History Main / Calvinball

* French comedians Kad & Olivier invented a game called "Kamoulox", a ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}''-like game show with a number of arcane and stupidly-named rules. The players basically [[WordSaladHumor give nonsensical answers to nonsensical questions]] ("I'm picking the reluctant Machiavellian houseplant"), they're judged by a referee (always named "John-Bob", regardless of gender) who penalizes them for infractions of the arcane rules, and the winner is the first to say "Kamoulox".

* ''Series/FetchWithRuffRuffman'': In the fourth season episode "Blossom Bawls While Ruff Has a Ball of Balls", Ruff is trying to market "Ruffball," a brand new game that's supposed to sweep the nation! Unfortunately, Ruffball is interest for only about six seconds. Sterling went to stadium to [[BaseballEpisode learn how to broadcast a baseball game on the radio]] while Talia and Liza went to meet with a physics teacher to learn how to make Ruffball a little more excited. To make it even more fun, Ruff sends Brian, Bethany, and Isaac after a "Half-Time Quiz Show" to join the others into playing a great game!

* ''ComicBook/XMen'' crossover ''ComicBook/XOfSwords'' is this. The contest of swords between Krakoa ad Arakko was originally presumed by the Champions and the readers alike to be a series of [[TournamentArc sword duels to the death]]. But the person in charge of the contest has their own interests in mind and so only a few of the contests even involve swords at all, with the others being racing, armwrestling, dancing, eating, drinking and even a ''jiggsaw puzzle''. Even then, the rules remain unpredictable: "a fight to the death" turns out to be "the first one to die wins" while a drinking game between two people on the same side means that they get a point no matter what but still feel the effect of the drinks during the next match.

* ''Anime/{{Nichijou}}'' brings us "Igo Soccer", a combination of [[UsefulNotes/TheBeautifulGame soccer]] and TabletopGame/{{Go}}. Daiku, the club's president, started an Igo Soccer club without even realizing that it was a real game. He can't make head or tail of the game itself when he sees it, other than that it involves striking very odd poses. Even his EmotionlessGirl partner Sekiguchi is left in open-mouthed shock and confusion.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewMrPeabodyAndShermanShow'' has the eponymous duo go back in time to watch what is supposed to be the first game of baseball, but the inventor Alexander Cartwright is such a poor sport, he keeps changing the rules on the fly to make sure he wins. Eventually, it gets so bad that the game bears no resemblance to baseball, and even Alexander agrees it's become a mess.

* ''Series/{{Bottom}}'' has Eddie's card game "One Card Slam", in which Eddie flips out a random card from the pack, slams it on the table, and demands twelve quid from Richie.

* In the French TV series ''Series/{{Kaamelott}}'', Perceval knows ''lots'' of unplayable games that he alone can understand and play. Some of them involve 14 dice and artichokes. King Arthur seems to know the twisted rules of the card game "countersyrup" as well:
-->"We need 14 dice to play that game. Anyway, we can play it with cards, that's not a problem. What matters is the announcements."

* In ''ComicBook/{{Lumberjanes}}'' #49, Molly, Barney, Hes, Diane and Jo are invited to play a game of Emily's making called Penterra, a "multi-tiered, world-building and conquest strategy game". It's ''definitely'' the complicated rules variation (it took twenty five minutes to explain), and it can only be described as Settlers Of Catan taken UpToEleven....thousand, out of a possible three. And it is '''awesome'''.

* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' features the card game known as sabacc. Its something like a bizarre fusion of poker and blackjack, played with a Tarot-like deck in which some of the "major arcana" cards have negative value. The twist is that cards will randomly change into ''other'' cards when not face-up on the table. And just like poker, there are hundreds of variants that can affect the cards' values, the order of play, or even which hand is a winner. In one book, Han and Lando play for ownership of the ''Falcon'' and decide on "Random Sabacc", a version where the rules themselves change at random intervals, refereed by C-3PO.

* An episode of ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' featured the game of [[{{Portmanteau}} Chardee Macdennis]]. The rule book is bigger than most phone books, and asking questions about the rules is penalized. Cheating is encouraged, but violators are made to eat a cake -- in its original components (''i.e.'' chunks of flour, eggs, salt, ''etc''). Challenges ranged from getting darts thrown at your hand to having insults hurled at you for extended periods of time. The winner gets to smash his opponents' game pieces.

** Dom-Jot
** Dabo

* In [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mhccZHO-d9c This]] ''Series/TheJamieKennedyExperiment'' clip.

-->'''Simon:''' They don't seem to be playing according to any civilized rules that I know.\\

** Joey auditions to be a host of a quiz show ''Bamboozled!'' which involves "Wicked Wango Cards" and "The Wheel of Mayhem". The executives realize it's too complicated for the audience to follow and threaten to can it:

* The Leary family in Anne Tyler's ''Literature/TheAccidentalTourist'' invented a card game called "Vaccination", which after decades of refinements has become so convoluted that no outsider could possibly learn how to play it. Except for Julian, who marries into the family; when he learns the rules, lead character Macon Leary is so impressed he withdraws his objection to Julian marrying his sister.

** “Thud” may, or may not qualify. It’s apparently somewhere between chess and mah-jong, and like chess in particular, a lot of people are familiar with parts of the game but few can actually play it correctly, much less win.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12050196/2/A-Day-in-the-Life A Day in the Life]]'', Ben finds a box of assorted trading cards, playing cards, tarot cards, game pieces, and other assorted game implements in [=DexLab=]'s lost and found. He brings it with him when he goes to visit Dexter, and an impromptu game of ad hoc Duel Monsters breaks out between the two boys.

* In the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'', Fiddler and the Bridgeburners will occasionally play a game akin to poker with the tarot-like Deck of Dragons, except they make up the rules as they go along. Because they are playing with a deck of cards used to represent their world's pantheon, the games end up being more than a little prophetic -- as well as disconcerting to onlookers, as the Deck is actually dangerous to use, and playing with it is paramount to blaspheming against the pantheon.

* [[Creator/PennAndTeller Penn Jillette]] has referred to ''Series/TheApprentice'' as a Calvinball, claiming that winning is entirely dependent on the whim of its host, Creator/DonaldTrump, especially where categories are entirely subjective anyway. Participants seem to accept that there are no rules.

* In the 2004 ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', the pilots are often seen playing a card game known on the original show as "Pyramid", referred to on the reboot as "Triad". The cards are six-sided with a variety of symbols and colors to designate suit and rank. The rules are not shown consistently and the actors more or less improvised them; fans have tried to put together a consistent ruleset, but it's been tough going.

* In ''Series/StargateAtlantis,'' Ronon introduces Sheppard to a "traditional Satedan sport" which is basically a sparring session where the rules change with every round. After picking himself off the floor a few times, Sheppard complains that Ronon is just inventing this as an excuse to kick his ass. He good-naturedly indulges Ronon though, possibly because he's used to it by now.

** "Fizzbin", which Kirk invented to [[WeNeedADistraction distract the guards]] and allow the crew to escape capture; it's basically poker with whichever rules Kirk feels like adding. Strangely, though, it may have picked up a codified ruleset, as Quark is shown playing a hand in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.

%% Image Pickin' thread did not produce a new image: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1599450170030583300

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Calvinball.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The score is still Q to 12!]]

