Here's a Just For Fun list of Tropes that would make a cool title for a TV Show (any kind), with a brief description of what the resulting show would be like.
To any writers or TV executives who may be reading this, you are free to help yourself to these pitches (or turn them into Show Within a Show examples in your projects) under these conditions:
- No changing the titles.
- No Screwing.
Compare Trope Names for a Band, TV Tropes Superhero Team, TV Tropes Supervillain Team and TV Tropes Neutral Team.
- 0% Approval Rating: A power-mad leader in a tiny incredibly obscure country annoys his citizens to no end with his crazy edicts. Somebody should depose him, but nobody's willing to replace him because they know their country sucks and that would mean having to rule it.
- 20% More Awesome - American sitcom about a bunch of Bronies.
- Absurd Phobia - A Reality TV series starring a renowned psychotherapist who specializes in the study and treatment of phobias. Every segment focuses on a patient who is suffering from an embarassing, exaggerated, uncommon, or otherwise unusual fear that is causing difficulties in their everyday life. During their sessions, they discuss the potential origins of their phobias and attempt varying methods of treatment depending on cause and symptoms. Gained some controversy due to advertisements giving the false impression that the premise was to make fun of people with weird fears, but has since become praised for helping to normalize discussion about mental illness.
- Acme Products - A parody of How It's Made set in the world of Looney Tunes, illustrating how the titular improbable products are made. Narrated by Bugs Bunny, with other Looney Tunes characters playing the part of production line workers (with all the Amusing Injuries and resigned frustration on their part that implies).
- Action Dad - He's just a normal dude raising his two kids alone, but when the kids get taken away, he must become an action hero to get them back.
- Action Dress Rip - Rip Parker, a somewhat peculiar(but very very competent) superspy— and transvestite— in his never-ending struggle to save the world from the evil forces of S.N.E.E.R. while doing his damnedest to develop a pinafore that can survive his being blown out of a six-floor plate glass window... again.
- Action Girl - She is a superpowered girl that is a Teen Superspy. Can she survive in High School?
- Action Mom - Comedy cartoon, where a woman juggles being a superhero with being a mom.
- Action Bomb - A superhero cartoon about a talking bomb. Not very sucessful.
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts - A talk show of the openly hostile variety.
- Karl Marx Hates Your Guts - The left-wing equivalent.
- Adult Fear: Horror anthology series about the fears of parents and guardians.
- Aerith and Bob - She's a half-elven soothsayer from the forests of Lothlórien. He's an Ambiguously Jewish insurance salesman from Wayne, New Jersey. They
fight crimemeet in an online chat room, arrange to meet in person and marry impetuously. Can they get over the culture shock and live Happily Ever After? - Aesoptinum - a retelling of Aesop's fables, IN SPACE!
- The Afterafterlife: A man dies and winds up in Hell. He finds out that his wife who died in the same car crash as he did is not there in Hell with him, he escapes to Heaven through Purgatory and finds out that while his wife is dead, no one knows where she is. The plot thickens...
- After the End: A group of Disaster Scavengers search for-and (try to) profit from-Lost Technology from before a nuclear war. Hilarity Ensues. similar to Desert Punk, but set in America. So, more or less "Fallout: The Animated Series."
- Alternatively, a Life After People clone.
- Agony of the Feet: The main character's feet are cursed.
- Alien Among Us: 8 people are put into the same group. One of them is an alien. They have to find out who it is.
- Alien Lunch - A Fear Factor style show where they start with odd delicacies such as bugs and worms, and move on to animal genitalia, and eventually, monkey brains.
- Alternately, an alien cooking show.
- Aliens Are Bastards - Sitcom about a foul-mouthed couple and their obnoxious alien neighbours.
- Aliens of London - A sitcom about aliens living in London.
- Aliens in Cardiff - Regional Spinoff where the Ensemble Dark Horse moves to Wales.
- Aliens Steal Cable - Aliens do a mixture of MST3K-riffing and flat out Gag Dubs of horrible, flash in the pan cable shows. Manimal features as the sole Earthling cultural representative.
- All Amazons Want Hercules: A Harem Anime loosely based on Greek Mythology.
- Alternatively, a Wonder Woman episode in which Diana is tasked with procuring a Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft for her home island, and investigates government contract corruption.
- All Men Are Perverts - A woman struggles with perverted male coworkers.
- All Trolls Are Different - A sitcom about ethnic minority trolls (The mythical creatures, not the internet ones) living in the same neighborhood.
- Alternately, a family of mythical trolls find themselves living next to a group of internet trolls. Hilarity Ensues.
- Alternate Reality Game - A Five-Man Band of teenagers find a new PC game and put it in their computer. They begin playing, and then they find that the game actually transports them to different dimensions, and a new dimension is featured each week. Despite its popularity, it is cancelled Firefly-style, but also gathers a huge cult following and gets its own Big Damn Movie as well as several sequels.
- Amazon Chaser: An action-packed series about a CIA agent chasing after a Super Villain who is hiding out in the Amazon rain forest.
- Alternatively, a man is sent on a quest to find an Amazonian princess.
- A Survivor-esque Reality TV show set in the Amazonian rain forest.
- Amazonian Beauty: Two geeks try to flirt with a hot buff girl in this sitcom.
- Alternatively, an Amazonian beauty pageant that's supposed be based on five criteria: talent, intelligence, inner beauty, physical beauty, and badassery. However, the judges usually end up choosing the winner or Miss Amazonian Beauty based on physical beauty alone.
- Alternatively, a female bodybuilding contest which actively opposes the idea that femininity equals weakness or that muscular women are automatically ugly.
- Ambiguously Human - A series where the underlying plot is the mystery of whether our protagonist has alien blood.
- Ambiguously Trained: A Buddy Cop Show about a cop being promoted into the Amateur Sleuth partner of a Hardboiled Detective that always gets his perp. Throughout the show, details about the Detectives past are kept secret, with his partner doing everything he can to investigate the truth. The series ends before the truth is revealed, but he show implies that he was either a Highly-Trained Black-Ops War Veteran, Master Criminal who's identity was never revealed, a Nazi, an Immortal, an Alien or a Superhero from the Golden Age of Supers.
- Americans Hate Tingle: Wackiness ensues as a shampoo company tries to come up with a product Americans will buy.
- Angels, Devils and Squid - The angels want to stop the demons from taking over the world. The demons hate the angels for spoiling their fun. Can they put aside their differences when Cthulhu awakens?
- Animal Wrongs Group - A documentary on PETA.
- A show about Funny Animal terrorists, like Urban Vermin.
- Anti-Sue: Mad Scientist and Super Hero Sue Smith attempts to make a clone of herself. So she can pull off an Identity Impersonator, instead ends up with not only a clone but her very own evil opposite. It has very well rounded 3-dimensional characters and is considered a Cult Classic because of it. However, much like Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue", people still like to make fun of the name.
- Apocalypse Anarchy - A sitcom taking place After the End starring a family who were on vacation in Thailand during the apocalypse living in a nearly empty Arkansas. The family lives with their pet Cat Girl, who was mutated from their pet cat and has a Verbal Tic of saying "Nya" almost every sentence a la Japanese neko girls, and a Lovecraftian demon voiced by John Cleese.
- Apocalypse How - A documentary about weapons of mass destruction.
- Alternatively, a TV show on the Discovery Channel about end of the world scenarios that slowly reveals itself to be a parody as the more insane ones are discussed.
- Apocalypse Not - A documentary on Harold Camping's May 2011 rapture prediction and the effect of the aftermath on his followers.
- Alternatively, a drama about the Mayan doomsday prediction (or the discovery of an ancient prophecy "foretelling" the end of the world) and the chaos that ensues... only for nothing to happen.
- Alternatively (again), a Work Com set in New York City (filmed in California) about the sons of Jesus Christ and Satan working in a undisclosed location to plan the fight between Good and Evil in Armageddeon. Hilarity Ensues as things such as one of the Four Horsemen calling in sick and God holding a debate with an atheist (of whom He kills afterwards) proceed to happen.
- Apocalypse Wow - An End Of The World show, similar to Aftermath.
- Alternatively, a spoof of Life After People from the producers of Childrens Hospital and NTSF:SD:SUV::.
- Appropriate Animal Attire: Animated sitcom about a nudist colony in a World of Funny Animals.
- Armed with Canon - A historical drama set during the Crusades. A small band of soldiers struggle to reconcile their Christianity with the horrors of war being committed in the name of their God.
- A fanfiction where the canon characters put aside their differences to either begin a merciless crusade to slay every Mary Sue and Original Character that has entered their 'verse, or (if it's a Mad Science setting) build a giant can(n)on which will revert their world to a canon-only version, while a group of sympathetic Original Characters try to escape or stop them. Was written as a Troll Fic by the writer just to see who would take it seriously.
- A web show where geeks tear apart disliked sequels and spin-offs of popular media and point out parts that don't fit with the canon of the original story.
- Argentina Is Nazi-Land - A sitcom taking place in Argentina (but is shot in Toronto) following the shenanigans of an elderly Adolf Hitler and his 20-year old hot Argentinian wife and their lesbian daughter and adopted Jewish son. Most known for the show's most famous line "Buenas noches, mein Fuhrer!" It somehow won 20 Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, and has become the highest-rated politically incorrect show ever worldwide. It's surprisingly popular in the Middle East.
- Ascended Extra: An extra on a TV show longs to become a major character and tries every episode to make their way to the top.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever - An Affectionate Parody of monster movies. Its sequel is Giant Space Flea from Nowhere.
- A-Team Montage: A cable access show featuring nothing but Fan Vids devoted to The A-Team. Becomes the highest-rated cable access show ever in its local area.
- Alternatively, a show where teams have to build working assault vehicles and rigs out of parts they find lying around.
- Author Appeal - Writers try to defend their work to a hostile crowd of fans. Those Running the Asylum don't go on there anymore after a couple were beaten up.
- Awful British Sex Comedy - Early-season Seinfeld with ordinary characters in their early 20s, having as much sex as average people in real life. Produced in the UK on a comparatively small budget.
- Alternatively, an intentionally So Bad, It's Good parody of Sex Comedies.
- Alternatively, a TV stand up special where most of the jokes are about awful sex, self-deprecating humor about Great Britain, or both.
- The Baby of the Bunch: A show about a bunch of people raising a baby, and they've not a clue how. The baby is smarter than they think, and has detailed internal monologues.
- Back to School - A Reality TV show where 20 high school drop-outs compete for a single degree. Remembered for its Elimination Catchphrase, "I'm sorry, You Fail Biology Forever".
- Alternately, a reality show in which adults of various ages return to high school and live as present-day teenagers do. Basically, a concept flip of ''That'll Teach 'Em".
- Badass Preacher - The first self-parody flick from Pure Flix, wherein a Dolemite-esque pastor seeks to rid his church of fundamentalists and extremists via a "holy army" of martial artists.
- Bad Boss - A Reality TV parody, specifically of The Apprentice, where the contestants believe themselves to be in a simple clone show. The Boss, who is always shown as a silhouette, sets them ludicrously impossible tasks every week. Cancelled after the first season when the 'winner' sued the TV company that made it.
- But probably would have been cancelled anyway, unless the contestants were told the title was something other than Bad Boss.
- Badly Battered Babysitter - A drama regarding stressed out members of Child Services and other public servants that work with children.
- Alternatively, a sitcom or cartoon show about a cranky babysitter having to watch the children of a mad scientist and other villains; she has to try to keep them under control while also protecting them from vigilant "heroes" who Would Hurt a Child.
- Bad Humor Truck - A reality show on the Food Network about ice cream truck drivers in Toronto. The ice cream men include a winner of The Next Food Network Star from Toronto, a middle-aged man also from Toronto, a really hot chick from Ottawa, a Fez-esque Indian immigrant from Dharamshala, a Quebecois independence activist from Montreal, a Haitian-Canadian from London, a Stratford Festival actor from Hamilton, a retired school bus driver from Thunder Bay, an American expat from South Carolina, and a on-parole-convict from Winnipeg. Later had a spinoff set in Los Angeles and a foreign remake set Oop North in the United Kingdom.
