History EpicFail / LiveActionTV

* In one episode of ''Series/UpPompeii'', one of the actors, whilst proceeding off stage, managed to walk into some equipment, leading to a loud crash and some swearing. This was turned into an epic win by the main character, a slave called Lurcio (played by Frankie Howerd), who immediately said, "Blimey, worked in this house thirty years, and I never knew that way down to the cellar."

** In "The Apparent Trap", Niles tries playing one of Frederick's video games and somehow manages to die during the training level by tripping and falling in the game. Frederick didn't even know you could die there.

** In "The Apparent Trap", Niles tries playing one of Freddie's videogames and somehow manages to die during the training level - by tripping and falling in the game.

* Chief from ''Series/GimmeABreak'' is in good company with Niles Crane. (See above.) He tries to play a video game with his daughter Julie and [[PressStartToGameOver loses a life just by pressing start]].

* ''Series/EurovisionSongContest'': The dreaded [[BeamMeUpScotty Nul Points]], when a country fails to score even a single vote, is this in the eyes of Eurovision fans. Under the current voting system scoring absolutely nothing means that the contestant has failed to impress both the viewing public ''and'' the national judging panels. Indeed, it was believed that the split system meant it was next to impossible to achieve a double zero until the United Kingdom did exactly that in 2021.

''(Pushes a button and brings up a game of VideoGame/SuperMarioBros)''

* In-universe example, but just fortuitous in RealLife: Michael Richards was once reminiscing about how, on the set of ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'', he performed an impromptu pratfall while walking through Jerry's door as part of his "Kramer" character. As Richards's feet flew out from under him, one of them went completely over his head, curled around the doorknob, and ''closed the door all by itself''. Richards regretted that he would never be able to do ''that'' again.

* ''Series/BarRescue'': Jon Taffer's Exact Words in the "Back to the Bar" segment highlighting the Piratz Tavern (which had zero customers and a grand total of one seafood item on the menu!).

** Ross decides to get a spray-on tan, which goes hilariously wrong. He's given the very simple instructions to get sprayed in the front, count to five, and turn around to be sprayed in the back. He tries to count to five ''[[WhatAnIdiot Mississipis]]'' and gets sprayed in the front twice. Every time he tries to even it out, he keeps getting sprayed more times in the front until [[TanLines he's completely dark]]. Monica even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this.

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': Chandler wishes to quit a gym (which he has not been attending) as it keeps on siphoning money from his bank. After a 'warm-up' session with Chandler trying to instill his confidence, Chandler and Ross visit the gym, and when Chandler goes into the manager's office to talk, the gym boy chats Ross up, and calls [[AmazonianBeauty Maria]] to make Ross reconsider. ''Ross instead ends up joining the gym with Chandler as a result.'' Also, when Chandler and Ross try to close their accounts to help them stop the money siphoning, the manager calls up [[DistractedByTheSexy his attractive secretary]] (Noticing a Pattern here?), which led them to rather make a ''joint'' account. In short, '''from prepping up Chandler to say No to the gym, they themselves not only ENDED up joining, but also made a joint account.''' Rachel notes the irony while smirking at the two.

** In season 31, Bret and Chris, who had gotten to the detour first with a three-hour lead over the last three teams on a later flight, spent two hours total doing a needle in a haystack challenge rather than the fairly simply memory challenge. They give the memory challenge a try once then goes back to the needle in a haystack before ultimately going back to the memory challenge which once they actually try, they get quite easily. They leave the detour in last place and can't make up the time and get eliminated.

** They epic failed ''themselves'' when their attempt to skywrite the world's largest ASCII penis turned up utterly meaningless smoke scrawl across the sky to their complete dismay.

** In a flashback to Diane's time at the institution she goes into between seasons 2 and 3, we see that she met Frasier when she got into a fight with another patient over cheating in a game of croquet. That's not the failure. The fail is that Diane is overpowered by the other patient, who is a little old lady.