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' had a B-plot with the adults all trying out a board game called "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Neurosis]]" that follows a long list of byzantine rules depending on the current state of the game, such as "Player One can only move counter-clockwise when all the other players are in the Penalty Zone." By the second or third time it cuts back to them, they're all bored and confused out of their minds, but for some reason, they still keep playing.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' features "Dodj or Daar", a board game that Gumball and Darwin created, which involves rolling dice, then taking a card and doing whatever is says on it. The concept of the game is (very loosely) structured with a set of "rules", and the "rules" themselves are only there to ensure that sheer chaos results from playing it. At least one game led to the house being set on fire (and that's with [[OneOfTheKids the kids' dad]] joining in). The rules were fleshed out for real, though, in "The Game", but since the cards apparently literally create whatever hazards they claim to (like "the floor is lava"), it still results in total chaos.
* "Sarcastaball" from ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' was created as a response to growing football safety regulations. It's an ever-evolving inversion of the sport where players wear bras and tinfoil hats and toss a balloon across the field while hugging and congratulating nearby opponents.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' episode "Operation: D.O.G.H.O.U.S.E.", the KND play a game of "cinder-ball", which involves launching a cinder-block with a {{BFG}}, hitting it with a giant tennis racket, bouncing off a launched trampoline, and running around bases and spinning.
* The students of Third Street School on ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'' play a couple of games like this. One is called "Battle Tag"; we don't see it played, but we do see all the kids on the playground sprawled on the ground afterwards with their clothes all ripped and covered with dirt. In another episode, the kids become hooked on a ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''-esque card game called "Ajimbo"; most of its rules are nonsensical and inconsistent, so much so that when ChildProdigy Gretchen works out a system to winning, it falls apart seconds after working perfectly to her confusion and aggravation.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': The episode "The Test" opens with Steven and the Gems playing "Citchen Calamity" ''(sic)'', a board game with rules so nonsensical none of the Crystal Gems understand it, with the possible exception of Garnet.
-->'''Garnet:''' I am now the owner of the golden can opener... [[FlatJoy Yesss.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewMrPeabodyAndShermanShow'' has the eponymous duo go back in time to watch what is supposed to be the first game of baseball, but the inventor Alexander Cartwright is such a poor sport, he keeps changing the rules on the fly to make sure he wins. Eventually, it gets so bad that the game bears no resemblance to baseball, and even Alexander agrees it's become a mess.
* "Ultrahyperball" from the ''WesternAnimation/PennZeroPartTimeHero'' episode of the same name is so complicated, it can take thousands of years to play a single game, and trying to load the rules caused Sashi's computerized glasses to explode. The actual rulebook is extremely large and takes so long to read, [[EyeScream players' eyes will fall out of their sockets]] long before finding out how to actually win (by popping the ball). On top of it all, the losing team has their planet destroyed while the winners have a pizza party.
* In ''WesternAnimation/HomeAdventuresWithTipAndOh'', Oh shows Tip the Boov sport of Nuttypunny. Contestants are set out into a field of random trials with no real direction and are graded with "Compliances" or "Blunders" based on how they do. Oh reveals that the game is literally impossible to win and is just about having a fun time. When Oh and Tip play together the "right" way, they still get an equal amount of Compliances and Blunders, even getting a Blunder doing the exact same thing that was worth a Compliance earlier.
* ''WesternAnimation/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'': "And they'll play noisy games like Zoo-zivver-karzay, a rollerskate-type of lacrosse and croquet"!

* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': In the episode "Protocol", the three recurring Horde soldiers - Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio - get ADayInTheLimelight when their transport is disabled by an acid storm, and they end up trying to figure out who should go out to fix it by playing various games. When the first one, a Horde version of rock-paper-scissors, ends in stalemate after stalemate, [[TheEveryman Kyle]] proposes a game that he is clearly making up as he goes along, deducting points from the other players for specious reasons, meaning that he's basically playing Calvinball ''for his life''...and [[ButtMonkey this being Kyle]], he somehow manages to lose even though he's the one making up the rules.
* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'', during the episode, "Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!", Launchpad and Steelbeak play a game of Baccarat. But since they obviously have no idea just how the game is played, [[GretzkyHasTheBall they pretty much make it up as they go along]].
-->'''Steelbeak''': ''[laying down two circle cards]'' Go fish.\\
'''Launchpad''': ''[laying down two hearts]'' Old maid.\\
'''Steelbeak''': Uhh... ''[plays a double diamond card]'' Crazy eights.\\
''[Suspense {{Beat}}]''\\
'''Launchpad''': ''[laying down entire hand]'' Checkmate.\\
'''Steelbeak''': ''[throws his cards in frustration]'' Well played.\\
'''Dewey''': It was?!

* A magical version pops up in ''Webcomic/{{Furmentation}}''. It tends to last much shorter than a game of [[Literature/HarryPotter Quidditch]].
* ''WebComic/OzyAndMillie'' occasionally partake in HouseRules Parcheesi. We never see much of the game itself, but we do see its aftermath: the room tends to look like a tornado hit it. [[http://ozyandmillie.org/2000/07/13/ozy-and-millie-430/ Shout-out]] and SuspiciouslySpecificDenial.
* Euchre is a game in RealLife, but in [[http://the-qlc.com/loserz/go/305 this strip]] of ''Webcomic/{{Loserz}}'' it's described in a way that it sounds like Calvinball. The disturbing part, though, is that the rules presented are in fact less confusing than the actual rules. Euchre was originally a game for the upper classes, because nobody else had the time to learn it.
* In ''Webcomic/DorkTower'', Igor insists on inventing "house rules" for almost every game played, including rules for landmines in Candyland and a variation of License Plate Bingo that was so arcane, the road trip was over by the time he'd finished explaining it.
* ''Webcomic/MacHall'' has [[http://machall.com/view.php?date=2002-06-15 Australian Indoor-Rules Quiddich.]] The entire point of the game is to smack a ball with an LED light at people while playing in a blacked-out hallway. No score, no other rules. Just carnage.
* ''Webcomic/NewSchoolKids'' has Trevopoly, which appears to be a mixture of ''Battleship'' and ''Sorry'', played on a ''Monopoly'' board, with made-up rules.

* [[http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20011119.html Septuple Scare]] from ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}!'' is portrayed this way. [[http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20050820.html Ardam is currently the only one who has figured out the rules.]] It's also a clear parody of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'''s Tetra Master.
* From ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', we bring you [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20061001.html Munchkin-clix of Cataan]]:
-->'''Schlock:''' Hah! TabletopGame/{{Yahtzee}}! That's a CriticalHit!\\
'''Kevyn:''' But my cleric is on [[TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}} a triple word score]]. He gets [[Tabletopgame/DungeonsAndDragons an attack of opportunity]].\\
'''Schlock:''' Can I [[TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}} burn a point of edge]]?\\
'''Kevyn:''' No, I think you have to [[TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}} mortgage one of your hotels]].
* ''Webcomic/MyCardboardLife'' features Colin and his nieces and nephews playing a board game using all the games in their closet mixed together.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Sheldon}}'', Sheldon and Dante's games usually devolve into something like this, always involving a [[http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/040610.html salmon of invincibility]].
* Wizard's Sudoku in ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'' combines sudoku, live chess, jousting, ''VideoGame/QBert'', ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'', cube-building, and teapot cars. In addition, the video game elements of ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'' itself are [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4&p=001163 needlessly complicated and completely nonsensical]].

* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfJoeTheCircle'' gives us Zorgellian Mega-Poker. In addition to the traditional cards and chips, it requires each player to have [[NoodleImplements a compass, a tide chart, an anvil]], and a working knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Weregeek}}'', Joel and Wayne mash together a poker deck with TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}}, Chez Geek, and ''Fluxx'' cards. When Abbie realizes this means they're playing Card Game Calvinball, she dubs them [[http://www.weregeek.com/2010/09/22/ "Megadork Prime" and "Sir Nerdsalot".]]
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' has [[http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20020915 "Quisatz Haderach"]], an exaggerated parody of ''Franchise/HarryPotter'''s Quidditch with random ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' references that turns the nonsensical rules UpToEleven. And in the end, it's all a moot point because nothing but the GoldenSnitch matters anyway.

* In ''Webcomic/UrbanUnderbrush'', [[http://www.lepusstudios.com/uu0110.html they play Magic the Gathering with a mixed up deck including a standard deck of cards and cards from Old Maid. Another character observes it's a form of Calvinball.]]

* Lady Dove in ''Webcomic/{{Erfworld}}'' uses a card game like this to demonstrate the rudiments of Carnymancy. The basic rules are simple, but after the cards are dealt, everyone gets to make a new rule. The twist is that no player can use a rule he made himself to win a trick.

