Self Deprecation / Live-Action TV

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• In a 30 Rock credits sequence, Liz considers and shoots down a bunch of names for Jack's daughter-to-be. The last name she rejects is Christina, because "then everyone will call her Tina, and every Tina I've ever known is a judgmental bitch."
• In the Arrested Development episode "Spring Breakout" the program Scandalmakers is described thusly by Ron Howard's narration:
  • "Due to poor acting, the burden of the story was placed on the narrator. [...] He was actually found in a hole near the house, but this inattention to detail was typical of the laziness the show's narrator was known for. [...] Real shoddy narrating, just pure crap."
  • "In fact, Mr. Attell was portraying Tobias' actual never-nude affliction, but this perplexed the Scandalmakers' audience due to the unfocused nature of the narrator's explanation."
  • Later in the episode, "Notice it wasn't something the narrator said."
  • Alternately this is the Arrested Development narrator feeling threatened by the Scandalmakers one and attacking it gratuitously.
• One particular episode of Babylon 5 has what could be read as either Self Deprecation or Strawman Political: when Garibaldi is trying to break Sheridan out from his imprisonment by President Clark's forces (as atonement for setting him up while under mind control), he says to one of the guards, "Maybe you've seen me on the news?" The guard immediately replies, "I don't watch TV. It's a cultural wasteland filled with inappropriate metaphors and an unrealistic portrayal of life created by the liberal media elite."
  • Also doubles as a subversion of stereotypical dumb guards.
  • His insistence that the media is liberal is also interesting, considering that all media have by that point been usurped by the totalitarian Clark administration, which is anything but liberal. Since the guard presumably doesn't watch TV in the first place, how would he know?
• Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned, an improvised chat show with topics taken from the audience, had a title sequence which opened with a small boy standing next to a poster advertising the show, singing "It'll never work, it'll never work..." More people joined in this cry, eventually forming a procession that followed Baddiel and Skinner to the studio where the duo turned round and finished it off with a cheery "And neither will we again!"
• Self Deprecation was a staple joke on the 80s sketch comedy Bizarre — jokes included Richard Nixon telling host John Byner (who played Nixon in the sketch), not to "make the mistake I did", but instead to "burn the tapes", and an ET parody, where the ET character was the children's grandfather who couldn't even bear to be in the house while they were watching Bizarre.
• Bones mocks itself mercilessly in "The Suit on the Set". A Hollywood studio is creating a movie based on one of Dr. Brennan's books. Technical accuracy takes a backseat to Rule of Cool. The lab has a superfluous environment, including for some reason a monorail in the background.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Played with in Season 4 when Faith (in Buffy's body) attacks Buffy (in Faith's body) — Faith has issues, but here she is literally beating herself, crying out that she is sick and disgusting.
    • Faith also insults herself while in Buffy's body.
  • Oz is modest to a fault about his musical talent—Xander asks if it's hard to play the guitar; he shrugs and says, "Not the way I play it." When bandmate Devon suggests that they need roadies, since other bands have them, Oz replies, "Other bands know more than three chords."
  • "Tabula Rasa", in which the main cast lose their memories due to a magic spell, contains an example of the creators poking fun at the show's spinoff. Spike, who finds himself unwilling to bite Buffy, believes he is a vampire with a soul, describing himself with an almost exact description of Buffy's former boyfriend and spinoff protagonist Angel. Buffy's response?
    Buffy: A vampire with a soul? How lame is that?
  • Joss Whedon loves this trope. On Angel, Fred's mom mentions that her husband loves "those Alien movies", except for the last one, which made him fall asleep. Guess who wrote the screenplay for Alien: Resurrection? It might also be interpreted as a Take That!, though, based on Whedon's dissatisfaction with how his characters' surprise developments were blown by typecasting.
• Done in the pilot and at the beginning of every single following episode in Burn Notice by Sam Axe, For the record, both Michael and Sam are former spies:
  Sam: You know spies, bunch of bitchy little girls.
  • Actually, Sam was former Special Forces, not an Agency operator.
• As he did in Real Life interviews, George Burns always credits his wife as the talented half of The Burns and Allen Show.
  George Burns: 20 years ago I made an investment of $2.00 that has paid off a million times over in the years since. I bought a marriage license.
• Castle wants to travel to Montreal alone to investigate his recent two-month-long disappearance; Beckett insists that it might be too dangerous. Castle (played by Canadian Nathan Fillion) responds with "It's Canada! How dangerous could it be?" to fellow Canadian Stana Katic.
  • And later, when Rick, Alexis, and Hayley are discussing a bicoastal serial killer:
    Rick: Phillip thought someone at Zenith Studios was The Phantom.
    Alexis: Makes sense. Plenty of people connected with the film industry are bicoastal.
    Hayley: Directors, producers, cinematographers...
    Rick: And actors, who are all borderline sociopaths, by the way.
    Hayley: Don't have to tell me.
• Friends parody Chums, from SMTVLive, has lots of these in its opening gags and cliffhanger recaps:
  "Chums is filmed before an easily-pleased studio audience."
  "Was Dane Bowers a vampire? Were the chums turned into lifeless zombies, and, if so, would anybody notice the difference? Find out now as we return you to Chums."
  • It also poked fun at the previous pop careers of its stars Ant and Dec ("Everyone knows you've never been able to sing a note!").
• Cobra Kai likes to poke fun at some the sillier aspects of the original films:
  • One episode has Daniel and Johnny try and put their differences aside by teaching each other their respective karate philosophies, allowing them to get this little jab in at Mr. Miyagi's You No Take Candle mannerisms:
    Daniel: You know what Mr. Miyagi said was the best defense in all Karate?
