History EpicFail / LiveActionTV

** Neelix got his turn in an early episode, nearly dooming the ship with ''cheese''.

* The Japanese game show ''{{DERO}}!'' has a round where a team of contestants stand on metal beams over a pit and take turns solving puzzles, while the active players' beam gradually retracts into the wall every second they can't come up with the correct answer. They're also given sink plungers to stick on the wall behind them to stabilize themselves when the beams become short. Players who fall down are out and win nothing for the round, while if the team gets 9 correct answers between them, they win money for each player left standing. However, on one occasion, celebrity contestant [[Music/AKB48 Sashihara Rino]] freaked out and panicked as the floor started retracting to reveal the pit and ''didn't even manage to walk onto one of the beams'' before she fell down and got herself disqualified - ''and'' took one of the team's plungers with her, all before the announcer even got a chance to give the RulesSpiel. Even host Yamasato Ryouta (Manager) was astonished upon making his entrance on the video intercom.

* AuctionKings has had a few of these:

** A later episode has Sato Amina failing to recognize her fellow Music/AKB48 member [[FaceOfTheBand Maeda Atsuko]], and being indirectly pushed off the beam by Torii.

* The Japanese game show ''{{DERO}}!'' has a round where a team of contestants stand on metal beams over a pit and take turns solving puzzles, while the active players' beam gradually retracts into the wall every second they can't come up with the correct answer. They're also given sink plungers to stick on the wall behind them to stabilize themselves when the beams become short. Players who fall down are out and win nothing for the round, while if the team gets 9 correct answers between them, they win money for each player left standing. However, on one occasion, celebrity contestant [[Music/AKB48 Sashihara Rino]] freaked out and panicked as the floor started retracting to reveal the pit and ''didn't even manage to walk onto one of the beams'' before she fell down and got herself disqualified - ''and'' took one of the team's plungers with her, all before the announcer even got a chance to give the RulesSpiel. Even host Yamasato Ryouta was astonished upon making his entrance on the video intercom.

** On several occassions, contestants have mispronounced a puzzle that was completely filled in, and been ruled incorrect as a result. Known examples include SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS in 1989, PRISTINELY in 1994, and FRANCIS FORD AND SOFIA COPPOLA and OVERHEAD SQUARE AND SHEEPSHANK ARE TYPES both in 2004.

** One contestant during "Walk In and Win" week (near the end of the original format) burned all three of her {{Lifeline}}s on the $200 and $300 questions, and ''walked away'' from the $500 question. She was the only contestant under the original rules to ever walk away before hitting the first "safe" zone.

** Any contestant who has scored 0 points in Fast Money. Particularly noteworthy examples include one early game under the hosting of Richard Dawson where the ''first'' player got 0, and the dreadful round on the last episode hosted by Ray Combs in 1994 (where the first player already had ''three'' zero-pointers before his teammate goose-egged).

* ''Series/WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'': Several contestants under the original format's money ladder ($100/$200/$300/$500/$1,000, with the last value being the first "safe" zone) bombed on the $100 question. The first to do so got "What animal did Hannibal cross the Alps on?" wrong by guessing "llama" instead of "elephant" (to be fair, this is more of a $1,000 or $2,000-level question; $100 questions were usually ridiculously easy to help ease the contestant into the game, often made even easier by almost always having "D" be a gag answer[[note]]for example: "What part of a chicken is commonly called the drumstick? A: Breast, B: Wing C: Leg, D: Gizzard[[/note]]). As a result, anyone who missed the $100 question, or otherwise bombed before reaching $1,000, has earned the FanNickname "llama".