* Mike from ''Series/DesperateHousewives'' had this to say about Susan's macaroni and cheese: "How did you...it tastes like it's burned ''and'' undercooked." (Thus, is technically possible if you apply extreme heat for a very short time. The outside is burned, while the inside remains uncooked. That only applies to baked mac 'n' cheese, though-- it's truly an Epic Fail if you managed this with the instant boxed kind!)

** [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion "The Christmas Invasion"]]: While the Doctor is unconscious due to regeneration sickness, Rose tries to get the Sycorax to leave by giving them a speech that mainly consists of namedropping the various alien threats she's encountered over the course of the past season. The Sycorax's response? Laughter.

** In 50th anniversary special [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor "The Day of the Doctor"]], the Tenth Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor, and the War Doctor are trapped in a cell. They come up with [[FantasticTimeManagement a brilliant plan]] to utilize TheSlowPath, exploiting the fact that they're all one man at different points in time. The War Doctor scans the door with his screwdriver, then sets it calculating how to disintegrate it. Ten (who is a hundred years older) checks his screwdriver, and the calculation is still ongoing. Eleven (who is a few hundred years older still) checks his... and the calculation is complete! They're all congratulating themselves on their cleverness... until Clara opens the door from the other side. ''[[WeHaveTheKeys It wasn't even locked]]''.

** The Silence essentially have two counts. They mould River Song to assassinate the Doctor, with the purpose of ensuring the Doctor can't [[spoiler:bring Gallifrey and the Time Lords back from the AlternateDimension where they're trapped, which would cause the Time War to resume devastating the cosmos]].

*** ...and when the Silence alternatively attempt blowing up the Doctor's TARDIS with the same end goal in mind, doing so threatens the totality of reality with a ApocalypseHow/ClassZ on the ApocalypseHow scale, which will cause the whole of reality to, for all intents and purposes, have never been born, and which actually succeeds in erasing everything but the Earth (for the time being). Basically, on the process of trying to save the universe from experiencing the Time War again, the Silence caused an ''even worse'' apocalypse to threaten the entire multiverse.

* In ''Series/GoodNewsWeek'', Sammy J and Randy are playing StripPoker. When they show their hands, Sammy having 7 cards as opposed to the standard five, says he thinks he has a five of spades. When Randy tells him the difference between clubs and spades, he realizes Sammy never knew this despite them playing for three hours. Sammy thought they were interchangeable. Sammy tries to play a Queen, only for Randy to tell him he played a three of diamonds instead. Sammy defensively says that [[InsaneTrollLogic Queens wear diamonds.]]

* ''Series/TheGreatBritishBakeOff'': The stroopwaffel technical challenge in series 8, where ''all'' of the contestants fail to get it right and the winner ends up being the least bad.

** Tim and Jill Taylor went to visit a marines base, and the soldiers offer to allow Jill to test drive one of the tanks due to her desire to be in one. Tim then cautions that trying to drive it is something else. Just then, Tim somehow manages to activate one of the Abrams' machine guns simply by touching it.

--->(Spencer hits a cymbal on his drum set with a drum stick, [[RuleOfFunny it catches fire]])\\

** One time Jen has to give a presentation on her work in the IT department. Roy and Moss set her up for a failure by giving her a black box with a little flashing light and pretending that it's the internet. Yes, the entire internet, responsible for all of modern communications and civilization, specially flown in by Stephen Hawking. The entire audience buys into it [[ItMakesSenseInContext until her boss comes bursting through the wall in a fist fight with his transsexual girlfriend]] and smashes the little black box. A riot breaks out, people run for the doors, some start crying, some start fighting and some start to get busy in the middle of the lecture room floor.

** The delusional owner/chef of Pantaleone's openly boasts he has "the best pizza in Denver." Gordon organizes a public taste test between his, pizza from a high-end place and a store-bought version. Pantaleone was dead last behind the store-bought version.

* The first attempt to form the Megazord from ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8FDyT212Js The Rangers bring together their folding Zords...and stack them on top of each other like a totem pole.]] The MonsterOfTheWeek just stares at them for a while, unable to believe the sheer amount of fail before knocking the Zords over. (This also happened in the original ''Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger''.)

