History Main / TheWorstSeatInTheHouse

* In the historical novel ''The Tongue'' by Lea Singer, a theatre specator has the bad luck to spend a performance in the seat behind protagonist A.B.L. Grimod de la Reynière, whose wig is extremely excessive even by late baroque standards. He ends up using his cane to dig a peeking hole into it.

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* Bob Uecker's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc3UGda8T8c Miller Lite commercial]], where he uttered the immortal words, "I must be in the front row!" and ended up in the nosebleed section. In real life, the Brewers' American Family Field contains a section of $1 seats [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Miller_Park%27s_Uecker_Seats.jpg at the farthest point behind home plate]] (even farther than Uecker's press box view) around the pivot point of the stadium's retractable roof called "The Uecker Seats" in tribute to him (along with an [[https://onmilwaukee.com/myOMC/galleries/bobueckerlastrowstatuemillerpark appropriate seat with a Uecker statue]]).
* A Dutch shampoo commercial of Fructice features this.

* There's a ''ComicBook/SpirouAndFantasio'' comic where they're supposed to attend a "car ball" (like soccer, but the players are all in cars, and the ball is also a car) match to write an article about it. They are late (since they spend the entire comic on wacky mafia hijinx), but a ShadyScalper sells them the last set of seats. Which are inside the "ball."

* One of the gags in ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' #34 posed the question "''What If'' you had to sit behind [[MyBrainIsBig the Leader]]?"

* ''Film/ReadyToRumble'': When Gordie and Sean get BOTH nosebleed seats and a column in front of them when they are at the Pay-Per-View WCW event.

* In the chapter of Creator/AlFranken's ''Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them'' where Al goes to the 2003 White House Correspondent's Dinner, he points out that only four seats in the house had obstructed views of the stage, and one of them was given to [[ButtMonkey Fox News' in-house "liberal"]], Alan Colmes.

* ''Series/HappyDays'': Richie knows the keyboardist of Johnny Fish and the Fins from summer camp so he gets his friends free tickets (after the band stays in his house to escape from their rabid fans), but they're in the nosebleed section. Nobody believes Richie actually knows the guy and thinks he's lying and got bad seats because that's all he could afford. The girl he asked to go with him goes with someone else instead because the other guy has better seats, so instead Richie takes his dad. Then his friend from the band gives him a ShoutOut during the concert and suddenly he's a big man again. The girl comes up to where Richie is sitting and wants to be with him, but he says, "Sorry. That's my dad's seat."

* A first season episode of ''Series/EverybodyHatesChris'' contains a brief montage of all of the obstructed view tickets Julius inadvertently bought from neighborhood hustler [[MeaningfulName Risky]].
* On ''[[Series/LateNight Late Night with Conan O'brien]]'', during a taping in Chicago, Conan had the camera {{pan}} to the worst seat in the giant auditorium, which was the back right corner. The person in question was a very attractive young woman, whom Conan pretended to fall in love with.
* On an episode of ''Series/TheGoldenGirls,'' Dorothy's ex-husband Stan drags her and her mother Sophia to a baseball game. The seats are high up, but that doesn't bother them too much. Dorothy actually says it's not that bad, as she usually ends up [[TemptingFate sitting next to a fat sweaty guy who insists on taking his shirt off.]] After a [[SpeakOfTheDevil fat, sweaty guy takes off his shirt and sits down]], [[DeadpanSnarker Dorothy]] merely quips, "What kept you?" This was later taken up a notch when a player hits a home run that hits Sophia in the head.

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* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'': The episode "Spitballs" sees Rocko and Heffer go to a baseball game in an effort to replace a prized foul ball that Rocko once caught as a kid. When they arrive at the ticket booth, the game sells out, so they buy scalped tickets from Slippy the Slug. It turns out that their seats are beach chairs on top of an extremely tall lighting rig that's even above ''space satellites'' and where Rocko would have no chance of catching a foul ball. Luckily, Heffer is able to spot two empty seats in the front row with a pair of binoculars, where they're able to sit out most of the game until an usher sends them back to their original seats, even though [[ItMakesSenseInContext the rest of the stadium is completely empty]]. [[{{Irony}} Funnily enough]], [[spoiler: a foul ball is actually hit into their original seats while Rocko and Heffer are making their climb back up to the top of the lighting rig, before falling back down toward the field of play...]]

* WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}} doesn't buy his ticket for the big concert on time so he gets a much worse seat than all his friends. He has various [[ImagineSpot fantasies]] about how bad a seat it will be. Luckily for him, his father is catering the event so Arthur can get to go backstage and meet the band, and Binky, the resident JerkWithAHeartOfGold, offers Arthur one of his tickets, which are in a great section.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Raging Bender" starts with Bender stuck in a movie theater behind a robot with an incredibly tall and pointy head. To make things worse for Bender, it turns out to be the condensed body of the current robot wrestling champion, which Bender discovers when he (insultingly) asks him to let him see the screen.
* There's an episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' where Hank, his son, and a few of their friends attend a conference title game in Dallas. They buy absurdly expensive seats that turn out to be in the bloodiest of the nosebleed section, but through some good luck they end up in a luxury suite by the end of the game.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Talkartoons}}'' short "Silly Scandals" had Bimbo trying to watch WesternAnimation/BettyBoop perform when a woman sits down in front of him. He tells her to take off her hat, only to reveal a BeehiveHairdo to further obstruct his view. He ends up cutting it off so he can see.
** "WesternAnimation/BettyBoop"'s first stand alone short, "Stopping the Show". While Betty is performing, an infant watching the show had his view blocked by a man with a tall hat. The infant asks the man to remove his hat. The man removes his hat revealing his tall head, leaving the infant sulking in his seat.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse'' short "[[Recap/MickeyMouseS2E4OFutebolClassico O Futebol Clássico]]", Mickey sits to watch UsefulNotes/TheWorldCup, but then a large pig with a big novelty afro wig blocks his view. Mickey asks him to take the wig off, but that just reveals a mass of curly hair more than twice the size of the wig. The rest of the cartoon has Mickey trying to find a better seat, ultimately finding it [[spoiler:atop the pig's big hair]].
* In a ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' cartoon, "How to Be a Baseball Fan", Goofy goes to a baseball game only to find that his seats are in the nosebleed section and he goes through an OverlyLongGag of climbing the stairs and seeing signs that tell him he's still quite a way away from his seat. Then when he gets there, he ''still'' can't see because of the hot-dog vendor, a big guy in front of him, and other fans WavingSignsAround.

* On ''[[Series/LateNight Late Night with Conan O'brien]]'', during a taping in Chicago, Conan had the camera pan to the worst seat in the giant auditorium, which was the back right corner. The person in question was a very attractive young woman, whom Conan pretended to fall in love with.

* In a ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' cartoon, "How to Be a Fan", Goofy goes to a baseball game, only to find that his seats are in the nosebleed section and he goes through an OverlyLongGag of climbing the stairs and seeing signs that tell him he's still quite a way away from his seat. Then when he gets there, he ''still'' can't see because of the hot-dog vendor, a big guy in front of him, and other fans WavingSignsAround.

* The ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' episode "The Baseball" provides the page quote. The title character and his best friend, Gerald, want to go to a baseball game to see Arnold's favorite player play his last game before retiring. They decide to buy two tickets from a scalper promising them great seats for half the price of what they're selling at the ticket booth. It turns out that their seats are both in the nosebleed section '''and''' obstructed by a pole. Arnold decides to get closer to the action and ends up catching the home run ball from his favorite player at his final at-bat while simultaneously being chased by ushers.

* Most indoor arenas optimized for hockey can accommodate a basketball court with minimal problems. However, in arenas optimized for basketball, it doesn't work so well when accommodating hockey. A regulation NHL rink is 200×85 feet (61×26 m), whereas the playing dimensions of an NBA court is 94×50 feet (28.7×15.2 m) with additional technical areas of 4 feet (1.2 m) from the sidelines and 8 feet (2.4 m) from the end lines surrounding the perimeter of the court. Certain fans who have attended home games of the two NHL teams which played in NBA-centric arenas, the Arizona Coyotes (America West Arena) and New York Islanders (Barclays Center), have had to deal with obstructed views. One end of the lower bowl had to be retracted just to fit the ice floor. Those sitting in the neutral zone and the non-retracted end zone had decent views; however, those sitting in the upper levels where the lower bowl was retracted, their views of the goal were obstructed by the upper deck's overhang.

* Most indoor arenas designed for hockey first can accommodate a basketball court with minimal problems. However, in arenas designed for basketball first, it doesn't work so well when accommodating hockey. A regulation NHL rink is 200×85 feet (61×26 m), whereas the playing dimensions of an NBA court is 94×50 feet (28.7×15.2 m) with additional technical areas of 4 feet (1.2 m) from the sidelines and 8 feet (2.4 m) from the end lines surrounding the perimeter of the court. Certain fans who have attended home games of the two NHL teams which played in NBA-centric arenas, the Arizona Coyotes (America West Arena) and New York Islanders (Barclays Center), have had to deal with obstructed views. One end of the lower bowl had to be retracted just to fit the ice floor. Those sitting in the neutral zone and the non-retracted end zone had decent views; however, those sitting in the upper levels where the lower bowl was retracted, their views of the goal were obstructed by the upper deck's overhang.
* Many recently built or renovated NFL stadiums, such as Dallas' AT&T Stadium, Minnesota's US Bank Stadium, Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and Los Angeles' [=SoFi=] Stadium, feature field level club areas, typically behind the teams' benches. Unlike most examples of this trope, where the obstructed view seats would often be the cheapest seats, field level clubs at NFL stadiums tend to be the most expensive (aside from the private boxes); however, these club areas have the perks of having plush climate-controlled lounges and having better, and often complementary, food and drink options.

* The "Mount Davis" grandstand at the Oakland Coliseum was clearly designed for football. More often than not, the upper deck seats on Mount Davis are tarped off when the A's play; ironically, in the Raiders' final years in Oakland, the upper deck was tarped off as well to get around the NFL's TV blackout rules. In the rare instances where the tarps come off, fans sitting in the Mount Davis upper deck have [[https://www.sfgate.com/athletics/article/mount-davis-worst-view-as-coliseum-playoff-14484469.php their view of much of the outfield cut off]].