Celebrity Deathmatch is a 1998 claymation animation series broadcast on MTV.The concept behind this show is that celebrities would fight each other to the death in the ring, claymation-style.The show first premiered on MTV's 1997 animation show, Cartoon Sushi, with Marilyn Manson killing Charles Manson by ripping his skeleton out through his mouth. After it became a success, "Deathbowl 98" was released and shown during the Super Bowl XXXII halftime show. Eventually, it began running as a weekly series first on MTV from 1998 to 2002, then Uncanceled to MTV2 for two more seasons in 2006 and 2007.There was also a fighting game released for the PlayStation, Playstation 2, Xbox, and Windows PCs. It was also planned for a Gamecube release.
The Alcoholic: Dean Martin was depicted as such in his bout against Jerry Lewis, with him being hammered and even having drink after drink instead of actually fighting Lewis.
In a related note, several celebrities shown as participants on the show have mentioned they would have actually done their own voices if they had been asked to do so.
Al Gore wins his fight against "Weird Al" Yankovic by pulling a stick out of his ass (the "executive branch") note This episode was made back during the 2000 election, when Gore was best known for being wooden, stiff and bland as opposed to an environmental crusader. and beating him with it. That stick? A very large tree.
There was also the Lucy Lawless/Calista Flockhart match, where this Trope was used in a way that was, for lack of a better term, bizarre. An accident in the fight has Callista wind up with her head up Lucy's butt, at which point, after a few minutes of stuggling, Lucy is able to completly "absorb" Callista into her body through that end of her. This somehow causes Callista to end up in her womb, which results in Lucy, at the end of the episode, giving birth to Callista as she would a newborn daughter. (In short, this show is not only violent, it's downright weird.)
Ascended Extra: Famous boxing promoter Don King, who was basically Kenny during season 1, finally appeared as a fighter in season 2, the opponent being Donald Trump.
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: After 98 Degrees' Humongous Mecha malfunctions and goes on a rampage through the city, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin tries to use his enlarging ray to turn himself into a giant in order to stop them. It malfunctions, and hits Jessica Simpson instead.
Not to mention blink-182's mecha, against which the aforementioned boy band was fighting, and which was destroyed (with Tom, Mark and Travis still inside no less).
And ones that had died before the show as well, like Bob Marley. A fair amount of the fights involving dead celebrities are made possible due to the CDM Time Machine.
It was a running gag in the first season that Don King was frequently killed in the audience.
The Bad Guy Wins: This happens from time to time, where a celebrity with a bad or negative reputation kills a celebrity who wouldn't deserve it, and is often downright sadistic about it. (Of course, there are plenty of times when the opposite has happened.) Word Of God claimed that the outcomes of the matches were determined strictly with humor in mind, not on what made sense.
Do not try to take over the world or Nick Diamond will pull your brain out through your eye socket.
Try to hurt an animal in Bob Barker's presence, he'll rip your ovaries out. Anne Robinson learned this the hard way.
Jerry Lewis knocking the martini out of Dean Martin's hands causes Martin to start kicking Jerry's ass (after a few sobering "tough love" slaps from Frank Sinatra).
In all of Pam Anderson's fights her berserk button has been Tommy Lee. She challenges RuPaul to a deathmatch because of RuPaul's attempt to flirt with Tommy who was her husband; she even wins this fight because of this trope. In Pam's second fight, her berserk button gets pushed multiple times due to her opponent, Tommy's previous wife Heather Locklear trying to kill Tommy Lee, since they were literally fighting to determine whether or not he dies. In her third fight, she's fed up with Tommy and decides to take out her anger, which leads to a major Curb-Stomp Battle in Pam's favor.
Kim Cattrall (to "SARAH JESSICA PARKER"): "I was in Porky's while you were still on Square Pegs."
Kristin Davis: Porky's? But that was 20 years ago. Which means you're" (Kapow!)
The episode "Deathcon 2001" featured a match between Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver. Weaver was ahead, having ripped off both of Linda's arms. Linda walked over to where some kids in the audience were sitting and asked if she could borrow their pen, which she took with her mouth. Linda then wrote the words "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!" in big letters on the mat, and asked Sigourney that, before she kills her, could Sigourney at least read what Linda had written.
Sigourney (not getting the significance): "'I'm the king of the world?'"
Linda: (Snapping, screaming): "Titanic? In your case, it should have been Microscopic!"
Johnny goes mad when Nick refuses to bring on the main event in the "Backstreet Boys vs. N'Sync" match. (Both combatants were already dead).
Also, Mahatma Gandhi. Though that was because he had his cerebro-spinal fluid (and, essentially, his personality) swapped out with that of Genghis Khan.
Bob Barker. Anne Robinson threatening to kill a puppy causes him to rip out her ovaries, killing her.
David Spade spends most of the match getting completely pummelled until he slings a baseball through Steven Seagal's brain.