* The gaming group in ''Webcomic/FullFrontalNerdity'' once attempted to play a science fiction board game called ''Warp-2-Fast: Tycho Drift''. The basic concept is a race around a board to be the first spaceship to deliver its cargo. But then there's the complications, which include {{teleporter accident}}s, [[TimeyWimeyBall temporal anomalies]], [[TheAsteroidThicket asteroids]] etc., each of which has [[http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1498 an entirely different mechanic]]. Lewis gets it the worst; he has to roll on the "[[http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1499 paradox table]]" and ends up with [[MesACrowd seven temporal duplicates]] (the result of [[http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1500 rolling "Ctrl-C"]]), and also under a permanent paradox effect that affects ''all future games'' (the result of [[http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1502 rolling "infinity"]]). He eventually has to code a spreadsheet for his turns, which Nelson runs through the [[http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1503 official paradox table app]] (Shawn: "They couldn't ''fix'' the game but they wrote an app for when it ''breaks'' so it can continue to ''metastasize?''") When they [[http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1504 get a card]] (which they're pretty sure wasn't in the deck before) that announces [[DiabolusExMachina a space demon has decreed]] the race will [[UnwinnableByDesign never end]], they decide enough is enough and the rules say they can take a break, which they spend burying the game under concrete.
* ''Webcomic/TheGamercat'': An argument over what the young Glitch should play leads Gamercat to argue he should make his own decision, rather than having [[FluffyTheTerrible Sweet]] make him play fighting games or Pixel making him play puzzle games devoid of violence. He decides they should try ''TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}}'', but discover that in the set they have most of its important pieces are missing. The cats make do with ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}}'' cards and ''VideoGame/{{Skylanders}}'' figures, and come up with such creative loopholes as drawing a Diglett who can then ''dig'' your token's way out of Jail, or refusing to pay for an expensive hotel stay by having Charizard burn it down.

* Whenever Website/FourChan's /tg/ tries to play a game (usually Connect Four, chess, or tic-tac-toe), it inevitably turns into this. Usually, the first few moves are okay. Then someone calls in reinforcements. Then someone else deepstrikes a team of [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Space Marines]]. Then someone else [[NukeEm nukes the gameboard]]. Then someone else breaks out the trading cards. A [[http://i.imgur.com/zT8gcLm.png picture]] near the end of one thread shows just how insane they can get. [[note]]E2-E4, F7-F5, E4-F5, black King turns out to be three white Kings, [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Stalfos]] appears on the board, [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask the Moon]] threatens to crush the board, the game switches into the third dimension, red Connect Four piece gets placed, game divides into two alternate timelines with one involving a star wizard battling a DMPC [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons kobold]] with hypercubes and the other involving [[TabletopGame/YuGiOh Vorse Raider]] battling a defense-position rook with the ability to make forcefields.[[/note]]

* ''Literature/TheGodsAreBastards'' has an unnamed card game between the gods Eserion and Vesk, "whose object appeared to be making up increasingly ridiculous rules and bullying or tricking each other into abiding by them." Among these rules are ones which involve "go fish" and "checkmate", converting an opponent's hand to "wave-function cards", the SevenDeadlySins, and accusations of cheating which can lead to a "Penitent Jihad".
* WebVideo/RhettAndLink sketch ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oOD9U9VQ5Y Risky Settlers, Knights and Allies of the Lords of Dominion of Earth: Pandemic Edition]]'', the most complicated board game ever, which includes DNA swabbing another player and waiting 5 to 10 business days for the results, one player retrieving a blooming elderberry from the north-facing slope of a mountain... in real life, a Harlem Shake, and [[{{Fingore}} a player having a finger cut off]] after losing a game of musical chairs. [[spoiler:And we only get to see the process of deciding who goes first.]]
* According to ''Literature/TheTimTebowCFLChronicles'' Canadian Football is this. Scoring a touchdown triggers bound-for-street play, where everything is inbounds and there's no end zone, and the only goal is to drive forward as far as possible (or for the defense to get the ball back into the stadium). Other teams can intervene in bound-for-street games. The football itself has a telescoping tail, and in "jav-out" configuration it can be used as a weapon, even during normal stadium play. (It doesn't help that the viewpoint character has zero prep time, and is learning the rules of Canadian football as he plays.)
* [[http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/skrnsson-takes-gold-in-uphill-nordic-skjord-2-20180210144051 This]] article from ''WebOriginal/TheDailyMash''. All of it.
* The Death Scene Competition in ''Fanfic/FarceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. The judges do at one point outline a scoring system, but they don't seem to stick to it very closely. It mostly boils down to points for style, with elaborate forms of suicide generally scoring high. There is, however, such a thing as trying too hard.
* BBC Comedy's video Extreme Amazing Super-Chess (mirror [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgeYScYe8wI here]]). Suffice to say, it gets crazy very quickly.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' shows Timmy and friends playing "Timmyball" (and later "Wandaball", which is the same but with a cinderblock):
-->'''Cosmo:''' That's the first rule of Timmyball -- Timmy wins.\\
'''Wanda:''' I thought Timmyball had no rules.\\
'''Cosmo:''' [[LogicBomb That's the second rule.]]
* The ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' episode "Urban Ed" opens with the Eds getting Johnny to play a game consisting of seemingly random stunts (like shooting peas through a straw to pop balloons, or throwing marshmallows into a tuba bell). When the last step turns out to be "put a quarter in the jar", Johnny sees through their BavarianFireDrill and walks off, saying "Nice try, Eddy."
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'' has a couple:
** "Sniffleball" is baseball played with giant gloves on one's head, a ball of slow-moving green snot, and twelve bases that are located underwater, in the sky, and [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros in Bowser's castle]].
** "Big Ball" is often referred to by its full OverlyLongName,[[note]] Field Tournament Style Up and Down On the Ground Manja Flanja Blanja Banja Ishka Bibble Babble Flabble Doma Roma Floma Boma Jingle Jangle Every Angle Bricka Bracka Flacka Stacka Two Ton Rerun Free for All Big Ball.[[/note]] if only because it's bad luck not to say the whole name. The goal appears not to actually win; doing so would cause [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Bowser]] to show up and trash the entire game.
-->'''Mung:''' ''(after Truffles scores a goal)'' Now you've ruined the whole sport!
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** "Ice Cream of Margie (with the Light Blue Hair)" shows Homer, Lenny, and Carl playing a chair-hockey game. They disagree not only on the rules, but also on what game they're even playing. Homer claims it's called "Cincinnati Time-Waste", and Carl pulls out an official Cincinnati Time-Waste rulebook.
** In "The Old Man and the Key", Bart and Homer are playing a game of their own creation. It's a combination of [[http://www.veoh.com/watch/v20229037PJ9K7px8?h1=Scrabbleship Scrabble and Battleship]], which also uses extra boards, one of which is for Monopoly.
--->'''Bart:''' B6!\\
'''Homer:''' You sunk my scrabbleship!\\
'''Lisa:''' This game makes no sense.\\
'''Homer:''' [[SeriousBusiness Tell that to the men who just lost their lives.]] {{Semper fi}}!
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'':
** This description of the "F Games" is a good indication of what you're in for:
-->'''Phineas:''' That's two points for recycling! The girls' score is now the square-root of pi, while the boys still have a crudely-drawn picture of a duck. Clearly, it's still anyone's game!
** "Let's Take a Quiz" is a game-show Calvinball whose only rule seems to be "answer quickly and answer often." Candace is quite baffled at first. The show's board game variant of this trope is called "Skiddley Whiffers", and Candace is an expert at that.
** In "Tales from the Resistance: Back to the 2nd Dimension", Phineas and Ferb's dad gives them his sports equipment for them to play with after [[spoiler:Doofenshmirtz is defeated and freedom and fun are restored to the Tri-State Area]]. They and the other kids are confused about how to use them and end up creating a game of Calvinball. The sports-playing montage ends with Ferb hitting a soccer ball with a golf club into a flaming hula hoop to score a touchdown.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' had a B-plot revolving around Peggy's attempt to develop a mock game show based on all the things people like most about TV game shows. The result is an incomprehensible game called "Spin the Choice".
-->"On your turn, you can choose to spin, or you can choose to choose. If you choose to spin, you spin the Wheel of Choice..."
* At one point in ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama Action'', Heather, frustrated at one of Chris' last second rule changes seeming to screw her team out of a victory, accuses him of making the rules up as he goes along. Chris simply replies, "I love my job."