    Johnny: High outside block against an axe kick?
    Daniel: The best defense is "No be there."
    (Beat)
    Johnny: You mean don't be there?! The guy teaches you centuries of his ancient family Karate, and you can't help him with English?
    Daniel: Don't even go there with me, Johnny.
  • They also poke fun at Terry Silver's behavior from The Karate Kid Part III, chalking up his giggling over-the-top cartoonishly villainous behavior to a severe cocaine addiction and depicting him as a calm and calculating Soft-Spoken Sadist while sober.
    Terry: Back in the 80's I thought I could conquer the world and I came pretty damn close. I was so hopped up on cocaine and revenge, I spent months terrorizing a teenager over a high school karate tournament. It sounds insane just talking about it!
  • Daniel, Johnny, Amanda, Carmen, and Chozen all go out for drinks in one episode, and the "carrot scene" from The Karate Kid Part II where Chozen used fake weights to scam the villagers gets brought up. Carmen points out the Fridge Logic that many fans have pointed out, that using lighter weights would actually make the villagers' produce more valuable. Chozen concedes the point with a laugh:
    Daniel: Then the weight just snapped in half! I never would have uncovered your sinister plot if it wasn't for that basket of carrots!
    Carmen: Wait, if the weight was fake, wouldn't that mean you were scamming yourself out of money, and not the villagers?
    Chozen: Eh. Not one of my smarter plans. Oh, strange to think of those days. We were so different!
• In one of the last episodes of The Colbert Report, Smaug called Benedict Cumberbatch a "hack". Cumberbatch, of course, did the voice and motion-capture for Smaug in The Hobbit, and in the interview.
• In Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa, the victim of one episode was an actor famous for playing an associate professor in a drama. Himura, a university professor, thinks it's silly that a drama would have a professor as the main character. He continues on to say that it's unrealistic for the professor to be a stud when Himura himself gets Ship Tease with various women.
• An episode of CSI has a victim who is working on a "darker and edgier" version of a cheesy sci-fi show. In one scene, a fan shouts "YOU SUCK!" at the victim. That fan was played by Ronald D. Moore, executive producer of the darker and edgier Battlestar Galactica remake.
  • In fact, most of the cast from BSG comes together as a nod to knowing how they had alienated the former fans. And Ellen Tigh is the murderer of Not Ronald D. Moore.
  • The teaser for another CSI episode, in which a fictional TV series based on the Vegas crime lab is being discussed, Grissom states there are too many CSI-style series on TV (a tweak of not only spin-off CSI: Miami, but also NCIS). Actually, Truth in Television (and possibly an in-joke) as actor William Petersen, who played Grissom, was openly critical of the decision by CBS to commission CSI: Miami.
• Larry David, of Curb Your Enthusiasm, when accused of being a "self-hating Jew", answered: "I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish."
• An episode of The Daily Show featured Lewis Black talking about how we shouldn't let celebrities teach us political views. For examples, he shows pictures of Tom Cruise, Oprah... and himself.
  • Also when he discusses the Jews, although this may be more related to N-Word Privileges.
  • Jon Stewart has also struck at his own past selves on more than one occasion. He mocks himself for his past condemnation of an NRA convention near Columbine High School as well as for his past commendation of conservative activist James O'Keefe.
  • Stewart's successor Trevor Noah does this a lot as well, often in relation to his poor upbringing in South Africa.
• Dear White People:
  • In the first episode, the narrator says the writers need him to set up the plot because they're too lazy to do it the regular way.
  • Chapter I of the third season has some humorous comments about the problems with Netflix shows in their third season, which they are.
• In Dexter, Masuka makes a racist comment at the expense of his own race, followed by his trademark goofy laugh:
  Vincent Masuka: Genius. He doesn't want to leave shoe prints, so he leaves sock prints. And I thought Asians were supposed to be smart.
• Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs never misses an opportunity to snark on himself and the show, to the point of frequently starting things off by asking his host "What can I do to slow things down?" and reassuring his hosts about looking silly on the air by saying, "Nobody watches the show."
  Host: You're probably right-handed, aren't you?
  Mike: Oh, it doesn't matter, I'm equally incompetent with either limb.
• Doctor Who:
  • Literal in-universe example: Any time two or more different incarnations of the Doctor have met, it's a safe bet at least one will say something snarky about the others ("A dandy and a clown?"). Also doubles as a lighthearted Take That! between the various actors who've portrayed the character.
  • It's also something of a tradition when a new actor becomes the Doctor for the writers to, in the scenes immediately after the regeneration, single out one of the new actor's more distinctive or less-than-flattering features and then write a few lines of dialogue wherein the new Doctor looks at themself in the mirror and makes a point of noting how unsightly they think this feature is. Tom Baker and Christopher Eccleston's ears, Matt Smith's chin, etc.
    • The above is subverted with the Sixth Doctor, who looks in a mirror and immediately likes what he sees... which is played as the new incarnation of the Doctor being a raging egomaniac.
    • Also for the Thirteenth Doctor, mostly due to her glee at becoming a woman for the first time that she remembers. "Oh, brilliant!"
  • Russell T Davies (Welsh) and Steven Moffat (Scottish) have taken potshots at their own countries. Aliens in Cardiff? Why Cardiff, of all places? And Scotland's never conquered anywhere, y'know — not even a Shetland.
    • In "The Unquiet Dead", the Doctor remarks about the possibility of dying in Cardiff of all places.