Don't mess with Mandy Moore-you may not live to see the consequences.
Then there's Garth Brooks, who managed to subdue Marilyn Manson. Sure, Manson got the last laugh, but it was still pretty darn impressive.
A sort of weird example with Steve Irwin, where he does manage to kill Medusa, but it's completely by accident, and he's more interested in teaching the audience about her than actually fighting.
Bloodier and Gorier: The revival tended to be this, with the bloodshed being more exaggerated.
Boobs of Steel: Pamela Anderson has been in the most fights for female fighters, has one of the highest win records, she also happens to be the bustiest woman to make an appearance. Hmmm... Is there a connection...
Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the early seasons, there have been several nods to the show's claymation animation.
In the earlier seasons, Pamela Anderson's breasts were more like the real Pamela's, but for the season 5 redesign they were turned into Gag Boobs (which she uses to beat Tommy Lee to death). Though if you think about it her redesign might be more accurate considering her earlier apperances only showed her breasts as being above average, yet Dolly Parton (who Pamela should be equal to if not greater than in bust size) had a pair of jugs the size of her head! There's similar problem when Anna Nicole-Smith shows up (this was when she was... well fat to put it bluntly, but she still had a huge chest) where she doesn't look quite Dolly's size, she still looks bigger than Pamela. It was really strange that when Jenny McCarthy and Carmen Electra show up they look bigger than Pamela despite the fact that they aren't tied with Pam in bust size in real life unlike the last two.
Dolly Parton was given special armor that enlarged her breasts on command to be used as weapons during her fight against Jennifer Lopez (who had similar armor equipped on her ass).
Technically, this happened to Jessica Simpson during the fight between Blink 182 and 98-Degrees, where they fought in giant mech suits. After the Blink 182 mech was down and the 98-Degrees robot went haywire, Stone Cold Steve Austin intended to use a growth ray to make himself a giant to staop the robot, lest the president be forced to use a nuclear missle. Thanks to Nick's bumbling, the ray hit Jessica instead making her into a giantess. Proportionally speaking (which means if a girl with a bigger chest than Jessica, let's say Pamela Anderson, was turned into a giantess of equal size to Jessica, she'd be bigger than Jessica at that size as well) she's still got the same bust size, just on a bigger scale, but as a giantess, her breasts are bigger than a human being...each.
Though not breasts, Angelina Jolie get her already big lips pumped up a couple sizes in her fight against Sandra Bullock.
Butt Monkey: After the above-named Running Gag about Don King got stale, a very unlucky popcorn vendor took his place, killed or injured on numerous occasions.
Call Back: At the end of the "Sex, Lugs, and Rock and Roll" episode, Nick falls off of the announcer's booth and appears to be unconscious. Johnny's reaction? "Nick! Oh no, not again!"note the last time Nick fell off of the announcer's booth was in season 1's "Celebrity Deathmatch Goes to the Movies". The impact put him into a 3 episode long coma.
Contest Winner Cameo: Done at least twice. The first time, the contest winner had his spleen ripped out by John Tesh after he requested it, feeling that it would be an honor. The second time, the contest winner's soul was sold to the Devil by the hosts in exchange for the souls of the Backstreet Boys and *N SYNC, who fans had requested to fight each other (they had both been killed in previous matches — the Backstreet Boys by the Beastie Boys, and *N SYNC by KISS).
Crack Defeat: Gandhi over Genghis Khan, and David Spade over Steven Seagal.
Nick Diamond may not be the smartest tool in the shed, but try to take over the world... or try to take his job by claiming he and Johnny are dead...
Pamela Anderson's first fight kinda went like this. She wasn't a moron, but her opponent seemed to have a major strength advantage over Pam. Then, when her opponent thought it was a good idea to flirt with Pam's husband at the time, Tommy Lee, Pam quickly brought her A-game, and proceeded to beat her enemy easily.
The Loch Ness Monster VS. Bigfoot. Nessy wins in seconds. Everyone present was expecting the longest, most epic fight in the history of Celebrity Deathmatch, with Stone Cold Steve Austin calling it "a six-second suckfest".
Same with the season 5's rematch of Shaquille O'Neal vs. Kobe Bryant. Shaq ends the fight early by lifting and choking Kobe with one hand and then tearing his head off with the other.
Pamela Anderson's third fight can only be described as this since not only was she kicking the crap out of her opponent, he didn't really get to fight back, the only thing he really did was say things that pissed her off.
Gandhi vs. Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan fails to get in a single hit.
Subverted in David Spade vs. Steven Seagal. Spade only gets in one hit...the winning one.
A similar thing happens in Steve Irwin vs. Medusa where Steve doesn't even try to fight until he rips Medusa's head off.
Andre Agassi vs. Tiger Woods. Tiger never gets any offense in.