** Rimmer's astrophysics exam results are the stuff of ''legend.'' Shown onscreen is his failed attempt to write answers on his arms, only to smear them uselessly when rolling up his sleeves and stamping a huge handprint as his final answer. According to the novelization, he was gambling on the infinitesimal chance that his handprint would coalesce into all the correct answers. Another example mentioned by Lister was Rimmer writing ''I am a fish'' four hundred times before fainting

* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': The season 4 premier has the team using Puddle Jumpers to blast through an AsteroidThicket. [=McKay=] compares the situation to ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'', and says he actually got a ''zero'' once. Due to the way the points work[[note]]Obviously you get points for shooting asteroids or the enemy saucer. You also get points if one those hits you, due that object being destroyed as well. If an asteroid hit the enemy saucer (which you probably wouldn't have caused) you still get points, due to again those things being destroyed. The ''only way'' to get a zero would be to not a shoot a thing, lose all lives by being shot by the enemy saucer, and then have the saucer successfully leave the screen.[[/note]], this would require not only a phenomenal lack of skill but truly unbelievably bad luck.

** In another episode, Dave Hester finds a beat-up violin in storage which he immediately convinces himself is an original Stradivari worth million. 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.

** Not to mention the infamous Ulong Tribe of ''Palau'', who managed to lose ''every'' single immunity challenge and was down to just one member by the time the merge came. The term "Ulonging" has since been used for particularity poor tribe performances.

*** That's not even the only extremely gullible thing Jason has done during the season. Check [[http://funny115.com/v2/17.htm this]] to see the recount on his entire time on Survivor.
** Ozzy Lusth gets involved in another EpicFail in Survivor: South Pacific, when he willingly sends himself to Redemption Island, and tries to act as though Cochran blindsided him. The performance is so cringeworthy none of the Upolus believe it even for a second, and Cochran decides to flip to regain his trust with them. In other words, Ozzy's acting was so bad ''it cost him his game''!
** In one challenge of ''Survivor: One World'', players have to memorizes a series of objects, then recreate the order at their own stations. In addition, there is a lever you can pull to cover the objects in hopes of causing your opponent to stumble. When it's Troyzan and Kat's turn, the former hits the lever before either has a chance to get a good look at the objects, with Troyzan's plan being to just put random objects down and hope he's right. After naturally getting it wrong, he continues to do this until he's forced himself and Kat to repeat the challenge '''seven times'''. And to make it even more of an epic fail, Kat ends up scoring her team a point, meaning that Troyzan's plan completely backfired on him.

** In one episode they had a caravan holiday with Top Gear Dog. Turned out the dog got carsick.

** One episode ''[[InvokedTrope invokes]]'' [[PlayedForLaughs this for laughs]]. The crew were all comparing 3 mid-70's British sports cars and seeing how they stacked up against a respectably built German car of the same era and class in a series of performance test races. To nobody's surprise, the German car had worse performance than all three British cars. Next up, they had to test out the fuel economy of the cars, so they were set to drive to a destination about 30km away. They mention that just for comparability, the German car would go first as part of the test. The German car promptly ''explodes'' when the driver turned the ignition. Not surprised in the least, they decide to just go on without it.
*** Later, they test the cars in a car wash to see if there were any leaks. The three cars driven by the presenters have minor leaks at worst (Hammond's being the most noticeable). Then, a new comparison car driven by the Stig goes through... and emerges ''completely filled'' with water.

* In the first season of ''Series/TheWire'', one episode opens with [[DumbMuscle Herc]] trying to move a desk into an office of the special detail. With him halfway through trying to wrestle the heavy desk through a narrow doorway, his partner Carver comes in and offers to help. Carver, not having seen that Herc is trying to move the desk into the office, goes around the other side, in the office, and begins pushing on it from there while Herc pushes on it from his side. Eventually more and more of the detail's detectives come in and attempt to help, always balancing out the amount of people on each side so that no matter how hard they strain and try, the desk isn't moving at all. All the while [[CoolOldGuy Detective Freeman]] just watches the struggle, barely able to keep his reaction to a wry smile. Eventually, the various detectives and their boss, Lieutenant Daniels, give up in frustration, convinced the desk has become wedged or caught on something, until the shoe finally drops. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhkndQ3LML8 Enjoy watching it for yourself]].