- Bald of Evil - a reality show where flowing-locked heroes are shaved and sent into difficult situations to test their moral fiber.
- Bang, Bang, BANG - A dramedy about a bisexual male prostitute and a female assassin navigating the seedy underworld together. Despite the title, they are Platonic Life-Partners.
- Alternatively, a "weapons exhibition" show copying (the late) R. Lee Ermey's "Mail Call" or Forgotten Weapons.
- Become a Real Boy - a family comedy about a boy who is bullied for being too girly, so he enlists the help of his father to teach him "manly" skills and hobbies. Notable for presenting the contrast between toxic (the bullies) and not toxic masculinity (the boy and his father bonding over fishing, hiking, and fixing cars).
- Becoming the Mask: Behind the scenes documentary about The Mask.
- Batty Lip Burbling: A Young Children's animated series meant to help children with grammar. Stars a talking bat with a lisp that likes to end his sentences with "squeak squeak".
- Best Beer Ever - A British game show about holding your liquor. Japanese execs sue because they had a similar show planned, and claim elements were stolen.
- Beyond the Impossible - An action comedy series that is based around extremely over the top antics. Much Artistic License is involved due to supposedly impossible stunts. It requires a strong Suspension of Disbelief since the antics are absolutely unrealistic.
- Big Applesauce - Cooking show from a studio inside the Empire State Building.
- Big Damn Heroes: Superheroes work at a sandwich shop on their off time.
- Alternatively, a show about a group of fledgling superheroes trying to make it big... while working in a sandwich shop?
- Also the behind-the-scenes comedy that involves a group in charge of the logistics necessary for heroes to always be where they need to be Just in Time (so it's a double-meaning title, in a "The Real Heroes" sort of way).
- The Big Rotten Apple - A newlywed couple must deal with having to live in New York in the 1970's.
- Bishōnen Line - A reverse harem show about an innocent girl surrounded by beautiful men from various transportation companies.
- Bizarre Alien Biology - A medical drama set in the far future in a fledging human colony on a distant planet. The human doctors in the emergency constantly receive alien patients from passing ships, nearby planets, and the planet's native communities, and they struggle each week as they try to figure out how to diagnose and treat such unusual beings.
- A bit like the Sector General novels.
- Or, like Futurama through the eyes of Zoidberg.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: A Jeopardy!-style game show where contestants are given such a phrase, and must figure out what the original phrase was. Feature the title as one of the phrases of the first episode.
- Boobs of Steel - She's a feisty robot stripper. He's a Superhero without a clue. They Fight Crime!!
- Bombers on the Screen - A period drama centered around the lives of U.S. Strategic Air Command personnel throughout The '70s and The '80s (filmed in Sydney). Received multiple accolades for its exceptionally accurate representation of the period and U.S. nuclear doctrine, as well as managing to make the plot legitimately tense despite the Foregone Conclusion of "the Cold War ends peacefully".
- A Boy and His X -
- An alternatively amusing and harrowing look at the rave culture of The '90s.
- A reality show about kids and the unusual pets that they have.
- A Pokémon rip-off with a twist... Homaging one of the greatest examples of a story with this kind of title (thanks to Harlan Ellison) and thus setting it in a Fallout-esque post-apocalyptic wasteland.
- Brains Evil, Brawn Good: A comedy about a Knight Templar who assumes all smart people are evil and deals with them accordingly. Speaking which, anyone uses a word longer than 2 syllables is a witch and according to the main character, problems are best solved by brute force. Always.
- Alternatively, AntiIntellectualist propaganda
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- A documentary on sieges.
- A talk show for fledging writers.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs - A cooking show where the contestants are presented with multiple ingredients picked more or less randomly and challenged to come up with a dish that incorporates all of them at once.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick - A Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?-type game show. Each round, contestants are given four items; three are ordinary, and one is weird and doesn't fit. No lifelines.
- Breast Plate - Pile fruit cocktails, whip cream, and whatever else, on a lovely girl's bare breasts, and see which guy can eat fast enough to expose both her nipples. A show that's only officially aired in Sweden, and an American pastor was forced to retire when he was caught with recordings of this show. (Close to the idea of Body Sushi. From Japan, naturally.)
- Alternatively, a show about the first openly female knights in a traditionally male-dominated kingdom who strive to prove that they can kick ass and still be feminine.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer - A successful attorney wakes up one morning to find that he has sprouted bunny ears. He then decides to start defending Mad Scientists as he searches for a cure.
- The Burlesque of Venus: A light-hearted Sitcom about a free-spirited woman that likes skinny-dipping and is an expert matchmaker.
- Cain and Abel: A Gender Flipped Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry between two brothers named Cain and Abel, known for its use of biblical references and Lampshade Hangings and was actually made by a theologian and troper.
- Call-Back - A Reality TV program which randomly pairs up Loser Guys with Alpha Bitches. The guys ask the women out, and the women all tell them to wait by the phone because they'll call "sometime before Saturday night" to let them know. In an inversion of the usual "endurance" contest, the first guy to realize he's being played, gain self-respect and do something more productive with his time, is the winner.
- Camera Abuse: Ever wonder just what cameramen go through to get that perfect shot? Watch as courageous film crews risk life and limb to bring the action to your living room. Reality TV, along the lines of Deadliest Catch or Dirty Jobs, but with cameramen, and focuses on the lack of respect or recognition as well as the discomfort and physical danger.
- Catfight - Like a fancy cat show, except the cats compete in claw-to-claw combat. Mysteriously cancelled after one episode.
- Alternatively, a sitcom about a "normal" girl being forced to move in with her Crazy Cat Lady friend, Odd Couple style arguements and shenanigans ensue.
- Or, a sitcom taking place in Florida (but shot in Toronto) about an anthropomorphic cat girl who lives with a middle-class family and her shenanigans which are almost just scene-by-scene remakes of Alien Myth 64's "Squidward's House in the House" videos.
- A Cat in a Gang of Dogs: A Fish out of Water comedy revolving around a student from a preppy private high school adjusting to life in an inner-city public school, where she stands out awkwardly among her friends. Hilarity Ensues.
- Cats Are Mean: A My Cat from Hell clone.
- Cats Are Superior - A show that televises cat shows.
- Cattle Drive -
- Farm animals form a racing team. They end up fighting crime.
- A Rawhide modern-day clone.
- Character Name and the Noun Phrase: A character quite literally titled Character Name must search for the Macguffin, the Noun Phrase.
- Chekhov's Gun - A western about a bloodthirsty outlaw who escaped from a Russian prison and fled to America. Almost everything that appears in the first few episodes turns out to be significant.
- Chekov's Gun - A Star Trek rerun block counterprogrammed against Chekhov's Gun.
- CIA Evil, FBI Good: A Get Smart rip-off starring FBI agents having to clean up stupid CIA projects that are resurging nowdays, long after the Cold War is over, and are more dangerous (or embarrassing) that they would be useful in the current world state. The Big Bad (or at least most reccuring one) is a General Ripper CIA higher-up that has probably seen The Bourne Series way too many times.
- Closer to Earth - drama about a retired jet pilot
- Cloudcuckoolander - A documentary series about the band Devo, complete with a score by Mark Mothersbaugh. Wins 5 Emmys and a Teen Choice Award.
- Colonel Badass - The TV prequel/Spinoff about Col. Hans Landa's exploits in Nazi-occupied France.
- Commie Land - A satirical sitcom depicting the Soviet Union in the early 1980s (but is shot in 2010's Toronto). Many say it's even more hilarious than the Thembrians from TaleSpin.
- Companion Cube: The exploits of a little kid and his inanimate cube sidekick.
- Complaining About Shows You Don't Like - Brought to you by Something Awful and featuring panelists Simon Cowell, Maddox (of The Best Page in the Universe) and John Solomon (of Your Webcomic Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad)
- Continuity - A show about fiction, and one man's attempt to sort out the Continuity of all fiction ever written. Also, he's trying to stay sane. A shocking twist came in the second season when he realized the existence of the the fourth wall by recognizing that his theory can't work otherwise. Takes place in the Young Wizards sub universe.
- Conveniently Empty Building - Our host and a crack team of designers help relocate businesses that have lost their building due to fire, condemning, or foreclosure by taking a standard, empty (but structurally intact) building and designing it to the business's needs.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment - Game show in which contestants have to watch people undergoing fake tortures and choose which one to endure for themselves. Cancelled after the "iron maiden incident" in the second episode.
- Cool Car - A car-decorating competition.
- Cool Garage - Celebrities and other people showing off their rides. The first episode features Jay Leno.
- Cowboy BeBop at His Computer - Japanese live-action sitcom about a straight couple in their late 30s, both with corporate jobs, constantly getting into trouble, only for the day to be saved by their neighbor, a Japanese male college student obsessed with American popular culture, known only as Cowboy Bebop.
- Crisis of Faith: Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? clone where atheists attempt to answer ridiculously easy questions about religion. The "good" losers (who got all the questions right) are given a copy of a Richard Dawkins book, the "bad" losers (those who either deliberately or actually got most or all of the questions wrong) are forced to convert (or if they just de-converted, forced to re-convert). Some fans consider the "bad" losers being forced to convert to be the best part of the show. Appears on either the Game Show Network or a religious TV channel (TBN, Daystar, EWTN, etc.)
- Criminal Convention: A Reality TV series centered around the various contraband and illegal substances (weapons and drugs) commonly found on the Black Market.
- Crying After Sex: A Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy special by a loud and obnoxious American comedian.
- Crying Critters - A documentary about animal sounds.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus - A Christian Fantasy show, where the hero sees the gospels of Jesus after trying to steal a sacred statue from a temple. He then goes about converting everyone, human or otherwise.
- Alternatively, a parody of a Christian Fantasy show about a staunch priest who gets transported into a Dungeons and Dragons type fantasy world as punishment after he persecutes a groups of kids playing a roleplaying game, and him trying to figure out how to get home in-between trying to convert people and dealing with the fact that there are a bunch of active gods in this world and none of them are his. Contrary to popular belief, the show's creator is a devout Lutheran with a positive attitude to Christianity, which turned off many atheist and humanist fans.
- Cure Your Gays - A fifties sitcom about a cynic who thinks everyone else should be as jaded as he. Hilarious in Hindsight due to Have a Gay Old Time.
- Alternatively, a conservative Christian TV show seeking to find an actual cure for homosexuality, on a weekly basis. Extremely controversial outside its target demographic.
- Cute and Psycho - A nature show about animals which are cute, but dangerous.
- Cute Bruiser - That's the English name for it, anyway. It's a gag manga about a normal kid who finds out a girl is moving in next door. She's cute. She's smart. She has a thing for manga. She can...punch holes through reinforced steel??? Yes, wouldn't you know it, she's actually a superhero in disguise. She fights crime, giant monsters and the Vice Principal of the high school by night and as the author would have it, our poor protagonist is caught up in the craziness with no hope of escape.
- Cyber Ninja:
- An early 2000s cartoon about a regular teenage kid who also happens to be an elusive and infamous hacker known only as the Cyber Ninja. He has balance his social life with hacking into Evil Corporations to save the day, all the while hiding his identity from his dad, the chief of police. Used excessive amounts of Hollywood Hacking and Cyber Space.
- A retro-style Anime that essentially melds Naruto and Robocop. Hiro Sanada, ninjitsu student, is secretly kidnapped by Evil, Inc. and turned into a Nigh-Invulnerable cyborg with a variety of ninja-based integral weapons (rapid-fire shuriken launcher, laser katana, holographic projector, etc). Things start to go bad for them when Hiro breaks free and swears to bring them down.
- Cyborg - A sitcom about a man whose college roommate is a cyborg.
