This can feature multiple different ways. If one of the heroes is a fan of the celebrity, they will probably enter the contest, competing fiercely with the other people and possibly becoming Starstruck Speechless should they be so lucky as to attain their goal. This may result in a Broken Pedestal if the winning fan finds out their idol is surprisingly unpleasant in person. If the hero is a celebrity and happens to be the "prize", the episode may focus on their trouble being stuck with a Loony Fan...which gets even more complicated if the winner happens to be an Abhorrent Admirer with a Celeb Crush. Sometimes the celebrity in question will go around incognito to observe the contestants up close and how they are in their environment, often leading to the celebrity deciding for themselves who wins the contest based on their judge of character (usually to whomever treats a supposed nobody like their disguised selves with the same respect they would treat them if they knew their real identity from thre get-go.)
For cases in which a character is "purchased" (innocently, not creepily) rather than "won", the intentions are generally romantic, and the "bought" person is not necessarily famous, see Bachelor Auction.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Ranma ½: Played with. This was the result, but not the expectation of Ranma when he tried out for the part of Romeo in a school play. He was told they would have a chance to "see China". Only in this case, the "China" in question was an old actor who used "China" as his stage name, not the nation with the cursed training grounds Ranma was hoping to return to for a cure.
Asian Animation
- In episode 44 of Happy Heroes, Doctor H. enters a fitness competition with the prize implied to be meeting news reporter Miss Peach, his Celeb Crush. That is "implied"; he actually meets Mr. Lightbulb, who points out that he never actually said the celebrity he got to visit would be Miss Peach.
Fanfic
- Miraculous Ladybug fanfic Kitty's Key
has Mr Agreste announcing a competition to win a date with his (fashion model) son Adrien, by seizing the "key to his heart". Adrien isn't thrilled but takes back a measure of control over the situation by "teaming up with Chat Noir" and having Chat hold the key — meaning that Adrien can decide when the key will be available at all and will have superpowers whenever he does, so anyone who wants it will have to persuade him to give it up. Naturally, by the end of the story, he gives it to Marinette without even being asked.
Films — Animated
- Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie: The Frame Story for the retelling of the book of Jonah involves Bob and Mr. Asparagus driving a bunch of kids to a Twippo concert. However, Laura has won the Twippo Sweepstakes and has a special ticket that will allow her to go backstage and meet him. She keeps rubbing it in the others' faces. When she loses it, Junior isn't particularly sorry, which leads into An Aesop about compassion, forgiveness, and mercy.
Films — Live-Action
- Dick opens with the protagonists sneaking out to mail a letter so Arlene can win a date with Bobby Sherman. In the process, they witness the Watergate break-in.
- Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!: A romantic comedy about a West Virginia grocery store clerk who wins a contest where the grand prize is a date with her favorite movie star, which inevitably leads to a Love Triangle developing between the two of them and one of her male friends.
Literature
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has the Golden Ticket contest, where any child who finds a Golden Ticket in a chocolate bar will get to meet the mysterious Willy Wonka, whom no one has seen in years despite his status as the world's most famous candy maker, and take a tour of his equally mysterious chocolate factory.
- In Queens of Geek, Taylor waits in line at SupaCon for hours to meet Skyler Atkins, author of the Queen Firestone series, only for Skyler to leave when she's almost reached the front of the line. Taylor enters the Queen Firestone SupaFan contest, which consists of a cosplay contest followed by a trivia quiz, because if she wins she'll get to have dinner with Skyler, be her date to the SupaCon After-Party, and go to the premiere of the next Queen Firestone movie. She almost wins the trivia contest, but chokes during the last question, and Brianna wins the contest instead. However, Brianna later introduces Taylor to Skyler to thank her for helping her through a panic attack before the trivia contest.
Live-Action TV
- In the Dollhouse episode "Stage Fright", Sierra is imprinted as the winner of a contest to spend time with pop star Rayna Reynolds. As Rayna is being stalked by an obsessed fan, Sierra's imprint also includes a hefty dose of bodyguard skills.
- This is the setup of the 1998 TV movie Double Platinum, starring Diana Ross and Brandy, but the contest is actually fixed so famed singer Olivia King (Ross) can meet her long-lost daughter Kayla Harris (Brandy).
- Last Man Standing: In "The Friending Library," an in-universe contest called "Meet the Outdoor Man" celebrating Mike's vlogs, a conspiracy theorist wins the contest and is convinced that Mike is sending secret messages in his vlogs.
- The Nanny did this a few times:
- In "Kindervelt Days", Fran is angry after she finds out her mother never mailed her "win a date with Erik Estrada" entry form when she was a teenager. It gets mailed decades too late, and to Fran's surprise Estrada decides to honor it as a publicity stunt.
- In "A Kiss Is Just A Kiss", Fran encourages Maggie to enter a kissing contest to win a chance to meet Billy Ray Cyrus, but things get awkward when Fran ends up winning the contest herself.
- In "The Bobbie Fleckman Story", Brighton wins a radio contest, the prize being a music video with the Brian Setzer Orchestra filmed in the Sheffield residence.
- The Odd Couple (1970): In "Big Mouth", Oscar accidentally costs Felix a commercial featuring Howard Cosell, so he goes to plead with Cosell to give his roommate back the benefit of having a celebrity client. When he arrives, Cosell is spending a game with Charley, a Boy Scout who won a "Why I Want to Be Howard Cosell" contest. Oscar uses this, urging Cosell to do it for the wonderful Scouts who admire him, and Cosell, despite reproaching Oscar for the tactic, agrees.
