Celebrity Edition: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

* It may be a [[Ratings Stunt]], typically done during the months of November, February, and May when commercial rates are determined (and, in May, the television season generally ends).

 

'''Note To Producers:''' If your game is typically played by civilians, do ''not'' switch to "All celebrities, all the time!" It doesn't matter if you're a veteran or a newbie, because your show ''will'' die within a year...at most. To be more blunt, '''''it has never worked.'''''

 

== Game Shows ==

* In general, most Japanese games use Japanese celebrities due to TV prize laws [[Game Show Winnings Cap|limiting civilian prizes to 2 million JPY (about US$20,000) total.]]

* The Australian ''[[Deal or No Deal]]'' had this with celebrities from ''[[Dancing With the Stars]]''.

* Inverted with ''[[Definition]]'', as the teams were originally celebrity-civilian and switched to civilians-only on December 16, 1985.

* Subverted by ''[[Distraction]]'', which used former ''[[Big Brother]]'' contestants.

* ''[[Don't Forget the Lyrics]]''

* ''[[Family Feud]]'' had several of these over its various incarnations, but of particular note is the "almost celebrity" editions which had teams of celebrity lookalikes playing each other. Oddly enough, they still had to donate their winnings to charity, even though they weren't actually celebrities.

** The British version, ''Family Fortunes'', currently only runs as a celebrity version somewhat oxymoronically titled ''All-Star Family Fortunes'', despite only two (usually) out of the ten contestants actually being stars...and even then, the "stars" are usually nothing more than average soap actors.

* ''[[Hot Potato (TV series)|Hot Potato]]'', in what is probably the best example of how it can go very, very wrong. Having aired at Noon for its first thirteen weeks, the show ousted its unique three-of-a-kind contestant teams ("...and WE'RE telegram singers!~") on April 23, 1984 in favor of solo players being paired with two celebrity teammates. The trouble with this was that the celebrities were usually comic actors or comedians who took their wisecracks more seriously than they did the game. The show was canned ten weeks later.

* ''Celebrity [[Jeopardy!]]'' Andy Richter once talked about his appearance with [[Conan O'Brien]].

'''Andy''': Oh... I thought it was (''laughing'') because we're celebrities. We're the little dumb show ponies. }}

** That said, [http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3141 Andy's appearance] is a [[Moment of Awesome]] — his score of $68,000 is the '''third-highest one-day score in the show's history'''. That can't all have been due to easy material...although Wolf Blitzer's [[Epic Fail]] in the same match didn't hurt.

* ''[[The Weakest Link]]'' has had a few of these in (at least) both the UK and US versions.

** The Hip-Hop episode of the NBC run — Young MC shamelessly flirting with Anne, Nate Dogg laying waste to geography questions and mocking Da Brat at every turn, Reverend Run's [[Nice Hat]]...what more do you need?

** The WWE-themed episode in the US, which was hilarious because almost everyone remained completely in character for the entire show, leading to such brilliant moments as HHH refusing to vote out Stephanie who was at the time (in the strictest sense) his boss (as well as his wife) and the Big Show towering over Ann when he was eliminated.

* During the 1990s, ''[[Wheel of Fortune]]'' played this straight. In the 2000s, they occasionally tried a variant, where each team consisted of a celebrity ''and'' a contestant; the game was played normally, with the contestant earning cash and trips as usual, while the celebrity had an identical amount donated to a charity. These have not happened since 2007.

* The original ''[[Concentration]]'' had an annual Christmas episode where two celebrities, both dressed as Santa, would match dollar amounts for charity.

 

* The ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' version of ''Celebrity [[Jeopardy!]]'', where the celebs were [[Too Dumb to Live]] or downright sadistic towards Alex Trebek (played by Will Ferrell). The categories were hilarious easy stuff like "Automatic Points", "How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?", "[[Barack Obama|Current Black Presidents]]", and "Colors That End In -Urple"...but that didn't stop the celebs from racking up insane halftime totals of -$50,000. Recurring characters besides Trebek included [[Cloudcuckoolander]] Burt Reynolds (played by Norm MacDonald) and Trebek's sadistic arch-nemesis Sean Connery (played by Darryl Hammond).

* And a brilliant performance of Jeff Goldblum by David Duchovny.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Reality TV Tropes]]

[[Category:Game Show Tropes]]