- Darker and Edgier - A MST3K type show, spun off Recycled In Space. Basic premises to crappy tv shows turned into Film Noir dramas.
- Darkest Africa - Documentary about the goth scene in Cape Town.
- Darkest Hour - A psychological reality show where in 20 real people are unknowingly trapped in a large building. The electricity, internet and phone lines are cut-off from 9pm to 7am, all exits are locked from the outside, and one of them may be a serial killer. Tension between the contestants rises and suspicion mounts as the contestants slowly begin to disappear. The worst part? None of them know it's all just a show. Because of this, it's only officially aired in the Philippines and parts of Canada, and a well-known conspiracy theorist retired and went into hiding when he was caught with recordings of this show.
- Alternatively an Are You Afraid of the Dark? clone/spin-off where all the stories are set or have their climax happen around midnight.
- Dark Reprise:
- A fantasy novel series about a generic evil corrupting the modern world, reverting it to a past era, yet darker, to better suit the evil's tastes.
- A mini-series spin-off of a highly-acclaimed fantasy anime, giving the villains A Day in the Limelight, because the writers couldn't find a good way to shove these episodes inside of the regular arcs without turning them into unwanted Filler.
- Death Takes a Holiday - A dramedy about a doomsday prediction going sour when it is discovered the Grim Reaper has retired and nobody is able to find a replacement in time for everything to go according to the prediction. Think Salvation but if the giant space rock missed due to an error in God's algorithims.
- Death Is Cheap - A sitcom about the personification of Death having to deal with roommates who constantly complain about Death's miserliness or frugality, depending on who's describing Death's penny-pinching.
- Depraved Kids' Show Host - A British biopic of Jimmy Savile. Ends with a psychiatrist analyzing the Doctor's dream.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? - Cthulhu's very own boxing match show. Professional boxers get to fight him.
- Alternatively, superheroes versus Lovecraftian horrors.
- Discount Lesbians - An independent romantic comedy about the owners of a retail store, who start to see each other as more than just business partners.
- Does Not Like Shoes: The adventures of a twenty-something girl who is always barefoot, no matter what, due to hating shoes and socks because of her rural upbringing. A Running Gag is everyone and their brother tries to offer her shoes, and she never accepts.
- Doom Troops: A Steampunk show set in the trenches of an alternate-reality World War I (but filmed in modern-day Vancouver), following a squad of Imperial German Super Soldiers, and their efforts to end a war that's gone on for fifty years. Comparable to Neon Genesis Evangelion in it's use of Deconstruction and Cerebus Syndrome. Needless to say, quite the Tearjerker. Adapted into a Broadway musical, which was well-remembered for The Lancer's heartbreaking rendition of Sabaton's The Hammer Has Fallen.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: A chilling expose' on battered husbands. Decried by parts of the feminist movement as "male propaganda," but leads several counties to review and upgrade their domestic abuse laws. The leader of a feminist group was forced to step down when she was caught with recordings of the show.
- Drives Like Crazy: American spinoff of Canada's Worst Driver.
- Driving Stick: A Game Show filmed in real-time, with one contestant at a time and only one prize - a brand-new car equipped with a manual transmission. To win it, the contestant must drive it over an urban course to a predetermined finishing point, to driving-test standards, within the show's 22 minute runtime.
- Dude, Not Funny!:
- Caustic Critic makes snarky comments of other comedians' failures. Cancelled after one season.
- Talk show with a central gimmick of people analyzing how current media is full of insensitive jokes. Low ratings because many people believe that the hosts are running on Political Correctness Gone Mad, but has a strong political presence.
- A biopic of Seth Green. Begins and ends with a psychiatrist analyzing various skits from Robot Chicken, and features interviews with staff of the shows & films he's worked on and the creators of the material parodied in Robot Chicken.
- Dude, She's Like, in a Coma! - A hippie is mistaken for a doctor and asked to treat a comatose woman.
- Dying Town:
- Docudrama about a small Midwest factory town (filmed in California) where the sole factory has shut its doors. Cancelled after one season, despite being critically acclaimed.
- A mystery thriller set in a small Midwestern Town with a Dark Secret (filmed in Vancouver) that has seen a sudden uptick in unexplained deaths, prompting newly-arrived teen Tom Locke to find out what the heck's going on.
- Easy Evangelism - A DIY show for missionaries.
- Eagleland:
- A man reads government press releases with a Laugh Track added.
- Or, a documentary about eagles that live in America.
- Michael Moore's newest talk show. The title is meant to be highly ironic.
- A Perspective Flip of Warrior Cats, from the point of view of the eagles which share the mountains with the Tribe of Rushing Water.
- Eco-Terrorist: A documentary about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
- Escalating War: A Candid Camera Prank show similar to Fameless where people are pranked into situtations usually involving celebrity guests. Cancelled after 6 episodes after the producer was charged with counterfeiting money due to one skit.
- E = MC Hammer - Educational program in the same vein as Bill Nye the Science Guy, but with added urban youth appeal.
- Eight Deadly Words: An execution method for the worst of the worst criminals involves a tightly guarded spell eight words long. However, someone has stolen the spell, and now they must find whoever it was. Whether it's a ripoff or spiritual successor to Death Note is hotly debated among fans and haters.
- Alternatively, a drama series which focuses on a tightly guarded eight-word long spell that is a method for stopping doomsday from happening, no matter the Apocalypse How class/doomsday scenario. However, in the midst of a growing Zombie Apocalypse, someone has stolen the spell, and a team of U.S. secret agents go Walking the Earth (despite the entire series being filmed in Vancouver) trying to find it. They Fight Crime! and slay zombies on the way as well. The finale ends with them finding the spell and deciding to team up with the person who stole it and various others, and they use it and The Power of Friendship combined to wipe the zombies clean off the face of Earth.
- MST3K rip-off. The central plot is that the Joel/Mike/Jonah rip-off is a Seinfeld-level apathetic jerk and a lot of his jokes revolve around how he doesn't cares about the dumb people on the screen (and everybody else. The Mads are trying to literally torture kindness into him).
- '80s Hair:
- A battle of the best hair metal revival bands.
- A That '70s Show (well, would be more like That 80s Show, but it wasn't as good) clone that has most of its characters work at a barber shop during The '80s. Cancelled after one season despite critical acclaim, but was Uncancelled for Amazon Prime Video several years later.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita - A magical girl anime about a refined Perky Goth girl named Lolita, who proudly fights evil with her magical Frills of Justice.
- The End of the World as We Know It: Society goes down the tubes (war, famine, cyanide-flavored ice cream) to the point somebody decides to destroy everything. Cancelled after 20 episodes and before he could have one last go at trying to annihilate everything and everyone because it was just that bad.
- Enforced Method Acting - A down-on-his-luck actor by the name of Jim Malcolm has just gotten a small acting gig, and his Deadpan Snarker roomie, Razz Foredhoeder soon finds out that Jim has a bizarre form of Dual-Personality Disorder, in which his secondary persona becomes whomever he is playing! Hilarity Ensues.
- Enslaved Elves: A dark fantasy about a race of elves enslaved by humans and the cruel, inhuman treatment they suffer, as well as their attempts at slave rebellions and slave liberation. Despite critical acclaim, ratings remain low due to Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy.
- Even the Subtitler Is Stumped - A sitcom about a top-notch wicket-keeper who is Omniglot.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Fox Sports 1 series about 1970s cars that are just now being seen as classics.
- Everybody Hates Hades: A British Work Com set in Hell where Hades, Greek God of the Underworld has to act as the assistant to Satan when the Greek Underworld gets bought out by him. Now Hades is forced to be someone else's underling and high-jinks ensue.
- Everybody Loves Zeus: A High-Concept urbanFantasy Sitcom where Zeus was banished from Olympus and ends up becoming the honorary member of a Nuclear Family in Minnesota (filmed in California). He acts as the womanizing self-important jackass he was in the original myths and the family just wags their fingers and give him an "oh, you" followed by a laugh track. Cancelled after three seasons despite positive reviews from critics, but gained a cult following.
- Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory - A couple of televangelists try to find religious subtext in numerous pop culture franchises and use these revelations to convert people.
- Everyone Is Satan in Hell - A virtuous spirit is wrongly sent to Hell and must find a way to get to Heaven before becoming as bad as Satan.
- Everything's Better with Cows: A sitcom about a neurotic city boy who inherits a large cow farm from his eccentric uncle
- Everything's Better with Penguins - An animated parody sitcom involving anthropomorphic rockhopper, yellow-eyed, and little blue penguins.
- Everything's Better with Spinning (now defunct) - Who can be spun around in various ways the longest without getting sick?
- Alternatively, a show about people whose job it is to "spin" stories for politicians and large companies to make them look good to the public.
- Evil Weapon - Documentary on nazi superweapons.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin - A hard-hitting documentary about what's really going on in the canning industry. The conclusions are dismissed by all but a die-hard fringe of vegans.
- Expo Speak - a news show about conference and convention management.
- Faceless Goons: Ever thought about all those rank-and-file bad guys who get gunned down by Action Heroes during badass fight scenes or chase sequences? Well, here's your chance to see a few of them, trying to earn their paycheck, showing Character Development... and then desperately attempting to survive as the heroes show up and it all inevitably goes to hell. Anyone Can Die is a given, and characters who manage to stick around for a whole season are considered extremely lucky. The original title for the series was "Mook Horror Show", but was rejected for being too cheesy for the intended mood.
- The Fair Folk - A reality show about the people who put on Renaissance Fairs.
- Fairy Devilmother:
- An anthology show adapting famous fairy tales, with an Evil Fairy acting as its narrator who tends to walk into the stories and ruin everybody's day.
- Anime Black Comedy about how an Unphased Everyman is saddled with a sadistic, unreliable fairy godmother who won't leave until she gives him one single good wish, but she is way too used to twisting them around for her own good.
- Fanservice: Exactly what you think it would be.
- Alternatively, a show about different recipes and types of cheesecake.
- Alternatively, a show made by fans for fans. Fans submit their Fan Films to the show. The show later got their own team of actors after some Fan-Servers asked to see live-action reenactments of Fan Fic Web Serial Novels.
- Or, a show about a repair shop that people go to when they need their fans and air conditioners fixed.
- Fantastic Racism - Clip Show commends audacious acts of discrimination. Cancelled after one episode, ended several careers.
- Alternatively, an adult cartoon comedy about a fantasy world where the races - Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Orcs, etc. - all hate each other but have to trade and ally with each other in the face of a greater threat.
- Femme Fatale - French action thriller show about a professional killer woman starring Isabelle Adjani as the killer.
- Fights Crime With X: A documentary on the evolution of crime-fighting TV shows and the strange gimmicks they have based their characters around.
- Five-Man Band - They've been together since they were a teenage garage band, but it's ten years later, and their failure to break out of the local scene is slowly causing the band to fall apart. Can they make it big, or are they doomed to lose their dream, and the best friends they ever had along with it?
- That, or a Monkees rip-off.
- Or, Anvil! The Story of Anvil.
- Five-Token Band - Spinoff of Glee. Fed up with Finn and Rachel always getting the solos and wanting to try an edgier sound, Kurt, Mercedes, Artie, and Tina quit show choir and form their own garage band along with a blind drummer. Didn't sell as many copies of the soundtrack(s) as the show it spun off from and was cancelled after 2 seasons.
- Flight - Documentary about the history of aviation.
- Flying Brick:
- A Sitcom about a stone golem trying to make it as a pilot in the airline industry.
- A superhero TV show. The twist: it's a Cape Punk and the protagonist, a Superman Pastiche, is practically homeless because people think his powerset is too cliche.
- Foot Focus (now-defunct) - A crime show about a brilliant investigator who is able to deduce minute details about people simply by looking at their feet. To make the plot work, the show is set in Hawaii and practically all the characters encountered wear sandals. After too many complaints about people being forced to have bare feet by fans, the detective becomes proficient in shoes as well, leading to a higher rating when the plots become more original.