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'' opens Jimmy and Beezy playing a game where they hurl themselves at a giant dartboard via catapult. Points are awarded based on where they land and the day of the week.
%%* Most of Andy and Rodney's games in ''WesternAnimation/SquirrelBoy''.
%%* The aptly named sport of 'Mutilation Ball' on ''WesternAnimation/{{Robotomy}}''.
* In the episode of ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' "But I Have a Receipt", Mordecai and Rigby have to face off against a dungeon master in a D&D style fight where they have to use their imaginations. Needless to say, the game eventually turns into Calvinball, with rule changes occurring every half second. What makes the whole thing even more absurd is that Mordecai, Rigby, and the DM are fighting over a $7 refund for a game.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheMightyB'' Bessie enjoys playing a game of Pineapple with her friends. While the rules aren't stated, all we know is that they're fairly inconsistent and involve someone dressing up as a pineapple.
%%* The ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' episode "Cool Jerk" begins with the kids playing a schoolyard game known as "Nuclear Ball".
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/RocketPower'' has the kids trying to invent their own sport, "Rocketball". Although it starts out very simple ("hit the ball into the trash can"), more people gradually join in, and, to make it "fairer", so many rules are added that it degrades into Calvinball.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' episode "Bloo Tube", the gang plays "Farat Trap of Life", which is played on four boards similar to Monopoly, The Game Of Life, Mousetrap, and Pop-O-Matic Trouble.
* The game of Bucket-Stick-Fruitball from ''{{WesternAnimation/Spliced}}'' is a RunningGag throughout the series. Peri and Entree are the only characters who can play the game without getting confused and injured. The game begins by launching a fruit into the air using a stick, at which point one of the players tries to catch it using a bucket. What happens after this is never made clear, but it involves [[NoodleImplements a tricycle, a wig, and being covered in butter]], among other things.
* ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'':
** One episode sees Shake challenging Meatwad to a game of Rock Paper Scissors. After several rounds, it appears to be going fine, then suddenly we jump cut to Shake using a condominium while Meatwad uses a hurricane (which apparently beats all housing).
** The BizarreAndImprobableGolfGame in one of the show's spinoff videogames turns golf into a cross between Calvinball and ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}''. Complete with chainsaw fights against time-travelling robot turkeys, and that's ''before'' it gets ridiculous. There are courses on the moon and in Hell. All of this is apparently legal.
** Carl teaches several Meatwads how to play Texas Hold'em Poker in "Multiple Meats"... with flash cards. One of Carl's winning hands is a full house AND a pair.

%%* The unsold British game show pilot [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CfgRGW9Ghik Quizzlestick]]. Remember, ''always'' remember to use your Green Quizzle Chance.

* ''Series/TheSavageEye'' gives us a number of weird sports, like "Eel Wranglin" and "Potato Whispering". Perhaps the most violent, though, is a precursor of Gaelic football called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw0VZmqBo3Y "Whackadabollockin"]], where the object appears to be to [[GroinAttack hit someone's testicles]] with a hurdle.
* The South Bend-area sketch comedy show ''Beyond Our Control'' did a parody of 70s game shows with a Calvinball-style game called ''How Do You Play This Game?'', as shown [[http://youtu.be/R3bGtYXS5DY here]].
* In ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'', Ben creates "Cones of Dunshire", a game which involves cones, characters with various abilities, rolling huge numbers of dice, trading resources, territory control, and requires eight to twelve players. One person is designated the "ledgerman", whose entire role is to wear a special hat and keep track of what everyone else is doing. Tellingly, it first catches on in a firm of accountants, though it later gains wider appeal.
-->'''Ben:''' ''Gameplay Magazine'' called it "punishingly intricate."
* In ''Series/{{Community}}'', Abed and Annie play "Pile of Bullets", a baffling VCR game that includes multiple tokens, various cards that interact with each other, frequent need to shout "Bang!" at the screen, and impressive amounts of multitasking. There are technically two other players, but they give up on trying to make sense of it almost immediately.
* In a sketch on ''The Flip Wilson Show'', Creator/GeorgeCarlin and [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball Joe Namath]] teach Flip a card game called "Carlotta". They started by winking at each other, letting us know the bewildering rules were a practical joke on Flip.
-->'''Namath:''' You got Carlotta!\\
'''Flip:''' All right! ''(Reaches for chips)''\\
'''Carlin:''' Carlotta ''loses!'' ''(Rakes in chips)''
* On ''Series/TheElectricCompany1971'', Jim Boyd's inventor/salesman introduces Luis Avalos' game company executive, Mr. Overprice, to the game called "Pay". It involves hitting an enormous baseball with a cudgel and running around the bases (''i.e.'', the office furniture).
-->'''Mr. Overprice:''' I think you named it right in naming it "Pay", because you are about to pay for everything you've broken! ''(grabs the inventor in rage)''\\
'''Inventor:''' Ah, Mr. Overprice, you can't touch me while I'm standing on home base.

* ''Series/LittleLunch'': In "The Oval", Rory gets all of his friends to invent games to keep him out of trouble. When everyone gets bored and starts drifting away, he desperately attempts to combine all of the games into one game, which becomes a gigantic Calvinball.
-->"It's not as confusing as it sounds."\\
"It's ''exactly'' as confusing as it sounds!"
* ''Series/DharmaAndGreg'' features a scavenger-hunt like game created by Greg and several of his law school friends at Harvard, where the goal is possession of a statue of a Glory Schnauzer dog, which must be claimed by secretly replacing it with a bust of Eisenhower. Steps to reclaim it after losing possession involve photographing the holder with the Jamaican flag or putting butter on a windowsill and filling a bathroom with a flock of ducks.
* One sketch from ''Series/ABitOfFryAndLaurie'' shows 2 sportsman playing a bizarre game called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLo7Ao54TJA "Bushwallyta"]], with commentary by Stephen Fry. Only one of the rules is clearly explained; when the referee declares "Boyayinha!", the players must create a functioning picnic chair out of whatever materials are currently available (the losing player is disqualified because he creates a flat-iron instead).
* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_6d3JBBo4s "English Sports"]] sketch on the Dutch show ''Jiskefet'': The main components of the game are shown to be rolling a ring across the lawn in different ways, moving coloured pegs on a board similar to a chess board, and sitting behind a door in the middle of the field. Meanwhile, the referee speaks nonsense stuff with numbers, and the commentators calmly comment on each throw or move in a way guaranteed to make no sense and sometimes containing incomprehensible mumbled terms.
* Season 9 of ''Series/ShaunMicallefsMadAsHell'' has a regular feature where he throws to Stephen Hall and asks what's happening with this week's contestants. Stephen proceeds to describe a scenario involving a mishmash of various RealityTV formats before interviewing a pair of contestants in bizarre costumes. At no point is the actual game seen (or even explained).
* ''Series/MuppetsNow'': The segment "Pepe's Unbelievable Game Show" has rules set out by [[HypercompetentSidekick Scooter]], but Pepe prefers to have the contestants do whatever his whim decides instead.

* The sport shown in the music video for "New Lands" by Music/{{Justice}} starts off as a baseball game, then adds lacrosse, football, and roller derby. By the end, it's utterly incomprehensible.

* ''Pyramid Magazine'' featured a campaign setting called ''[=LudiCROUS=] -- The Sport of the Future!'', about a sport where the rules could change from moment to moment -- including the rules about how the rules could change. A good [=LudiCROUS=] team needs people with a wide variety of skills, from footballers to chessmasters, because the goal of the game could be almost ''anything''.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'' fits the bill, depending on how you see it. Only the GM is allowed to see any of the rules beyond the setting description and character creation guide; for the most part, they can make up whatever rules they want beyond that if it keeps the game interesting, especially as it anticipates many players will "cheat" and read the published rules anyway. In keeping with the spirit of the game, questioning the rules or demonstrating knowledge of them will result in painful death for the players.

* ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsTappedOut'' includes a mini-game event called "Tap Ball", in which two characters square off and do a unique maneuver (''e.g.'' Lisa kicks a soccer ball, Apu throws a bowling ball, the Comic Book Guy swings his nunchucks), to no real end. Not surprisingly, the sport was invented by Homer Simpson, and the rules make sense only to him.

* Similarly, ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' opens with [[spoiler:and briefly revisits during the DarkestHour]] a scene with a boy in white and a boy in black playing... what is ''called'' chess in Jiminy's Journal (in English, at least), but doesn't seem to match up to any known form of chess and largely seems to be [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolic of the conflict between light and darkness]]. For starters, the squares of the board are rotated 45° from a traditional chessboard (as in, the players are positioned at the points rather than the edges), although the array of the board still remains (as in, the player-most end does not consist of only one square), and the squares are at varying altitudes compared to each other. [[spoiler:During the revisit, the boy in white is down to one piece and is surrounded by black pieces; he abruptly moves his piece back to his end of the board, and several more pieces just ''appear'' on his end.]] The final scene seems to suggest that the board and pieces are just a platform for games to be concocted by players, à la tabletop [=RPGs=]; with one game over, the boy in white [[SequelHook shares a "new" game involving seven black pieces and...]]