    • "Boom Town" has some more Cardiff mockery when the alien villain, who has become the city's Lord Mayor and is Going Native, has this to say about why no one from the British government has noticed her evil plans yet:
      "We're in Cardiff. London doesn't care! The southwest coast could fall into the sea and they wouldn't notice! Oh, I sound like a Welshman. God help me, I've gone native."
  • The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot is an internet special by Peter Davison about himself, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy trying to appear in the 50th-anniversary story, and sending themselves up mercilessly in the process.
    • Not just them; a veritable cavalcade of stars from Who past and present make cameos, and all of them are clearly having a ball making fun of themselves (special mention has to go to David Tennant portraying himself as so flighty and self-involved he forgets that his own wife is in hospital, going into labour, whilst talking on the phone with her).
  • In an arguable case of how this trope can backfire, the producers attempted to do this in Season 23, during "The Trial of a Time Lord" season. Since the Framing Device for this season was the Doctor and a courtroom of Time Lords watching excerpts from the Doctor's adventures as evidence in his trial, the characters were essentially watching Doctor Who throughout the season. At several points they make slightly meta-comments about the show; in one notable example, the Doctor points out how boring and inconsequential the scene the characters have just watched is and demands that they move forward to something a bit more relevant and interesting. Unfortunately, this was made during a period when the writing and production standards of Doctor Who had arguably been less-than-stellar to begin with, and the whole point of the season was to offer a defense of the show after it had been controversially taken off the air for eighteen months. Nobody seemed to consider the possibility that watching the Doctor essentially pointing out how his own show was un-watchable rubbish might prompt the audience — including those who believed it should be canceled — to start agreeing with him.
  • The Doctor's self-loathing is a frequent component of the new series, thanks to the events of the Time War.
    • The "Dream Lord" in "Amy's Choice" is implied to be a manifestation of the Doctor's own darker tendencies, much like the Valeyard from the classic series. The Dream Lord takes several potshots at the Doctor along the way.
      The Doctor: Where did you pick up this cheap cabaret act?
      Dream Lord: Me? Oh, you're on shaky ground.
      The Doctor: Am I?
      Dream Lord: If you had any more tawdry quirks, you could open up have a tawdry quirk shop. The madcap vehicle. The cockamamie hair. The clothes designed by a first-year fashion student. I'm surprised you haven't got a little purple space dog. Just to ram home what an intergalactic wag you are.
      —
      The Doctor: There's only one person in the Universe who hates me as much as you do.
    • When he's dying from River Song's poison lipstick in "Let's Kill Hitler", the TARDIS communicates with the Doctor through a holographic interface; when it uses his own image as an avatar, he tells it to show him "someone [he] like[s]".
  • "The Long Game": There's a small one when the Editor is going through Eva/Suki's video bio, confronting her about it.
    Suki: I want to work for Satellite 5 because... the pay scheme is really good–
    The Editor: LIAR!
  • "The Waters of Mars": In a convergence with Hypocritical Humour, the Doctor claims that he doesn't like funny robots, before later adding that robot dogs are different.
  • "Deep Breath": The Twelfth Doctor makes reference to the fact he used to wear a scarf (in his fourth incarnation) before dismissing it as looking ridiculous.
  • "Listen": After they arrive at the end of the universe, the Doctor declares that "the TARDIS isn't supposed to come this far, but some idiot turned the safeguards off".
  • "Time Heist":
    • The Doctor refers to his current look as intended to have been "Minimalist" but winding up with "Magician".
    • Throughout the episode, the Doctor continually mentions how he hates the Architect. Later, it turns out he is the Architect.
  • "In the Forest of the Night": "I am Doctor Idiot!"
  • A meta example in the Passing the Torch scene of An Adventure in Space and Time:
    William Hartnell: Oh, you'll be fine. In fact, you'll be wonderful. I told them, you know. There's only one man in England who can take over.
    Patrick Troughton: Oh, couldn't they get him?
• Speaking of Drew Carey, the send-up to The Full Monty they did on The Drew Carey Show ended with him walking into the audience and handing out 50 dollar bills, saying "Sorry you had to see me naked" each time. Of course, he stopped when he realized he didn't get to see any of them naked and took his money back.
• In the Friends episode "The One with the Blind Date", Phoebe and Joey intentionally set Rachel and Ross on bad blind dates to make them realize that they should be together. Rachel's date is Steve, who spends the evening with insulting himself.
  Steve: I—I just have to say this; you're really beautiful.
  Rachel: Oh, well, that's — that's very sweet. Thank you.
  Steve: I'm kind of funny-looking.
  Rachel: What?
  Steve: Oh, come on, you're way out of my league. Everybody in here knows it. Bet that guy over there's probably saying, "ooh, why she out with him? He must be rich!" Well, I'm not!
  Rachel: Okay... well, I guess then the joke's on him! So, what do think you wanna order? I'm really excited about that chicken.
  Steve: I'm not funny either. So, if you were thinking, "well, he's not that good-looking, but maybe we'll have some laughs..." that ain't gonna happen!
  • Also Chandler, who frequently throws out jokes at his own expense, especially concerning his love life.
• On Game of Thrones, Olenna Tyrell notes that her family's coat of arms (a rose) is lame and nothing like the Starks' (direwolf) or Greyjoys' (kraken). And their motto, "Growing Strong", is dull compared to "Winter Is Coming" or "We Do Not Sow".
