Times where someone insists "The Show Must Go On!" regardless of setbacks in Live-Action TV series.
- In the pilot of 30 Rock, a TGS sketch went south while Liz was away meeting with Tracy. When they arrived in the middle of the fiasco, Liz told him to go onstage and talk about "anything", which he did.
- The Brittas Empire: In the episode "Mums and Dads", the pianoist that had been meant to play has been knocked unconscious by a piano and they need to find another one in the next half hour to start the concert planned that night. Unfortunately, a poor choice of words by Laura leads Brittas to play the piano instead. Cue Cringe Comedy.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sunnydale High School holds a talent show...while a horrible demon looks for organs to become fully human. The curtain happens to open just after the demon is decapitated by a guillotine while the main characters are all gathered 'round. The crowd is dead silent...Principal Snyder: I don't get it. What is it, Avant Garde?
- Concentration was originally live on NBC, so whenever the board malfunctioned, the host had to do something to stall for time. Norm Blumenthal, the producer even said that if a light blew, a tech would appear on camera with a ladder and repair it with no stoppage of tape (when the show went to tape) and he'd pop for the tech's appearance.
- The British soap Crossroads. Someone flub a line in dialogue? Did the other person flub a line right back? Did a piece of the ceiling fall down during a scene? Is that a boom microphone two inches from Sue Hanson's hair? There's no time for editing!
- The Daily Show:
- In a June 2011 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Jon Stewart accidentally cut his hand during a sketch
(though not badly). - Jon's successor, Trevor Noah, has shown similar dedication on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. On November 4, 2015, he had to undergo an emergency appendectomy, so there was no show that day. But the very next day, November 5, he was back on air, even though he'd been given as much time as he wanted to recover from Comedy Central. Trevor started that show mocking the American healthcare system.
- In a June 2011 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Jon Stewart accidentally cut his hand during a sketch
- The entire show Dark Shadows. What is that lurking in the dark shadows of Collinwood manor? Is it a ghost? A vampire? or is it just the sound man again?
- British television channel ITV Play went on with the premiere of its topical phone-in quiz show The Debbie King Show, even though it was announced earlier in the day that the channel would be "suspended" (in reality, it was shut down permanently) as part of an audit over the broadcaster's use of premium-rate phone lines. It ended up becoming a One-Episode Wonder.
- Due to budget and time constraints, the Classic era of Doctor Who is riddled with this, with individual mishaps ranging from William Hartnell flubbing his lines to Tom Baker breaking his shoulder to Sylvester McCoy burning his back while walking away from an explosion.
- Re-takes in the 1960s were extremely rare. William Hartnell's advice to his co-stars was to swear if they wanted to force the director to start again. Which likely explains the existence of rather foul-mouthed bloopers involving some of his successors.
- In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Eurovision Song Contest to cancel for the first time since its inception in 1956. The producers were determined that the show would not miss another year even if it meant having everyone perform remotely for safety. For the 2021 contest the EBU settled on "Scenario B", a near-perfect final with most of the contestants performing livenote and a reduced audience in the arena. Their efforts paid off with many fans declaring the resulting final one of the best in the Contest's history.
- Family Feud host Richard Dawson said in an interview that he absolutely hated stopdowns, and would demand that the staff work around anything that they possibly could. This led to such oddities as the Fast Money round being played on cue cards because the electronic board went on the fritz.
- Frasier:
- "Ham Radio", regarded as one of the funniest episodes, is all about this trope. Frasier tries to do a live radio drama, and his tyrannical direction leaves him with a cast of Bulldog, stricken with stage fright; Roz, who has an emergency root canal just before the performance; Gil, who is determined by hook or by crook to say his character's big speech when Frasier decides to cut it; Bulldog's dyslexic girlfriend; and Niles as the rest of the characters, which Frasier neglects to tell him until the show has already started. Add in some rather unfortunate sound effects and you've got one whopping Funny Moment.
- In the episode 'The Show Must Go On', after various attempts by Frasier and Niles to stop the show because Jackson's a terrible actor, Jackson Headley does his one-man show even after falling hard and possibly breaking something.
- In Glee, during the sectionals, they find that someone leaked their setlist and that the other two teams, who were performing before them, had copied their songs. They realised that if they went with that setlist they'd be accused of cheating, so they end up having to pick, practice and choreograph four new songs in an hour. Of course, they still win.
- The Golden Girls had a minor example in an episode where they hold a telethon. (It's the one with Bob Hope.) One of the auditioning acts is a pair of Polish brothers who juggle. However, only one shows up and says that his brother is still in Poland. After some encouragement, he performs anyway. Unfortunately, part of his act involves throwing the pins to his brother and they hit the wall instead. By the time of the telethon, his brother still hasn't gotten out of Poland, but he tries to perform anyway. He gets booed off the stage.