Cyborg: Shannen Doherty becomes on during her fight against Halle Berry, when a smart car engine falls on her head and fuses with her brain.
Disproportionate Retribution: While this does seem to be a staple in this reality (pretty much any excuse for wanting someone dead is legitimate) one case that stands out is the Halloween Episodewhere Stacy Cornbred came back from the dead leading a zombie horde, intent on killing Debbie because she "stole her job". You have to take Debbie's side with this one; that was not her fault.
Pamela Anderson's first attack against RuPaul was to kick RuPaul in the groin... only for RuPaul to No Sell it by revealing s/he was wearing steel-plated underwear. Actually, the first half of that fight was an epic fail for Pam, but when she got her second wind, Pamela went from busty damsel/wimp to busty badass.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: In the match between LeAnn Rimes and Ol' Dirty Bastard, ODB becomes furious and gets a serious second wind after Rimes insults his mother, eventually beating Rimes to a bloody pulp. (Of course, the general theme of the match is to suggest that he isn't as "bad" as his reputation makes him out to be... Rimes, on the other hand...)
The second Halloween episode had, among other things, zombies laying siege to the arena, led by the zombified corpse of the show's first interviewer, Stacy Cornbred, looking to get her job back by any means necessary.
Also cropped up when Rage Against the Machine fought the Machine... which was a killer robot. Tom Morello was quick to call this out.
Explosive Stupidity: Jessica Simpson attempts to kill Nick Lachey by throwing a grenade at him, but is absent-minded enough to forget to remove the pin. An enraged Lachey takes it upon himself to show her exactly how you're supposed to detonate a grenade... And boom goes the dynami- er, grenade.
At first, it seems like Kristin Davis was killed by Kim Cattrall's poison in the four-way "Sex And The City" fight, only to pop up near the end to finish Cattrall off (the only one left alive), revealing she had never ingested said poison:
Davis: Unlike [Cattrall], I don't swallow!
A variation: Sam Donaldson claimed Nick and Johnny died in the arena explosion as a means of taking over the show in "A Celebrity Deathmatch Special Report". In reality, Johnny was being rushed to the hospital via ambulance with Nick at his side.
Not to mention the Naomi Campbell vs. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos fight. During the fight, Nick, Johnny, and special guest Gilbert Gotfried kept joking that it couldn't get any hotter... and then one of the girls tackles the other and ends up on top of the other and it just becomes a straight up Cat Fight. Then Nick and Johnny reveal they hid microphones in the Deathmatch ring to pick up all the naughty sounds Rebecca and Naomi are making. Then, Gilbert "accidentally" dropped a riding crop whip and a pair of handcuffs into the ring, which one of the girls quickly made use of.
Carmen Electra and Jenny McCarthy fighting each other wearing bikinis in a mud ring as per fan request during the "Fandemonium" episode. Jenny was so busty, a guy had to pull with all his might to get her top tied on.
Every fight Pamela Anderson is in. First fight includes a stripperiffic outfit and a breast bounce that keeps being replayed by Marv Albert for the rest of the episode. Second fight: she has her mouth shoved on the top of the ring post and later has her top ripped off, leading Mills Lane to say "Ooh! I'll definitely allow it!" In her third fight, she was in tiny shorts and a top that looked like a bikini, and received a breast expansion that made both of her boobs as big as a human head.
The Elizabeth Hurley/Anna Kournikova prefight interviews include Hurley naked, with only random objects covering her naughty bits, and Anna getting rubbed down with lotion by Debbie Matenopolous.
Also the three-war fight between Tyra Banks, Kate Moss, and Claudia Schiffer. With Tyra in a bikini and Claudia in some leotard thing.
The couples tag-team match of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore vs. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman starts with Demi deciding to strip.
Dolly Parton vs. Jennifer Lopez. Basically, Dolly's enormous breasts vs. J. Lo's big butt. That's all you really need to know.
Lucy Lawless vs. Calista Flockhart ends with Lucy beating Calista by bending over in her Xena dress.
In the Martha Stewart/Sandra Bernhard fight, while Sandra might not be a traditionally pretty face, she decides to fight in a tiny purple bikini and pulls it off.
Supermodels Rebecca Romijn and Naomi Campbell have a match in their underwear... which ends with Naomi coughing up her own stomach and spraying Rebecca with lethal stomach acid, causing her to melt down into a flesh-colored puddle of goop with only her bra and panties remaining.
The Melissa Joan Hart/Alyssa Milano fight starts out as fanservice, with Johnny and Nick stating it was to see who was TV's hottest witch. Alyssa is decked out in a revealing leather outfit and Melissa is wearing a red bikini. Then they start casting spells on each other that turn them into ugly, stereotypical wicked witches.
Fighting Series: Nothing but celebrities beating each other up.
