim Lange hosting and Rod Roddy announcing.
  • Nickelodeon's Double Dare had one episode with Jim J. Bullock hosting while Marc Summers and Harvey played on the teams along with one child contestant - So those two could get "gunked" for a change.
  • Family Feud had two episodes, both during the original Richard Dawson version (1976-85), where one round was hosted by a guest. One game opened to Sammy Davis Jr. hosting the first question, and a later game had contestant coordinator Caryn Lucas host one question since Dawson had just injured his ribs in a car accident and needed some time to adjust a slipping brace. (Dawson said in an interview that he absolutely hated to stop tape.)
  • Figure It Out switched host Summer Sanders and panelist Lori Beth Denberg of All That for one round. Oh yes, Summer was slimed.
  • The Hollywood Squares had some fun moments:
    • During the 1986-89 era, guest hosts included regular panelists Jim J. Bullock and Joan Rivers, along with announcer/regular panelist Shadoe Stevens. Most of these were due to regular host John Davidson being unavailable, but a couple different games had Joan Rivers and ALF (yes, really!) hosting while Davidson sat in a square. When Stevens filled in, Howard Stern took his place.
    • During the Tom Bergeron-hosted revival (1998-2004), Rosie O'Donnell hosted one round (November 1998) with Tom sitting in her square. Whoopi Goldberg herself followed suit in February 2000. Later on, during a Game Show Hosts week, Peter Marshall (who helmed the original Squares from 1966-1981) returned to guest host one episode while Bergeron sat on the panel.
    • The Bergeron version also had guest announcers during the two Game Show Hosts weeks in 2002 and 2003. The first had Rod Roddy, and the second had Shadoe Stevens (who announced the first couple seasons of the Bergeron version as well) return one last time. Respectively, Rod and Shadoe were taking over for Jeffrey Tambor and John Moschitta. Henry Winkler (yes, Fonzie) also filled in for Tambor on a few occasions.
  • Jim Peck filled in for Jack Barry several times on The Joker's Wild. When Barry died and the show was handed over to Bill Cullen, Peck got to return for a couple more guest hosting stints when Cullen was unavailable.
  • This also happened in the long life of Let's Make a Deal:
    • Dennis James filled in for Monty Hall on the original version, and Geoff Edwards filled in on The All-New Let's Make a Deal, the show's second revival in 1984-86.
    • Announcer Dean Goss hosted two deals during the 1985-86 season of All-New because Hall (who was also executive producer) wanted to pass the torch should the show be renewed for a third season. It wasn't.
    • Going the other way, the 1990s version (originally hosted by Bob Hilton) had Monty take over as "guest host" in October 1990. Hall felt that the show was failing due to poor reception of Hilton as host, and planned to fill in until he could scout out a replacement for what would have been the second season. However, NBC just opted to can the show in January 1991 — and bring Wheel of Fortune back over from CBS to replace it.
  • Password had a few examples over time:
    • During the original 1960s version, announcer Jack Clark filled in on a few occasions.
    • For the ABC era, Monty Hall hosted a few weeks (one of which had Allen playing against his wife, Betty White). In 1975, Betty herself hosted a week.
    • Much later in his career (1980), Ludden was too ill to host Password Plus, so Bill Cullen filled in for four weeks while Geoff Edwards temporarily took over for Bill for two weeks on Chain Reaction. (Both shows aired on NBC at the time.)
    • After Ludden retired from Plus, Tom Kennedy took over as host, except for one episode where his brother Jack Narz was one of the celebrity guests and the two decided to trade places.
  • The Price Is Right has had many examples:
    • The original version (1956-63 on NBC, 1963-65 on ABC) had guest hosts fill in for Bill Cullen when he took ill or went on vacation — Merv Griffin, Jack Narz, Arlene Francis, Bob Kennedy and Don Pardo all held the role during the NBC era, while Johnny Gilbert, Jack Clark(who also filled in for Bill Cullen in the NBC era), and Robert Q. Lewis all held the reins during the ABC era. Notably, Lewis' turn as host actually had Bill as that day's celebrity bidder (an element introduced when Price changed networks).
    • When Price returned in 1972, there were two versions: the daytime series then hosted by Bob Barker, and a nighttime version hosted by Dennis James (until 1977, then also hosted by Barker until its demise in 1980). James hosted the daytime episodes of December 24-27, 1974 because Bob had the flu on the taping date, the only time to date that daytime Price has had a guest host (barring April Fool's Day 2014).
    • Price also had rotations of guest announcers. After Johnny Olson died, the guests were Rod Roddy, Gene Wood, Bob Hilton, and Rich Jeffries, with Rod eventually getting the job. Rod's declining health between 2001 and 2003 also led to several fill-ins by Burton Richardson (who previously did the short-lived 1994 syndicated version) and Randy West, plus one week by Paul Boland.
      • A then-retired Gene Wood did some post-production announcing work on reruns in Summer 1998.
    • After Rod died in 2003, the substitutes consisted of Burton and Randy along with Daniel Rosen, Art Sanders, Roger Rose, Don Bishop, Jim Thornton, and Rich Fields, with Rich ultimately getting the job. Burton also did the December 22, 2006 show due to Rich having laryngitis.
    • Following Rich's departure in 2010, another rotation occurred: JD Roberto, Jeff Davis, Brad Sherwood, David H. Lawrence XVII, Steve White, and George Gray, who was chosen as Rich's successor.
    • Also, far too many fill-in models to list.
    • After Drew Carey took over for Bob Barker as the show's host, he pulled a flip-flop with Craig Ferguson for April Fools' Day 2014. Drew hosted The Late Late Show with George Gray as announcer and the models as sidekicks, while Craig Ferguson hosted Price with Shadoe Stevens announcing, and Secratariat and Geoff Peterson as "models".
    • For April Fool's Day 2015, announcer George Gray introduced Drew... but instead, original host Bob Barker, who retired in 2007, guest-hosted the first Item Up For Bid and pricing game of the day (Lucky Seven), with Drew handling the rest of the show onward.
  • In 1974, Gene Rayburn guest hosted Tattletales for a week as regular host Bert Convy played the game with his wife, Anne. Gene actually hosted the Tattletales prototype in 1973, which was originally called Celebrity Match Mates (Convy would get the job after Gene landed the Match Game revival).
    • On at least two occasions, "Tattletales" had a special "Emcee Week", where Bert would host for two days out of the week, and each of the other days would be hosted by a guest host while the Convys played the game. In 1975, the guest hosts were Bob Barker, Gene Rayburn, and Bobby Van. The following year, Bob Barker, Jack Narz, and Richard Dawson were the guest emcees.
  • Wheel of Fortune has also had this happen frequently:
    • Alex Trebek guest-hosted a week on daytime in 1980 and another episode in 1985, filling in for Chuck Woolery on the former and Pat Sajak on the latter.
    • On April Fools' Day 1997, Trebek hosted Wheel again, with Pat and Lovely Assistant Vanna White playing for charity and Pat's wife, Lesly, in Vanna's usual role and Jeopardy! announcer Johnny Gilbert co-announcing with Charlie O'Donnell. Pat also hosted that day's Jeopardy!, which was otherwise a normal episode, apart from featuring Wheel-related categories.
    • Original Lovely Assistant Susan Stafford suffered injuries in 1979 and 1980 that led to Summer Bartholomew, Cynthia Washington, and Arte Johnson filling in for her. After Susan left in 1982, the show rotated hosting duties among Summer, Vicki Iovine (then Vicki McCarty), and Vanna White, the last of whom has been the show's hostess ever since.
    • Susan returned for one week of daytime episodes in 1986 so Vanna could recover after her boyfriend was killed in a plane crash. In January 1991, Tricia Gist filled in for two weeks to accommodate for Vanna's honeymoon, and returned two months later due to Vanna having a cold.
    • On one episode where Pat was afflicted with laryngitis, he simply switched duties with Vanna.
    • Same thing with their announcers. The main announcers are Charlie O'Donnell (1975-80, 1989-2010), Jack Clark (1980-88), M.G. Kelly (1988-89), and Jim Thornton (2011-). Charlie, Johnny Gilbert, and Don Morrow all filled in for Jack at various points (the former two also doing so in Spring and Summer 1988, shortly before and after Clark's death), and Don Pardo did two weeks taped at Radio City Music Hall during M.G.'s tenure.
    • When Charlie returned, he missed two weeks in late 1995, for which Gilbert again filled in. After Charlie's death, several announcers rotated: Johnny Gilbert, Rich Fields, Lora Cain, Joe Cipriano, John Cramer, and the aforementioned Jim Thornton, the last of whom became his successor.
    • Vanna hosted three weeks worth of episodes in November 2019 after Pat had an emergency intestinal surgery that left him unable to host. Taking duty at the puzzle board were a series of themed guests.
    • Wheel also had a guest director for some weeks in Season 31. Longtime director Mark Corwin died after directing only two weeks of episodes, so Jeopardy! director Kevin McCarthy handled that season's road shows taped in Las Vegas, while associate director Bob Cisneros and technical director Robert Ennis filled in until the former was promoted to full-time director. Ennis also filled in again briefly in 2014 while Cisneros was having neck surgery, and after Cisneros left in 2015, Ennis himself became the permanent director.
  • The 1990-91 incarnation of To Tell the Truth had this happen unintentionally. The pilot episode, hosted by Richard Kline, aired on the East Coast by mistake instead of the actual first episode. Original host Gordon Elliott was fired early on over a salary dispute, so Lynn Swann took his place. Then Swann had to leave due to scheduling conflicts with ABC Sports, so Alex Trebek took over... however, he had to leave in the middle of a taping session due to his wife going into labor, forcing Mark Goodson to host a couple episode.
  • On Concentration, sometimes on anniversary shows Hugh Downs would play the game while Bob Clayton would emcee. One such show had Hugh and Bob as contestants and producer Norm Blumenthal as host.
  • After Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek died of pancreatic cancer in November 2020, the producers confirmed that several guests would fill in until a successor was chosen. First up were Ken Jennings (the show's winningest contestant and consulting producer) and executive producer Mike Richards. Following them were Katie Couric, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Aaron Rodgers, Anderson Cooper, Bill Whitaker, Buzzy Cohen (winner of the show's 2017 Tournament of Champions), Mayim Bialik, Savannah Guthrie, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts, David Faber, Joe Buck, and LeVar Burton. After new permanent host Mike Richards stepped down after hosting a week of episodes in September 2021, Jennings and Bialik took over as guest-co-hosts. During Alex's run, he only missed one episode, in 1985, where he swapped shows with Pat Sajak of Wheel of Fortune as an April Fool's joke.
  • The Masked Singer has Niecy Nash become host for the first few episodes of the fifth season, thanks to regular host Nick Cannon getting COVID-19.