- Foreigner for a Day - Reality show in which one person is granted diplomatic immunity for 24 hours.
- For the Evulz - An Animesque French cartoon about a teen general who gets all his plans for invasion by playing RTS and FPS games and defeats the Evil Empire... to promptly take the empty spot of emperor and run down the field the other way (and proceeds to switch sides whenever they win). The good and bad guys are dumbstruck and an under-the-table plan begins. Said to be a comedy, but political intrigue keeps the Code Geass fanbase watching and allows the first story arc to finish.
- For Science! - Dystopia where science is illegal, but our protagonist is a scientist anyway and must hide from suspicious law enforcement.
- Fox News Liberal - MSNBC's latest political commentary program.
- Fox News but with a Laugh Track added to the lines of their "liberal" news reporters.
- A sitcom about a man who is forced to reconcile his liberal beliefs with his job.
- Franchise Zombie - A Zomedy Screwed by the Network Spinoff in the vein of The Book of Bunny Suicides, featuring "Those shows that clearly want to lay down and die, but The Network keeps ressurecting them 'cause they're so popular" as zombies wearing their show's costume. Cancelled after 3 episodes because it wasn't funny.
- Fridge Logic - A show hosted by Alan Fridge about the how logic really works, odd in that he keeps bring up rumors about TV shows he's supposedly in the know about and celebrities he supposedly knows.
- Fridge Horror:
- A horror series about a boy who, upon opening his refrigerator, was exposed to a ray of pure energy that boosted his intelligence and caused him to realise how cruel the world he lives in is. Now, he has to live everyday life knowing all the horrors of it.
- Darker and Edgier Monsters, Inc. copycat that had the gateway to the monsters' world changed to refrigerators because of Serial Numbers Filed Off legalese.
- Frills of Justice - Designers try dressing up cop uniforms. Only good for the laughs.
- Alternatively, hard-boiled female cop has to join a team of younger anime Magical Girls to help fight monsters on a crime spree. Takes place in Japan (but is shot in Chinatown, Toronto).
- In a World of Funny Animals, a police force composed of Lawful Stupid frill lizards attempts to combat crime. Hilarity Ensues.
- From Russia with Nukes - A Bombers on the Screen spinoff shining the light on the other side of the Cold War and demonstrating the perspective of the USSR's Strategic Missile Troops and Air Defense Forces throughout The '70s and The '80s (also shot in Sydney). The Man Who Saved Humankind
is considred to be the single most tense episode of both series, and pure Nightmare Fuel, for showing just how close the world came to complete nuclear obliteration.
- Fur and Loathing - Two roommates decide to get a dog, but the dog and one of the protagonists don't get along.
- Furries Are Easier to Draw - A mockumentary about abandoned, poorly drawn cartoon characters whose artists switched to drawing Funny Animals because they're harder to mess up. An "absurdist metaphor for Parental Abandonment".
- Furry Confusion - A debate game show with furries pitted against their critics. Losers (always the critics) get mocked for getting every fact wrong. One of the first contestants was a Something Awful user. Very few people from that website have been on since. Counterprogrammed against Complaining About Shows You Don't Like.
- Furry Denial - A sitcom about a strict stepmother who is kicked out of her own home by her abused children and transformed into an anthropomorphic cat (of the Furry Female Mane variety) who lives with a middle class family.
- Gadgeteer Genius - Animated show based on Girl Genius, but with anthropomorphic animals. Starring Gadget Hackwrench as Agatha. Goes on to get a Big Damn Movie.
- How'd you get the Krosp character to work?
- He is now a small human, and emperor of all humans, but since humans are so independent-minded, none of them actually listen to him.
- How'd you get the Krosp character to work?
- Gaia's Vengeance:
- Game show in which five CEOs are thrown into the wilderness for three weeks. Whoever avoids injury wins. Appears either on MSNBC or a Ted Turner station.
- A copycat of Apocalypse How revolving around "nature-gone-mad" events. Lasted less than the other series because 1) it had less scenarios to choose from and 2) it was a lot less even-handed in terms of Green Aesop talking heads.
- Gainax Ending - A western-animated adventure show about a optimistic young girl with psychokinesis and her pet lizard-bird, who is on a journey to stop the intergalactic Mad Scientist from destroying her home world, Gainax. Is an Affectionate Parody of the shonen fighting genre which is, fitting enough, filled with weird imagery and nonsensical characters. Produced by George Krstic and C.H. Greenblatt.
- Gayborhood - A wacky indie comedy where an Unlucky Everydude moves into a new apartment and realizes too late that he's in the local gay neighborhood. He eventually befriends a group of gay guys, falls for one of them, meets a sweet girl at his new job, and discovers his own bisexuality. The film becomes a Sundance darling.
- Gender Bender:
- Reality show, where a guy or girl goes on five dates on five nights (nothing further), and wins a prize by correctly guessing who always was this gender and who wasn't. Some exec keeps it on, no matter how low the ratings, admitting it's just to piss off the gay community.
- Alternatively, a show where people are transformed by make-up artists and have to live as the opposite sex for a day.
- A Ranma ½ copycat aiming to cater to the "alternative lifestyle" crowd more. The main character is not only bisexual but also more okay with having become genderfluid.
- Genius Bruiser: Mixed Martial Arts action with William Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Aristotle and other giants of history fighting it out in the cage for the gold.
- Alternatively, a show hosted by intelligent martial artists who teach the audience fighting moves and the science and reasoning behind why they have to be or should be done a specific way and will sometimes debates about which technique is better.
- Alternatively, a kid named Bruiser aspires to become a Mad Scientist or might just already be one.
- Geographic Flexibility - A hilarious game show that reveals just how inept many people are at finding locations (including their own country) on a map. Thrill to the sight of contestants searching for Chicago in Antarctica, or trying to find the edge of the world on a globe.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar - A spoof comedy about a desperate burglar who enlists the help of a idiotic policeman to help him rob people's houses.
- Alternatively, a show where people try to test security officers and devices by trying to smuggle in things they're not supposed to have. The team includes an inventor, a magician/sleight-of-hand expert, and a smooth-talking con artist.
- Ghibli Hills - Fan-made animated sitcom with characters from Hayao Miyazaki films living as neighbors in the suburbs. Pulled off YouTube after the second episode.
- Ghostapo:
- A Jewish community defends itself from an army of undead Nazis.
- A World War II Weird World War drama in which Allied spies check out the supposedly supernatural research the Nazis are doing and destroying it whenever it seems to be making headway into creating an actual weapon. Praised (and occasionally ridiculed) by audiences as attempting to be "Wolfenstein: The Series" with a pinch of The X-Files, even when some of the crazier Wonderwaffen are based on actual research the Germans tried to make work.
- Ghost City - A fantasy/horror show about a city inhabited by spirits and how they torment the living who enter their domain.
- Godwin's Law - Alternate History where Adolf Hitler joins a law firm. It's only because of the combination of Refuge in Audacity and making him an extreme Butt-Monkey that the show lasts at all. Mel Brooks playing Hitler sure helps matters.
- The Goggles Do Nothing: A magazine programme testing the effectiveness of safety equipment and investigating work safety scandals.
- Grand Theft Me - A man kidnaps himself for a large sum of money and tries to see how long he can keep up the ruse.
- Alternatively, a reality contest show where people who are good at the game try to pull off fake heists and challenges based on Grand Theft Auto. Critics hated it and it was cancelled after one season.
- Green Aesop: Aesop's Fables as retold by a Martian, in a Martian setting. Hilarity Ensues.
- Hammerspace - Late night talkshow with MC Hammer as the host.
- Have You Seen My God? - One day, the Holy Trinity disappears from heaven and the apostles and archangels (who are next in the chain of command) send a ragtag team of misfit angels to find them, believing they'll never complete their mission. The misfit angels wander through alternate dimensions, large and confusing cities, and even go to Disney World as they go on their quest.
- Hate Dumb - A documentary series about members of the furry fandom, made to attack critics of the fandom. Cue Encyclopedia Dramatica closing down, unable to make fun of the series' attacks on them.
- Healing Shiv - A Prison Drama starring a doctor, on HBO. Has to deal with Prison politics, and mysterious diseases and injuries. Critically acclaimed. Contains at least one F-word per minute in an average episode.
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue" - A surprisingly well written spy drama, with a three-dimensional protagonist, who stays competent, and only turns into The Ace several seasons in, when it's clear she has the experience to be this good. Fans still mock the title, though.
- Heroic Mime: A show about a superhero who doesn't talk, and has the power to create any invisible object he can think of (usually boxes). He battles his arch nemesis, who has the ability to control the wind.
- Hide Your Lesbians - A tacky reality show about trying to pass off gay women as straight. Those who don't think it's offensive are just unimpressed. It's canceled after just a few episodes.
- Hide Your Lesbians - Girl moves away and gets into an all-female Love Dodecahedron. Hilarity Ensues when her intolerant family comes to stay.
- Alternatively, a sympathetic nun who works at a Christian all-girls boarding school tries to help her students keep their love secret from the other students and workers.
- Hijacked by Jesus - Christ returns to Earth and commandeers a bus of unloved young misfits bound for summer camp, so that he may recruit them as his disciples. Hilarity Ensues, as well as Crowning Moments of Heartwarming.
- Hilarity Ensues - Soap Opera about a stand up comic... diagnosed with Hilarititus. Dramedy that quickly develops a Broken Base since nobody can determine which situations are deliberate parodies and which are not. Particularly the series finale, wherein the comic has a psychotic breakdown on stage and dies.
- Alternatively, a show where a team sets up funny scenarios based on viewer suggestions and waits to see if hilarity does indeed ensue.
- Hilarity in Zoos - Reality show about the amusing antics of zoo animals.
- Hitler Ate Sugar:
- Lighter and Softer take on Nazi Germany, yet a very ill-advised short that explains that Hitler started World War II just as an excuse to invade Poland to get a box of sugar cereal, after a selfish Pollock stole the last box in all of Germany, thus ruining his breakfast, and he decides to invade Poland for more. Surprisingly, no deaths or mentions of the Holocaust.
- Yet another documentary about Hitler, his life, and how his horrors live on. Kinda heavy-handed in the "things we take for granted were developed by Germany during wartime" department, and definitely not in the "you should deem this fact interesting" way.
- Honorary Princess - A Edutainment cartoon show created by the same person as Mole Miner about a ordinary American girl who gets teleported to Ancient China and becomes a honorary princess for a village magistrate. She has adventures while teaching the audience elementary school-level knowledge about Chinese history and culture. Think of it as Dream Star Button Nose meets Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. Was initially cancelled after one season due to pitifully low ratings but was Uncancelled after a Channel Hop from Playhouse Disney to PBS (which also resulted in the show switching it's voice recording location from Los Angeles to New York City, resulting in the entire cast getting replaced with 4Kids Entertainment dub regulars and various well-known NYC-based voice actors).
- Ho Yay -
- A show about rap and hip hop. Never gets why people laugh at the name.
- A chaste but attractive woman accidentally enters a brothel and, due to a series of noodle incidents, is mistaken for a prostitute. This causes her to discover her awakening sex drive, and also develop feelings for one of her coworkers. Starts out as being plot-driven with some nudity, but due to Executive Meddling is gradually derailed into pure Fanservice bordering on outright porn, with the protagonist becoming a Walking Shirtless Scene. This culminates in the last episode, which is entirely taken up by an orgy involving all the prostitutes and their clients. The second half of the show is banned in most countries due to excessive nudity.
- Foe Yay - A dark comedy on Showtime where a superhero and a supervillain are forced to share an apartment. Over the course of the series, they discover that they could be more than just enemies.
- Holier Than Thou - Game Show in which religious fundamentalists compete to answer trivia questions about their holy books, deliver impromptu sermons, and convert atheists. Wild Mass Guessing is a Catholic-specific Spinoff in which Catholics have to answer questions regarding the most obscure points of their church's theology and practice.