Forgot About His Powers: In "Fandemonium 2000", Nick had to figure out a way to bring back both the Backstreet Boys and *N SYNC who had died in a previous fights (against the Beastie Boys and KISS, respectively). ...he completely forgets that he has access to a Time Machine that has brought lots of previously dead celebrities beforehand.
Even better? This isneverpointed out.
Funny Background Event: At the very beginning of the Jamie Kennedy vs. Ali-G fight. As Ali-G tosses his script away, Mills Lane is hit in the head with it in the background and falls over the ropes. Blink, and you'll miss it.
Gadgeteer Genius: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, who, during the course of the show, has built a time machine, multiple Humongous Mecha, an enlarging ray, and genetically engineered mutant fighters made from the DNA of dead celebrities.
The fight between Dolly Parton and Jennifer Lopez has the two combatants being given special armor that would enlarge Dolly's breasts and Lopez's butt and allow them to be used as weapons.
The fight between Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee has Pamela crushing Tommy's skull between her breasts.
During the fight between Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and Naomi Cambell, both of the fighters apparently kept a vast amount of items in their cleavage. For Rebecca this included a cellphone (complete with a vibrating ring tone that made her chest jiggle) and a needle, and both fighters kept water bottles in their bountiful bosoms.
The Survivor battle royale has Tina remark the she'll get a face lift and boob job. She's also gainaxing at various points, and she bashes Colby's head in with her chest.
The Survivor battle royale had Tina doing plenty of this.
In the Rebecca Romijn-Stamos/Naomi Cambell Rebecca does this do to keeping her cellphone tucked in her cleavage.
Genre Blindness: Parodied during the Jerry Seinfeld vs. Tim Allen match. After Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards have turned heel on Jerry for ending the show, Johnny says, "We wrestling announcers are supposed to be so perceptive."
Gilligan Cut: When using the Time Machine to retrieve Genghis Khan and Mahatma Gandhi, the machine malfunctions, prompting Nick & Johnny to assure the viewers that resident scientist Steve Austin will take care of everything. Cut to Austin kicking the time machine — "Ah, stupid piece of crap!"
Grand Theft Me: After she beats Helen Hunt, Leelee Sobieski stealls Helen's identity so she can keep her far better career, she even tears the skin off Helen's hands and wears them like gloves so she can use Helen's fingerprints for confirmation.
which was being aired from the CDM Vault after Roger Ebert was flung into the announcer's booth, which caused Nick to fall off, putting him into a coma
, Nick barely avoided getting hit by Jerry Lewis, who was knocked out of the ring. Nick's response?
Nick: We've had a lot of close calls here on "Celebrity Deathmatch", but it's going to take a lot more than a flying celebrity to take me out!"
Heal It With Booze: In one match, Sylvester Stallone cauterised a wound by pouring alcohol on it and then lighting it on fire, causing the judges to reverse their opinions about him not being a badass.
Heel Face Turn: The Undertaker actually plays the hero's role the time he appears, despite his well known reputation for being evil in the WWF. (He does suggest at first that it's a case of Eviler than Thou, but his actions say otherwise.)
Charlton Heston chopping down the tower to kill Russell Crowe ends up causing his own death.
While aiming for Chuck Berry's berries, James Brown's laser shoes get deflected by Chuck's ring, causing him to get crushed my a overhead light. (Johnny quotes the exact Trope name.)
Nick Diamond: Hoist on his own petard? Well I don't think the audience knows what "petard" means. Cause I sure don't.
Chris Kirkpatrick was killed at the end of the "NSYNC vs. KISS" fight when Gene Simmons crushed him thanks to Ace Frehley popping the balloons that lifted Gene to the ceiling. ''The very same balloons Chis used on him earlier in the fight".
Bill Gates ultimately was killed by his own Robotic Michael Flatley after he used it to kill the human version.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson defeat Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the Men In Black vs. The X-Files match, despite the MIBs dominating the action while David rambles on about a conspiracy, after the MIBs accidentally point their BFG the wrong way and fire.
Michael Jackson tries to use "Moonwalker Magic" to transform into a deadly creature, but it doesn't work and instead he transforms into a hamster, making an easy kill for Madonna.
David Copperfield tries to one-up David Blaine by levitating over a pit of piranhas, but he loses concentration and falls in.
Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Fran Drescher's voice attracts the attention of the Loch Ness Monster (who considers it a mating call). He pursues her offscreen, and she returns later riding on his back and looking very satisfied.
Humanoid Abomination: The Super Freaks. More like scientific abominations, actually, Stone Cold created these creatures out of the DNA of previous fighters using gene splicing and cloning techniques. (As far as this trope goes, they're actually rather tame, and played for laughs.)
Helen Hunt vs. Leelee Sobieski. After winning the fight, Leelee has no trouble convincing everyone that she's Helen Hunt, going so far as to peel off the real Helen Hunt's hands and wear them as gloves, in case someone would check her for fingerprints.
