History Main / MedicineShow

* There was an episode featuring this in the TV show, ''Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'' - with a mistreated mute boy roadie, who Jenny Ingalls helps to escape.

A traveling wagon show that presented various entertainments between pitches for miracle medications or other products. They were most common in the Nineteenth Century, moving from town to town in the Midwest, South and Western United States.

Naturally, the visit of a medicine show was a highlight of the year for many isolated communities, and a certain number of sales were just made in an effort to get the wagon to come back the next year. (Others were based on the rather heavy alcohol content of most snake oil remedies.) As communications and entertainment options advanced and new truth in advertising laws were passed, the medicine shows dwindled away, finally passing away in 1951 with the end of the Hadacol Caravan in scandal.

* Music/OldCrowMedicineShow isn't an actual Medicine Show, but their music wouldn't be terribly out of place at one. Except for the one about [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]]. And maybe [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gX1EP6mG-E this one]].

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* On the album ''Everything You Know Is Wrong'' by the comedy troupe Creator/TheFiresignTheatre, the recording's narrator plays a wire recording of a medicine show featuring a "Dr. Firesign" promoting "Chief Dancing Knockout's Pyramid Pushover Paste" and "Don Bruhaha's Inca Hell-Oil Tonic".

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[[folder: Films -- Live-Action ]]

* The movie version of ''The Rainmaker'' has a Medicine Show prologue to establish Burt Lancaster in the role of the SnakeOilSalesman.

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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* On ''Series/GoodEats'', Alton does one of these while promoting celery water (water infused with celery seed, sweetened with "simple syrup") which really was touted as a SpiceRackPanacea at one time.

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* There's a fair at the start of ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite'' that has a few stages with presenters of this variety. Unlike most examples, the products are genuine (said products are drinks that give you elemental powers), but the guy who owns the company that distributes them still falls into the sleazy snake oil salesman personality.

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* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' do this in "Grandpa Simpson vs. Sexual Inadequacy". It backfires when the townspeople notice that the shill - Homer - is shown in a massive portrait on the front of the bottle. Homer notes that the townsfolk didn't start chasing them [[LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn until Grampa started playing a tape with some getaway music]]. Ironically the product is completely genuine, [[DickDastardlyStopsToCheat they just end up convincing the townsfolk otherwise]]. Springfield itself has ground to a standstill because all the grownups are at home taking advantage of the product.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGummiBears'' featured a medicine show cast in a rare ''sympathetic'' light: the proprietor is genuinely trying to make his elixir do exactly what he says it will, but his efforts inevitably end in failure (and plenty of angry customers). A well-intentioned Tummi tries to help him by slipping some Gummiberry Juice into the mix, which gives the man's customers temporary super strength and attracts [[BigBad Duke Igthorn]]'s attention. In the end, the man finally finds the success he's been looking for when he inadvertently discovers that his normal elixir makes plants grow like crazy - he makes his fortune selling it as fertilizer. (Could be a StealthPun, considering what one might call the claims made by the usual salesmen.)
* The Thundercats get involved with a medicine show in the ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats2011'' episode "Recipe for Disaster".

* When Flim and Flam, the twin unicorn con-artists from season 2 of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' returned in the season 4 episode "Leap of Faith", they've given up their former cider-racket to instead run one of these.

* The premise for the WesternAnimation/BettyBoop cartoon "Betty Boop, M.D."

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* Referenced in "Your Song" by Music/EltonJohn. "If I was a sculptor, but then again, no / Or a man who makes potions in a traveling show"
* Featured in the music video for "Say Say Say" by Music/PaulMcCartney and Music/MichaelJackson.
* Referenced in the Music/BigAudioDynamite single "Medicine Show".
* ''Music/{{Tommy}}'' [[TheCoverChangesTheMeaning repurposes]] Sonny Boy Williamson II's "Eyesight To The Blind" as the cry of a hawker advertising one of these.
--> ''Well you talk about your woman, I wish you could see mine''
--> ''You talk about your woman, I wish you could see mine''
--> ''When she gets on to lovin' she brings eyesight to the blind''
* {{Music/Cher}}'s "Gypsies, Tramps, And Thieves."
--> ''I was born in the wagon of a travellin' show ''
--> ''My mama used to dance for the money they'd throw ''
--> ''Papa would do whatever he could ''
--> ''Preach a little gospel,''
--> ''Sell a couple bottles of Doctor Good.''
* The song "Step Right Up" from ''Music/SmallChange'' by Music/TomWaits is an entire speech given by a medicine show host about some miracle cure he wants to sell.

Medicine shows sometimes appear in stories about TheWildWest and similar areas of the time period--often there will be a comical bit where a [[TheShill shill]] in the crowd buys the snake oil and pretends to be cured of whatever ails him, but then must vomit up the foul stuff or otherwise dispose of the unswallowed medicine. Many fictional depictions will have the townsfolk being extremely gullible about the SnakeOilSalesman's pitch and the protagonist being the only one who sees through the deception. For the wagon itself check out MobileKiosk.

* ''Series/TheGoodies'' performed a scene as part of "The Goodies Travelling Medicine Show" in the episode "Hospital For Hire". The scene included a plant from the audience (Tim) being pulled from the audience to 'prove' that the mystery elixir cured all ailments.

* In ''Film/OutlawWomen'', Uncle Barney arrives in town with a medicine show selling his patent Blackfoot Balm. After Iron Mae steal his {{Lovely Assistant}}s away from him to her organization, he winds up working as bartender for her.

Medicine shows sometimes appear in stories about TheWildWest and similar areas of the time period--often there will be a comical bit where a [[TheShill shill]] in the crowd buys the snake oil and pretends to be cured of whatever ails him, but then must vomit up the foul stuff or otherwise dispose of the unswallowed medicine. Many fictional depictions will have the townsfolk being extremely gullible about the SnakeOilSalesman 's pitch and the protagonist being the only one who sees through the deception. For the wagon itself check out MobileKiosk.

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', we have Doc Galaktik's Medicine Show, though this is always in the same space, all the time. Unlike most snake oils, Dr. Galaktik's products actually work - despite the ingredients being fraudwort, shysterweed, and swindleblossoms. Perhaps it's the placebo effect?
** It's not ''always'' there, mind you. During the [[ZombieApocalypse Zombie Slayer]] challenge path, Doc Galaktik has taken advantage of how his show's in a wagon and ditched Seaside Town completely.