- Hollywood Chameleon - Animated sitcom about an anthromorphic chameleon acting in Hollywood films.
- Hollywood Dateless - Three virgins who live in Hollywood try to get laid. Hilarity Ensues, and as you might expect, Failure Is the Only Option.
- Hollywood Nerd: Kid Com about a teen idol who's One of Us. Veers between Gender Flip Expy of Hannah Montana with the occasional poorly researched Tabletop RPG set-up on the kitchen table and much better than it sounds depending on which of the three rotating writer/directors did this week's episode. Danny Bonaduce and Polly Draper play the parents...
- Honorary Princess - What happens when a fairytale princess decides to go to a university?
- How Would You Like to Die?: An Affectionate Parody of Gorn movies.
- Featuring Eli Roth as a recurring character.
- Humans Are Bastards - History channel show chronicling the lowest points of human brutality, torture, mistreatment, genocide, and other general bastard-ness. Each episode has at least one segment about the Nazis. It's the History Channel after all.
- Humans Are Cthulhu - An epidemic breaks out where people across the globe inexplicably start transforming into Eldritch Abominations. Can our heroes figure out how to stop it?
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: A Spin-Off show of Humans Are Monsters, which focuses on current events, psychology, and sociology as well as history and much like its precedessor has a example involving nazis at least Once per Episode. But unlike Humans Are Bastards, it also focuses on stupidity just as much as cruelty and has many Take Thats at the series Rousseau Was Right. It had started as an environmentalist show which usually talked about dangerous animals being hunted near extinction.
- Alternatively, a show about monsters trying to survive against mobs of angry humans.
- Hypnotize the Princess
- A Disney Channel comedy where it turns out the women playing the Disney Princesses at the Disney Theme Parks aren't just acting. They've been brainwashed by an evil witch into thinking they actually are these princesses. Well, the witch is evil, but not competent, so Hilarity Ensues.
- The story of how Triple H got Stephanie McMahon to turn heel.
- A game show where professional magicians, and amateurs alike, compete to see how many royal ladies they can hypnotize.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: A sitcom about a vampire single father and his rebellious teenaged son.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: The Darker and Edgier version of How I Met Your Mother.
- Alternatively, a South Park episode in which Cartman shoots Starvin Marvin and brags about it.
- Incompetence, Inc.: A Work Com set in Boston (but shot in Montreal) about people who work at a family-run department store. Everybody is so incompetent the facts on how it's stays in business are highly classified by the U.S. government. Was a critical flop on ABC and lasted only 1 season of 45 episodes there but was popular enough in the United Kingdom to allow The BBC to fund three more seasons, all of which aired stateside on [adult swim] to great success.
- Incompetent Guard Animal: A wholesome Saturday Morning Cartoon from The '90s about an overly nice (and incredibly naive) puppy living at a boot camp designed to train dogs into Angry Guard Dogs run by a Drill Sergeant Nasty. The Sergeant does everything he can to turn the puppy into a savage beast, but all attempts hilariously fall flat or end up redirected at him.
- Invisible Aliens - The studio was a little short on funds.
- Invisible Main Character - A goofy Sitcom about a protagonist who is always invisible to both their peers and the audience, so their voice is the only evidence of their existence (other than the large amounts of junk food that go missing from the pantry).
- It Just Bugs Me - Participants in this wacky show think they're entering a support group for their entomophobia... until they look inside the snack box! Cancelled after 5 episodes.
- It Tastes Like Feet-A game show where people have to eat cooked animal feet.
- Alternatively, a really bad TLC show about sexual fetishes.
- It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans - An American sitcom taking place in New Orleans (but is shot in Toronto). The producers go to the Philippines to film cockfights for the show (since cockfighting is now illegal almost everywhere, even in the United States and some Spanish countries it was popular in (thanks Animal Wrongs Groups!)
- Jack-of-All-Trades- A sitcom about a man named Jack who will trade absolutely anything for wealth. Hilarity Ensues as this leads to some complications.
- Joker Immunity - TV Spinoff of The Dark Knight (ignoring Author Existence Failure). A Torchwood-esque TV show that focuses on the Joker's antics in Gotham City (but filmed in Metropolis). The twist is that the Joker is immortal and dies in increasingly creative ways at least five times an episode and tries to hide it from his Five-Man Band of followers as they wreak havoc in Gotham. James Marsters makes appearances as Mr. J's ex-boyfriend, with whom he has a torrid affair behind Harley Quinn's back.
- Joker Immunity - One million dollars. One simple rule.... You laugh, you lose. Do you have... Joker Immunity?
- Kent Brockman News - A The Simpsons Spinoff that actually happens.
- Killer Game Master - Tabletop RPG meets Jumanji.
- King of All Cosmos - The life of a former royal living in Cosmos, Minnesota (filmed in Rural Vancouver).
- Alternatively (or expanding on that idea), a wacky sitcom about a quirky all-powerful alien king and his family moving to earth and their dealings with their ordinary next-door neighbors.
- Lampshade Hanging: A game show where contestants have to hang as many actual lampshades as possible before time runs out. The losers then have to explain why they didn't win.
- The Legions of Hell - An apocalyptic comedy about a band of demons sent to destroy earth and their wacky hijinks that occur as they try to complete their mission.
- Lesbian Vampires - Bravo series about... lesbian vampires. Gets criticized by the media as "exploitative fluff" but quickly spawns a series of related franchises.
- Goes on HBO and breaks ratings records, as the plots boil down to "90% Girl-on-Girl Is Hot, 10% vampire stuff."
- Lethal Diagnosis - A medical drama, set in twelfth-century Europe, in which a team of physicians diagnoses every case, from ingrown toenails to cancer, as "imbalanced humours" and invariably prescribes massive doses of emetics, laxatives and leeches, or torturing out the demons.
- Like You Would Really Do It - For some reason, I'm thinking Japanese game show.
- Little Miss Con Artist: Deliberately Cute Child and Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, Emma Timsonners is a Jerkass High-School Hustler. Depending on the Writer, she's either a Justified Criminal Jerk with a Heart of Gold, a Karmic Loveable Rogue, or a downplayed Villain Protagonist.
- Lolicon - A show about a girl who gets magical powers from a special lollipop flavor her father invented. The writers are surprised by how well the show is doing in Japan.
- Alternatively, a darkly humorous anime where a creepy Genre Savvy eternally young girl cons and manipulates pedophiles into doing what she wants before she reveals their secret to everyone and/or brutally murders them. The narrator/main character is a normal young girl who was being abused by her uncle before Loli killed him and tries to befriend and aid her even though she's disturbed by her methods.
- Lone Dalek - Doctor Who Spinoff starring one of the Humanized Daleks from The Evil of the Daleks.
- Lovecraft Country - Alternate History series where H. P. Lovecraft tries to balance running the USA with saving the world from Eldritch Abominations.
- MacGuffin - A PI who can solve any crime from just one clue. It's just a matter of finding that one clue.
- Made of Indestructium - A reality-TV documentary on the incredible survival stories man's best-manufactured products.
- Made of Iron - A warrior deals with the emotional weight of becoming a cyborg after an accident.
- Made of Plasticine - A MythBusters-type show, where the hosts test out horror movie deaths. An HBO original, since Discovery Science Channel turned it down.
- Magic Pants - The misadventures of The Casanova and a Casanova Wannabe in Vegas, trying to pick up as many chicks as they can.
- Alternatively, a show about a pair of magic pants that grant their owner's (a ragtag bunch of students) wishes - the catch is that the pants shrink a size for every wish you make in a 24 hour period so you have to Be Careful What You Wish For.
- The Magic Poker Equation - A small group of poker-playing witches and wizards travel the globe and use their magic to win poker games in the world's swankiest casinos.
- The Magic Poker Equation - A camera crew follows Antonio Esfandiari (aka The Magician) around as he wins obscene amounts of money playing poker.
- Martial Arts and Crafts - He's a karate instructor looking to open his own dojo. She sells crocheted cats on Etsy and wants a brick-and-mortar shop. They share commercial space - will they come to share their lives?
- MayDecember Romance - Romantic Anthology series on the Hallmark Channel.
- Meaningless Lives - A Follow the Leader style Soap Opera. Ridiculously depressing, featuring excessive Wangst and asinine plot twists. Unpopular with the Primary Demographic, has a cult following with College Students. They think its hilarious.
- Medieval Morons: A sitcom where 3 Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists from medieval times stumble upon a time machine and are sent to the present. Hilarity Ensues.
- Mega Manning - the Mega Man metaseries retooled as a half-hour TV cartoon. The show would spend time on major events in the series such as Dr. Wily betraying Dr. Light, Haruka Hikari giving birth to twins and the oldest one (Hub) dying, and finally, Sonia Strumm being blackmailed into working for the bad guys.
- Alternately, a story about hitting Peyton Manning with a gigantor ray.
- More alternately, a recently-retired Peyton Manning's weekly NFL talk show on HBO, featuring himself, always wearing turtlenecks and suit jackets, and a weekly alternating guest in wing chairs in front of a black wall.
- Mega Neko - A documentary on cats, including the various roles, and ways they have affected mankind throughout history.
- Alternatively, a documentary specifically about the history of cats in Japan.
- Alternatively, a wacky anime about a normal family and their size-changing cat who fights kaiju in Tokyo.
- Alternatively, a Japanese version of Clifford the Big Red Dog, but with a giant cat instead of a dog.
- Meganekko: Spinoff of Action Girl, showing that a woman can wear glasses, look beautiful and still kick ass. Takes the "guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses" myth and destroys it.
- The Mentor - A comedic series about a man who makes his living mentoring epic heroes and superheroes and how it stunts his personal life. An instant cult classic.
- Alternatively, a heartwarming series about a Big-Brothers-program volunteer who helps at-risk kids, most of whom don't make it easy for him, and the lessons he learns along the way. (But the other one sounds better.)
- Or an old, very highbrow and dry BBC comedy about an obscure character from the Iliad, who has developed such an ego that he Spells His Name With A The. (Canceled after a few episodes.)
- Metroid Vania: An installment of both franchises in which Samus Aran inherits the Vampire Killer. Like Metroid Prime: Pinball but with the grapple beam taking centre stage.
- Middle-Management Mook - an ordinary guy is put in charge of... a low-level corporate office. What madness will occur next?
- Mighty Whitey - A racist superhero show that folded after a single episode. Ruined the director and the regular cast.
- Mighty Whitey - A cartoon on Adult Swim. 100 years ago, a small white alien who looks like Play-Yan-Kun visited Earth. Now, he came back, and discovered the Creativity Movement. Thinking that the religion was founded because they thought he was a deity after seeing "The White Man's Bible", he decides to become the title superhero to live up to his standard as a superhero. Of course, as it is in real life, the Creativity Movement is a white supremacist religion, and both his superhero identity and his human identity, Sam White, spread the idea that Creativity isn't racist. Hilarity Ensures.
- Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher - A Sitcom about a kindergarten teacher who accidentally becomes a high school principal. Hilarity Ensues. It's the second-highest rated TV show on it's network.
- Mistaken for Aliens - A mix-up at a maternity ward leads to some human babies and alien babies being switched.
- Mistaken for Dying - Black Comedy, where the world is convinced that our protagonist has a terminal illness and he tries to set everyone straight.
- Mistaken for Gay - Documentary about how assuming that a man must be gay because of his job, interests, etc is unhelpful to both straight and gay men.
- Mistaken for Romance - Cringe Comedy about a pair of Platonic Life-Partners who everyone else assumes are a couple.
- Moment of Awesome: An idealistic show about a boy named Awesome gets crowned king after a series of tests.
- Alternatively, a show hosted by Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, and Nick Offerman where they interview martial artists, boxers, wrestlers, and heroic badasses after showing a bunch videos of badass stunts. Noteworthy examples include a woman saving her son by fighting off a bear with a zucchini and a roll of toliet paper and a guy wrestling a tiger with a knife in its mouth.