* A common situation comedy plot where Epic Fail is sure to arise involves one of the main characters announcing he is a chef and had distributed food he had prepared (often, it's a baked good, such as a pastry or filled roll) to a friend, and the friend – who invariably will be the owner of a bakery – is so impressed that he offers to buy the recipe. Things get hairy when there is a sudden huge order for the baked goods and a very short time frame in which to prepare them (e.g., 20,000 pop tarts in 24 hours) ... and only the main setting's home kitchen is available; of course, the main character will absent-mindedly accept. Naturally, this leads to many comic situations before the Epic Fail kicks in.
** TruthInTelevision: This has happened a few times in the UK version of ''Series/TheApprentice'' when teams have been given the task of creating and selling a product, and sold way beyond their production capacity.

** In season 31, Bret and Chris, who had gotten to the detour first with a three hour lead over the last three teams on a later flight, spent two hours total doing a needle in a haystack challenge rather than the fairly simply memory challenge. They give the memory challenge a try once then go back to the needle in a haystack before ultimately going back to the memory challenge which once they actually try, they get quite easily. They leave the detour in last place and can't make up the time and get eliminated.

** In season two, the teams were tasked with shooting a recruitment commercial for the New York Police Department. One project leader, Andy (who'd committed a number of mistakes in previous weeks), went for an emotional commercial with police officers asking the viewers when was the last time they saved a life, made their families proud, etc. Elizabeth, the other project leader, went with a militaristic approach saying you don't have to enlist with the army to fight the war on terror. The advertising executive thought that Andy's commercial was the clear winner while Elizabeth's made America look like a police state. In the boardroom, Elizabeth continued to defend her decision right up until Trump fired her. It should be noted Elizabeth was the first contestant ever to be fired without the need for a second boardroom.

** In the fourth season, the teams were tasked with taking control of a Dick's Sporting Goods store and promoting a sport of their choice. One team chose golf and improved sales of golf equipment by over seventy percent. The other team chose baseball, but focused on a demonstration instead of sales. As a result, sales of baseball equipment at that store dropped by thirty-three percent. (That's an over one hundred percent difference.) Trump's response: bring back the four contestants most responsible for the loss and fire ''all of them.''

** One task during the Celebrity All-Stars season involved promoting Melania Trump's new line of perfumes. During their presentations, Melania noticed that the promotional artwork from one team misspelled her name. Not only was that the reason they failed the task, they didn't even notice until it was pointed out to them in the boardroom.

** A seller brings in a stamp they claim is worth a million dollars. Cindy calls in an expert and is floored when she hears the stamp is really worth it... if it were real. Naturally, the stamp is a cheaper reproduction and the seller pulls it.

** In a flashback to Diane's time at the institution she goes into between seasons 2 and 3, we see that she met Frasier when she got into a fight with another patient over cheating in a game of croquet. That's not the fail. The fail is that Diane is overpowered by the other patient, who is a little old lady.
** Cliff's ''[[{{Series/Jeopardy}} Jeopardy!]]'' loss. It all starts well enough - Cliff's command of inane trivia and statistics fall in his favour for once, allowing him to get all the way to $20,000 against two prestigious opponents. Right up until the last answer ("[[Creator/CaryGrant Archibald Leach]], [[Creator/TonyCurtis Bernard Schwartz]], and [[Creator/JoanCrawford Lucille LeSueur]]"). Cliff panics, and bets ''everything'' on the question being "who are three people who've never been in my kitchen", even when Alex Trebek tries to give him an out. This managed to be a fail so epic it actually became a real term on ''Jeopardy!'' when people started doing the same thing on the actual show.

