Eurovision Song Contest/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: The reaction to Italy's surprising return to the contest in 2011, after a fourteen-year hiatus. That rejoicing might have contributed to their second place - and their landslide win in the jury vote - with a rather (by Eurovision standards) unusual song.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • ABBA and Celine Dion (although French Canadian, she performed for Switzerland) are the most successful entrants career-wise. Ireland hold the record for most wins (seven), most consecutive wins (three, and the year that run ended it was won by an Irishwoman competing for Norway, the following year Ireland won it officially once again, so if you felt like bending the rules you could say they won it five times in a row), and Irishman Johnny Logan has most wins for a single person (one for singing, one for writing, one for singing and writing).
    • 2010 saw a full-fledged meme: the rise of Moldova's Epic Sax Guy. The violinist is also quite popular.
    • And of course, Terry Wogan.
  • Fetish Fuel
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff - The show is quite popular in Australia.
  • I Liked It Better When It Sucked - The hilariously bad acts are often more enjoyable than the half-decent ones.
    • A joke that's often made in the Netherlands (and probably in other countries too) when the contestant of this year is revealed: 'I thought it was impossible, but true, they found a worse singer than last year. Why can't we just send a band like {decent dutch band)?' 'I think it's agianst the rules to send someone who can actually sing.'
  • Memetic Mutation: The "Epic Sax Guy" from the 2010 Moldova entry "Run Away" by Sun Stroke Project & Olia. They're all quite aware of this.
  • Narm
  • Padding - Many entries have lyrics that's just filler to help a song reach the required time limit.
    • Swedish Eurodance performer Markoolio recorded a song called "Värsta Schlagern". Its title translates to "The Worst Hit"; "schlager" is a term often used in Sweden to describe a certain style of popular music (in particular, a type of pop that Sweden always ends up sending to Eurovision.). And of course, it lampshades all the clichés. The third verse? Translated into English it goes: "Now it gets difficult to figure out/ something new to say, but so what?/ This is just padding/ which people will soon forget about." Turns out, he also tried to enter it into the Swedish selection competition Melodifestivalen with a different singer, but it was turned down for obvious reasons.
  • Snark Bait: For most people nowadays, especially the younger viewers. The British retrospective comedy Panel Game It's Only TV But I Like It included a round entitled "Let's All Laugh At Foreigners" where the teams were shown three embarrassingly bad Eurovision performances from across the years and had to guess which one got 'nul points'.
  • Tear Jerker: On the first viewing, you may be moved by Rona Nishliu's semi-final performance of "Suus" for Albania in 2012. However, watching it again after you find out about the horrible bus accident in Albania that happened the day before and after you find out that she dedicated her performance to the victims of the accident makes you realize that she's not visibly holding back tears just because of the mood of the song...
  • Took the Bad Film Seriously: Long after Western Europe stopped taking it seriously, the fall of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia led to a number of new countries seeing appearing in it as a serious mark of independence, a show of national pride, and even as an advert for tourism.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Again, Serbia's entries in 2007 and 2010.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: The famous Insieme(togeather) by Toto Cutugno; also known by it's chorus "Unite, unite Europe"; won the contest just as the last details were being completed for the forming of EU.