- A Fear Factor-style stunt contest.
- Mole Miner: An Edutainment All-CGI Cartoon about an anthropomorphic mole miner who works the mines in a mineral-rich region alongside other moles and at the same time teaches the audience middle-school-level knowledge about geology, engineering, history of mining, and industrial uses of different minerals. Was canceled after one season in the US due to low ratings, but was subsequently revived with a Sequel Series made in Germany.
- Alternatively, a series about counterintelligence operatives who dig out moles.
- Monster Fangirl: Loony Fan the series.
- Alternatively, a documentary about female fans of serial killers and other criminals real and fictional.
- Alternatively, a documentary about girls who are fans of Monster High and other series/toylines where the characters are weird and different.
- Alternatively, a horror/comedy show about a perky girl who becomes a fan of a monster after he unintentionally saves her from a human bad guy. He is forced to live with her when he gets injured and the monster hunters come after him, and then his monster "friends" show up and move in with them too. Hilarity Ensues.
- Alternatively, a documentary about female fans of serial killers and other criminals real and fictional.
- Monster of the Week - Nostalgic documentaries about famous fictional monsters, from Japanese rubber suits to B-movie legends.
- Moral Guardians - Animesque action/adventure series in which a Five-Token Band, all Christian fundamentalists armed with the power of faith, fight the forces of Satan, science, sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. Hilarity Ensues.
- More Dakka - Top Gear (UK) with guns. Known for having the Gun Board, where they place guns the hosts think are the coolest, and Star with an Average Gun, where celebrities see how accurate they can be with a bog standard pistol.
- Alternatively, a long advertisement put together by the Tourist and Visitor Board of Dacca, the capital of Bangladesh.
- Most Common Superpower - Hero derives his powers from having no class. His weaknesses are culture and sophistication.
- Most Writers Are Adults - Child novelist struggles to be taken seriously.
- Most Writers Are Human - A show about a group of writers, but one of them might actually be an alien.
- The Mountains of Illinois - One day, mountains randomly appear in the middle of Illinois, and a Five-Man Band of plucky, quirky, but incredibly attractive people decide to investigate why it happened. Eventually, They Fight Crime! in the mysterious mountains while they search for their cause.
- Terry Bisson wrote a story about an "Uplift" where this happened.
- Mundane Made Awesome - A critic show reviewing extremely normal things. All the critics are a Large Ham with a Hair-Trigger Temper.
- Museum of the Strange and Unusual - An anthology series with stories based on an artifact or exhibit housed in the titular museum.
- Murder the Hypotenuse - Members of a nightmarish street gang learn trigonometry.
- My Beloved Smother: There's actually a movie based on this trope, titled, of course, Smother. Maybe a followup sitcom?
- My Car Hates Me - A comedy about a group of auto mechanics.
- My God, What Have I Done?: A drama about a fundamentalist Christian who changes his interpretations of his faith to reconcile with his estranged family members.
- My Hero, Zero - A crossover of Mega Man X and Code Geass that involves Zero and Lelouch teaming up saving the world.
- Naked in Mink - Any lady can win a fur coat of her choice if she is willing to wear nothing else (save for shoes, jewelry, a purse, and panties if it's a jacket), in public for a certain amount of time, depending on the value of the coat. Bodyguards for the contestants stay mostly off screen, unless PETA harasses her, or if some guys try to rough her up. Some fans consider the bodyguards beating up those people, to be the best part of the show.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast - A series about the high school adventures of Maximilien Robespierre, Typhoid Mary, Joseph Stalin, and Ted Bundy, drawn together by their unfortunate names and the social isolation as a result.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: A Black Comedy about a gang of neo-Nazis travelling to different European countries, trying to dupe people into joining their cause by dressing up their goals in fancy rhetoric and pretending to be more heroic and respectable than they really are. Very unflattering in its portrayal of nationalism and authoritarianism.
- Neuro-Vault - a modern-day series which uses the resident Journey to the Center of the Mind phlebotinum on a minimum of Once an Episode basis, for various reasons: to communicate with comatose individuals, to act as a Mind Probe, all sorts of things. Could become very imaginatively-used Phlebotinum.
- Nice Hat - Monty Python's mockumentary about the British Royals.
- Nice Kitty... - Anime where the main character is a cute house cat.
- Nightmare Fuel - A look at cars that are supposedly cursed or haunted. But after the retool, it's just a ripoff of Pimp My Ride, but the cars are "scary".
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant - A group of small town people fight monsters while led by the mutilated ghost of the local gas station owner.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot - An animated version of The Odd Couple, just with four characters. So popular, it's remade in Japan, just with a Ninja chick, a Magical Girl Warrior, an Ojou, and a Robot Maid.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief - A spin-off of the above. Similar premise, but more kobold abuse.
- No Fourth Wall - A lucky couple wins a free house... little realizing the incompetence of the architects building it! But the fine print says they must stay in their new home for at least two years before moving out. Will they survive when the neighbors can see everything that goes on in their family? And more importantly, will their marriage?
- NO INDOOR VOICE: Comic wackiness where EVERYONE IS AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!
- After a Crossover with Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, it becomes BIG WORDS IN ALL CAPS!
- Noodle Implements - People are challenged to cook using unorthodox tools.
- Noodle Incident - Documentary about Guns N' Roses.
- Alternatively, a sitcom set in an Italian resturant.
- Not Actually the Ultimate Question - People send in deep questions and the hosts of the show answer, interpreting the question in a mundane way.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore - Reality TV series about helping people overcome their fears.
- Not Safe for Work: A TV-MA rated rapid fire Sketch Comedy show presented as a collection of internet clips that REALLY push the boundaries of its rating.
- Not That There's Anything Wrong with That - Sitcom in which an Unlucky Everydude moves to a neighborhood full of assorted weirdos and has to carefully avoid offending them at every turn.
- One-Winged Angel: An anime/ manga in which a minor angel loses one of her wings in a battle with a powerful demon. her wing is shattered into seven pieces, and placed in the care of Lust, Gluttony, Pride, Wrath, Envy, Sloth and Greed. Can she defeat not only the Seven Deadly Sins, but the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, regain her wing, save the world, and the ghosts caught between their final rest and their Unfinished Business? Spawns a videogame. Considered quite noteworthy in that the creator is aware that Christianity isn't shinto with crosses and Jesus held on with glue.
- One-Wheeled Wonder - A game show where two teams of professional engineers compete in building Rube Goldberg Devices, with one caveat: the teams are only allowed to use one wheel per machine.
- Only in Florida - Sitcom set in Florida (filmed in California) about a neighborhood full of wacky neighbors and one sane family to provide a Straight Man for the comedy that follows.
- Only Sane Man - Sitcom about a successful stockbroker who accidentally gets on the wrong bus one day and ends up in an insane asylum. Hilarity Ensues as he tries every episode (and fails) to either escape or prove his sanity.
- Our Monsters Are Different - Horror-themed show about a team of mad scientists' attempts to create and/or modify various monsters, For Science!!
- Orion Drive: The Kessel family appear to be a regular nuclear family who just moved into the house next door on the eponymous road in Neptune, Florida (filmed in California). But they're actually three extra-terrestrials and a human scientist who worked together to escape a government holding facility, trying to lay low for a while until they can figure out a way to return the extra-terrestrials home. The second episode establishes their home system to be somewhere in the Orion constellation.
- Paladin: A crime scene procedural drama like CSI or Bones for some reason.
- A show like Walker, Texas Ranger, but reworked in a Swords and Sorcery setting.
- The syndicated title of Have Gun Will Travel
- Pardon My Klingon: CBS does a sitcom about Trekkies.
- Alternatively, a sitcom set in the actual Star Trek universe about a bunch of average people of different races working on a space station. Think Star Trek: Deep Space Nine meets Scrubs.
- Patrick Stewart Speech - Patrick Stewart reads out text suggested by the audience and proves that Shakespearean training can make anything sound dramatic.
- The audience is especially fond of ingredients lists found on food packages.
- Personal Gain Hurts - Would you expect any less from spitting cobras? But while you're avoiding their painful venom, don't forget to watch out for the spikes, tigers and other hilarious hazards as you attempt to grab dollars from a pile of money before it sinks into the quicksand (smart players realize it just makes the money wet, and it's still legal tender).
- Pimped-Out Cape - Some superheroes need help to make their Costume Evolution as grand as possible.
- Pimped-Out Dress - The style channel's answer to Pimp My Ride. Socialites and noblewomen appear to have their dresses be the most outstanding at their next event.
- Trolling Creator: A documentary about Internet trolls. Includes a rare interview with Hans Von Hozel.
- The Plague: HBO medieval historical drama set during Black Death. Critics adored it, but many viewers complained that so many likable characters rather anticlimactically succumbed to bubonic plague. The producers later admitted it was made as a Stealth Parody of historical dramas.
- The Points Mean Nothing: A comedy Quiz Show where contestants answer questions from a variety of subjects with the host constantly reminding them that the points mean nothing and that the questions they answered are irrelevant. The method of choosing a winner is different each episode.
- Polar Bears and Penguins - Cute animated show in which adorable creatures from both poles team up to fight global warming and its causes with The Power of Friendship and snowballs. Second only to Captain Planet and the Planeteers in the Green Aesop department.
- Polly Wants a Microphone - A sitcom about the daily life of a family that owns a wise-cracking parrot with dreams of stardom and making it as a big comedian in Hollywood. Hilarity Ensues. The parrot is portrayed by a puppet a la ALF and voiced by a famous Real Life comedian.
- Pony Tale - An attempt to cash in on the popularity of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, that didn't quite work as well.
- Posthumous Character: Mockbuster/Affectionate Parody of The Crow.
- Power-Up - A Japanese attempt at creating an American-style Superhero drama. An Ordinary High-School Student transforms into a superhero by shouting the show title as his Catchphrase and fights crime (and sometimes monsters).
- The Power of Apathy: A Seinfeld-esq Sitcom starring the Only Sane Man in a world otherwise exclusively populated by the insane and the stupid.
- The Power of Love - Similar to Moral Guardians above in that a Five-Token Band of devout Christians take on the forces of Satan. However, science and rock are not classified as such—in fact, The Smart Girl has a degree in biochemistry and The Big Guy is a big rock fan. Furthermore, the heroes and villains alike are complex characters.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Delves into the late Doctor Demonic's backstory. A cautionary tale about bitterness. The writers intended that you pity Doctor Demonic, and you will.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: An episode about Satan disguising himself as an angel of light.
- Mysterious Past: The one foray into the creation debate, where the moral is that anybody can have their own opinion on how the Earth was formed, whether it be science-based or religion-based. Scentific skeptics, evolutionists (and Richard Dawkins), young-earth creationists, old-earth non-evolutionists, and old-earth theistic evolutionists alike were dissatisfied.
- Redemption Equals Death: The Holy Week episode from season 4.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: A Very Special Episode attacking the Holier Than Thou attitude and depictions of all Christians as fundamentalists or politically conservative.
- My God, What Have I Done?: One of the regular non-Satantic enemies of the Five-Token Band, a werewolf, undergoes a HeelFaith Turn and defects to the good side.
- Pretty Princess Powerhouse - Which princess can plan, organize, and supervise the building of her new palace: her power house?
- Princess Classic - A European princess takes a day job as the conductor for her country's orchestra. Although a drama, it draws in a lot of viewers for its biting humor in the vein of Frasier (the Small Reference Pools inversion, not the screwball plots).
- The Problem with Pen Island - A series set in a provocatively named Gay Bar near Penn Island in New Brunswick; focuses on the difficulties of being gay in such a rural setting.
- Professor Guinea Pig - A professor accidentally turns himself into a guinea pig. Hilarity Ensues.
- This sounds a lot like what happened to Kanoi Watanabe in Power Rangers Ninja Storm
- Psycho for Hire - Docudrama about the challenges faced by the mentally ill as they try to find gainful employment.