** Another episode had Sam and Woody in a contest to see who could kiss Rebecca first. Woody tries to hypnotize her into doing what he says so he kiss her first. He not only fails to hypnotize her, but also hypnotizes ''himself''.

** In the episode "Modern Warfare", the college holds a paintball tournament where the winner is to receive a Blu-Ray DVD player as a prize, but it gets stolen. They later replace the DVD player with the prize of priority registration (meaning the winner gets first pick of classes the following semester). Everyone finds this so desirable, the campus turns into a post-apocalyptic war zone in ''less than an hour''.

** In the "Medellin Cartel vs Somali Pirate" episode, a cartel member leaves his hideout and locks the door. A Somali Pirate with a RPG-7 rocket launcher notices him and aims the rocket. The cartel guy tries to open the door to get inside the building, but...he just locked it! The Pirate's rocket hits him directly.

* Mike from ''Series/DesperateHousewives'' had this to say about Susan's macaroni and cheese: "How did you...it tastes like it's burned ''and'' undercooked." (Thus is technically possible if you apply extreme heat for a very short time. The outside is burned, while the inside remains uncooked. That only applies to baked mac 'n' cheese, though-- it's truly an Epic Fail if you managed this with the instant boxed kind!)

** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E2InvasionOfTheDinosaurs Invasion of the Dinosaurs]]", the Doctor and Sarah-Jane try escaping from being sent to a detention centre. They make it to a vehicle, but are unable to find any keys... and as soon as the Doctor steps out to look, it turns out they've found the transport to the detention centres. Oops.

*** ...and when the Silence alternatively attempt blowing up the Doctor's TARDIS with the same end goal in mind, doing so threatens the totality of reality with a ApocalypseHow/ClassZ on the ApocalypseHow scale; which will cause the whole of reality to, for all intents and purposes, have never been born, and which actually succeeds in erasing everything but the Earth (for the time being). Basically, on the process of trying to save the universe from experiencing the Time War again, the Silence caused an ''even worse'' apocalypse to threaten the entire multiverse.

* Referenced by name in one episode of ''[[Creator/{{Syfy}} Fact Or Faked Paranormal Files]]'' when the crew attempts to test the official statement that a supposed UFO caught on video was in fact several airborne Chinese lanterns. After successfully lighting the lantern they released it... only to have it go sideways instead of up because of the wind, barely miss one of the camera crew, light ''itself'' on fire and then plummet to the ground, forcing them to put it out with a fire extinguisher. This caused them to declare that one getting up that high would only be possible with absolutely no wind, something next to impossible in the area where the video was filmed.

* On the ''Series/GirlMeetsWorld'' episode "Girl Meets Farkle's Choice", Riley rehearses the morning announcements so she doesn't mess up. However, as soon as the camera is on she delivers the announcements in almost-unintelligible gibberish. It's so bad that her [[{{HeterosexualLifePartners}} best friend]] Maya (who is sitting next to her) [[{{corpsing}} cracks up]] hard every time.

* In ''Series/GoodNewsWeek'', Sammy J and Randy are playing StripPoker. When they show their hands, Sammy having 7 cards as oppose to the standard five, says he thinks he has a five of spades. When Randy tells him the difference between clubs and spades, he realizes Sammy never knew this despite them playing for three hours. Sammy thought they were interchangeable. Sammy tries to play a Queen, only for Randy to tell him he played a three of diamonds instead. Sammy defensively says that [[InsaneTrollLogic Queens wear diamonds.]]
** Later in the skit, Sammy J refuses to gives money to the volunteer from the Wilderness Society until he takes off his possum costume. Sammy convinces him to play a few rounds of StripPoker in order to get him out of the suit. SmashCut to the volunteer worker still in costume and Sammy J completely naked, forcing Sammy to donate.