- The Other Two: In "Brooke and Cary Go to a Fashion Show," a woman wins a contest to spend the day with Pat. Unfortunately, Pat is so overwhelmed and exhausted that she doesn't spend much time talking to her. The woman also gets to participate in Pat's fashion show, wearing an uncomfortably revealing plastic outfit.
- The West Wing: This trope is used as the framing device for "Isaac and Ishmael", the Very Special Episode that was created to address the attacks of September 11th, 2001. A group of high school students participating in Presidential Classroom—a real-life program that allows teenagers gifted in political studies a chance to spend a week in Washington, D.C.—are visiting the White House when a potential terrorist threat arises, forcing the building into lockdown. The main characters, all of whom are high-ranking White House staff members, drop by and offer explanations about the history, nature, and practice of terrorism, with the teens questioning and occasionally challenging their ideas. It culminates with President Bartlet himself visiting the students.
Theatre
- The plot of Bye Bye Birdie is that the title character, 1950s teen heartthrob Conrad Birdie, is about to take a break from his musical career to enter the military, and his manager Albert is trying to figure out a sendoff that will thrill the fans. Rosie, Al's assistant/fiancée, comes up with this as the answer. Rosie pulls the name of a Birdie fan club member out of a drawer full of contact information, and it's announced that this girl, Kim, has won a secret contest to meet Birdie and kiss him goodbye before he leaves for the service. It's actually a subversion in that there was never really a contest, but no one outside of the management team knows that.
Video Games
- Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People: Subverted in "Baddest of the Bands". When Strong Bad finds out about a contest where contestants can submit their own album cover designs to rock band Limozeen for a chance to meet them, he creates a cool album cover of his own and ends up winning. However, the real members of the band don't appear in person and a cardboard cutout of them with some speakers, a microphone, and a webcam attached to it shows up instead.
Western Animation
- One episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks involves a contest to spend the day with Alvin. He's mortified to discover that his "biggest fan" who won the contest is a woman old enough to be his great-grandmother, so he keeps sidelining her with things like a taxi tour of the city (without him). Eventually his guilt gets the better of him and he apologizes, and she says that she figured he was expecting someone young and pretty and understands why he felt as he did.
- Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes: "Revenge of the Skrulls" features the Four holding a "Be a Fantastic Fifth for a Day" contest, and ending up with Rupert, a Motor Mouthed fanboy who irritates even Reed. He does end up saving them from an attack by Super Skrull (using Ronan's staff), but the other three are still not happy when Susan says they should give him a do-over since his day with them got disrupted by a supervillain attack.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Be A-Fred, Be Very A-Fred", Grim becomes the cover boy of a laxative brand and announces an essay contest, with the winner getting to spend a day with him. Ironically, this proves to be a marketing disaster, since customers are understandably hesitant to buy a product advertised by The Grim Reaper himself. Grim tries to save the company's reputation by treating the sole contest participant, Fred Fredburger, to the best day of his life, though his efforts culminate in Fred apparently dying. As a result, the company fires Grim, but not before beating him to a pulp.
- Hey Arnold!: In “Pre-Teen Scream”, Phoebe wins an evening with pop star Ronnie Matthews, only to be disappointed when she finds out that he’s a vain, egotistical fraud who not only doesn’t write his own songs, but can’t even really sing.
- Johnny Bravo: The episode "Berry the Butler" has Bunny win a contest to have famous singer Berry Vanderbolten be her butler for a day. However, Bunny faints from the excitement and Barry tries to use this to leave early, using the whole thing as a publicity stunt until Johnny stops him. Originally this episode was written for Barry Manilow but the crew never got a response back from him. They also tried to get John Tesh instead but he bailed out on them at the last moment; leading to the Captain Ersatz we have now.
- The Little Rascals: Part of the plot of "The Zero Hero" concerns Darla being selected for a date with the actor who plays Captain Muscles, her favorite TV superhero.
- Miraculous Ladybug: In the episode "Ikari Gozen," Paris celebrates Friendship Day and has a scavenger hunt that teams up pairs of strangers so that people can form new friendships. The final goal of the hunt is to figure out where famed teen model Adrien Agreste is hiding, and the prize is to spend the rest of the day with him. Marinette initially enters hoping to spend some time with him, but when she gets paired with Kagami, she decides she'd rather try to sabotage their team to keep Kagami and Adrien apart.
- My Little Pony Tales: "The Impractical Joker" begins with Melody watching an announcement about a contest she entered where the prize is a date with Chain Link, lead singer for The Cleaveland Bays, a popular band in the series. Patch pulls a prank by impersonating Chain Link and tricking Melody, as well as Starlight and Sweetheart, into believing they won the contest.
- Phineas and Ferb:
- In "Ready for the Bettys", Candace and Stacy win a radio contest and get to know their favorite band of the week, "The Bettys", and get to ride in their band bus.
- In "Delivery of Destiny", a delivery driver wins that the recurring band Love Händel is playing while he's on work.
- Robot Chicken: An early sketch had the Nerd win a radio call-in contest and get to choose between a new video game system or a date with Scarlett Johansson. It's an impossible choice, but he opts for the latter. His friends stage a mugging so that he can "save" her, which leads to a Rescue Romance where they fall in love, get married, and have a child. On his deathbed, the Nerd reveals that he faked the fight, and Scarlet reveals "she" was actually a male Celebrity Impersonator.
- What's New, Scooby-Doo?:
- In "A Scooby-Doo Valentine", Velma gushes without thinking that she's entered the "Win a Date with J.C. Chavez" contest hundreds of times. When everyone looks at her, she tries to pass it off as being a research project.
- In "The Unnatural", Fred (a sports fan) wins a contest to meet Luis Santiago, a baseball star who stands on the brink of breaking a home-run record. The gang arrives to find out that Luis is being threatened by the ghost of the record-holder.