    Radio 
  • American Top 40 has had several guest hosts, when the regular host (Casey Kasem, Shadoe Stevens, Casey again, now Ryan Seacrest) was either unavailable or wanted a little time off.
  • Sister show American Country Countdown went through this several times. Original host Don Bowman had several substitutes when he was unavailable, including producer Bob Kingsley, who later got promoted to permanent host from 1978 to 2005. Every now and then, Bob would take a week off and usually have his place taken by a DJ at a major country radio station. When Kingsley left to start his own show, Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40, there was a three-week rotation of guest hosts on ACC before Kix Brooks was officially established. Currently, when Brooks is unable to make the show, his producer Diane Alexander is the fill-in, although several fellow country performers have taken the helm.
  • Over at Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40, Bob continued his usual practice of letting a major-market DJ fill in for him once or twice a year, but on a couple occasions, he let a Country Music singer take his place: Jeffrey Steele did a week each in 2008 and '09, and Jack Ingram did another week in 2008.
    • In October 2019, Kingsley announced he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and was taking what was intended to be a hiatus from the show. Prior to his departure, he announced a series of guest hosts, all-female performers, would be taking his place through the end of November. When Kingsley died just days after announcing his departure, a special tribute show – hosted by Keith Urban – aired the weekend of October 26, with the current arrangement (made in conjunction with the Country Music Association) intended to resume with the November 2 show. By the end of 2019 he was replaced by Fitz, a DJ from KNUC.
  • With his increasing age and a serious bout of pneumonia late in his career, Paul Harvey had a bevy of guest hosts late in his career. The most frequent guest host was his son, Paul Harvey Jr. Fellow ABC Radio hosts Gil Gross and Doug Limerick filled in at various points, as did radio hosts Ron Chapman, Mort Crim, and Scott Shannon, and even politicians Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Tony Snow. Gross and Limerick took over on the show's format following Harvey's death, but it was canceled only two weeks later and replaced with The Huckabee Report.
  • CMT Country Countdown USA, another country music countdown show, uses a variant of this trope. Each show is hosted by Lon Helton (formerly the editor of the now-defunct Radio & Records magazine) and a different country music singer every week.
  • Hancock's Half Hour had Harry Secombe playing the part of Tony Hancock for a couple of episodes when Hancock himself was ill - this was then immediately lampshaded upon the real Hancock's return with an episode revolving around Hancock tracking down Secombe to thank him for the favour, which revealed Secombe to be living a rather sitcom-like existence in Wales. Sadly, none of these episodes are known to have survived, except as scripts.
  • After the February 2021 death of Rush Limbaugh his show broadcast clip shows with "guide hosts" up until a new show hosted by Clay Travis and Buck Sexton began airing on June 21, 2021.
  • NPR's panel quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me has guest hosts occasionally when Peter Sagal is not available, often panelists like Faith Salie or other NPR hosts. Sometimes former guests are asked to come back fill in as host, most famously Wait Wait fanboy Tom Hanks (yes, Tom Hanks) for the January 14, 2017 episode.
    • Drew Carey, guest hosting on October 27, 2012, started off the show by thanking them for giving him the chance to "ruin another beloved American game show".
    • Guest announcer/scorekeepers will also stand in for Bill Kurtis and, before him, Carl Kasell, again usually but not always NPR personalities like Corey Flintoff and Korva Coleman. Kurtis himself filled in periodically for Kasell before the latter's retirement.
    • The show has even had guest guests, when the slated guest pulled out and had to be replaced at the last minute. (On at least two occasions the guest guest was Stephen Colbert.)

