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The Points Mean Nothing (view source)

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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"It's just occurred to me that Samantha hasn't given us the score. Since 1981."''|'''Humphrey Lyttelton''', ''[[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio)|I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue]]'' (1997)}}
 
The [[Panel Show]] format has been around for a long time - it's cheap to make and easy to film. But when it's aimed towards being funny or entertaining, the points cease to matter. What may have started as a quite a serious point system falls to the wayside, or maybe [[They Just Didn't Care]] about points in the first place but liked the format. Add to this gracious editing which removes answers to questions or entire questions, and the viewer will have a hard time figuring out how that team is winning when they haven't answered a single question yet.
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== Anime ==
* In the opening episode of ''[[Baccano (Light Novel)|Baccano]]'', [[Cool Old Guy|Gustav]] and [[The Watson|Carol]] are [[As You Know|discussing the immortals]]. Gustav awards Carol arbitrary points for her observations. These points have no meaning in the rest of the story, nor do they come up again when the two make a later appearance.
 
 
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== Live Action TV ==
* "Welcome to ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway? (TV)|Whose Line Is It Anyway]]'', the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter! That's right, the points are like [[Porn Without Plot|the plot of a porn movie]], they don't matter!" The phrase was used in the U.S. version by Drew Carey, to highlight American audiences being unused to [[Panel Game|Panel Games]]. The same principle applied to the Clive Anderson-hosted British seasons, but at least it could be demonstrated that Clive was, in fact, awarding points (and deducting them for references to baldness). Drew Carey himself didn't seem to keep track of the points he was awarding; eventually, he just defaulted to saying "a thousand points to everyone" after every game, and later they only seemed to come up when Drew was using that tag-line.
** The score recap the only time Drew did one: Wayne: Who knows, Brad: Who Cares, Colin: I forgot, [[Butt Monkey|Ryan: -73]]
** Averted on one occasion where the points actually ''did'' matter.
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** In yet another episode, Drew simply brought in a ''tape recorder'' of himself saying "One thousand points!" Wayne stole it during a commercial break and overwrote the tape with himself chanting "My ass... my ass... my ass..."
** "You don't get points for this round instead you get the new mega-points. They are 25% bigger and worth 50% less".
** "One billion points to Colin. You hear that, [[Take That|Regis Philbin]]? [[Who Wants to Be Aa Millionaire?|One billion points.]]"
* ''[[Have I Got News for You]]'': This is a particularly bad (read frequent) offender: because of the amount of editing involved, the teams will end up with points without you seeing them answer the questions. Nobody cares about winning, but occasionally Paul will mention winning 26 of the series against Ian's 3. He has mentioned on commentaries being more competitive than Ian, even jumping in with an answer Ian was about to give (during Ian's team's turn) and getting the points, but the lack of clarity on the points hardly matters so long as its entertaining.
{{quote| '''Angus Deayton''': Good evening and welcome to the programme attacked this week by one viewer who wrote to complain about the random way the points are allocated, on the grounds that "the level of money wagered on the outcome of this show increases week on week". So our apologies to Mr. Joseph Wall of Newark, and one point to Ian. }}
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*** QI has even had a couple of moments when the audience have ''lost'' points.
* Aussie show ''[[Rock Wiz]]'' shows the current score at the end of each round, but points are awarded quite arbitarily, and this is often lampshaded by Julia Zemiro when one of the players complains about not getting points/the other team getting more points.
* Technically, the points ''do'' mean something on ''[[Around the Horn (TV)|Around the Horn]]''...but they're completely prone to being randomly manipulated by the host in order to modify the outcome.
* ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look|That's Numberwang!]]''
* [[Lampshaded]] in [[Charlie Brooker]]'s ''[[You Have Been Watching]]'' after Frank Skinner had won the episode by a large margin he title dropped this trope, leading Frank to get quite upset.