* The Japanese game show ''{{DERO}}!'' has a round where a team of contestants stand on metal beams over a pit and take turns solving puzzles, while the active players' beam gradually retracts into the wall every second they can't come up with the correct answer. They're also given sink plungers to stick on the wall behind them to stabilize themselves when the beams become short. Players who fall down are out and win nothing for the round, while if the team gets 9 correct answers between them, they win money for each player left standing. However, on one occasion, celebrity contestant Sashihara Rino freaked out and panicked as the floor started retracting to reveal the pit and ''didn't even manage to walk onto one of the beams'' before she fell down and got herself disqualified - ''and'' took one of the team's plungers with her, all before the announcer even got a chance to give the RulesSpiel. Even host Yamasato Ryouta was astonished upon making his entrance on the video intercom.

* There's a British comedy game show called ''Epic Win''. Contestants perform various challenges based on their unusual skills, and are awarded either an Epic Win trophy or Epic Fail sticker depending on their success.

* On TheBigBangTheory, when Howard tries to use a simulator to teach Sheldon how to drive, Sheldon somehow manages to wind up on the second floor of the mall and crash into a pet store.

* One episode of Series/WhereInTheWorldIsCarmenSandiego had a contestant in the first round get every single question wrong--including the final question where she'd risked all the fifty [[{{Points}} Acme Crimebucks]] she'd started with.

* On ''FamilyFeud'':

*** Contestants who blow a seemingly easy chance to get just a few points needed to win Fast Money can be especially gut-wrenching to watch. Such as the Sass family on an episode that aired in May 2014. With 182 points, a Fast Money win was all but a sure thing, but Anna (playing second) – whether a case of extreme nerves or unable to do well under pressure – was unable to score one point in the four answers she gave. A seemingly good answer for the first two question – "We asked 100 men: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to date a woman who's a 10?" to which she answered "4" ("5" was the No. 1 answer); and "Name a place where you keep looking at your watch," for which she said "restaurant" – each netted zero points, and from there it was all downhill. Her family – and host Steve Harvey, actually playing the whole thing straight as he seemed to know the likely outcome – consoled her as she did her best to hold back her tears. [[note]]In fiction (as an appearance on ''Family Feud'' has been a popular sitcom plot through the years), the petulant example is Peter Griffin on ''FamilyGuy'', who – with Lois scoring 199 points on her questions – kept responding with chair over and over (with variations),dawdled and argued with host Richard Dawson so long that he was unable to score the one point needed to win, leading up to the Amniesia plot kicking in.[[/note]]
* ''HollywoodSquares'':

* At least two episodes of ''PressYourLuck'' ended in three-way ties at $0 due to an ill-timed {{Whammy}}.
* On the first season of ''Series/{{Lingo}}'', the Bonus Round was as follows: get a word right, get a ball to draw. The already-covered numbers on the Bingo-esque Lingo board form a pattern where only two draws are needed to get five in a row (a "Lingo") and win the bonus prize. However, one team got only one word right, and another got ''none''. Likely for this reason, Bonus Lingo was re-tooled in later seasons so that a.) every Lingo in the main game awarded a "bonus letter", which could be added to any word at any time to make figuring it out easier, and b.) the pattern was changed so that only one draw was needed for a Lingo.
* On ''MatchGame'', in one Super Match round, host Gene Rayburn had asked the contestant "Cuckoo (blank)", and the contestant answered "Cuckoo, friend and ollie"[[note]]she meant ''Kukla, Fran and Ollie''[[/note]]. ''The entire studio'' went nuts over her mind-bogglingly stupid answer. Robert Walden, the celebrity that she had been paired with through the Star Wheel to play the Head-to-Head Match, hastily writes a joke answer of "Accordion" (referencing the fact that she had given said answer to a front–game question) before showing his actual answer, "Clock".
* A number of quiz shows from the late 1960s and early 1970s – including the ''Who, What or Where Game'' and the original ''SaleOfTheCentury'' – had rules where falling below zero at any time immediately eliminated that player from further play. These games spotted the players a small bankroll ($20 for ''[=$otC=]'', $125 for the betting-type ''3 Ws'' and – like ''Jeopardy!'' money was deducted for incorrect answers, but enough incorrect answers meant falling to or below $0 and sealed the player's fate.