* The ''VideoGame/{{Zork}}'' series featured Double Fanucci, a card game with fifteen suits and absurdly complex rules, which are never given in full. You actually have to ''play'' it in one of the games; thankfully, the only rule explained to you there is an InstantWinCondition.
* Pokkaball, the primary sport of ''VideoGame/TheSpellcastingSeries''. You can read about it in the school paper and watch a few matches, but it appears to be completely random and [[UnnecessaryRoughness absurdly dangerous]].
* Tetra Master from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' is a strange example. It's a card game that looks totally incomprehensible, even to those who play it, and you have to pick up the rules from watching the gameplay. The cards appear to play themselves somehow, and it's telling that even InUniverse, various characters try to figure out the rules of it with TrialAndErrorGameplay. Creator/SquareEnix apparently designed it with hexadecimal strength and weakness values, but this explanation was part of their online strategy guide that [[GuideDangIt completely disappeared from the Internet]] circa 2003.

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''[='s=] [[WideOpenSandbox Forge Mode]] (included in virtually all the games since ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'') has a propensity to devolve into Calvinball unless a single person or dedicated group is trying to create something specific (thus keeping everyone on task). Without it, people start pointing gravity lifts everywhere and coming up with arcane, arbitrary, and ridiculous challenges. Such maps end up filled with whatever caught their occupants' fancy in their item spawn frenzy, and they're almost always deleted afterwards.
* "Thrashball" in ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'' is Blernsball as applied to NFL football rather than baseball; in many ways very similar to a familiar sport, but in many others bizarre and incomprehensible. There's a guy with ''shields'' in the backfield.
* "Wolfball" in ''VideoGame/BattleRealms'' apparently involves [[NoodleImplements a solid iron ball, a walled-in arena, and a pack of rabid wolves]], and it's fatal to play for those not of the [[HealingFactor Wolf Clan]]. No rules are forthcoming, but it speaks volumes that one of the playing positions (the "hurler", who has a gigantic two-handed Atlatl) does double duty as a military unit in-game.
* The inhabitants of the ChaoticStupid Chaosrealm in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatDeception'' have a game called "Everybody Runs Around", where [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin everybody just runs around]] with no win condition or rules.
* One RunningGag in the Laurentia arc of ''VideoGame/NexusClash'' is StoryBreadcrumbs about the city's fabled sports team, the Wolverton Wolverines. No matter how many times they're mentioned, we never find out what sport they actually played, and searching their former stadium offers no clues either.

* In ''[[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mhccZHO-d9c This]]'' Jamie Kennedy Experiment clip.
* ''Series/OurMissBrooks'': In the episode "Parlor Game", Miss Brooks invents a convoluted parlor game in order to annoy Mr. Conklin and, in so doing, convinces him to allow his family to go out for the evening.

* ''Series/EvenStevens'': In one episode, Louis and Twitty play a game called "Sweaty Sock Ball", whose convoluted rules seem to change depending on the wim of the participants.

* French comedians Kad & Olivier invented a game called "Kamoulox", a ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}''-like game show with a number of arcane and stupidly-named rules. The players basically [[WordSaladHumor give nonsensical answers to nonsensical questions]] ("I'm picking the reluctant Machiavellian houseplant"), they're judged by a referee (always named "John-Bob", regardless of gender) who penalizes them for infractions of the arcane rules, and the winner is the first to say "Kamoulox".
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' has a number of strange alien games, a full list can be found [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Category:Recreation here]]. Some of them, are:
** Dom-Jot
** Dabo
** Tongo
** "Fizzbin", which Kirk invented to [[WeNeedADistraction distract the guards]] and allow the crew to escape capture; it's basically poker with whichever rules Kirk feels like adding. Strangely, though, it may have picked up a codified ruleset, as Quark is shown playing a hand in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.
** The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Move Along Home" has Quark forced to play a weird and unnamed board game, with members of the station's senior staff as unwitting pawns, and progress through the game dictated seemingly at random.
* On ''Series/TheMonkees''' TV show, Micky Dolenz invents the game of "Creebage" for much the same reason as Kirk invented Fizzbin: to distract a captor and allow for a quick escape.

* The ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' episode "My Jiggly Ball" gave us "jigglyball", which was actually a hoax designed by the Janitor to maneuver J.D. into a position where the entire hospital got to throw tennis balls at him.
* ''Series/TheGoodies'' had the game of "Spat", whose sole purpose was to assure that Bill always lost and suffered AmusingInjuries.
* ''Series/{{Friends}}'' has a number:
** "Cups" is a card game Chandler invented for the sole purpose of allowing Joey to win money from him without recognizing it as charity. BeginnersLuck is a vitally important feature.
** Joey auditions to be a host of a quiz show ''Bamboozled!'' which involves "Wicked Wango Cards" and "The Wheel of Mayhem". The executives realize it's too complicated for the audience to follow and threaten to can it:
---> '''Joey:''' Well, what's complicated? You spin the Wheel of Mayhem to go up the Ladder of Chance, you go past the Mud Hut through the Rainbow Ring to get to the Golden Monkey, you pull his tail, and boom, you're in Paradise Pond!
** "Phoebe Ball", invented by [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Phoebe]] on the spot, appears to consist of Phoebe asking questions and arbitrarily awarding points for the answer closest to the description she was thinking of. The others last a single round before giving up in frustration.
** Chandler and Joey play a number of dangerously stupid games of their own invention. One is "Hammer Darts"; beyond [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin what can be intuited from the name]], all we know about it is that it cost them their insurance and part of the wall. Another is "Fireball", which involves [[NoodleImplements oven gloves, lighter fluid, and a tennis ball]], and its variant "Ultimate Fireball", with [[UpToEleven a bowling ball and acetylene torch.]]
* ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'' (and its radio predecessor) has the game show ''Numberwang'', "the maths quiz that simply everyone is talking about!" It's portrayed as being so ubiquitous that its rules no longer need explaining, and seems to involve the players just calling out random numbers until the host declares "That's Numberwang!", and the player scores ... somehow. The only discernible patterns are that Julie (played by Olivia Colman) nearly always loses and suffers some sort of humiliation, and rounds involving [[EleventyZillion imaginary or non-numbers]] have rejected "Shinty-Six" and "Brazil" because they are supposedly numbers. In addition, the SuddenDeath round is [[ExactWords literal]]. What constitutes a "Numberwang" is never fully elaborated: the official HomeGame includes 200-sided dice and a 37-volume rulebook (each about the size of a dictionary), and a documentary about the history of ''Numberwang'' suggests that even the hosts cannot determine Numberwang without the help of Colosson, a supercomputer which has extreme views as to what should be done to things that aren't Numberwang.
* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfgRGW9Ghik Quizzlestick]]'' is [[SarcasmMode totally simple]] and quite easy to figure out, [[RunningGag unless it's not a general knowledge question]].

* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'':
** "Counterfactuals" could easily be a Calvinball; it involves extrapolating an AlternateUniverse from a single concept and answering a bizarre question about it (for example, "In a world where mankind is ruled by beaver overlords, what food does not exist?" [[https://youtu.be/0lpY0Kt4bn8?t=1m11s has the answer]] [[spoiler:cheese danishes]]). If you freestyled it, it could easily be a Calvinball because the possibilities are endless. InUniverse, though, it's usually played by Sheldon, who has a very rigid way of thinking.
** Sheldon invented a bizarre chess variant by trying to invent a three-way chess game[[note]][[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-way_chess which has been around]] in some form or another [[AluminumChristmasTrees since 1722]].[[/note]] and ending up inventing a number of new pieces with interesting effects (such as Prince Joey, the King's well-meaning but [[TheKlutz klutzy]] brother, who has a one-in-five chance of accidentally killing himself every time he moves). The end result includes a catapult, transporter pad, golf cart, and [[TimeTravel time machine]]. Sheldon being Sheldon, he may just have been trying to invent something so complex only he would understand it (and win at it).
** The guys can occasionally be seen playing the card game ''Mystical Warlords of Ka'a''. The main mechanic appears to be to lay down a card on the pile and [[CallingYourAttacks say its name]].
* In the ''Series/ILoveLucy'' episode "The Golf Game", Lucy and Ethel want to take up golf, and ask Fred and Ricky how to play. The men don't want their wives following them around the golf course, so they try to discourage them by inventing a set of crazy and overly complex rules.
* '[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gillies_Report The Gillies Report]]'' has a running gag involving a reporter describing the results of the fictitious sport of farnarkling. He would describe the game using bizarre terminology but acting as if it was commonly understood ("And he was soon arkling the grommet from all points of the gonad").
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'':
** The episode "Bushwhacked" opens with a spirited game of Calvinball in the cargo bay. It was some bizarre variant of basketball, and it was a team game, but beyond that, no rules were really discernible.
-->'''Simon:''' They don't seem to be playing according to any civilized rules that I know.\\
'''Inara:''' Well, we're pretty far from civilization.
** In "Shindig", the crew plays a card game that uses round cards with pictures of fruit on them. "Tall card... plum. Plums are tall." In fact, the actors demanded that the writer make up a full set of actual rules for the game so that they'd know what they were doing, but since we never find out what the rules are, it comes off as Calvinball.
%%* The unsold British game show pilot [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CfgRGW9Ghik Quizzlestick]]. Remember, ''always'' remember to use your Green Quizzle Chance.
* In the French TV series ''Series/{{Kaamelott}}'', Perceval knows ''lots'' of unplayable games that he alone can understand and play. Some of them involve 14 dice and artichokes. King Arthur seems to know the twisted rules of the card game "countersyrup" as well:
-->"We need 14 dice to play that game. Anyway, we can play it with cards, that's not a problem. What matters is the announcements."
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'':
** "Bask-ice Ball" is a hockey-basketball hybrid played by Marshall's family. Marshall admits to Lily that there are no rules; it's just an excuse for everyone to whale on each other.
** "Marsh-Gammon" involves a Candy Land board, poker chips, playing cards, a buzzer, handwritten "autobiography cards", a Twister spinner, and some dice. It also has nothing in common with backgammon, since Marshall hates everything about it except the name. This was featured in "Game Night", which reveals that Marshall is very good at games.
** "Xing Hai Shi Bu Xing" is an unfathomable casino game which features poker chips, Mahjong tiles, changing seats with other contestants, a wheel of fortune, and a jellybean. Everybody is befuddled by it -- except for Marshall, who can even give Barney game-winning advice. The game's title, by the way, [[BilingualBonus is Mandarin]] for "Series/DealOrNoDeal".
--->'''Marshall:''' Wait, I get it, I understand this game.\\
'''Ted:''' ...no you don't.\\
'''Marshall:''' I totally understand the game, Theodore! Barney, split your tiles. You can triple your money if you find the jellybean.\\
'''Barney:''' Marshal, please. Don't you think I know what I'm-- ''[glances over the board]'' My God, you're ''right''!
* ''Series/TheMiddleMan'' gives us Shibumi, an exceedingly complex card game played by high-class villainous types. Each player is given a full deck of cards, over 300 verbal and physical challenges are involved, and the price for losing or cheating is death. And live bunnies are involved somehow.
* ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' features the quiz show ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnTSdoASY28 It's a Living]]'', the rules of which are so insanely convoluted and complex that by the time the presenter finishes explaining them, the show has finished. Part of it seems to revolve around how much the BBC has received in fees lately.
** Similarly done on the album ''Monty Python's Previous Record'' on the cut "Radio Quiz Game." (The show was called "What Do You (''sound of cuckoo clock'')?" with rules so lengthy and complex that there was no time for the contest.
* In the 2004 ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', the pilots are often seen playing a card game known on the original show as "Pyramid", referred to on the reboot as "Triad". The cards are six-sided with a variety of symbols and colors to designate suit and rank. The rules are not shown consistently and the actors more or less improvised them; fans have tried to put together a consistent ruleset, but it's been tough going.
* Puppeteer/comedian Marc Weiner had a bit where he and two volunteers from the audience would play a game called "That's Not Fair!", where no one ever gives the right answers and points are awarded arbitrarily.

* ''Series/ShootingStars'', a UK panel show presented by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, was a game like this. Despite having a scoring system, the answers are entirely the whim of the hosts. Sample question: "True or False: Richard Attenborough".
* ''Series/{{Bottom}}'' has Eddie's card game "One Card Slam", in which Eddie flips out a random card from the pack, slams it on the table, and demands twelve quid from Richie.
* On one episode of ''The Burns and Allen Show'', Burns makes up a card game called Klebob as he goes along to psych Gracie. This backfires when Gracie easily figures out the rules to the game -- partly because she's a CloudCuckoolander, and partly because [[spoiler:it's just like the game George made up last week.]]
* An episode of ''Series/TheBobNewhartShow'' features Bob and his poker buddies playing ever more outlandish card games such as Snee-Ho (where a player wins if he draws the "King of Snee") and Klopsky (which calls for four packs of cards and a banana).
* On ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'', Al and Griff are shown playing chess with elements of checkers, Simon Says, and dice thrown in. According to Griff, the game would be better if they knew how to ''actually'' play chess.
* An episode of ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' featured the game of [[{{Portmanteau}} Chardee Macdennis]]. The rule book is bigger than most phone books, and asking questions about the rules is penalized. Cheating is encouraged, but violators are made to eat a cake -- in its original components (''i.e.'' chunks of flour, eggs, salt, ''etc''). Challenges ranged from getting darts thrown at your hand to having insults hurled at you for extended periods of time. The winner gets to smash his opponents' game pieces.
** A RunningGag is "Nightcrawlers", a game played by Charlie and Frank. Its actual rules have never been elaborated upon, though it apparently involves crawling around with the lights off.
* The British show ''Series/NoelsHouseParty'' featured a game in the 1992-93 series called "Open the Cupboards", which had a very complicated ruleset.
-->"You throw a six to start, the referee's decision is final, and deuces are twice as valuable as a pair of spades in your hand."
* ''Series/NewGirl'' has "True American", a DrinkingGame with Candyland elements, in which the floor is lava. The rules involve crazy zones, yelling out the names of presidents, and alcohol (with cans of beer as "Soldiers of the Secret Order", and a bottle of bourbon as "King of the Castle"). If you take a break to have sex with a beautiful woman, everyone else wins. And everything you hear in True American is a lie. Fans were excited enough to [[{{Defictionalization}} adapt this into a real game]], which can be seen [[http://www.trueamericanrules.com/ here]].

* In ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', this is what Australian Rules Football boiled down to. It is a [[UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball real sport]], but as it's only really played in Australia, the series treated it like a Calvinball (and a catch-all term for whatever wacky sport was being shown on screen).

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1'' has Brockian Ultra-Cricket, which primarily involves smacking people with random sports equipment, then running away and apologizing from a distance. The only known attempt to collect all the rules resulted in a volume so massive it produced a black hole. There have been fewer games of Ultra-Cricket than wars fought over rule differences in Ultra-Cricket (which is good, because said wars tend to be less destructive than the game itself). The winning team is defined in the rules as "[[ShapedLikeItself the first team that wins]]", and spectators aren't even allowed to watch it -- because in their minds, they'll think any game they missed could have been the best game they'd ever see.
* Gary Cohn's ''[[http://www.eblong.com/zarf/moopsball/ Rules of Moopsball]]'', as the name suggests, describes the increasingly bizarre rules of a most unusual sport. The TabletopGames setting ''TabletopGame/GURPSIlluminatiUniversity'' makes Moopsball the most popular sport on campus. Cohn also worked on comics, and the game appeared in ''Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' as a ShoutOut.

* The Leary family in Anne Tyler's ''Literature/TheAccidentalTourist'' invented a card game called "Vaccination", which after decades of refinements has become so convoluted that no outsider could possibly learn how to play it. Except for Julian, who marries into the family; when he learns the rules, lead character Macon Leary is so impressed he withdraws his objection to Julian marrying his sister.