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** He also once handed out points to both teams after one contestant chased a member of the opposing team ''into and through the audience''.
* The apparently Canadian comedy show ''Kenny vs. Spenny'' constantly features competitions between the two fellows, but the whole idea of the show is how Kenny always rigs the competitions some way. In the odd episode Spenny wins, it's usually because the joke's still on him, e.g. {{spoiler|he races Canada's tallest stairs up by himself while Kenny takes the elevator.}}
* [[ChappellesChappelle's Show|Dave Chappelle]] held a quiz segment called "I Know Black People", selecting non-actors and genuinely testing them on whether they did 'know black people'. The points didn't matter for most questions, as some question gave points for any answer, and some where:
{{quote| '''Chappelle:''' ''"'I don't know' is an acceptable answer! Even black people don't know that shit."'' }}
* ''[[Would I Lie to You]]'' generally averts this as the points are awarded on a very simple and straightforward basis, although not all of the questions make it through to the edit so sometimes it seems like a team is on top yet loses because the points the opposing team scored were cut. Both team captains (particularly Lee Mack) are quite competitive about the scores and who has won which series (in a series 5 episode, David Mitchell defied the trope by saying he did feel a genuine sense of competition about the game).
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== New Media ==
* Ever notice how some TV Tropes page descriptions include "[[Bonus Points]]" and "double points"?
** Well, it's not [[All Thethe Tropes Wiki Drinking Game|completely pointless]]...
*** Bonus points to you, sir.
**** ...[[You Just Had to Say It|egregious]].
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== Radio ==
* Mocked by ''[[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio)|I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue]]'', where the scorekeeper, the lovely and [[Village Bicycle|possibly sex-mad]] Samantha, is introduced at the beginning of each episode with more fanfare than the contestants -- and then the score is never mentioned again. This is perhaps not a surprise, given that Samantha [[The Voiceless|doesn't exist]]. Shame.
** [[Lampshaded]] in one of the episode in 1997, where Humph, the chairman, closes one round with "It's just occurred to me that Samantha hasn't given us the score... since 1981."
** And yet, Humph frequently reminds the teams and the audience that "Points Mean Prizes!" Though we never hear anything more about the prizes either...
** Humph was actually using one of [[Bruce Forsyth]]'s catch-phrases. He called out, "And what do points mean?", to which [[Phrase Catcher|the audience shouted back]] "PRIZES!". Humph was then usually heard muttering something like "Pathetic". ("Now go and invade Czechoslovakia.")
** In earlier episodes, Humph would award points, but they never made sense and were never added up to a total. ("Right, well, it's level-pegging. We move on to...") Sometimes, he'd hand out points for grovelling, sometimes for ''not'' grovelling, points would routinely be reversed if someone on the leading team made an exceptionally lame joke...strangely enough, he stopped giving out points around the same time Samantha was introduced into the show.
* You might expect ''[[Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me (Radio)!|Wait Wait Don't Tell Me]]'' to be like this, but it actually keeps a fairly rigid scoring system. Subverted in that the prize is essentially bragging rights for the panelist. What does matter is how callers do--they get announcer Carl Kassel to record a message on their answering machine.
 
 
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Portal 2 (Video Game)|Portal 2]]'' coop, the Science Collaboration (and Opportunity Advisement) Points Mean Nothing.
* [[Strong BadsBad's Cool Game for Attractive People (Video Game)|Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People]] features Strong Bad awarding you points for how well you make a [[Teen Girl Squad (Web Animation)|Teen Girl Squad]] comic. Really, they're just Strong Bad making stuff up, and sometimes go into the negatives.
* While hardly classifiably as a game, [[Plumbers Don't Wear Ties]] has the narrator giving you a score after certain scenes. To rub salt in the wounds, the highest you can possibly get is in the ''negative six figures''.
 
 
== Web Original ==
* [[Philthon Jones|Caught Chatting]] - amounts of points have included "Jones", "sine minus one ninety", and "[[Homestar Runner (Web Animation)|Homestar Runner]]".
 
{{reflist}}
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