- Pungeon Master - A man in a clown suit cheers up strangers he thinks look depressed by haranguing them with a non-stop barrage of puns. The only way to make him stop is to laugh. Which do you value more... your sanity, or your dignity?
- Pure Energy - Stereotypical "manly" show where a group of crazy guys take basic appliances and try to add MORE POWER. Occasionally features Tim Allen.
- A product placement laden 90s cartoon made by Pure Energy brand batteries about a superhero who fights crime by using said batteries to power himself up and transform into the grotesquely muscular powerhouse of a man that was depicted on the packaging of the batteries at the time.
- Put on a Bus - A bunch of people get on a bus and realize that while it's always moving, it never actually goes anywhere, leaving them stuck in a state of limbo. At the end of the series, they finally get to their destination to find that no time has passed in the outside world, but they've changed a lot.
- 1996 Argentinian film Moebius minus the ending.
- Rare Guns: A Forgotten Weapons style gun show where they find the most rare guns, good or bad, and test them at all types of targets.
- Real Men Cook: a cooking show with manly macho men learning to cook on a ranch in the woods, culminating in a competition of the skills they learned. The first edition's winner was chili-and-beer pork ribs.
- Recycled In Space - A documentary about recycling methods in the future.
- Recycled In Space - a MST3K style show where basic premises to bad TV shows are turned into sci-fis. Sci-fi's are turned into fantasies.
- Red Shirt Army - A comedic sci-fi show about a small, quirky, Mildly Military platoon of soldiers aligned with would-be heroes, but otherwise wouldn't be memorable. Occasionally someone gets killed off, but a new person joins the group. The cast changes completely at least three times.
- Alternatively, a sports drama about a redshirted plebe football playing West Point cadet.
- Religion Is Wrong: A documentary on the New Atheist movement. Two leaders in the movement were charged with hate crimes for being involved in an attack on a famous Muslim actor after broadcast.
- Refuge in Audacity - A show specifically designed to give Moral Guardians aneurysms. After cancellation, it lives on in internet distribution.
- Retail Therapy: A series about a psychiatrist who lost her license, her marriage and all her life savings over a costly misdiagnosis, and is now forced to work as a store clerk to make ends meet. She observes peoples shopping habits, identifies any psychological issues they might have, and helps them deal with it.
- Rewarding Vandalism: A game show set in a Conveniently Empty City Block, where contestants aim to commit over-the-top acts of vandalism (up to and including torching parked cars and shattering windows with explosion shockwaves) in order to rack up points while avoiding the attention of the show's "policemen". Folded after three episodes due to massive outcry from Media Watchdogs and law enforcement agencies.
- Robo Family - Faux-retro domestic Sitcom starring a family of Real Life non-humanoid robots. Dad's a welding arm in a car factory, Mom's a bread slicer, teenage son's a FIRST competition 'bot and the baby of the family's made out of Lego.
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies - A drama about the end of the dinosaurs.
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies - A Wipeout-inspired game show. Five contestants work together to navigate a giant maze. Another contestant works the traps and sends in the monsters. If the navigators complete the maze, they win. If they "die", the dungeon-master wins. Ten thousand dollars per winner on the line.
- So basically Team Fortress 2 Deathrun?
- Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies - A Wipeout-inspired game show. Five contestants work together to navigate a giant maze. Another contestant works the traps and sends in the monsters. If the navigators complete the maze, they win. If they "die", the dungeon-master wins. Ten thousand dollars per winner on the line.
- Rousseau Was Right: A show focusing on random acts of kindness both from history and current events. It features psychological and sociological facts. Dueling Shows with Humans Are the Real Monsters.
- Alternatively, evidence (or propaganda depending who you ask) for Rousseasu's philosophies.
- Rule of Funny- A comedian competition show, where three comics compete Once an Episode to find out who will be the King of Funny. Notably tanked because the comics weren't very good. Executive Meddling demands that this be Retooled as Rule of Cool- a show about people pulling outrageous stunts instead of telling jokes.
- Rule of Sean Connery - Sean Connery is named King of the World. Do you need any more?
- Running Gag: A struggling comedian becomes a fitness guru.
- Running the Asylum- An animated sitcom about a group of committed lunatics who overpower the orderlies and run the asylum. Think 6teen in a loony bin and with more Comedic Sociopathy.
- Or a show about the people who work at Arkham Asylum and their interactions with the villans/patients.
- Russian Reversal - A series about the Russian Olympic Wrestling Team.
- Santabomination: The Christmas Episode to a particularly dark Fantastic Noir where various murders of high profile criminals are happening around Christmas, evidence pointing to Santa Claus murdering them, only to reveal that it is The Krampus doing all of the killing.
- Santa's Existence Clause: A group of children are having their doubts about Santa's existence, but are worried that it makes them bad people.
- Save Point - An anime about two boys, a girl, and a robotic dog who travel into 'The Elektrik Network', a realm in cyberspace under attack from a mysterious type of virus known as Virek. Getting into 'The Elektrik Network' is done through use of computer terminals known as 'Save Points'.
- Scare Chord - A special looking at some of the best horror film tunes.
- Science Marches On - History of science.
- Screwed by the Network - Documentary series about TV shows which fell victim to this trope.
- Screwed by the Network: a porn parody of "those awesome shows you loved as a kid, but they got f**ked by The Network." Shows are represented by hot girls in the show's most reconizable costume (skintight, semitransparent, and crotchless, of course), and The Network is represented by an old guy with a pointy hairdo. A show that's only officially aired in Belgium, and a production staff member for Robot Chicken was fired when he was caught with recordings of this show.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here! - Fear Factor meets Let's Make a Deal. The longer you stay on the show, the more prizes you get. But to get them, you have to face frightening, gross, or embarrassing, etc. situations. Make it to the end, and you get them all. Fail any of them, and you lose some or all of them. Or you can say, "Screw This, I'm Outta Here!" and get a well-deserved consolation prize.
- Alternatively, a documentary on the 2019 YouTube COPPA kerfuffle and how some content creators quit the site in protest of being forced to mark their content as either "for kids" or "not for kids"
- Secret Project Refugee Family - Anime about a family of genetically engineered super soldiers that escaped from a top secret government facility, and must stay one step ahead of their pursuers. Often called "The Incredibles AS AN ANIME" by the people doing the dub (4Kids, who else?), though few of its actual fans, who feel that comparison is looking at the "family" aspect and nothing else (not the least of which is the decidedly non-kid-friendly subject matter, necessitating the Macekre to end all Macekres).
- Signature Style - A documentary on the historical significance of Signatures. Hosted by Will Smith, John Hancock himself.
- The Snark Knight - A bitterly (some might say acidly) sarcastic, chain-smoking Knight in Sour Armor swordsman and his Too Dumb to Live Manic Pixie Dream Girl sorceress companion fight generic evil. Hilarity Ensues. Think Slayers if Goury was an asshole and Lina was an idiot, with a little bit of Discworld for spice, made by a western animation firm.
- If you replace the Manic Pixie Dream Girl with a Manchild with Super Strength, it sounds like the premise of Saiyuki.
- Soviet Superscience - A Genre-Busting TV series about a group of Soviet Reluctant Mad Scientists in a 1947 closed city, doing research into secret technologies that could allow the USSR to win the Cold War... or cause The End of the World as We Know It. Mixes the historical, the speculative, and the fantastic to the point that it's not clear where Aluminum Christmas Trees end and Hollywood Science begins, and features the period political jokes and Gallows Humor aplenty. Despite taking place in the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, it's filmed in post-Cold War Toronto.
- Space Whale - The long awaited Star Trek Spinoff about that probe from The Voyage Home.
- Spaghetti and Gondolas: A Sitcom set in 1960s Italy, but actually filmed in 1990s Southern California. Lasted for three seasons, and is mainly remembered for being So Okay, It's Average.
- Spike Of All Trades (now-defunct) - A fantasy show about a magical pointy rock gets passed down through the ages and lives of its numerous owners.
- Springtime for Hitler - Adapted from the play of the same name in The Producers, a hilariously bad musical that becomes an immediate cult hit.
- Stable Time Loop - A man tries to go back in time to change history, but every time he does, he comes back to find that nothing has changed, so he starts losing his sanity. Cancelled after three episodes.
- Stock Dinosaurs - Animated show for kids from the early 1990s about dinosaur heroes whose hobby is 8-figure racing. Cattle Drive knock-off.
- Would have happened if only Tony George had destroyed everything five years earlier.
- Stock Dinosaurs - Animated show about intelligent, articulate dinosaurs working IN THE STOCK MARKET!
- Stock Footage - A show about guys who film their crazy stunts for YouTube, as a "guide" for others.
- Alternatively - Renfaire attendees get their feet tickled while trapped in stocks.
- Starship Luxurious - Pimp My Spacecraft.
- The Strawman Strikes Back - An action drama about a former secret agent, codename Strawman, ending up back in the field after a 10-Minute Retirement.
- Strawman Political - A comedy about a scarecrow who runs for president. He runs into a lot of prejudice and many, many The Wizard of Oz jokes (Yes, he has a brain!!).
- Stunt Casting: A reality show about trying out to be the next Hollywood stuntman.
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler - An animated Two Fisted Tale take on World War II, with the plucky cartoon heroes fighting Those Wacky Nazis all over the globe. Both sides utilize Dieselpunk technology, and the catchphrase of the show is, of course, "Oh, stupid jetpack Hitler... not again!", spoken whenever another doomsday weapon is rolled out for the heroes to thwart.
- Stylistic Suck - A bunch of fashion critics and designers bash any dresses they don't like. The audience rarely agrees with them unless it's a dress from The '80s (usually).
- Suetiful All Along: A girl feels that her sister, Susan is favored by her parents and better than her at everything. She struggles and strives to be be more like her and gain the love and appreciation of her own family, only to realize not only is Susan just another flawed human being, but that family loved her all along and that in many ways she is just like her sister.
- Super Punk Octo Pudding Gas Mark Seven- A 12-Episode Anime about a Combining Mecha with seven pieces and seven different pilots, including the lead pilot, Nana, who is involved in a Love Dodecahedron with both genders of her fellow pilots. Super Punk Octo Pudding Gas Mark Seven, the titular combined mecha, fights a Eldritch Abomination. Spawned a manga Spinoff and drama CD's in Japan.
- Surfer Dude - Wilson from Orange County, CA is riding the waves when a thunderstorm moves up. He is hit by lightning while still surfing, but he survives and discovers he got super powers which he uses to fight crime, and at the same time, he's working on winning the heart of the girl he loves who until then prefers to hang out with her friends and the jocks from school. Either animated or a sitcom.
- Survival Horror: A how-to/ documentary on making survival horror games.
- Sweater Girl - A magic angora sweater hypnotizes any girl who wears it, and makes her put on a mask and fight crime. This easily allows a new girl when the current actress moves on. A long running hit in Japan.
- Take That! - A late-night talk show featuring sharp criticism of whatever currently has the attention of the masses. Also known to frequently wonder what kind of sick people actually enjoy watching them bashing people and things. Cancelled after their bashing of Warrior Cats caused the books' fanbase to riot against the producers, the cancellation of the series promptly ruined the career of the host and his sidekicks.
- Tearjerker - American Dad! beat me to this one.
- Tastes Like Diabetes: Essentially an Iron Chef knockoff focusing on a dessert theme.
- Teenage Mutant Samurai Wombats: Archer-esque intended-for-adults cartoon TMNT parody starring a quartet of... well, read the title.
- They Fight Crime!: Genre Anthology of procedurals, cop shows, etc.
- That sounds like a really awesome premise for a show!
- Themed Wedding: A Reality TV series about unorthodox weddings.
- The Thing That Goes "Doink": Genre Anthology about Gadgeteer Geniuses and the machines they make.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave - Horror/comedy movie about letting The Antichrist crash on your sofa.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot - A procedural about a private investigator who specializes in faked life insurance claims. She drops the title at least Once an Episode, usually while digging up an empty casket.