This was done earlier in the Britney Spears vs Christina Aguilera fight, to the point where they were unable to determine who won. As the fight progressed, it became increasingly hard to tell the two apart, forcing Mills Lane to mark Britney with a rubber stamp. The fight ended with the two of them literally tearing each other apart, leaving only one moving arm. Nick Wylde tried to prove who it was, but was proven wrong.
If You Die I Call Your Stuff: Stacy Cornbred had been dead for all of ten seconds before Nick called "dibs" on her parking space. (In fact, whether anyone in-universe genuinely cared about what happened to her at all is questionable, which is somewhat surprising, as there had never been any outward signs of dislike for her - unlike the later case with both her predecessors, where that was obvious.)
Improbable Weapon User: Man, where to start? Some of the most unlikely things have been used as weapons on this show, which is sometimes the whole point. In the second match using the Dome of Devastation, Nick and Johnny "cleaned out the garage" and put everything on the Dome for the two fighters to use, and in the third match using it they did something similar with a collection of musical instruments.
In the Joe Pesci vs. Napoleon Bonaparte fight, each fighter used a chest full of toys as weapons.
Martha Stewart defeated Sandra Bernhard by glue-gunning her to the mat.
Other unlikely armaments include a milking machine, live animals (including ones that seem harmless, like chickens), an extendable lead pipe, and in the Hitchcock/Spielberg fight, the Ark of the Covenant!
For the Brad Pitt vs. Keanu Reeves fight, Nick "took a page right out of The Matrix" and implemented a virtual reality machine to spice things up a bit.
The Bryant Gumbel vs. Katie Couric fight acts like a twisted episode of "The Today Show" (set and all).
The David Hasselhoff vs. John Tesh match had the ring set up like a beach a la Baywatch, with KITT's voice and brain now in a dune buggy.
In Medias Res: "A Celebrity Deathmatch Special Report" had a short version of it: The episode opens after the arena had blown up. We ultimately learn how thanks to Sam Donaldson playing the footage of the "Katie Holmes vs. Keri Russell" fight during which the explosion took place.
Is This Thing Still On?: In "Presented by Big Bull Beer", the outcome of the main event fight between Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholsonnote the girls in the audience rioting after Jack wins causes the head of Big Bull Beer to end their sponsorship with Celebrity Deathmatch (Nick and Johnny had been promoting the beer throughout the show). After they think the taping is over, Johnny and Nick lament the outcome... then begin mocking how crappy the beer is. After a good laugh, Johnny notices that one camera is still taping. Cut to credits.
Kill Sat: In one fight (taken from a time capsule from The Eighties), Ronald Reagan tried to kill Ayatollah Khomeini with the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative satellite defense system. The first attempt failed and killed a random audience member, but the second attempt succeeded.
Made of Iron: While it seems to be incredibly easy to rip out someone's body parts, the celebrities seem to be very hard to actually kill. Special mention goes to Michael Jackson, who got kicked into a vat of hydrochloric acid and managed to crawl out totally unharmed, protected by plastic surgery, and Colonel Sanders, who gets decapitated and still manages to run around like a mad hen until he falls into a frying pan.
Sylvester Stallone gets blown into a pile of goo by Arnold Schwarzenegger and still manages to completely reform, and actually manages to win the match.
In the Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera fight, both combatants tear each other apart until all that's left is an arm. A moving arm. Whose arm it is is never revealed.
Hilariously literalized on the episode "Masters of the Martial Arts," in the Brandy vs. Courtney Love match. The idea was that Courtney was mad about Brandy getting the lead role in Cinderella and wanted revenge, and Brandy wasn't sure why she was there and wasn't interested in fighting. Brandy offers Courtney a present. Courtney opens the box and finds a baby bear. Out of nowhere, the Mama Bear shows up and destroys Courtney Love, giving Brandy the win. Announcer Johnny Gomez takes the time to remind the viewers not to give wild animals as gifts.
In a VERY strange example, Lucy Lawless was probably this to Calista Flockhart (it makes sense if you watch their fight) till a dingo stole her while Lucy was shooting scenes for Xena.
Missing the Good Stuff: One ep interrupts a fight with a totally pointless report that 'N Sync isn't breaking up. We miss some woman getting curb stomped.
Moral Guardians: For some odd reason, this is considered a "family show" in whatever reality it's located in, as Nick and Johnny say many times.
One episode has one match (Tommy Lee vs. Ron Jeremy) being broadcast from an underground fight club in order to evade the censors. It doesn't work — after Tommy Lee wins the match by gouging Ron Jeremy's eye outwith his dick, Johnny and Nick get a very stern warning from the B.O.O.B. The next match (Alanis Morissette vs. Jewel) has Johnny and Nick finally getting arrested after Alanis celebrates her victory by stripping naked in front of the camerasnote A reference to her video for "Thank You," where she walks around a town completely naked.