• On Good Eats, the episode dealing with Thanksgiving leftovers involves a Snowed-In plot...where the snow amounts to an inch of snow on the ground, which causes all hell to break loose. Why? Because the show is filmed in Georgia, and most of the people that work on it (including Alton Brown) are from there. (And yes, because snow in that region is unusual, an inch of snow on the ground there really can cause all hell to break loose.)
• The Great British Bake Off: Fairly often among contestants who know they're doing badly, but most famously by Ruby more-or-less endlessly in series 4. The hosts and judges had to tell her to stop doing it (with Mel actually snapping at her), a lesson that only briefly set in before returning a couple of episodes later. The hosts themselves often indulge in this, especially Sue, who frequently hangs a lampshade on how bad her puns are.
• The first episode of Hell's Kitchen Season 6 has three former contestants - Bonnie and Aaron of Season 3 and Colleen of Season 5 - give the new contestants pointers on what not to do while showcasing their Epic Fail moments (Bonnie forgetting to turn on the oven, Aaron bursting into tears before the first dinner and Colleen not realizing she put in sugar and not tasting it before hand)
• Heroes: Noah Bennet's comment ("Sorry about the Sylar thing. We all admit it was a terrible idea.") could be read as an apology for the volume 4 finale.
• Even House has a surprising amount of these, considering that he's got a huge ego and calls himself "almost always eventually right". While he's very sure of his medical and observational skills, he shows much deprecation on the other aspects of his life. He calls himself a "lonely misanthropic drug addict" and says he should've died in the bus crash instead of Amber. He once tells Cameron that she wants to date him only because he's damaged. The man obviously has huge issues of self-worth.
  • House has no issues at all with self-worth. He's brutally honest with himself, and others, about his flaws and advantages. He doesn't self-deprecate his advantages at all, nor overstate them. That requires a pretty healthy ego. (The writers seemed to have trouble keeping him that honest, by repeatedly making him say or do something nice, however.)
  House: You don't love, you need. And now that your husband is dead, you're looking for your new charity case. That's why you're going out with me. I'm twice your age, I'm not great looking, I'm not charming, I'm not even nice. What I am, is what you need. I'm damaged.
  • His own subconscious is positively nasty to him, especially here
    Hallucination Amber: (as House is [hallucinating] detoxing with the help of Cuddy, and spots a Vicodin pill lying on the floor) You're pathetic. If you want the pill, just send her home. But you can't because that would be admitting defeat to her. Now, this is interesting. If you take the pill, you don't deserve her. If you secretly take the pill, you don't deserve anyone.
  • House and his subconscious actually seem to despise one another. In the episode No Reason, House gets shot and hallucinates that he wakes up in the ICU next to the man who shot him. Over the course of the episode, each one gives the other a scathing "Reason You Suck" Speech.
• While promoting the final season of How I Met Your Mother at the Comic-Com 2013, a promo trailer was released where Ted's kids, who are all grown-up, vented their frustrations at their dad for dragging the story out too long— over eight years — and wanted him to get to the point on how he actually met their mother.
  Future Ted: So... you're saying you want me to wrap it up?
  Luke and Penny: YES!
  Future Ted: Alright, fine. I'll wrap it up.
  Penny: Fuckin' A!
• iCarly: Some of the iCarly writers themselves cameo in the very weird clips (e.g., shrimps up the nose, biting off heads of dolls) that the trio shows whenever they have a technical difficulty.
  • Andrew Hill Newman, one of the show's writers plays as Mr. Henning in "iGo Nuclear", where his hippie looks garner himself most of the jokes and insults from his students and Spencer, a Ridgeway alumna. Special mention is that Newman himself co-wrote the said episode. Newman also voices George, the "sentient" Bra who tells Ghost Stories (which are actually NOT horror stories) who is also poked fun by Carly and Sam in their web shows.
  • The "iHave a Question" segments, which sometimes actually answer a question and usually just poke fun at the web show's silliness.
  • The Random Debates usually start well, then the debaters will suddenly change the topic (as early as Round 2), as far as their arguments are not any more related to the topics they defend. Hilarity Ensues considering the context of the skit's title.
• The first episode of the BBC's adaptation of I, Claudius has a lengthy conversation in which several Romans (all played by British stage actors) agree that it would be easy to invade Britain, but it's not worth the effort because there's nothing worthwhile there.
• An episode of Inside Amy Schumer features Anna Wintour, the legendary editor of Vogue, talking with Amy after the magazine put her on the cover of an issue. The two claim that the other's job is much easier than their own, and so switch. The rest of the sketch is essentially Schumer parodying everything about Wintour (her job, her lunch choices, her own fashion style, etc.), which the editor seems to enjoy. She even does a self-deprecating stand-up comedy routine that the audience loves.
• The Inside Man is an Edutainment Show about IT security. In "On Our Side," the Kromocom manager says that he's going to find a video to send out for more training when 23% of the people in the company fall for a simulated phishing attack. Mark asks if anyone ever actually watches those videos.
• In an episode of iZombie, an actor playing a zombie on a Show Within a Show proposes the idea of a zombie show, where a zombie is the star. He's immediately told how dumb an idea that is.
• The Jerry Springer Show has often touted itself as "the worst show on television" after being given the title in a (rather lowbrow) TV Guide list.
• The hosts of New Zealand comedy show Jono and Ben at Ten frequently joke about the show's supposedly low ratings. In reality, it is one of the top-rated shows on its channel.
• The web exclusive series of Kamen Rider Zio Supplementary Plan has the characters complain about the problems of the series production.
