Memetic Mutation/Live-Action TV/Game Shows

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Memes on the Game Show front:

Please add entries in the following format:

  • The name of the show.
    • Meme name: description of meme and how it's used.
      • Source of meme and fandom it relates to in the form of a hot tip.
      • Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
  1. ↑ Karn's Large Ham explanation of the Double round, where the value of each survey answer is doubled. He did the same thing with "triple the points" in the Triple round.
  2. ↑ Also from Karn; his way of saying which family will score the points first.
  3. ↑ Usually said by the other members of the family, no matter how far off-base the answer is. Some families even seem to say it ironically because they know the answer can't possibly be up there.
  4. ↑ Catch Phrase heard in every version of Feud, when asking how many points an answer scored in the Fast Money Bonus Round. May be used in conversation when "revealing" the answer to a question.
  5. ↑ Shortly after Steve Harvey became host, the show's YouTube channel began posting clips. Among them was a man who gave this as a response to "Name something a burglar would not want to see when he breaks into a house" — it lit up as "Gun/Occupant" for 33 points. Now, nearly every video on Family Feud's channel has someone offering "nekkid grandma" as an answer in the comments.
  6. ↑ What Louie Anderson would say after just about EVERY answer given in the main game.
  7. ↑ From the 1990 revival of Tic-Tac-Dough, a couple choice quotes from host Patrick Wayne, another Large Ham of a host whose name often crops up when bad game show hosts are mentioned. The latter is from the run's Divorced Couples Week.
  8. ↑ From the 1985-86 season of the same show; when Jim Caldwell took over from Wink Martindale as host, Caldwell became obsessed with the red box Bonus Spaces.
  9. ↑ The mantra of many a contestant on Second Chance, Press Your Luck, and Whammy! — hitting a Devil/Whammy on the game board wiped out one's score.
  10. ↑ Often considered the least desirable prize on the board, an opinion even mentioned within the show itself.
  11. ↑ Message board posters would come up with similar titles for hypothetical revivals, such as Dragon! The All New Tic-Tac-Dough.
  12. ↑ Early meme dating from the newsgroup alt.tv.game-shows, referring to the quiz show scandals of the late 1950s. While Twenty One was a big offender, this also applied to Tic-Tac-Dough, The $64,000 Question, and the smoking gun itself — Dotto.
  13. ↑ Title Scream at the top of each show since 1983.
  14. ↑ A popular way of saying that a piece of game show news is old. The reference is to former Wheel of Fortune host Chuck Woolery, who left on Christmas Day 1981.
  15. ↑ A humorous missolve from 1999 that has shown up in countless blooper specials. The actual answer was A GROUP OF WELL-WISHERS.
  16. ↑ Pat's reaction to the above.
  17. ↑ Catch Phrase from contestants. Another is "I'd like to solve the puzzle."
  18. ↑ Chuck Woolery's rundown of the show's rules from the earliest days. He even recited this in full on an April Fools' Day episode of Scrabble.
  19. ↑ In the early days of the Bonus Round, contestants were asked for five consonants and a vowel to help solve the bonus puzzle. RSTLN are the most common consonants in the English language, and E is the most common vowel. This achieved Ascended Meme status so that contestants are now given those letters, in that order, and then asked for three more consonants and another vowel.
  20. ↑ An Prize Letdown when the show still had contestants shop for prizes after each round. Very few contestants wanted it at first, but by March 1987 it became famous enough that some deliberately bought it. Although the shopping was removed in the late 1980s, it has been referenced in several game show parodies, and repeatedly by the show itself. His name is Sheldon, by the way.
  21. ↑ Refers to a Troll on the newsgroup alt.tv.game-shows, who would make nonsensical posts asking how "hat putato" was played.
  22. ↑ Another recurring troll post on the same newsgroup.
  23. ↑ Catch Phrase from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to ensure that the contestant is actually going for the answer s/he has said.
  24. ↑ One of the Lifelines available to contestants to aid in picking the right answer. This Lifeline was eliminated in some versions after too many Phone-A-Friends began Googling the answer.
  25. ↑ In reference to a "50 Greatest Game Shows" poll conducted by GSN. This was one fan's reaction to the fact that Studs ended up on the aired list, as it wasn't a long-running or well-remembered series.
  26. ↑ Title Scream at the top of the show.
  27. ↑ Reference to the format of Jeopardy!, which inverts the typical question-and-answer format of quiz shows.
  28. ↑ On an episode of Cheers ("What Is... Cliff Clavin?"), Know-Nothing Know-It-All postman Cliff Clavin appeared on Jeopardy! and had a runaway lead. He lost after wagering all of his winnings on the Final Jeopardy! clue and writing that as his response. Jeopardy! has made this episode into an Ascended Meme of sorts, as "Person As Verb Pulling A Clavin" is now the term for an all-in Final Jeopardy! wager from a runaway lead.
  29. ↑ During a special set of episodes in February 2011, a computer named Watson competed against former contestants Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Despite amassing a runaway lead, Watson was stumped by Final Jeopardy! and guessed Toronto. Since then, this has become the successor to "never been in my kitchen" for contestants who are stumped in Final Jeopardy!
  30. ↑ Common method of requesting the next clue to be revealed.
  31. ↑ What "Keanu Reaves" bid in a Saturday Night Live SNL Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch. This "number" is often used among game show fans to spoof the trend towards very high payouts.