    Other Shows 
  • For some months, WWE attempted it on its flagship show WWE Raw to varying degrees of success and critique. The supposed reason was that when Donald Trump "bought" the show, he was going to name Ric Flair as General Manager...but when he sold it back to Vince McMahon, ol' Vinnie Mac wouldn't hear of it (canonically, Vince detests Ric on the air, and reports about their backstage relationship vary). In reality, the idea was forced upon WWE by executives at USA Network, the channel that aired the show. The concept stopped a few months after WrestleMania 26.
    • The idea did bring in some people you probably wouldn't associate with wrestling, including Pee-Wee Herman (which, at least canonically, Vince was pissed at) and Bob Barker (who turned the show into The Price Is RAW and seemed to be having quite a bit of fun).
  • The animated series Tales from the Cryptkeeper was occasionally hijacked by EC Comics' other narrators, the Vault-Keeper from The Vault of Horror and the Old Witch from The Haunt of Fear.
  • Due to the in-story disappearance of central character Linkara, Atop the Fourth Wall featured either his then-girlfriend Iron Liz or several of his recurring characters (all played by Linkara himself) guest hosting his Video Review Show.
    • This would later happen with TV Trash as well.
  • Saturday Night Live may have been initially planned to have a permanent host (there are references to Albert Brooks refusing the position), but started out in 1975 with different guest hosts each week. Thirty-eight years later, there still isn't a full-time host.
  • This came up a few times on The Larry Sanders Show. One time they couldn't find anyone to guest host, so they had to settle for Hank hosting solo. It didn't go well.
  • When Punk'd was brought back in 2012, instead of having The Host with Ashton Kutcher, it was a host for each episode.
  • Random Assault: Many guests; you can count em on both hands.
  • Dancing with the Stars:
    • Tom Bergeron was absent in one episode in Season 21 to be with his deathly ill father, so Season 19 champ Alfonso Ribeiro filled in as host.
    • The episodes during the fall seasons in which co-host Erin Andrews missed due to field reporting duties at the World Series had former Season 17 contestant Leah Remini fill her spot. Andrews was also absent for one Season 23 episode due to a family tragedy so former DWTS pro-dancer Kym Johnson Herjavec took her place.
  • Leo (Noel MacNeal) from The Good Night Show, who was on in 2006 during auditions for new hosts.
  • Nina from The Good Night Show often guest hosted The Sunny Side Up Show between 2007 and 2011. Milton Barnes (as Miles from The Lets Go Show) and Elizabeth Balzano were also guest hosts around the same time.