Ms. Fanservice: With all the various female actresses, singers, and supermodels, this is bound to happen:
Happens again during the Brandy vs. Courtney Love fight when Brandy didn't even want to fight yet wins by accident by giving Courtney a bear cub whose mother mauls her to death.
My Name Is Inigo Montoya: A common theme is that one combatant will be beaten up without getting a hit in, then make a comeback at the very end of the fight.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown / Curb-Stomp Battle: Several matches, most infamously Andre Agassi vs. Tiger Woods, Pamela Anderson vs. Tommy Lee, and Mahatmas Gandhi vs. Genghis Khan. Andre, Pamela, and Gandhi won without a scratch.
Also Roger Moore vs. Sean Connery. In the end Moore crushed Connery with a boulder given to him by a cavegirl... Long story.
Non Indicative Name: On an episode dedicated to rap and hip-hop stars, Tally Wong was disappointed to learn that Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Lil' Flip, Lil' Kim, Lil' Romeo, and Lil' Bow Wow are not actually "little people" (she had planned to ask them hard-hitting questions about what it was like living with dwarfism).
Eddie Vedder:(while kicking Stapp three times) Give me back my vooo-ooo-oice!
Scott Stapp:(retributing the "favor" to Vedder) It's my voice too-ooo-ooo!
Vedder eventually wins by scraping Stapp's throat with a piece of barbed wire, which gives him a gravelly Tom Waits-like voice. Unfortunately, Waits himself is in the crowd, and he promptly gets down to the ring and beats Stapp to a pulp.
A season 3 episode reveals that Leonardo DiCaprio survived getting his face caved in by Jack Nicholson. He only had it fixed when he fought Woody Harrelson. This time, he died.
A more interesting instance of this trope is with Courtney Love. An entire episode was structured around revealing this: Despite being torn apart by a bear, she managed to stay alive long enough to undergo enough surgery and physical therapy to be a whole person again. Her fight with Dave Grohl resulted in being crushed by a piano.
Odd Couple: The two commentators, Johnny Gomez and Nick Diamond.
The Brad Pitt vs. Keanu Reeves bout (which occurs thanks to virtual reality technology) becomes derailed when Pitt decides to cut the knot, exit the simulation, and beat up Reeves in the real world.
The Cameron Díaz vs. Meryl Streep also counts. It was a scripted fight for the "Celebrity Deathmatch Movie" where Streep loses. But Streep, too engrossed in her role, impales Diaz with a boom mike.
Politically Incorrect Villain: The John Rocker vs. Derek Jeter fight. Unsurprisingly, John Rocker doesn't get the most sympathetic of portrayals, and is electrocuted to death by the match's end.
Product Placement: The Michael Jordan vs. Dennis Rodman match features Jordan throwing in plugs for different products in between the action.
Professional Wrestling: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Mick Foley, Vince McMahon, and Chyna all appeared as themselves on this show. Austin was a regular cast member, providing commentary for the matches, and served as the science and weapons advisor.
Mandy Moore. Her sweetness doesn't stand up so well when it's put up against P!nk.
Hilary Duff was also portrayed as this in comparison to her competitor, Lindsay Lohan. Unlike Moore, however, she wins her fight, even using her purity as a weapon to get God to help her out (He spawns a ton of alcohol to distract Lindsay with).
Also, in the first season, Brandy Norwood is shown like this when put up against Courtney Love. Brandy, too, wins her fight after she sics a cub bear on Love. She wins accidentally because the mother of the bear cub thinks Courtney was endangering its cub and viciously assaulted her.
Subverted with LeAnn Rimes, for which this is just a front: when her façade slips, she becomes a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking psycho, interested in torturing Ol' Dirty Bastard in every imaginable way. In the end, she loses. (ODB turns out to be not such a "bastard" at all.)
Raging Stiffie: In the battle between the Osbourne kids and the Olsen Twins, Jack Osbourne gets a fatal one after Mary-Kate whispered in his ear that she and Ashley sometimes shower together.
With this show's premise, it's to be expected that most fanfics would feature real celebrities brutalizing each other. The show's section on Fanfiction Dot Net wound up getting discontinued partly for this reason.
The show itself is arguably an example.
Reality Ensues: After James Van Der Beek defeats Saddam Hussein (beating him to death with the American flag), Mills Lane... proceeds to slap a pair of handcuffs on Van Der Beek for flag desecration, and takes him to jail.
Redemption in the Rain: Parodied. Oliver Stone arranges for one of these shots after he beats Martin Scorsese... only for the camera to slip off the crane and kill him.
Nick Diamond is very unhappy with new, egotistical sideline reporter Debbie Matenopoulos (formerly of The View) when she replaced Stacy Cornbred, who was killed several episodes earlier. Especially Nick, who is constantly arguing with her; Johnny doesn't seem to have much of a negative opinion of Debbie.
