Inept Talent Show Contestant

A character or a collection of characters decide, ill-advisedly, to enter a song contest or talent show (in a Britcom, usually the Eurovision Song Contest or a ripoff thereof) despite the fact that Fred can't sing, Bill can't write songs and John can't play the ukelele. He, she, or they will either:


 * 1) Fail to win, in the most excruciating and humiliating way imaginable
 * 2) Appear to fail to win in the most excruciating and humiliating way imaginable, and then come in first place.

Live Action TV

 * Previously named for comedy The High Life, where the characters perform a song called "Pif Paf Pof".
 * Father Ted did this too, with "My Lovely Horse". Notably, done specifically to lose the contest for Ireland, which is tired of hosting.
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus: the winning entry from Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest is a nonsensical ditty called "Bing Tiddle Tiddle Bong".
 * In Scrubs, the Janitor told Elliot he was part of an a capella band, and that it was the best employee band in the hospital. This angered Ted's band who challenged him to a showdown. The result was that Elliot said they were both really good.
 * In the "Hype Pressure" episode of The Goodies, Graeme and Bill form a folk duo called 'the Twofolk'. They appear on Tim's cruel talent show 'New Faeces' and perform a hideous song called "The World Is Full Of Women and Men". Despite being booed by the audience, they are a hit with the supposedly unscrupulous panelists, who admire the song's naivety and purity. Tim's theatre of cruelty series is cancelled as a result.
 * Carol Burnette, as her "Eunice" character, has a spot on The Gong Show and is so convinced that her singing talent will be her ticket away from her family that she does a lot of bridge-burning before the show. Bad idea.
 * The entire premise of The Gong Show.

Web Original

 * Remember "Elektronik Supersonik", one of the Internet's first Viral Videos from the pre-YouTube era? What you might not know is that it was a tie-in with an entire Borat-esque mythos about the fictional Ruritanian nation of Molvanîa, and was, In Universe, the country's entry in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest. Or that they also made a follow-up entry in 2005, "I Am the Anti-Pope".

Western Animation

 * Also done in an episode of The Fairly Odd Parents, where Timmy's homemade, crappy film is recognized as a great comedy (though it wasn't intended as such).
 * In Family Guy, Peter and Lois formed a hippie-esque folk duo, A Handful of Peter, when they were younger and decide to revive it for a talent show. The problem being that that they get stoned out of their minds because they don't think they're creative without it. At the talent show they perform a song called "In God's Eyes We Are All Hot", but afterwards we learn that they lost, and we see that their actual performance was nothing but atonal screaming.
 * Ron Stoppable in Kim Possible's talent show episode showcases a lot of unusual if not low quality talents, especially compared to Bonnie's amazing ballet but somehow wins.
 * In the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode "Show Stoppers", the Cutie Mark Crusaders enter a talent show hoping to find their cutie marks. Their performance is a complete disaster (the set literally collapses around them). They end up winning first prize...for best comedy act.