* Shent from Creator/TadWilliams' ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'' is implied to be like this. Its complexity is increased by the fact that players aren't expected to play to win, but rather to create aesthetically pleasing situations.
* Azad in ''Literature/ThePlayerOfGames'' by Iain M. Banks is a non-comedic example of an absurdly complex game that is said to accurately model the actual running of an interstellar civilization. It involves at least three large boards and several smaller boards, as well as multiple side games involving cards, and pieces that are essentially capable of biological growth and adaptation. The entire empire is based around it; important government and military positions are determined by ranking in the Azad tournament [[SeriousBusiness and the winner becomes the next Emperor]].
* In ''Literature/BlackJewels'' books, Jaenelle and her coven invent a game called "cradle", played with cards and a board. It has twenty-six variations, which the players may switch between in the middle of the game. Their respective husbands and consorts suspect that they purposely made it up to frustrate the male mind, until Daemon, Jaenelle's consort, invents a twenty-seventh variation that allows him to beat Jaenelle.
* In the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'', Fiddler and the Bridgeburners will occasionally play a game akin to poker with the tarot-like Deck of Dragons, except they make up the rules as they go along. Because they are playing with a deck of cards used to represent their world's pantheon, the games end up being more than a little prophetic -- as well as disconcerting to onlookers, as the Deck is actually dangerous to use, and playing with it is paramount to blaspheming against the pantheon.

* ''Literature/DecodingReality'', by Vlatko Vedral, uses a story of a card game as a metaphor for the scientific process, which involves players sitting around a table, playing cards that feature random images. The only rule of the game prohibits context from being definitively established -- the cards do not explain their own meaning, and the players are not allowed to speak to one another. The player is left to interpret the images on the cards and the facial expressions of the players, with the caveat that every time a new card is played, it could completely invalidate your interpretation. There is not even any indication that it's a game, because there are no defined rules. The players themselves may all be playing completely different games at the same table, and no one would ever know it.
* In Creator/TomHolt's ''Literature/WhosAfraidOfBeowulf'', two imps have spent the past thousand years playing "Goblin's Teeth". They're still on their first game. Descriptions of the gameplay suggest it contains elements of chess, Monopoly, Scrabble, and several others.
* In John Knowles' ''Literature/ASeparatePeace'', Finny creates Blitzball, a game to which only he understands the rules.
* In ''Literature/WelkinWeasels'', the most popular game among mustelidae is called "hollyhockers". The game appears to be a bizarre mixture of poker and the I Ching, in which bets are placed on patterns that a thrown cupful of hollyhock seeds will fall into.
* ''Literature/SecondApocalypse'' has the strategy board game of Benjuka, in which the rules are changed by the moves players make. Players frequently reference how the changing rules of Benjuka mirrors the complexity of real life.

* ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' has the Caucus Race, in which everyone runs around at random for half an hour, after which it is announced that "''everybody'' has won, and all must have prizes."
%%* Creator/EphraimKishon's [[http://www.ephraimkishon.de/en/my_favorite_stories.htm short story "Yiddish Poker"]].
* The ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' book ''The Beast from the East'' is described [[http://www.bloggerbeware.com/2006/02/43-beast-from-east.html here]] as a book-long description of a game of Calvinball.
%% [So how is this different from regular baseball?] * Even though it is anything BUT Calvinball, Mike Henke treats Grayson style Baseball like this sort of game in ''Literature/HonorHarrington'', especially once it gets into the more obscure strike/foul rules
* ''Literature/QuantumGravity'': It looks like literally ''every'' game played by the fey is a form of Calvinball. Specifically, Malachi is annoyed by human sports because they're so boring and "the rules never change."

* Russell Hoban's ''Literature/HowTomBeatCaptainNajorkAndHisHiredSportsmen'' features three such games: womble, muck, and sneedball.
* In Cory Doctorow's ''[[http://craphound.com/makers/ Makers]]'', a self-confessed game of "Calvinball" is played with an assortment of board games on the floor, and the rules are that "the rules can never be the same twice."
* In David Foster Wallace's ''Literature/InfiniteJest'', the students at the Enfield Tennis Academy play Eschaton, a game of nuclear geopolitics, which has become something of an Academy tradition. One of the tennis courts is intricately painted with a map of the Earth and all its nations for this purpose. True to the trope, all that is made explicitly clear is that nuclear strikes are represented by serving tennis balls onto the map; the rest of the rules are stated to be so complex that they can only be understood through total memorization.
* The Zarathustrans in ''Literature/FigmentsOfReality'' -- a nonfiction book by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen that uses stories about these aliens to make a point occasionally -- have a game called Octopoly.[[note]]The name is presumably a pun on "Monopoly" and the fact that Zarathustrans come in groups of eight and regard the number as at least as special as we do the number one.[[/note]] The same original game has been played for ages because no one remembered to set a winning condition, and it takes decades before anyone will even make a move. What we hear of the rules sounds like an incomprehensible mixture of different games, including board games and, well, Calvinball -- though somehow the overall effect sounds like UsefulNotes/{{Cricket}}.
* The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' features the card game known as sabacc. Its something like a bizarre fusion of poker and blackjack, played with a Tarot-like deck in which some of the "major arcana" cards have negative value. The twist is that cards will randomly change into ''other'' cards when not face-up on the table. And just like poker, there are hundreds of variants that can affect the cards' values, the order of play, or even which hand is a winner. In one book, Han and Lando play for ownership of the ''Falcon'' and decide on "Random Sabacc", a version where the rules themselves change at random intervals, refereed by C-3PO.

* ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}: The Empty Chair'' takes fizzbin from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' and runs with it to create "Tournament Fizzbin", a game where you make up the rules as you go along. The ''Enterprise'' crew creates it after their Romulan friends Ael t'Rllaillieu has trouble grasping poker. The goal seems not to win so much as to [[IntoxicationEnsues get drunk and have fun.]]
* The novel ''Literature/{{Triton}}'' describes a game that is a fusion of "Risk, D&D, Chess, and Contract Bridge." Scoring is determined by calculus equations, which are [[ThePointsMeanNothing ultimately meaningless]].

* In Aldous Huxley's ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'', this is actually encouraged; because the world economy emphasizes constant consumption and production, the Controllers will only approve new sports or games if their creators can prove that playing it requires the consumption of more resources than currently-existing ones. Hence people enjoying elaborate and complex games such as "centrifugal bumble-puppy" and sports such as Escalator-Squash Racket, Obstacle- and Electro-magnetic Golf, and Riemann Surface Tennis.

* ''Anime/MazingerZ'''s "Brockenball" vaguely resembles soccer, but the only established rule is that everyone wins -- except the ball, which is [[SeveredHeadSports Count Brocken's head.]] And Brocken happens to be a {{cyborg}} whose head and body [[CraniumChase can operate independently]].
* ''Anime/YuGiOh'' centers around the game of Duel Monsters, which wasn't always clearly defined, especially in early story arcs before a more concrete set of rules was established. Even then, new cards are constantly introduced that change the existing rules, usually [[NewRulesAsThePlotDemands to help the protagonists win]].

%% * Genesis in ''Manga/SketDance''. Apparently it's so popular that it even has a World Prix.
%% [I have no idea what this is supposed to be.] ** Also Hyperion (board game) and Wontendo (video game). Anytime Yamanobe Kunio shows up, he's bound to ask the SKET Dan to try some game he learned from a Master Wong in China. Usually, people get into these games for a short while, but later lose interest when they realize how pointless they are.

* ''Manga/DFrag'' brings us the girls of the Game Development Club (temp), who specialize in creating board games that change layouts or rules depending on their whim.
* In an animé filler arc of ''Manga/FairyTail'', Cana is challenged to a competitive card game called Guild Wars by the [[BrainwashedAndCrazy Eclipse Version]] of Scorpio. While the game has a set basic structure and win condition as established by Scorpio, the cards and their effects drawn from each player's deck are completely made up by each player as they go, resulting in the cards becoming more and more powerful as they play. The last few cards have such ridiculously overpowered abilities that they'd certainly be banned from any real life version of the game.
* In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', the exhibition matches before the actual Tournament of Power run on this trope as the only rule is that the match ends when either an opponent cannot move any more or [[TopGod Present and Future Zen-Oh]] are suitably thrilled at the fight. That means things like outside interference and ring outs, actions that would lead to disqualifications, are out.
** The Tournament itself has shades of this. While it does have codified rules,[[note]]No flying unless it's a normal biological function (IE you're a bird-person), no weapons or outside objects, no killing, victory by ring-out[[/note]] the Zen-Ohs have final say and have been known to bend or override the rules on a whim. For example, Quitela protests [[spoiler:Master Roshi's use of a jar as part of the Mafuba[=/=]Evil Containment Wave]] because it's an outside object, but the Zen-Ohs overrule him because [[RuleOfCool they think it's cool]].
* ''Anime/BludgeoningAngelDokuroChan'': Dokuro's various board games appear to be parodies of other board games. For instance, the first episode shows a game called Gothello, which appears to be a version of Othello that's played with five colors instead of two. Dokuro being Dokuro, she picks more than one color instead of a single one.