Played more straight with some fan reaction to Tally Wong after the show was Uncanceled. Interestingly enough, this time it's Johnny who can't stand the interviewer's guts, while Nick is more on the neutral side.
Reset Button: Since this is a claymation cartoon, this occurs quite a bit. Perfect example: The arena was shown blown up at the start of "A Celebrity Deathmatch Special Report", and remained that way for the entire episode. The next episode, "Blink-182 vs. 98 Degrees"? Not a scratch.
Averted in 3 cases:
1. Nick, after falling off of the announcer's booth in "Celebrity Deathmatch Goes to the Movies" ends up in a coma until he forces himself awake in "Nick's Return", two episodes later.
2. At the end of "The Prophecy", Stacy Cornbread spontaneously explodes. She remains dead for the rest of the series.note Except for "Halloween Episode II", where she came back as a zombie... only to be killed by Debbie Matenopolis.
3. In "Family Night II", Nick is divorced by his wife so she can marry David Letterman. This too remains permanent.
Pretty much any celebrity that's died on the show that isn't shown to be revived, makes it seem like their deaths never happened in the first place. Examples:
1. Don King is shown being killed by various things early on, but seems to keep coming back just to get killed. Averted after his fight with Donald Trump, who kills him and he's never seen again.
2. Shaq died in his first fight with Kobe Bryant, but is magically alive for their rematch.
Aptly enough, before the first commercial break in "Robot Nicky", the Nick Diamond we saw in the announcer's booth was outed as a robot when Johnny accidentally rips off his face. (Although, him being magnetic was a dead giveaway). As we learn prior to the second fight, Nick skipped work in lieu of taking the vacation to Jamaica the the higher ups vetoed and used a robot to cover for himself.
The Hugh Grant vs. All Comers bout ends with Andy Dick attempting a Beat Still, My Heart... only to rip out some robotic components, causing "Grant" to fall over dead. As it turns out, Grant liked Nick's idea and joined him.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In the "Kevin Bacon vs. All Comers" fight, upon being told by Nick that he was tricked into coming on the show note Nick said he and his band, "The Bacon Brothers" could perform a song for the audience. , Kevin goes nuts on Jesse Ventura (who was previously kicking his ass) by delivering the Fist of Chaos (punching through his chest, and then punching him in the face), climbing through said hole and, after a few more punches, tears Ventura apart.
He even wants to continue fighting note "Who's next?! Christina Ricci? Tom Cruise?!" ... even though a CDM All Comers match has three challengers, and Ventura was the last one.
Pam Anderson's whole reason for fighting RuPaul is to get back at RuPaul for making a pass at Pam's then husband Tommy Lee, and Pam actually wins the fight because RuPaul made the mistake to do it AGAIN, RIGHT IN FRONT OF PAM.
Self-Deprecation: Sort-of. You know the "Bill Murray vs. Chris Kattan" fight, which kept bashing Kattan? [[As Himself...care to guess who they got to voice him?]]
Schizo Tech: The Celebrity Deathmatch Time Machine was made using an old refrigerator.
Shown Their Work: Crops up here and there, mostly during the fights through Johnny and Nick's commentary).
Most WWF stars that appeared on the show used whatever one their real-life counterpart had. Steve Austin used the Stone Cold Stunner quite a few times (even using it a moose once) while the Undertaker still had his Tombstone Piledriver.
Marilyn Manson had one called the Tahitian Skeleton Pull of Death, although it failed to work the second time he tried it (in that case, Ricky Martin just bit his hand off).
Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon: There was a fight based off of this. Literally; it had Kevin Bacon taking on all comers, and two out of the three who took him on were pissed about his game.
The other was Martin Lawrence, but since he was too crazy and dehydrated to fight, Mills forced Kevin to mercy kill him.
The game itself played a part in the fight. The requirement for this was that Kevin Bacon's co-stars could challenge him; the game was used on said two out of three to justify them being there (since Meg Ryan and Jesse Ventura didn't actually work with Bacon directly).
Spontaneous Human Combustion: In one episode it appears that referee Mills Lane is about to suffer from this, but it turns out it's just gas. Later, interviewer Stacy Cornbred starts showing signs of it, and Nick Diamond and Johnny Gomez think it's just gas... until she suddenly explodes.
The Loch Ness Monster kills Bigfoot in six seconds, before the bell rang. The audience were angry at this, and Austin called that match a "six-second suckfest".
The Uncanceled first season has one with the Kobe Bryant vs. Shaq rematch.
Pam literally did some squashing to beat Tommmy Lee.
The Lindsay Lohan vs. Hilary Duff fight featured Dina Lohan in full-on Stage Mom mode, constantly making excuses for her daughter's troubling behavior.