* ''Series/ICarly''. [[RunningGag In many episodes]], something Spencer is doing [[IncendiaryExponent catches fire, asplodes, and more]]. Often [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when such happens. Notably, in one, he touches a bell on a desk. It burns, and puts it out with soda. It catches fire ''again!''
-->'''Spencer: "''[[OverusedRunningGag Why does this keep happening!?]]''"'''

** One time Jen has to give a presentation on her work in the IT department. Roy and Moss set her up for a fail by giving her a black box with a little flashing light and pretending that it's the internet. Yes, the entire internet, responsible for all of modern communications and civilization, specially flown in by Stephen Hawking. The entire audience buys into it [[ItMakesSenseInContext until her boss comes bursting through the wall in a fist fight with his transsexual girlfriend]] and smashes the little black box. A riot breaks out, people run for the doors, some start crying, some start fighting and some start to get busy in the middle of the lecture room floor.

* In ''Series/{{Justified}}'', a lot of time is spent building up the idea that a man with a knife can kill a man with a holstered gun before the gunner can draw if the knife guy is within 30 feet. By the time of the climax, the knife guy is within about 30 feet of Raylin, and they both take their time to build up the tension. Then the knife guy charges, Raylin struggles to draw his gun fast enough...and the knife guy falls into a small pit that neither saw in the dark, and somehow manages to stab himself in the face, fatally.

** Leone's has Gordon deciding to have his own staff cook every item off the ''fifteen page menu''. When the staff comes in, they find over a hundred dishes laid out...and then they can't even finish any of them and admit their food is crap.
** At the Old Neighborhood, Gordon (and the camera) note how the shrimp is so bad even a buzzing fly won't go near it.

* In an episode of ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'', Malcolm goes bowling. There are two scenarios in the episode, each presented as an AlternateUniverse; Malcolm goes with his mom in one scenario, and goes with his dad in the other. It turns into an Epic Fail for Malcolm either way, but for different reasons.

** 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, simultaneously raising both the rates the show could charge for commercials, and bringing in ''new'' advertisers.

--->'''Kelly:''' ''[comes back home infuriated]'' Bud? Me and the principal just had a three hour talk. ''A three hour talk.''

** The crew had their own epic fail when they tried to shoot some barrels of water with a cannon. They did this at a bomb range, so it's hard to believe they'd mess up too badly, but, well...not only did they completely miss the barrels, the cannonball bounced all the way out of the bomb range and into a residential area, where it smashed its way through a house, damaged the roof of a different house, and ended its rampage by smashing into a minivan. [[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/06/BA1D1M99V5.DTL Seriously.]] They're just lucky the rogue ball was content with property damage, and didn't try for bodily damage.

** In a similar vein to the ''Benson'' example, in "Once In Love With Harry", Dan Fielding lost an election to ''a dead man''.

** It's revealed in "O vs. the Ballcano" that Oprah has lost numerous Headquarters throughout her career as an Odd Squad Director -- one every year from 1984 up until the year before the episode takes place. Had Olive and Otto not intervened and helped during the episode, she would have lost another one. Considering that Odd Squad Headquarters are large establishments with numerous amenities, and considering that Oprah is usually a {{Determinator}}, it's quite astonishing how she is still even employed with the organization.

* ''Series/{{Psych}}'' once had Shawn and Gus investigate when the owner of their favorite food truck is murdered and they go undercover with a food truck of their own. The Epic Fail comes into play when they get their truck inspected by the health department. They somehow earn a "D" from the inspector who comments that he gives out so few of those, he had to have that one specially printed.

** Rimmer's astrophysics exam results are the stuff of ''legend.'' Shown onscreen is his failed attempt to write answers on his arms, only to smear them uselessly when rolling up his sleeves and stamping a huge handprint as his final answer. According to the novelization, he was gambling on the infinitesimal chance that his hand print would coalesce into all the correct answers. Another example mentioned by Lister was Rimmer writing ''I am a fish'' four hundred times before fainting
*** Even before smearing them he'd realized that he had no concept of what any of the notes meant. Dude couldn't understand a cheat sheet he wrote himself.