* Several TabletopGame/{{Chess}} variants can seem like Calvinball, especially given the idea that the more complicated the variant is, [[SmartPeoplePlayChess the smarter you'd have to be to be good at it]]. The most complicated is probably "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taikyoku_shogi Ultimate Shogi]]", which has a 36x36 board and 200 different pieces. (And in standard Japanese chess, if a player makes an invalid move, he loses automatically.) This kind of variant chess is parodied in "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPwiwdWACAc How Chess Was Meant To Be Played]]".
* In 1979, [[Magazine/{{MAD}} the "Mad Magazine Game"]] was released by Parker Brothers, with the winner being the first person to lose all their money, an inversion of TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}}: Players rolled the dice with their left hand and went around the board counterclockwise. If a player used their right hand to roll the dice, they were "fined" by receving $500 from the other players. If a player moved clockwise around the board, they were called a nerd and not allowed to play the game (presumably until reinstated). "Card cards" included various instructions: changing seats or money with another player, good-looking players imitating their favorite animals and losing $2000, cackling like a hen and losing an egg and $500, acting like a rock, and a card that said "This card can only be played on Friday" (no other information was given). Board spaces included Start, with players losing $500 each time they passed it, moving one chair to the right or left, changing money with the player next to you, a "Tough Luck" space where you had to take the money accumulated there, and collecting a $1,329,063 note if your name was Alfred E. Neuman (otherwise, you lost a turn). If disputes or ambiguities came up regarding the directions, they could be resolved by majority vote; if questions arose about what constitutes a majority, [[CircularReasoning the rules allowed it to be settled by majority vote]].

* The rules of the card game ''TabletopGame/{{Fluxx}}'' start simple, but the players can play (and sometimes can't avoid playing) cards that change them frequently. This means that players can never be sure that a winning hand this turn will be one next turn. And there is no win condition until somebody plays a card that defines one, which can be overwritten by a new one. ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia'' creator Jordan Mechner explicitly called it a Calvinball card game on an episode of ''WebVideo/{{Tabletop}}''.

%%* Webzine ''Critical Miss'' gave us "Clique": the unplayable, uncollectable card game. The goal is to confuse as many spectators as possible.
* A common card game ([[IHaveManyNames which goes by different names, such as "Asshole", "President", or "God"]]) gives a single player the power to create new rules, which may or may not remain in effect when power transfers to a new person. Other variants (such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_(drinking_game) Kings]]) allow any player to create a new rule if they draw a King. [[DrinkingGame Drinking is usually involved.]]

* ''Card: The Game'' has one basic rule: if it's card-sized, card-shaped, and has a number and/or picture on it somewhere, it’s a card. Play starts with each player putting down three cards, one representing their "character", one being their "mode of transportation", and the third being their "location". The idea is that the players improvise what those cards actually ''do'' based on what's on them; if they're even vaguely related, then that's what the card does.

* Calvinball itself has been {{defictionaliz|ation}}ed in the form of [[http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/105075/Calvinball:-The-CCCG Calvinball: The Chaotic Collectible Card Game.]]
-->[[AC:Winning:]] Winning a game of Calvinball, whether in CCCG form or in its original incarnation, is generally accepted to be a virtual impossibility.

* In ''ComicBook/TheMuppetShowComicBook'', [[CaptainErsatz not-Statler-and-Waldorf]] are playing a strange board game in the "Family Reunion" arc. It looks like chess, and the goal is apparently to create chaos by introducing new pieces, but beyond that, who knows.

* One issue of ''[[Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes Legionnaires]]'' features Triad and Bouncing Boy watching a game that looks almost exactly like UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}}, until you notice the UsefulNotes/{{Cricket}} wickets.
* In ''[[ComicBook/MyLittlePonyFiendshipIsMagic My Little Pony: Fiendship Is Magic #1]]'', Young Sombra and Radiant Hope play a version of an imagination game that Radiant seems to make up rules for on the fly.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Lumberjanes}}'' #49, Molly, Barney, Hes, Diane and Jo are invited to play a game of Emily's making called Penterra, a "multi-tiered, world-building and conquest strategy game". It's ''definitely'' the complicated rules variation (it took twenty five minutes to explain), and it can only be described as Settlers Of Catan taken UpToEleven....thousand, out of a possible three. And it is '''awesome'''.

* In [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4502785/6/Scordatura chapter 6]] of ''Scordatura,'' an ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' fanfic by Davner, Urd is forced into an actual game of Calvinball against her sister Skuld in a sequence that parodies the Thunderdome sequence of ''Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome''.

* ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'' often portrays the eponymous "children's card game" this way, mostly as a way of making fun of how complicated the game actually is, and how [[ScrewTheRulesIHavePlot the original show clearly doesn't even use the same rules]].
* In ''[[FanFic/ThreeSlytherinMarauders 3 Slytherin Marauders]]'', Harry, his cousin, some friends, and a couple adults play water polo with a frisbee instead of a ball and rules that were made up on the spot.
* In ''Fanfic/TheLegendOfTotalDramaIsland'', the first canon season's iconic dodgeball match takes on [[DownplayedTrope shades of]] Calvinball. When Chris briefs the teams before the match, he warns them that the rules might not remain constant throughout. When he decides that a game is going too quickly, he springs a new rule on the players and tells them he can restore the teams to full strength whenever he wants. He later changes the number of balls on the court, without bothering to call time out, to counter hoarding. The match is largely described [[BloodlessCarnage in the style of a battle scene]] from ''Literature/TheIliad'', and Chris' fluid rules parallel ''The Iliad'''s divine interventions.

* A ridiculously complex board game named "Cloak and Dagger" is significant in ''Batman: Melody for a Mockingbird''. When Bruce hung out at the hospital where his father practised as boy, all the games in the lounge were missing pieces, so he and [[spoiler:his friend Tommy]] used them to make up a new game. [[spoiler:As an adult, Tommy styles his climactic clash with Bruce as a real life version of C&D, and brags how often he would beat him. Bruce [[ShutUpHannibal shoots back]] that Tommy was always adding new rules to keep winning, which only shows what he was then and is now: A brat who crosses any line to get what he wants.]]

* Interlude 10 of ''FanFic/MyFamilyAndOtherEquestrians'' has Celestia, Luna, Discord and the protagonist's father play a game of Mornington Crescent (from ''Radio/ImSorryIHaventAClue'', described in Radio below). Discord is apparently very good at it.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12050196/2/A-Day-in-the-Life A Day in the Life]]'', Ben finds a box of assorted trading cards, playing cards, tarot cards, game pieces, and other assorted game implements in [=DexLab=]'s lost and found. He brings it with him when he goes to visit Dexter, and an impromptu game of ad hoc Duel Monsters breaks out between the two boys.

* In ''Film/BedknobsAndBroomsticks'', the animated animals play a game that's nominally supposed to be [[UsefulNotes/TheBeautifulGame soccer]]. It's implied that the king makes up the rules as he goes along, and HilarityEnsues. One thing the king insists on is that the game can't be played without a referee – for which Creator/DavidTomlinson's character volunteers, and quickly regrets.

* In ''Film/PlayMistyForMe'', Creator/ClintEastwood's character plays a game of "Crybastion" with his barkeeper to get a woman to strike up a conversation with them.
* Although explained in depth in [[Literature/HarryPotter the novels]], Quidditch from ''Film/HarryPotter'' comes off like this in the movies. Some of the rules do seem to be different, especially fouls and the bounds of the field. On the other hand, even the books have a Calvinball-esque range of possible fouls.
* In ''Film/TheWhoopeeBoys'', the protagonists must learn to master "Cross Courts", a sport known only to elite socialites. They have trouble even grasping the arcane rules.

* The audio commentaries of Peter Jackson's ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' movies include a couple of stories about "Tig". It started with a few of the cast members simply poking each other and saying various nonsense words, but Creator/ElijahWood thought they were playing an actual game. They proceeded to make up rules as they went along just to mess with him. It was over a year before he realized that it wasn't a real thing.

* Grifball from ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' started out this way; it was basically an excuse to whale on [[ButtMonkey Grif]]. Then it became an actual game, developed a concrete ruleset, and even has a special map within ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' for you to play it on yourself, but the goal is still to torture Grif.