A male example is Mathew Knowles, who is revealed to have implanted a microchip in his daughter's brain to control her every move. When Missy Elliott finds out, she grabs the remote control from him and uses it to make Beyonce humiliate herself.
Stalker with a Crush: In the Lindsay Lohan vs. Hilary Duff fight, it is strongly implied (and eventually revealed) that Nick Diamond is stalking Lindsay. After Lindsay loses, Nick brings her back to life using the time machine.
Stylistic Suck: One episode features the discovery of a time capsule with a cheaply done, Totally Radical faux-version of the show from The Eighties where Boy George fights Don Johnson (with Ronald Reagan as the guest referee). It's possibly the show's finest moment.
Take That: Combatants will often insult each other between blows, and the commentators' dialogue is also full of Take Thats.
The James Van Der Beek vs. Saddam Hussein fight definitely counts, if only for the conclusion.
In fact, it seems to be such vital theme of the show that it would be easier to list the celebrities that it doesn't happen to. Even the ones that star As Themselves aren't immune.
Harrison Ford: Give it up, punk! Everyone loves the old Star Wars better! We had Stormtroopers, the Death Star, and oh yeah, a plot!
Samuel L. Jackson: That crap's old-school, chump! We've got the pod race, an underwater sequence, and better merchandising deals!
An in-universe subversion: near the end of "High Tech Fighting", Nick brings up how Johnny told him that insurance was "like legalized gambling" (after revealing he never got the VR2000 insured after it got blown up)... only for Johnny to point out that he was drunk at the time.
Johnny: Jesus, Nick, you know better than to listen to me while I'm drunk!
They Killed Kenny Again: In the first few episodes, Don King would routinely get killed. Eventually, he would enter a Deathmatch of his own (against Donald Trump), where he would be killed off for good.
Time Travel: The Celebrity Deathmatch Time Machine is used to bring back historical figures to fight each other, as well as celebrities who have been killed in past fights. In one episode, the machine accidentally sucks Debbie Matenopoulos back in time, causing Johnny Gomez and Nick Diamond to use the time machine to go back in time to ancient Rome (where Nick fights a satyr in the Coliseum), Victorian London (where Sherlock Holmes fights Jack the Ripper), and the age of the dinosaurs.
It also gives us Busta Rhymes vs. William Shakespeare, which Shakespeare wins when Busta runs into the time machine, sending him back to the Bard's time.
A running gag in the Season 6 match Adam West vs. Christian Bale was everyone believing that Adam West was dead and came back through this, no matter how much he tried to convince them otherwise. He eventually gets fed up with this and storms off after he wins.
The Paul Reubens vs. George Michael fight. Before the fight, Reubens (in character as Pee Wee Herman) said that the secret word for the fight would be "sucker", and that when he shouted it, the crowd was to start screaming wildly. Later in the fight, Reubens tricked Michael into taming a tiger and making it go to sleep... only for Reubens to shout "Sucker!" Yeah, George kinda deserved that one.
RuPaul got challenged to a deathmatch by Pamela Anderson for trying to flirt with Pam's husband at the time, and she decides the best thing to do is to try it again... needless to say, Pam let RuPaul have it.
Trope 2000: The name of the third Fandemonium episode is "Fandemonium 2000".
Fittingly, in a fight between two Victoria's Secret models, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and Naomi Cambell, they both used this in their fight to pull water bottles, a cellphone, and a big needle.
Jessica used this in her second fight by pulling out a grenade to kill her opponent.
Whole Plot Reference: Well, more or less a subplot, but the episode "In The Head of Nicky Jr." basically involved the aforementioned Nicky Jr. having people end up in his head ala Being John Malkovich. (Ironically, John Cusack and John Malkovich fought in this episode over that very movie.)
Wildlife Commentary Spoof: In a variant that has Steve Irwin spend his time in the ring doing a running naturalists' commentary on the Medusa he was supposed to be fighting.
Wimp Fight: Jerry Seinfeld vs. Tim Allen. Ended with the cast of Seinfeld storming the ring to beat up Jerry for canceling the show, which the audience found far more entertaining.
Writing Around Trademarks: Occurred during the fight between Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal, when the hosts had to avoid making explicit reference to Doc Ock, who Jake had brought in to attack Tobey. Instead, they referred to him as "a certain eight-armed villain from a certain hit superhero film" (paraphrasing from memory; that's probably not what they actually said).
In one of the first episodes, Mariah Carey, during her fight with Drew Carey, sings a VERY high note, much to the displeasure of everyone in the arena. The intensity of the note proves to be too much for Jim, whose head expands like a balloon before exploding.
Happens again in Jack Black vs. Jack White, where Jack White puts a button-up shirt with a slightly small collar on Jack Black, causing his head to explode. I know some of the fights can have silly endings, but come on.
"So, for all of us at TV Tropes, I'm Johnny Gomez."
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