* ''Series/RippingYarns'', "The Curse of the Claw": Captain Merson and his men, most of whom are tribal, get lost on the very first day of their expedition. They mean to see if there is a river passage, linking the Ganges with the Brahmaputra River through Bhutan. They reach Kevin's cottage house in ''Maidenhead'' in the middle of the night. They were supposed to change at Woking, but some stupid ticket collector put them on a wrong platform. Three men are separated from the group already because they went on to Bristol.

* ''Series/{{Search}}'': A soldier fires a tranquiliser dart at a wolf. Not only does he fail to hit the wolf, he succeeds in hitting Dong-jin.

* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': The season 4 premier has the team using Puddle Jumpers to blast through an AsteroidThicket. [=McKay=] compares the situation to ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'', and says he actually got a ''zero'' once. Due to the way the points work[[note]]Obviously you get points for shooting asteroids or the enemy saucer. You also get points if one those hits you, due that object being destroyed as well. If an asteroid hits the enemy saucer (which you probably wouldn't have caused) you still get points, due to again those things being destroyed. The ''only way'' to get a zero would be to not a shoot a thing, lose all lives by being shot by the enemy saucer, and then have the saucer successfully leave the screen.[[/note]], this would require not only a phenomenal lack of skill but truly unbelievably bad luck.

** When Mark Balelo found an original [[UsefulNotes/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.
** In another episode, Dave Hester finds a beat-up violin in storage which he immediately convinces himself is an 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.

--->'''[[WebAnimation/HomestarRunner Strong Bad:]]''' Hello, my name is piece of wood and I don't want to catch fire. Hello, my name is little match, and I don't want to make a fire! Hello, my name is fire, and I'm not comin' to your stupid party!

** Russell Hantz came on for the third time. However this time he doesn't have the advantage of being unknown to his fellow players this time since the production staff practically shoved him down our throats during the previous two times he was on. You would expect that he would have wised up and realized that he's at a disadvantage due to being with people ''he'' doesn't know (like in ''Heroes vs. Villains'') and that ''they'' know who ''he'' is and how he plays the game; so he wouldn't start playing the same game he was known for. Instead, he assembled his usual harem... started hunting for the idol without making sure people opposing him weren't watching first, then tried to get a tribe-mate to be a third wheel in the alliance, on flimsy promises. Result? The non-harem tribe members build their own counter-alliance, twice the size of his, and throw a challenge for the express purpose of tossing him. First one out of the Zapatera (no less on a re-vote)... second person eliminated in total in the season.

*** And Ulong gets replaced by the appropriately named [[ButtMonkey Matsing Tribe]] of ''Philippines (US version, not the Philippines version)''. They lost every single reward/immunity challenge and the two remaining members were absorbed to the other two tribes in the 5th episode.

*** That's not even the only extremely gullible thing Jason has done during the season. Check [[http://funny115.com/v2/17.htm this]] to seethe recount on his entire time on Survivor.

** Another one: the Fiat "Giant" Panda stretch limo, which was too long to maneuver and passengers required a ''Film/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 the alpine truck challenge, each of them was given a cargo (a giant cake for James, a car for Hammond, and a hay stack with a heater for Jeremy) for them to bring from one side of the hilly course to the other. The results: the cake was toppled over, the car was GONE, and Jeremy's trailer was engulfed in flames.

----> '''May''': [''in bed the night before the launch''] [[TemptingFate You know when we do these big things and they always end up in a massive disaster? I quite like this one to work]].

* In the ''Spongebob Squarepants'' episode of ''Cake Wars'' as one of the judges lampshades, because there is such a limited time frame something is bound to go wrong. In the same episode one of the contestants ''forgot to add sugar to her cake!''