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: John Oliver never misses an opportunity to mock himself and the show:
  • John admits that his credit report is probably low, given he spends HBO's money on "silly costumes, pyrotechnics, and checkered shirts."
  • In the segment about abortion laws:
    John: Death by colonoscopy has to be one of the worst ways to die – right after having your mother catch you masturbating and while you're trying to pull your pants up you fall and hit your head so your dad has to carry you pantsless to the car to take you to the hospital and the girl next door you have a crush on tries to help but she's laughing so hard at the size of your penis that she closes the door on your hand startling your mother who slams her foot on the gas dragging you behind the car for several blocks while your father yells, "Your TV show is derivative, and you'll never escape the shadow of Jon Stewart!"
  • A brief opening segment has John show off an actual API advert that blatantly steals the design and presentation of his show's opening credits. He then plays the show's theme over the ad to make the comparison even more glaring.
    John: You took our shit, API! You took! Our! Shit! Everything! From the font to the design style! You have so thoroughly copied our credits, at the end of that ad I was honestly worried I was about to watch twenty-nine minutes of a rat-faced Englishman telling me sad news facts! And who wants that?
  • In the segment on journalism, while playing an old clip, to showcase the show's reliance on printed references:
    John: You probably didn't notice it at the time because you were too fixated on my bold choice of shiny gray tie with checkered dress shirt. The tie says "Matthew funeral", the shirt says "high school debate tournament" and the face says "I am not confident enough to carry this look off".
  • The season 4 trailer has the narrator dramatically announce the return of HBO's greatest/hit/whathaveyou show... which isn't Last Week Tonight show and John keeps showing up uninvited.
  • He does it again in the first episode of season four, referencing his haters about his show, saying that they most likely call it Last Cuck Tonight with Johnny Triggerwarning.
  • John refers to Britain as the place where he is "affectionately" known as "Who?"
  • When Alex Jones attributed John's popularity to the "legitimate" sound of his British accent, John was quick to issue a rebuttal the only way he knows how.
    John: My British accent does not sound intellectual. Believe me, I sound like a chimney sweep passing through a wood chipper.
  • In the retirement episode a running gag was that the research staff was working hard while John and everybody else were wasting time googling pictures of teacup pigs.
  • He began one of the many stories relating to immigration with: "Immigration. The system that brought you: me. But, it's still good, and I promise that won't happen again."
  • John constantly makes fun of his "strength". Just for one example, in "Chiijohn", he decides to contact his friends overseas with a bottled message. He heads to the docks and throws the bottle as far as he physically can... the camera follows the bottle as it hits the water approx. 2-3 meters from John.
  • In the segment on Death Investigations, John notes that some U.S. counties have the local hairdresser serving as their coroner:
    John: No disrespect to hairdressers, but some have been known to drop the ball from time to time. (shows a picture of his old haircut) It has happened. Mistakes have been made.
  • When mentioning the four Hogwarts houses one time, John claims that if he were at Hogwarts he would be sorted into a separate, fifth house "specifically for cowards".
  • While covering the 2020 Republican National Convention, John mentions that calling Joe Biden a radical socialist is much like calling him history's greatest Zazu — "you can say I am all you want to, and, honestly, I wish I were, but the fact is, it's not even close."
  • A history book calling slavery "tasks" was compared to "calling Hitler 'a best-selling author', JFK's assassination 'a bad day', and this show a comedy."
  • After a clip where a man assigned for jury duty complains that he was locked in a place without HBO, John notes he doesn't get free HBO either "and I'm helping ruin it!"
  • John often ridicules the hairstyle he wore when he was part of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
• The Late Late Show's Craig Ferguson fills his monologues with self-deprecation, calling himself a "creepy European" and "a vulgar lounge entertainer". He goes so far as to slander himself, implying that he's some sort of severe sexual deviant and that his show is unfunny and poorly produced.
  • During the Late Nite Wars "We may suck, but we suck at the same damn time every night!"
  • He also jokes that the audience is only laughing because they got free stuff, and are only there because they couldn't get into The Price is Right (which, admittedly, might actually be true, as they tape in the same building). "If you're watching this program regularly—I'm sorry."
  • Some classic examples of this include the time his studio had a roof leak or a power outage.
• LazyTown: When Sportacus first meets Stephanie, she asks him "Are you a superhero?" and he describes himself as a "slightly above-average hero."
• David Letterman does this all the time on his late night show(s), but a memorable one was back in the late 1990s when Leno/NBC placed a giant advertisement in Times Square for The Tonight Show with Leno's face and "#1 in Late Night" after winning the 11:35 ET time slot for the period. At that time, Letterman not only trailed Leno but also ABC's Nightline. In response, Letterman put up an even bigger ad with his face on it proudly declaring himself "#3 in Late Night!"
  • The final episode of The Late Show with David Letterman opened with the clip of President Gerald Ford saying "Our long national nightmare is over", which was then repeated by fellow presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
• In one Legends of Tomorrow ep, the Legends have to convince the public that footage filmed of them in action is entirely faked, so they start pointing out everything in the footage that doesn't make any sense ... which means pointing out all the logical shortcomings in Legends of Tomorrow itself.
  Mona: The special effects were kinda questionable.
• At the end of the first season of the magazine programme Light Lunch, which was Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins's first presenting gig, Dawn French appeared, and explained to the camera how she discovered Mel and Sue at the Edinburgh Fringe. And pleaded with the audience to forgive her.
• Per the docuseries Menudo: Forever Young, each member of Menudo played a role: the funny one, the long-haired heartthrob. Former member Johnny, described his role thus:
  Johnny: I was the one who carried the suitcases (laughing).