* ''WhoWantsToBeAMillionaire'': "What is the main ingredient of toast?" The contestant drew a ''complete'' blank.

** Unsolved Toss-Ups aren't unheard of either. Usually, these stem from someone giving a wrong answer with only a couple letters missing, thus allowing very little time for anyone else to ring in. Other times, it just happens to be a term that all three players are unfamiliar with, or just a collective brain fart — whatever the case, most players at least ''try'' to solve Toss-Ups for a little extra scratch, especially the second and third ones, since they respectively determine who starts Rounds 1 and 4. However, one episode in 2003 had a Toss-Up answer of WHAT A RELIEF where no one even ''rang in''.

** Any contestant who has scored 0 points in Fast Money. Particularly noteworthy examples include one early game under the hosting of Richard Dawson where the ''first'' player got 0 (and dawdled so long that he didn't get past the third question — to be fair, his teammate rallied pretty well), and the dreadful round on the last episode hosted by Ray Combs in 1994 (where the first player already had ''three'' zero-pointers before his teammate goose-egged).

** Terry Rakolta led a boycott against the show. Some sponsors did cancel their commercials, but the fuss she raised also raised the show's ratings.

*** A celebrity special on March 2, 1998, with JaneCurtin "[[Series/{{Cheers}} pulling a Cliff Clavin]]" (i.e., wagering all-in from a "lock", a score more than double that of second place).[[note]]She had $8,500, and second place had $2,700, so Jane's ideal wager was anything from $0 to $3,099 — second place is likely to double-up, and should second place get it right but first place get it wrong, $3,099 would still ensure that first place would remain victorious by a margin of $1. If it were a regular game, then first could go for that extra $1 and create a tie in the same "second gets it right, first gets it wrong" situation.[[/note]] Since it was a celebrity game, she had the most before Final Jeopardy! and was therefore awarded the top prize for her charity.

** When Mark Balelo find an original [[NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]], he got a little excited. "NES-001, guys. I want you to look at this very carefully. This is the first [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer Nintendo DS]] built. The last one that sold with five games in the internet for $13,000." That was the model number, not the serial number. It was worth maybe ten bucks. The reason the "last one" sold for $13,000 was because one of those five games was a fully boxed, mint-condition cartridge of a game whose distribution numbered in the hundreds.

* ''Series/StorageWars'': "‎NES-001, guys. I want you to look at this very carefully. This is the first Nintendo DS built. The last one that sold with five games in the internet for [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4FV512vPHQ $13,000.]]"[[note]]That was the model number, not the serial number. It was worth maybe ten bucks. The reason the "last one" sold for $13,000 was because of one of those five games, a fully boxed, mint-condition cartridge of a game whose distribution numbered in the hundreds.[[/note]]
** That and it's a NES not a DS, whoops
** In another episode, Dave Hester finds a beat-up violin in storage which he immediately convinces himself is one of the original Stradivari worth millions. He brings it to a violin expert who values it at possibly 300-400 dollars at ''most'', if Dave invested 100-200 dollars to restore it to good condition. Up to that point, Dave had blabbed to the camera nonstop about how he'd found the holy grail of storage scavenging and would be retiring any day now.

* ''TopGear'': It's not for nothing the motto of the challenges is "Ambitious but rubbish". Thanks to Jeremy Clarkson's devotion to TimTaylorTechnology, when he fails to achieve Epic Win, he winds up with Epic Fail. Two shining examples: the Toyota amphibious truck, which crossed a two-mile stretch of water and then capsized next to the dock when he turned too quickly; and the Fiat "Giant" Panda stretch limo, which was too long to manoeuvre and passengers required a ''TheGreatEscape''-style sliding-board contrivance just to get into the back seat. Yes, folks, Jezza built a ''two-door stretch limo''. And then it broke in half...

* In one episode of {{Blackadder}}, a character spends an entire ''week'' trying to put on a pair of pants.