- Have I Got News for You has had a few examples over the years:
- Politician Roy Hattersley pulled out of a 1993 episode at the last minute. There was no time to find a replacement, and as it was the third time he had cancelled on the show late in the day, they replaced him with a tub of lard, making jokes about how the tub shared many qualities with Hattersley and was "liable to give much the same performance".
- Regular team captain Ian Hislop was suffering from appendicitis during the spring 1994 series, and checked himself out of hospital to film one episode because he was determined not to miss a recording. (He had to return to hospital the moment the recording was over for an intravenous injection followed by surgery.) He is noticeably more short-tempered than usual throughout the episode in question, at one point launching into a long rant about how horrible everyone involved in a story about a politician having affairs with a married woman and both of her daughters was, which was only stopped when the host pointed out that nobody had actually given the answer yet.
- Elton John was due to appear in a 2001 episode, but pulled out at the last minute. With the show having received quite a bit of publicity from the news of John's appearance, he was replaced by Ray Johnson, a taxi driver who had a side earning as an Elton John lookalike and was introduced to the audience as if he really was Elton John. Johnson remained silent for the entire episode, and the only time the deception was admitted to was in onscreen captions between rounds, which praised Johnson whilst repeatedly referring to the real Elton John as a "bastard".
- Following multiple scandals about his private life, host Angus Deayton was sacked midway through a series, the day before the next episode was due to be recorded. The other team captain, Paul Merton, hosted the first episode following his dismissal, with the series then switching to Guest Hosts. It was intended to be a temporary measure whilst they sought a permanent replacement, but it led to a boost in ratings and became a permanent element of the show.
- The Spring 2020 series still went ahead despite the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, by having all the panellists filmed from their homes and composited into a virtual set.
- A Jeopardy! contestant once fainted during Final Jeopardy! Because stopping tape might have affected the outcome of the game, the contestant was roused and asked to write down his response. The entire incident was left in. This did not end up affecting the outcome, as another contestant already had a "lock" game and gave the correct response.
- The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: In "Midnight at the Concord," Midge gets a gig booked at the Concord Resort Hotel. Midway through her gig, she's thrown off-guard by spotting her father in the audience. After a few moments of freezing up, Deer in the Headlights, she pulls herself together enough to power through the rest of her set.
- In The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the station pledges to do an all-nighter live broadcast about the mayoral election until the decision is made. Unfortunately, a blizzard cuts off their connection to the voting booths after the first set of numbers come in, leaving everyone to flounder desperately for something to do until they can somehow get word of who won. The best part comes when Ted completely runs out of ideas and just stands in the studio, doing and saying nothing. "I don't believe I've ever seen that before."
- Match Game on CBS had an incident where Joyce Bulifant's microphone stand broke. Instead of stopping tape to repair it, host Gene Rayburn called for a screwdriver as he repaired it right then and there.
- In the school play episode of Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Ned and Cookie attempt to sabotage the school production of Romeo and Juliet for different reasons: Ned doesn't want Seth (who's playing Romeo) kissing Susie (who's playing Juliet) despite being told that it's not a real kiss, while Cookie thinks he deserves to play the roll of Romeo despite bombing the audition. In the end, the boys end up destroying the set and Seth and Susie end up going to the hospital. As an act of revenge, Moze (who is acting as stage manager) forces Ned to be Romeo and Cookie to be Juliet. The audience roars with laughter as the boys are forced to do the kiss scene.
- In the second season of Only Murders in the Building. The show didn't go on because in Episode One the main actor dropped dead on stage. Temporarily. He later died of being murdered and this, of course, affected the entire reboot attempt.
- In the Parks and Recreation episode "Telethon", Detlef Schrempf was supposed to appear on a diabetes telethon, but he and Tom ended up getting sidetracked at a bar. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang had to come up with alternative forms of entertainment, which included Leslie performing a riveting game of flip the coin:Leslie: Heads. Oh boy, what is going to happen next?! (33 heads to 35 tails, later 95 heads to 94 tails)
- In the Australian series Police Rescue, a theatre group convinces the Police Rescue Squad to quietly retrieve an injured backstage crewmember on the lighting catwalk. The crewmember is also hiding the extent of his injuries. They have a reason for this, as a theatre critic is watching and they're worried if his review of their play is too harsh, the government will cancel their upcoming funding.