• The Mick Molloy Show was a talk/sketch/variety show that aired in 1999 and lasted only eight episodes. It was more than just an inconvenience for Molloy at the time, as he and many others involved had made sacrifices that turned out to be for naught, but several years later in the ninth episode of his next show The Nation, he had various Australian celebrities, including The Wiggles, congratulate him on the milestone. Unfortunately for Molloy, the show was canceled eight episodes later.
• The Middle: In "The Wonderful World of Hecks", Brick doesn't want to go on "those 'ride' things" at Walt Disney World, as he thinks the park is all about buying merchandise… this coming from a show on Disney-owned ABC.
• Midnight Sun (2016): Anders makes disparaging remarks about his character or skills whenever he's complimented.
• Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle gave us this nugget in Mock the Week:
  "There were concerns as to whether Mel Gibson could accurately portray a Scotsman [in Braveheart], but look at him now—an alcoholic racist."
• In one season two episode of Monk at the end of the episode Monk gets a fangirl who tells him that if he somehow he gets a TV show, it should never change its theme song. By that point in the series the Randy Newman song "It's a Jungle Out There" had been used as the theme for the show; as an acknowledgment of the change, the original theme begins playing during the end credits rather than the instrumental version of the current one.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus once did a sketch set in a Chemists where everyone had an embarrassing ailment—and then ran a mock apology for the poor quality of writing in that sketch. Similarly, a particularly violent Sam Peckinpah sketch was followed by a sketch claiming that the Python team only wrote it because they all came from broken homes and have very unhappy personal lives (especially Eric).
  • Another episode was linked by a spoof educational film on parts of the body. When they got to no. 17 (the inside of a country house), the following dialogue ensued:
    That's not a part of the body.
    It's a link, though.
    Not a very good one.
    Well, it's the end of the series, they must be running out of ideas.
• Moonlighting took frequent jabs at their own inability to put episodes out on a regular schedule. By the end of the third season the Previously on… segments were making jokes about how long it had been since viewers last saw a new episode.
• Murdoch Mysteries: In "Republic of Murdoch", after Jack Doyle escapes from Constable Crabtree by hitting the constable in the head with a length of board, Crabtree sheepishly reports to Murdoch how the man escaped. Murdoch is concerned for his colleague, but Crabtree dismisses this worry by saying, "He got me in my least vulnerable spot."
• Frequently done on MythBusters.
  Adam: So we've proven that women can endure pain better than men. In your face, men! Wait...
• On an episode of the NBC sitcom Night Court, Brandon Tartikoff, the network president at the time, shows up As Himself to post bail for a Neilsen family. Why? So they can get home in time to see Misfits of Science, another of the network's series that was struggling in the ratings at the time.
• Whenever he wasn't snarking at his producers, the Travel Network, foodies and foodie culture, Rachel Ray, or mainstream chain restaurants, celebrity chef and No Reservations star Anthony Bourdain frequently poked fun at himself, particularly his wild and crazy past.
• In Our Miss Brooks, Miss Brooks sometimes aims her deadly sarcasm at herself, usually when she finds herself dragged into a preposterous situation or scheme.
• Rick Harrison, of Pawn Stars, described The Rat Patrol as a "low budget TV show about four guys in the desert". He then looks right at the camera.
• The Planet's Funniest Animals, Animal Planet's Poor Man's Substitute for America's Funniest Home Videos, had a host who did this about some quality of himself in almost every single clip introduction. He beat the shtick to death, then resurrected it and proceeded to beat it to a second death until he was canned and replaced.
• The first episode of Power Rangers: Dino Thunder lets Tommy poke fun at his mythical "Swiss cheese memory" from earlier seasons^note Which in Real Life was done to explain his absence from battles, due to his Japanese counterpart from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger being Killed Off for Real and Saban not being able to make their own action footage yet. Tommy is running from an apparently reanimated Tyrannosaurus and runs to his car, buckles up, locks the door...and then realizes he's in an open-topped Jeep. "Yeah, real great Tommy, lock the door."
• Property Brothers: In one episode, Drew and Jonathan were working with a couple with identical twin girls. The (identical twin) brothers declared those girls the cutest twins they'd ever seen.
• The "Lights, Camera, Homicidio!" episode of Psych has this gem:
  Shawn: You said you never had the opportunity to visit me while I was working a real job, and now I have a real job!
  Henry: Acting is not a real job, Shawn. I mean, how much attention do you need?
• In the New Zealand series Pulp Sport, every third episode has some sort of reference to them being derivative and terrible, while every season finale ends with Bill and Ben being Fired.
• Numerous episodes of The Real Husbands of Hollywood poke fun at some of Kevin Hart's less-than-stellar films.
  Anthony Anderson: Kevin is about to be more embarrassed than he was at the Soul Plane premier.
• From the Red Dwarf episode "Quarantine":
  Lister: (sighs) We're a real Mickey-Mouse operation, aren't we?
  Cat: Mickey Mouse!? We ain't even Betty Boop!
  • "Back to Earth" has a character criticize the fictional show's use of Psi-Scan. Although given the Psi-Scan's response, this may have been more Take That, Critics!…
• Saturday Night Live had a series of sketches called "Superfans", poking lots of fun at Chicagoans, especially their fanatical attitude towards sports and love of greasy meat-based food. With the exception of Canadian Mike Myers and Wisconsinite Chris Farley (who was a fan of the Bears' division rivals, the Green Bay Packers), all the actors in the skits were Chicago natives. And no one found the skits funnier than Chicagoans.
