History AttentionWhore / LiveActionTV

* Dr Cox in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' has elements of this; his self-image as a maverick who bends the rules relies on everyone else seeing him that way as well. In the episode where his psychiatrist gives him an ''epic'' TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, one of his points is "Oh, no! Jordan's paying attention to the baby! That must be so hard for Dr Look At Me!"

** Alisha grows up ''a lot'' in season 2, and probably doesn't qualify as an AttentionWhore any more (although she definitely did in the beginning). Nathan, on the other hand, is shameless as ever - he thinks nothing of taking a dump on someone's ''bed'' just to prove a point.

* Pretty much the prime motivation of most people on RealityTV shows.

%%* Michael Davies from ''TheLatestBuzz''.

* Dr Cox in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' has elements of this; his self-image as a maverick who bends the rules relies on everyone else seeing him that way as well. In the episode where his psychiatrist gives him an ''epic TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, one of his points is "Oh, no! Jordan's paying attention to the baby! That must be so hard for Dr Look At Me!"

* Damian in ''DropTheDeadDonkey'' has elements of this, [[FreudianExcuse because his mother never gave him any]]. (She appears in one episode along with home videos from Damian's childhood, and her CatchPhrase is "Ignore him, he's just doing it to get attention.")

%%* Monena the prostitute in the ''CurbYourEnthusiasm'' episode "The Car Pool Lane".

* Tim becomes one in one episode of HomeImprovement when Al temporarily takes over for a cooking show with Tim as his assistant. Despite the role reversal, Tim continues to try to be the center of attention like he does on Tool Time, and eventually has to learn to back off and let Al have the spotlight (at which point they suddenly switch roles again, with Al becoming the clumsy lead and Tim being the StraightMan sidekick.)

* Jane on ''{{Coupling}}''. When viewed through "subtext vision", all her speech registers as "Let's all talk about ''me!''" Oliver even reasons that Jane says weird things just to seem provocative, and probably isn't even really bisexual, if she were to be completely honest with herself.

%%* Kim from ''KathAndKim''.
* During his guest appearance on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', JimCarrey did a skit wherein he impersonated an elderly Creator/JimmyStewart, who [[TakeThatMe ruthlessly tore into Carrey's need to be the center of attention.]]

%%* Vince Noir of ''TheMightyBoosh'' has elements of this.
%%* Mahna Mahna from ''TheMuppetShow'' is an example of this trope.

* Amy Farrah Fowler of TheBigBangTheory tends to fall into this, like when she became Bernadette's Maid of Honor.

* During his guest appearance on ''SaturdayNightLive'', JimCarrey did a skit wherein he impersonated an elderly Creator/JimmyStewart, who [[TakeThatMe ruthlessly tore into Carrey's need to be the center of attention.]]

* Trina from ''{{Victorious}}''. This actually goes to the point where she sells the song that Tori wrote for her "birthweek" and passes it off as her singing, despite not being a good singer at all.
* Ricky of ''NoahsArc'', whose promiscuity is at least in part due to this. In fact when his employee doesn't actively pursue him he relentlessly tries to understand why, actually confronting the employee about it.

* ''Series/HouseOfAnubis''- Joy seems to be like this in the second season. When her tricks weren't for Fabian, they were for the spotlight. She couldn't handle negative attention, however.

* ''Series/NCIS'' features this in shades. One notable instance is in the episode "Murder 2.0", where a serial killer broadcasts his murders on a YouTube expy, all for becoming famous.

** Notably averted by the Ninth Doctor, so far the only Doctor to actively eschew attention - unlike his predecessors he tends not to charge in headfirst and start demanding everyone listen to him, instead preferring to hang around in the background using a combination of ObfuscatingStupidity and general invisibility to blend in, observe what problems everyone else is dealing with, and then sneakily sort them out while no-one is looking. Of course, the least attention-seeking Doctor is the one who ends up forced to appear on a sadistic reality television show, which would have caused much egotistical mugging from any of his other incarnations (especially the Third, Fourth, Sixth and Tenth) but is an excruciatingly embarrassing experience for him.

* During his guest appearance on ''SaturdayNightLive'', JimCarrey did a skit wherein he impersonated an elderly JimmyStewart, who [[TakeThatMe ruthlessly tore into Carrey's need to be the center of attention.]]

** The Fourth Doctor was by far the most unsubtle one about it. This is noticeable especially when entering rooms, which he would accompany with striking a pose, or a huge amount of googly-eyed flailing, or usually some mixture of both. If he didn't get a good enough reaction he would sometimes leave the room and do it again. Sometimes, if another character was talking and everyone else was paying attention to them, he'd fidget about and gurn in the background until everyone got distracted, or just blatantly interrupt the other person just so that people would look at him. Like many performers who come out of preparatory theater, [[Creator/TomBaker Tom "I Don't Need a Companion" Baker]] was drilled to shamelessly steal scenes and stand front center at every opportunity.

** The Fourth Doctor was by far the most unsubtle one about it. This is noticeable especially when entering rooms, which he would accompany with striking a pose, or a huge amount of googly-eyed flailing, or usually some mixture of both. If he didn't get a good enough reaction he would sometimes leave the room and do it again. Sometimes, if another character was talking and everyone else was paying attention to them, he'd fidget about and gurn in the background until everyone got distracted, or just blatantly interrupt the other person just so that people would look at him. Like many performers who come out of preparatory theater, [[Creator/TomBaker Tom "I Don't Need a Compansion" Baker]] was drilled to shamelessly steal scenes and stand front center at every opportunity.

** The Fourth Doctor was by far the most unsubtle one about it. This is noticeable especially when entering rooms, which he would accompany with striking a pose, or a huge amount of googly-eyed flailing, or usually some mixture of both. If he didn't get a good enough reaction he would sometimes leave the room and do it again. Sometimes, if another character was talking and everyone else was paying attention to them, he'd fidget about and gurn in the background until everyone got distracted, or just blatantly interrupt the other person just so that people would look at him. In one episode, he has a FunnyBackgroundEvent where two characters are having a conversation between themselves which happens not to involve him. He stands between and behind them, looking between them with his mouth open ready to interrupt, slowly becoming increasingly distraught that neither of them are paying attention to him, and then shoots them a look of contempt and wanders off.

-->'''Bernadette''': We’re just trying on dresses, do we really need to record this?

* Amy Farrah Fowler of TheBigBangTheory tends to fall into this, like when she became Bernadette's Maid of Honor.
-->"Today is not about you! Today is about Howard and Bernadette and me!"

-->'''Bernadette''': We’re just trying on dresses, do we really need to record this?
-->'''Amy''': I’m sorry, are you the maid of honor?
-->'''Bernadette''': I am the bride.
-->'''Amy''': So no.

* Most of the characters on ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment''.
* Kim from ''KathAndKim''.

* Michael Davies from ''TheLatestBuzz''.

* Vince Noir of ''TheMightyBoosh'' has elements of this.
* Mahna Mahna from ''TheMuppetShow'' is an example of this trope.

* This type of character makes up the vast, ''vast'' majority of Rik Mayall's body of work. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3NiKO8hYBk This live appearance]] at Comic Relief in the mid-'80s pretty much says it all.

* Monena the prostitute in the ''CurbYourEnthusiasm'' episode "The Car Pool Lane".

* Ted Baxter, the hilariously inept WJM news anchor on ''Series/TheMaryTylerMooreShow''.