* EpicFail/GameShows

* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'':
** In the Edgar Bergin episode, Gonzo the Great wrestles a brick blindfolded...and ''loses''.
** In the Nancy Walker episode, Kermit is home sick, so Fozzie is in charge; he proceeds to nearly blow the theater up, then delays the next act until the audience leaves - almost - and then messes up the introductions in a way that somehow causes "At the Dance" and "Veterinarian's Hospital" to go on ''at the same time''. [[FromBadToWorse And this is just before the first commercial break...]]
** Professor Bunsen Honeydew has Epic Fails all the time, much to the regret of his hapless assistant Beaker. In [[Recap/TheMuppetShowS3E18 one episode]], his fireproof paper proved even more flammable than regular paper, but even worse, his invention of flammable water ([[NowYouTellMe used by Beaker when he tried to put it out]]) [[FromBadToWorse worked perfectly]].
** Possibly the most epic fail of all was the one where the cast turned the show into a BirthdayEpisode for Kermit. Not only was it ''not'' Kermit's birthday, it was about ''six months'' later. (Hard to get a date worse than ''that''.)

*** Then James and Richard [[UpToEleven turn it into]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b4WzWFKQ20 a Space Shuttle]].

* [[Recap/DiagnosisMurderS6E2TillDeathDoUsPart One episode of]] Series/DiagnosisMurder feature a soon-to-be-married couple planning to kill the bride's father on the wedding day and framing her stepmother for the murder. They come up with a pretty solid plan, which we see go perfectly...in the fantasy of the killers. When they actually execute it, the only thing they really succeed in is killing the father.

* In the ''Series/DominoMasters'' finale, Mechanical Maverics decided to utilize a hammer held in place by an electromagnet as part of their final topple. Mere moments before their topple starts, the magnet overheated, causing the hammer to swing and knock over a major part of their build, all but guaranteeing that they wouldn't win no matter how well the rest of the topple went.

* In the ''Series/DominoMasters'' finale, Mechanical Maverics decide to utilize a hammer held in place by an electromagnet as part of their final topple. Mere moments before their topple starts, the magnet overheats, causing the hammer to swing and knock over a major part of their build, all but guaranteeing that they wouldn't win no matter how well the rest of the topple went.

* In the Series/DominoMasters finale, Mechanical Maverics decide to utilize a hammer held in place by an electromagnet as part of their final topple. Mere moments before their topple starts, the magnet overheats, causing the hammer to swing and knock over a major part of their build, all but guaranteeing that they wouldn't win no matter how well the rest of the topple went.

** In the tenth season (and the last regular season), the teams had to manage and present a fashion show for Rockport's men's and women's shoes. The men had to present the women's shoes and while the models were well-dressed and attractive, Wade's choice for the emcee, Gene, stuttered, stumbled over words, mispronounced words and even mixed up the name of a pair of shoes with the name of the model who was wearing them. This was largely because Wade [[WhatAnIdiot didn't bother replacing Gene after Gene proved unprepared to rehearse]]! End result: Trump told the women they won, sent them out of the boardroom so he could lay into Wade and Gene, and fired both guys.

** Jason Siska, of Micronesia infame, finds the fake idol [[Characters/SurvivorCookIslands Ozzy Lusth]] has planted. To clarify, it looks like a stick with a poorly drawn face. Jason [[WhatAnIdiot falls for it hook, line and sinker]], and gives it to his only ally Eliza to save her, which leads to a [[WhatTheHellHero predictable reaction]] [[MemeticMutation from Eliza]].

* In the ''Spongebob Squarepants'' episode of ''Cake Wars'' as one of the judges lampshades, because there is such a limited time frame something is bound to go wrong. In the same episodes one of the contestants ''forgot to add sugar to her cake!''

** In one challenge of Survivor: One World, players have to memorizes a series of objects, then recreate the order at their own stations. In addition, there is a lever you can pull to cover the objects in hopes of causing your opponent to stumble. When it's Troyzan and Kat's turn, the former hits the lever before either has a chance to get a good look at the objects, with Troyzan's plan being to just put random objects down and hope he's right. After naturally getting it wrong, he continues to do this until he's forced himself and Kat to repeat the challenge '''seven times'''. And to make it even more of an epic fail, Kat ends up scoring her team a point, meaning that Troyzan's plan completely backfired on him.