  • George Wendt was in all the "Superfans" sketches after the first one because he saw that one, called Lorne Micheals, and said, "I'm from Chicago. That was beautiful. You *gotta* let me do that sketch if you ever do it again. PLEASE."
  • People have been declaring that SNL "isn't funny anymore" since about 1980. They've been making fun of themselves for not being funny anymore since the '90s.
  • An episode which guest starred Zac Efron had him reprise his role of Troy Bolton.
  • Much of the humor in SNL skits, in general, involve celebrity hosts (or musical guests) using the opportunity to poke fun of themselves and their images or personal and professional lives, or to allow themselves to be spoofed, especially via Celebrity Paradox or Actor Allusion.
    • The Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches in particular are famous for making celebrities look like morons or perverts. There also have been a few occasions where guest stars played themselves in the sketch, such as Tom Hanks portraying himself as a bumbling idiot who inexplicably gets his hand stuck in a pickle jar in the middle of the show.
  • During the 2013 episode that Kerry Washington hosted, the writers acknowledged the criticism the show had taken over its lack of women of color. The Cold Open featured a disclaimer apologizing to Ms. Washington for the sheer number of black women she'd have to play, and the skit itself had poor Kerry playing Michelle Obama, Beyoncé Knowles, and Oprah. All Played for Laughs of course.
  • Adam Driver popped up on SNL to mock his own performance as Kylo Ren of The Force Awakens by going on Undercover Boss as "Matt the Radar Tech". He takes every advantage of it to take a tongue-in-cheek jab at himself.
  • Then-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared on the show after the September 11th attacks to urge the people of New York, and the whole United States, to enjoy life again—laugh, see Broadway plays, and generally not be afraid to go out—because to do otherwise was to live in fear, which is the goal of terrorism. Lorne Michaels then asked "Can we be funny again?", and Giuliani responded, "Why start now?"
  • As the COVID-19 Pandemic forced SNL to stage episodes from their homes in 2020, Tom Hanks, who was among the first public figures to have tested positive earlier that year, hosted the first "SNL At Home" episode, explaining how these shows were going to be different, saying "Will it make you laugh? Eh. It’s SNL. There’ll be some good stuff, maybe one or two stinkers. You know the drill.".
  • A 2012 "Weekend Update" sketch had its "Get In The Cage" segment, where Andy Samberg shows off his Nicolas Cage impression. In this installment, the actual Nic Cage appeared alongside him:
    Real!Nic: While physically we are exactly the same, there are slight differences personality-wise...
    Andy!Nic: For example, this Nic is calm and stealthy like a ninja warrior...
    Real!Nic: Whereas this Nic is an exaggerated, screaming psychopath who clearly doesn't exist!
  • A 2009 sketch had Bill Hader playing Dave Matthews with the actual Dave Matthews playing Ozzy Osbourne and calling "Dave"'s singing stupid.
• Scrubs had an episode about this, "My Night To Remember". JD even said, "A sitcom without new stories to do."
• The concept of Wormhole X-Treme! as a Show Within a Show for Stargate SG-1 exists solely to make fun of themselves. Includes the concept of the Zat disintegrating things (long since ret conned in the actual show) and the question of why exactly, someone who is "out of phase" can stand on the floor and sit in chairs (reused years later).
  Martin: [referring to apples about to be used on the set] Paint them or something. We can't have aliens eating red apples!
  Prop Guy: Why not? They all speak English.
  • The season 8 finale also mocks a particular infamous line from the pilot episode, when Carter was clunkily written as much more of a vocal feminist: "Just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the outside, doesn't mean I can't handle anything you can't handle." An alternate-universe Carter is in the middle of rehearsing a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to her boss and starts saying the line, but stops halfway and exclaims, "God, that is awful! Who would ever say that?"
  • Yet another episode introduces us to a barber who had visions of Jack's life. He tries writing out the stories for a magazine, but there are several that absolutely no one liked, particularly the unpopular episode "Hathor". "Hathor" seems to be a common target for this sort of thing: in another episode, as Dr. Frasier is going through a list of files on O'Neill's injuries over the years and explaining them, she comes across one stack and immediately puts it aside, saying "Oh, that's the whole 'Hathor' incident, which he has asked me to never speak of again."
• In one episode of Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay describes television as 'ridiculously attractive people in absurd situations' to Ronon and Teyla, who are amazed that someone would 'watch a box' for hours on end.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Garak enjoys doing this. Improbable military knowledge? He reads a lot! Unusual and fancy engineering equipment? It's a common tailor's tool! Ability to ooze power and order around Guls like you own them while spouting active and valid security codes despite having been in exile years? Overheard it while hemming a woman's dress! Expert ability to rewrite high-class military encryption software? Any tailor can do it!
• Storm Chasers: Professional tornado-chaser Reed Timmer to the cameraman after having a window on his armored car the TVN Dominator blow in on him during a chase:
  "Don't drive into tornadoes, you'd have to be an idiot to do that. Like me."
• In an episode of the Lifetime series Strong Medicine, Andy finds her daughter watching Lifetime and asks if there's anything good on. Jessie snarks, "You'd be surprised" (though the network had a few years before it would completely devolve into the "women in peril" fare that's its standard these days).
• Done spectacularly on Supernatural:
  • The boys meet a writer (whose pseudonym, Carver Edlund, is named after two of the show's writers) who receives visions of the boys' adventures and turns them into novels. When they confront him about it, he initially thinks that everything he writes comes to life. He instantly feels guilty about all the crap he's put Sam and Dean through and then regrets writing "Bugs" and "Red Sky at Morning", two episodes notorious for being hated by the fans.