    Parodies 
  • Parodied by The Onion in their video sketches, where Clifford Banes has never appeared as host of In the Know with Clifford Banes due to an increasingly unlikely series of circumstances...unless you count the time one of his guest hosts claimed to be Clifford in an incredibly lifelike mask.
  • Outside of a few episodes where the actual 'host' appeared (and failed) to get his gig back after recovering from his injuries from a tape shelf collapsing on him, Cheap Seats was permanently guest-hosted by 'tape library interns' Jason and Randy Sklar, and not smarmy ESPN host parody Ron Parker (the show's full name was Cheap Seats without Ron Parker).
  • Parodied in a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch where the regular female host of a female-oriented talk show (Woman To Woman, Maternity Matters) is unavailable, so the show's producer, a gruff, irascible, insensitive man named Roger Brush (Fred Armisen), fills in.
  • In the first episode of The Simpsons featuring the news, regular anchor Kent Brockman is on vacation and Scott Christian is filling in.
  • On the ALF two-parter "Tonight, Tonight", ALF guest hosts The Tonight Show for reasons that aren't made clear. He spends the show stealing Johnny Carson's best bits (the page image is ALF playing "Melmac the Magnificent") and playing clips of his own show, leaving no time for his guests, including the Pope.

    In-universe 

Literature

  • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Zacharias Smith takes over from Lee Jordan as the commentator for the Hogwarts Quidditch matches. However, since Zacharias also plays on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, Luna Lovegood instead commentates in Hufflepuff's match with Gryffindor. Her commentary is an Epic Fail, as she barely talks about the happenings of the match, and on the few occasions when she does, she makes basic mistakes (like getting players' names wrong).

Visual Novels

  • For the recap at the beginning of one chapter of Double Homework, Henry does the recap because Johanna and Tamara are “unavailable.”


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