- The Price Is Right:
- A 1988 episode was taped during a major storm in Los Angeles, so nearly 2/3 of the audience was empty. The cameramen did their best to show only the middle portion of the audience and give the impression that the studio was still full.
- The February 16, 1998 episode had one contestant, Scott, accidentally trip while walking onstage. But after losing his pricing game, he jumped in disappointment only to sprain his knee and couldn't stand up. During the Showcase Showdown, Scott sat in a swivel chair while Bob Barker spun the big wheel for him (Scott would win the Showdown), and during the Showcase, Scott sat in a taller chair.
- A later episode with Drew Carey had a contestant who injured her leg during the Showcase Showdown. During the Showcase, she was given a chair to sit in. She didn't win, but Drew not only stayed with her post-reveal, he also made sure a doctor was called to tend to her injury.
- On the original show with Bill Cullen, the tote screens in front of the contestants would go crazy sometimes, showing some weird displays. Sometimes the tote screens would be out of order altogether so the models would write the contestants' bids on giant sketch pads behind them. Frozen bids were circled.
- In the sixth episode of Saturday Night Live's second season, Buck Henry and John Belushi were doing a sketch entitled "Samurai Stockbroker." Belushi's samurai sword was not a blunt prop but rather was an authentically sharp weapon. Henry was standing too close to Belushi when the latter was slashing at a wall, and Henry's forehead was opened up to the bone. Rather than stop the show, Henry stayed in character and finished the sketch, and later appeared in the show with a bandage over the wound.
- In fact, the entire cast wore bandaids on their foreheads for the rest of the show.
- Schloss Einstein:
- One story arc had the sixth-graders putting on a production of Die Räuber. The kid who's playing Karl gets sick right before the performance, which leads to the brainstorming of increasingly ridiculous ideas to save the play (the replacement Karl has no time to learn the lines, so they try pinning a copy of the script to another kid's back, for instance). They finally realise that Lilly, the prompter, knows the entire text by heart, so she goes on as Karl and saves the play in spite of her incredible shyness.
- This was also subverted in a later episode. We don't get to see it, but apparently a similar thing happened at Liz and Annika's old school:Feli: What's this [picture]?
Liz: A theatre performance. I was the circus princess.
Feli: And Annika?
Liz: The prompter. The clown had broken his leg. Annika was the only one who knew all his lines by heart.
Feli: So she took on the role and saved the performance!
Liz: (shakes head) She totally panicked. She actually got sick!
- Jim Henson had an American Bullfrog urinate on him during a Sesame Street lecture. Jim was not unseated; he was controlling Kermit the Frog at the time, and only lost enough control of Kermit to make him snicker. Kermit said that the frog had "told a funny joke."
- The 1990 revival of To Tell the Truth got hit hard with this. First, NBC accidentally aired the pilot, which was hosted by Richard Kline, on the East Coast instead of the true first episode. The show went to series with Gordon Elliott as host, but he got fired over a salary dispute, so Lynn Swann moved from the celebrity panel to the host's seat. However, Swann often had schedule conflicts, so he quit and Alex Trebek of Jeopardy! fame took over. Trebek then had to miss two episodes because his wife went into labor, so show creator Mark Goodson guest-hosted.
- Subverted by Wheel of Fortune on November 28, 2012. In previous cases, if a contestant spun the Wheel just as the Speed-Up bells sounded, they were allowed to complete their turn. In this case, a contestant began the round in this fashion, only to be interrupted by a 10-minute stopdown so that the Wheel can be reset for Pat to do the Final Spin.
- Whose Line Is It Anyway? of course typically plays through any missteps but the show also has a game built on this trope where the players are in a theater production and all but one of them (typically Colin) have dropped dead leaving the one living player desperately trying to continue the show dragging around the corpses of the other players.
- On the American edition, during a game of "Party Quirks", Ryan Stiles' character was "Carol Channing whose head keeps getting stuck to things". Towards the end of the game, Ryan rushed towards Drew Carey's desk, but accidentally headbutted the neon sign, shattering the glass. Drew tried to stop the game, but Ryan insisted Kathy Greenwood, who was playing party host, still try to guess who he was before ending the game.Ryan: You wouldn't happen to have a suture around the house, would you?
Kathy: Carol? It is Carol, right?
Ryan: I used to be, I don't remember anymore.
- On the American edition, during a game of "Party Quirks", Ryan Stiles' character was "Carol Channing whose head keeps getting stuck to things". Towards the end of the game, Ryan rushed towards Drew Carey's desk, but accidentally headbutted the neon sign, shattering the glass. Drew tried to stop the game, but Ryan insisted Kathy Greenwood, who was playing party host, still try to guess who he was before ending the game.