    Chuck: I am so sorry. I mean, horror is one thing, but to be forced to live bad writing...
  • In "Fallen Idols", an ancient pagan god who has the power to take on the form of whatever or whoever a person finds most important ends up sealed in the form of Paris Hilton, who Hilton herself plays. She spends pretty much all of her screen time blasting celebrity culture, especially around people with little talent who have nothing but "small dogs and spray tans." Naturally, Hilton is notoriously "famous for being famous," and so is making fun of herself.
  • In "The French Mistake", Sam and Dean get sent into an Alternate Universe that's basically ours—as in, they take on the role of their actors, playing themselves. This included this memorable bit of conversation:
    Dean: Why would anybody want to watch our lives?
    Sam: Well, I mean, according to the interviewer, not many people do.
  • In another episode, the Winchesters summon a crossroads demon, and Snooki shows up in the Devil's Trap; apparently, the reason she's so popular is that she's literally a monster in human form. As Dean puts it, "That explains a lot."
• John Connor pirates cable TV for a neighbor on network TV show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Sarah calls this risky. In a mix of this trope and Biting-the-Hand Humor...
  John: Nobody that pregnant should be forced to watch network television, it's bad for the baby.
• After some critics called That Mitchell and Webb Look "hit-and-miss", the next series featured a sketch in which David and Robert were seen writing the "misses" for this week, with David saying he didn't envy the other writers who had to write the hits.
• When James May joined Top Gear (UK) in season 2, Jeremy Clarkson introduced him as a "complete imbecile." May then presented a segment about how no intelligent person would buy a luxury car out of a magazine just to say he owned one — and then showed off his own Bentley T2, admitting he'd bought it so he could own a Bentley and faithfully listing all the ways it had made his life worse.
  • The show itself has the motto of "Top Gear - Ambitious but rubbish!".
  • Jeremy Clarkson consistently refers to Top Gear as "That poky little motoring programme on BBC 2" and occasionally to himself as "a fat balding idiot" or words to that effect.
  • Top Gear has a segment called "The Cool Wall", where the presenters debate the coolness level of the Cool Cars the show features. There are a number of common rules ^note For example, small French cars are always cool, and supercars are always uncool, except for the monstrously powerful Swedish-made Koenigsegg and Aston Martins but one of them states that if any of the presenters own the car in question, it can never be considered cool, even with all other considerations in mind.
• Season 3 of Veronica Mars had quite a bit more Product Placement put in it by creator Rob Thomas than previous seasons. In the second-to-the-last episode ever, after two Product Placements in a row, this conversation happened:
  Mac: Hey, did anyone else hear there's gonna be a Matchbox 20 reunion show?
  Piz: So? Rob Thomas is a whore.
  Mac: Yeah.
• Colin Mochrie of Whose Line Is It Anyway? often makes jokes about his own baldness. Everyone else also often makes jokes about his baldness... Everybody also makes jokes about the fact that people make jokes about his baldness. On occasion, they make jokes about making jokes about making jokes about his baldness. He wasn't even completely bald at the time of the show!
  • In a similar vein, Drew Carey often made jokes about his own weight (as did everyone else). A couple of them were reactions to Colin's own bald jokes. For a Scenes From a Hat involving unsuccessful personal ads:
    Colin: "Slightly balding superhero..."
    Drew: Yeah, slightly. And I'm slightly overweight.
  • "World's Worst person to be stuck on a desert island with." Drew Carey was the first to pick a role... as himself.
  • On this particular show lampooning oneself is often the back door out of getting teased even worse by the other cast members and is even met by sympathy from the audience on most occasions.
  • A Running Gag for Scenes From A Hat was where an insulting suggestion was read (say, "People You Wouldn't Want To Meet At A Nudist Colony") and one or more of the cast would walk up as themselves.
• An episode of Will & Grace guest-starring Rosie O' Donnell had her character watching TV looking bored, turning it off, and exclaiming, "Daytime television sucks!"
• Played for Laughs in The Witcher (2019), along with a good dose of Take That, Audience!, when a dock worker who is a fan of Jaskier's criticizes some of his songs the exact same way fans criticized some of the Season One episodes (the Anachronic Order and the reveal about the dragon in Rare Species). Jaskier gets some pretty good blows in on him, calling him a moron who should try writing a better story himself... and the dock worker snaps back by calling him an ungrateful jerk who Can't Take Criticism from a devoted fan who adores most but not all of his work.
• Wonder Showzen:
  • Two of the "Funny/Not Funny" segments ended with the children's voices shouting "Not funny" in response to being shown a depiction of the show's logo.
  • The final episode has Clarence asking various people what's wrong with television today. Many of them state that television is too lewd and violent nowadays, with Clarence agreeing even though Wonder Showzen is decidedly that kind of television show.
• During its Audience-Alienating Era, X-Play absolutely beat this trope into the ground in regards to Adam Sessler. This probably wouldn't have been so bad, except 1) every other joke on the show was about how pathetic he was, and 2) Sessler is actually an intelligent and well-spoken person, but the show made him look like a complete idiot and undercut his credibility.
• You Can't Do That on Television is practically made of this. The opening preempt announcement, the closing announcement, and the locker gags are the biggest offenders, but in all honesty something like a third of the jokes are about how bad the program is. An episode revolved around the show being sold to a new producer every few minutes because none of them wanted it—one producer bought it without having seen an episode and sold it once he had.

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