- 30-Sue Pileup: A tense legal drama about a group of associates in a big shoe law firm, trying to defend their client from a class action lawsuit brought about by survivors of a massive traffic pileup.
- This Is Your Premise on Drugs - Advertisement vignettes created to advertise shows. It takes shows and a drug or two, recommended on the internet, and show what X show would look like if on Y drugs. Not necessarily if all the characters are on those drugs, but sometimes.
- Those Two Guys - Sitcom about two men named "Guy" and their run ins with amazing people in an ordinary town.
- Those Wacky Nazis - A sitcom with Nazis as main characters. Idiot Nazis. Lasted maybe half a season, and considered lucky to last that long.
- Partly sounds like the 1960's tv show Hogan's Heroes.
- Alternatively, a failed reboot of Heil Honey I'm Home! that was somehow even worse than the original.
- Tipis and Totem Poles: A sitcom set on a Native American plantation in New Mexico (but is shot in California), featuring actual Native American actors and actresses.
- Too Dumb to Live - This show invites the audience to nominate their less than intelligent acquaintances, then sets lethal traps in and around the home and office of the chosen candidate! Will Bob fall for the "Do Not Step On" signs marking the new minefield in his backyard? It doesn't matter, there are so many he can't help but trigger one sometime! Cancelled after one season.
- Too Kinky to Torture - A game show on HBO that tests just how far peoples BDSM tastes can go. Based on a Swedish show with a completely different name... and a sexier host.
- Too Sexy For This Time Slot: Lighthearted Fanservice-fueled Sketch Comedy wackiness that, unfortunately, lived up to its name, as it couldn't find an acceptable spot on a network. Ended up on Cinemax.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth - A cooking show hosted by everyone's favourite eldritch horror, Chef Cthulhu, specializing in Szechuan, Tex-Mex and Indian cuisine. Much more successful than his previous cooking shows, Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick, It Tastes Like Feet, and Tastes Like Diabetes.
- Toros y Flamenco - American sitcom that takes place in Spain (but is shot in Toronto). Doesn't really have the budget to show actuall bull fights.
- Alternately, a Telenovela about a family of bullfighters, whose youngest son wants to quit bullfighting to marry a beautiful flamenco dancer. Hilarity Ensues.
- Totally Radical - Reality show in which people with radical political and religious views (the leader of an Animal Wrongs Group, a far-right Conservative man, a far-left New-Age Retro Hippie, a gun-loving Libertarian Crazy Survivalist, a Straw Feminist, an Al-Qaeda terrorist, a publicity-stunt pulling New Atheist, a Rational Wiki editor, a pro-Palestinian Muslim man, a Conspiracy Theorist, a Creationist, an anti-globalization activist, an anti-vaxxer, a psuedoscience-promoting quack doctor, a fat shaming anti-obesity activist, a Banksy-esque culture jamming artist, a Eco-Terrorist, and Jack Chick) are made to share a house and hold nightly roundtable debates on current issues. Cancelled after Jack Chick's death but later Uncancelled with Li Hongzhi in his place.
- Translation Convention - An inside look at what really goes on at linguistics meetings... mostly, erudite discussions about how to render the word "Schaudenfreude" in nearly-extinct Native American languages.
- Trojan Prisoner - A sci-fi series about technologically advanced aliens and the prisons that contain them ("Mr Warden... one of these new men is actually an android from Mars. You have less than a week to find out which one.. and you'd better not break procedure.")
- Alternately, an O.J. Simpson biopic.
- Tropey the Wonder Dog: Low grade Lassie knockoff, sadly.
- True Love Is a Kink:
- A cheap Rom Com about a group of sex addicts going into rehab to cure themselves of their appetites and getting into zany shenanigans along the way. Also they find love.
- A Cinemax romantic drama that's a bit of a comeback to the "Skinemax" era and is loaded with hard-core sex scenes. The twist (if it could be considered to be one) is that the title is not ironic: the production does take incredible care to keep the romantic plot at a high quality and when Coitus Ensues it's between two people who truly love each other and the sex is a bonus and not two people who fuck and can barely do anything else. It's gotten some surprisingly good reviews because of this.
- Tuxedo and Martini: Animated show about an MI6 super-spy couple. Produced by the same people as Count Duckula and Danger Mouse.
- Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000 - Just your average Japanese game show.
- Values Dissonance - A knockoff on The Price Is Right
- Victorious Chorus: A spoof of Glee from the producers of Childrens Hospital and NTSF:SD:SUV::. A high school teacher named Mr. Clarkson (played by Jeremy Clarkson) "attempts" to direct a high school glee club, which is full of people with tragic pasts, people with disablities, minorities who suffer racial abuse, LGBTQ+ people, and Andrew Rannells As Himself. Hilarity Ensues (as well as mocking of the average Glee plots). Oh, and all the students are played by 20-to-50-year olds.
- Straw Critic: An episode where Leonard Maltin As Himself becomes the high school principal, angering Andrew Rannells As Himself. Meanwhile, one of the students is discovered to be blind and if her myopia was to be corrected she'd go on a murderous rampage.
- Pop-Star Composer: An episode where the members of Metallica team up with Mr. Clarkson's glee club to "write some original songs". Head-banging ensues. Meanwhile, there are 10 gay weddings (including a wedding between two of the cameramen and two lesbian weddings).
- You Are Grounded: An episode where the cast sings songs from old Canadian cartoons such as Toad Patrol and The Country Mouseand City Mouse Adventures, ending with them singing the Caillou theme (and getting grounded by GoAnimate!Boris as a result, hence the title). Holly Gauthier-Frankel makes a guest appearance as Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. Meanwhile, one of the students (Andy X.Z.Z.Z.Z.Z.Z.Z.; played by Paul Scheer) finds out he has Syphilis, which Mr. Clarkson declares "the best of the sexually transmitted diseases" (a Call-Back to a episode of Jeremy's old show Top Gear).
- Video Game Tools: Openly mocking documentary about gamers... made by gamers.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Showing off the lighter side of everyone's favourite villains.
- Villain Ball: A villain-centric sitcom about a group of lovable but idiotic villains who try to take over the world using only leftover sports balls. Hilarity Ensues.
- Alternately, a reality show where prisoners play dodgeball in exchange for parole.
- Alternately, a cartoon about a ball that wants to become a super-villain.
- Walking the Earth:
- A group of cartoon and video game characters consisting of Ash Ketchum, Luna Platz, Bulkhead, Shikamaru, Kitt Wonn and Princess Tana of Frelia decide to go on a long journey around the world. Some of their destinations include Cerulean City, Caelin, and Dinobot Island. Before starting out, they elect Ash as the leader and Tana as the second in command of the group.
- But if Bulkhead is there, why are they walking?
- Now if you were Luna or Kitt or even Tana, would you want to be riding in a army vehicle?
- Alternatively: An outdoors activity channel "edutainment" show about living on the road — Everyday Carrying Gear item reviews, safety lessons, tips for budget-stretching, articles on interesting travel destinations.
- The War on Straw - a Five-Man Band travels the world fighting the little-known menace of walking scarecrows. "Strawman Political" is an episode wherein one of the scarecrows becomes President and gets his own spinoff.
- When several cast members from Human Nature/The Family of Blood appear in the same episode, Jokes Ensue.
- It could also be a documentary about the banning of plastic straws following Blue Planet II's broadcast.
- We All Live in America: A show where everybody lives in a supercontinent called America.
- Weirdness Coupon: Reality tv show in the style of Trigger Happy TV, whoever picks up the coupon has entered the game and will spend the next hour suffering in ways inexplicable to them at the hands of the show's crew
- While wildly popular the show gets canceled after one season due to legal troubles
- Or, Genre-Busting True Art Is Incomprehensible craziness where weirdness is actually a commodity and the Weirdness Coupon helps characters save money on...WEIRDNESS! The Twilight Zone meets Sketch Comedy. Maybe.
- While wildly popular the show gets canceled after one season due to legal troubles
- We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties - A Canadian Work Com about a small family-run TV station in Toronto. Think KYTV meets Scrubs with a dash of Schitt's Creek. There is a Kitschy Local Commercial before each of every episode's commercial break.
- Witch Hunt: A controversial documentary on pedophile hunting. The even more controversial sequel focuses on the #MeToo movement.
- Wild Wilderness: A comedic Perspective Flip spinoff of Toad Patrol focusing on the lives of the other inhabitants of the Great Forest such as Hera, Morton, Medea (who speaks in Tonto Talk as well as her normal bird noises), Erebus, Calypso, Barnaby, Orpheus, Cleopatra, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern. Each day, the animals attempt to do some activity, only for something such as Erebus and Medea chasing the Toad Patrollers causing issues, and Hilarity Ensues.
- What a Piece of Junk - A reality TV show about a "buy here, pay here" used car lot.
- What Could Have Been - A documentary series on HBO that talks about famous Hollywood projects that were/are stuck in Development Hell, and the lives of actors and directors that didn't make it big there. Won a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy.
- Alternatively, a TV show that looks at different events in history and what the world might be like if things went different. Was panned for being a derivative of Life After People and was cancelled after 6 episodes (the unaired 15 other episodes were shown only in Israel with Hebrew subtitles).
- What Do You Mean Its Not For Little Girls - A documentary about sexism in raising girls.
- What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs? - A documentary on Terry Pratchett.
- Wheel of Pain - Game shows. Medieval torture. Two great tastes together at last.
- When Trees Attack - Are we certain Fox didn't actually air this one?
- White-Dwarf Starlet: An Urban Fantasy about an albino dwarf trying to make it big in Hollywood.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: An Improv/Sketch Comedy show where panelists act out scenarios suggested to them by viewers, no matter how outlandish and/or insane they are.
- Why Am I Ticking? - Because you're on Action Bomb!
- Wild Mass Guessing - A game show where the three players complete against the audience to guess how many items are in a large clear box.
- Worst News Judgement Ever - A documentary about fake news, with conservative-oriented news outlets and the Taboola and Outbrain advertising platforms as heavy focuses. After the documentary was released, the aforementioned advertising platforms filed for bankruptcy.
- Word of God - Just another televangelist show, sadly.
- World of Funny Animals: A show similar to America's Funniest Home Videos, but focusing exclusively on animal videos.
- Wrestling Monster: Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, Wolf Man, the Mummy, Jason, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, zombies and others take it to the mat.
- X Meets Y - It's a dating show, of course.
- You Fail Biology Forever - Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? clone with psuedoscience supporters and creationists attempting to answer the most ridiculously easy questions on biology. Side perk: Cheapest prize indemnity insurance ever. Counter-programmed against Crisis of Faith.
- You Fail Logic Forever - A debate game show. Losers get mocked for being so dumb. One of the first contestants was a fox news commentator. No one from that channel has been on since.
- You Know What They Say About X... - A documentary about the rise and fall of the Maverick Hunters.
- You Shall Not Pass! - Can genuine footage of actual crossing guards make for exciting programming? Tune in and find out!
- You Shall Not Pass! - Highschool slacker comedy.
- Alternately a comedy about a group of nerds in high school who have problems getting good grades despite their intelligence.
- You Suck - Sitcom about anthropomorphic vacuum cleaners. Got stale really quickly and died after the first season.
- Your Size May Vary - A show helping obese people lose weight. Highly successful on American TV.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters - A documentary about the Irish Republican Army. Banned in the UK
- Your Tomcat Is Pregnant - A bizarre medical show where a team of experimentally-minded doctors tries to impregate a different male organism every week. Lasts two seasons, much longer than anyone expected, what with all the protesting from the Religious Right.
- And the environmental left.
- Yodel Land - American sitcom that takes place in Switzerland (but is shot in British Columbia). Doesn't have the budget to show people yodeling, so the producers use stock footage from whatever stock footage archive websites they can find.