  32. ↑ Jack Barry's over-dramatic read of the giant slot machine on The Joker's Wild.
  33. ↑ A rarely used tactic; anyone with one or two Jokers showing could go "off the board" and ask for a category not shown on the slot machine.
  34. ↑ The origin of "for the win", originally said by many contestants on the celebrity tic-tac-toe game when three-in-a-row was imminent.
  35. ↑ From a 1999 episode where Gilbert Gottfried was the only star left on the board, but the contestants kept whiffing the increasingly easy questions and falling for Gottfried's obvious bluffs. Every time they whiffed, he would scream "YOU FOOL!"
  36. ↑ Whispered by The Announcer in most versions of the word-association game.
  37. ↑ Title Dropping question asked by any host of the show, when asking if the contestant wants to take the Banker's deal or keep eliminating suitcases or boxes in hopes of finding one with the top money prize in it.
  38. ↑ In reference to the Panel Game where a celebrity panel would ask yes-or-no questions in attempt to determine a contestant's job. "Bigger than a breadbox" existed well before that, but the show helped popularize it thanks to Steve Allen.
  39. ↑ Double Entendre letter request from the British version of Blockbusters, which involves a board full of letters — each answer begins with the letter selected. "P" of course refers to "taking a pee"; "U" as in "I'll have you" and "E" was a common slang for the drug Ecstasy.
  40. ↑ Catch Phrase on Hole In The Wall, where contestants must contort their bodies to fit through holes made in an Advancing Wall of Doom.
  41. ↑ From the game show Quicksilver, and used as an expression of surprise; impressive as the show was cancelled decades ago.
  42. ↑ Spoken by the host of the show in question, when the "weakest link" player has been voted off by the others.
  43. ↑ From a game show parody sketch on That Mitchell and Webb Look called "Numberwang", the premise being a complete Non Sequitur number-guessing game. References to Numberwang have bled over into the game show fandom, to the point that many consider it an overused meme.
  44. ↑ From The Dating Game, in which a bachelorette inquires three mystery bachelors before deciding which one she wants to date.
  45. ↑ A notorious 1978 question from the show that asked prying questions of four sets of newlyweds; one wife answered "in the ass". For years, it was believed that this question and answer were Urban Legends as host Bob Eubanks denied that it ever happened, until footage of the actual question and answer surfaced.
  46. ↑ Although the "X was so Y..." "How Y was X?" construct originated with Johnny Carson, Match Game help popularize it whenever the show had a question about "Dumb Dora" or any other personality made up for the show's humorous fill-in-the-blank questions. The "How Y was X?" portion was usually asked by both the celebrity panel and audience, and host Gene Rayburn would typically rate their performance (e.g., "You blew it").
  47. ↑ Host Gene Rayburn's Catch Phrase when asking for the top answer to be revealed in the Audience Match portion of the Bonus Round, where a contestant has to try and pick the top answer given by an audience in response to a fill-in-the-blank question.
  48. ↑ The name Match Game used whenever the sentence to complete involved an old person. Gene Rayburn would usually do an old man voice for him.
  49. ↑ From the kids' show Legends of the Hidden Temple, the end of the Rules Spiel given by "Olmec", an animatronic stone head voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.
  50. ↑ Another recurring Large Ham statement from Olmec while describing the path through the temple.
  51. ↑ From the "Bid-a-Note" round of Name That Tune, where contestants bid on how many notes they need to identify the song.
  52. ↑ Hugh Downs often said this on Concentration when a contestant's chosen numbers did not have the same prize behind them. David Letterman helped get this phrase here, as he says it occasionally when a joke falls flat.
  53. ↑ Said by Downs early in games when two matched squares reveal blank spaces on the puzzle side.
  54. ↑ Hugh says this after a contestant correctly solves the puzzle.
  55. ↑ Catch Phrase in reference to the a cappella group Rockapella, who provided the music for Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
  56. ↑ Reference to the three numbered doors on Let's Make a Deal, which may conceal a Zonk or a prize.
  57. ↑ Phrase used on University Challenge to indicate the next question is a basic, ten-point one.
  58. ↑ Phrase used by Dick Clark to start the Winner's Circle round on various incarnations of Pyramid.
  59. ↑ Dick Clark adding up the amount of money won in a Pyramid Winner's Circle round. Or words to that effect.
  60. ↑ What the host of Card Sharks will usually say prior to turning over the next card.
  61. ↑ What confident Card Sharks contestants will say when playing the Money Cards, the bonus game where you call high/low on the cards, but this time you bet money on each call. Aces or deuces, the little-to-no-fail cards in the deck, usually get the "all" bet.
  62. ↑ What the host of To Tell the Truth says to find out who's telling the truth and who the imposters are.
  63. ↑ Said by Whew! host Tom Kennedy to players before attempting the Gauntlet of Villains for $25,000.
  64. ↑ What a Charger on Whew would say when time was running out and s/he couldn't reach Level 6 in time. This forced a Sudden Death single-pick of three possible bloopers to decide the round.
  65. ↑ What the Gaunlet said to a Charger if their time ran out.
  66. ↑ Rod Roddy's famous line in place of the contestant plug on said show's Grand Finale.
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