Fake TV Shows Inside TV Shows

Ten shows nobody can stream, ranked by how much we would.

Entries
10
Category
TV
Updated
  1. An old cardboard box television in a suburban basement with a flickering screen and a bowl of popcorn on the floor.

    10. Terrance and Phillip

    South Park · 1997

    A crude Canadian cartoon about two friends whose entire act is flatulence, which the boys of South Park worship. It got a movie inside the movie and started a fictional war with Canada. The animation is somehow worse than South Park's. That is the joke.

  2. A hockey stick and puck resting on a school headmaster's desk beside a stack of red-pen-covered scripts.

    09. Pucks!

    Episodes · 2011

    A celebrated British comedy about a headmaster is adapted for American TV, and the network turns it into a hockey sitcom starring Matt LeBlanc. Its British creators watch it get worse with every note. The fake show is nearly the real show's antagonist. Hockey was not the issue.

  3. A late-night talk show desk with a coffee mug, a city skyline backdrop and an empty guest chair under hot lights.

    08. The Larry Sanders Show

    The Larry Sanders Show · 1992

    Garry Shandling's fake late-night show was the whole series, and the comedy was backstage. Real celebrities played warped versions of themselves. Its cringe-backstage style shaped half the comedies that followed. The talk show itself was decent, too.

  4. A network news desk with three anchor chairs, a stopwatch and a mug of coffee under bright studio lights.

    07. FYI

    Murphy Brown · 1988

    The fictional newsmagazine where Candice Bergen's Murphy Brown anchors and torches every secretary in sight. The show was close enough to real news that a sitting vice president criticized Murphy's choices in 1992 and the show answered on air. Fake show, real fight.

  5. A red British-style telephone booth standing alone on a foggy college campus lawn at night.

    06. Inspector Spacetime

    Community · 2010

    Community's British time-traveling sci-fi show, which is plainly Doctor Who with the serial numbers filed off. Troy and Abed are devoted fans and the show grew its own real-world fandom, conventions and fan art. Any resemblance is, legally, a tribute.

  6. A colorful public-access TV set with a karate mat, a drum kit and a cardboard cutout of a mountain range.

    05. The Johnny Karate Super Awesome Musical Explosion Show

    Parks and Recreation · 2015

    Andy Dwyer's kids show for Pawnee public access, built around karate, songs and the band Mouse Rat. Parks gave it a full episode, a farewell and a special guest star. It may be the most wholesome half hour Pawnee ever produced. The karate was not good.

  7. A cluttered TV writers' room with a whiteboard, a sheet cake and a stack of scripts beside a live-show studio door.

    04. TGS with Tracy Jordan

    30 Rock · 2006

    Liz Lemon's live sketch show was called The Girlie Show until the network added a movie star and his name. Tina Fey modeled it on her years as SNL head writer. Across seven seasons we see only scraps of actual sketches. The chaos around it was the point.

  8. A 1980s sitcom living room set on a soundstage with a plaid couch, a kitchen doorway and stage lights hanging overhead.

    03. Horsin' Around

    BoJack Horseman · 2014

    A cheesy late-80s family sitcom about a horse raising three orphans, which made BoJack famous and ruined him. Its laugh track, catchphrase and theme song are pitch-perfect, and the show keeps returning to it as a wound. The funniest fake sitcom ever built to make you sad.

  9. A network executive's conference table with a pilot script, two coffee cups and a bowl of cashews.

    02. Jerry

    Seinfeld · 1992

    Jerry and George pitch NBC a show about nothing, the network buys a pilot, George fights for his creative vision, and it is canceled almost immediately. It is the plot of Seinfeld, inside Seinfeld. In the finale it gets picked up again. Then they go to jail.

  10. An old television set on a living room carpet showing a cartoon explosion, a bowl of cereal spilled in front of it.

    01. The Itchy & Scratchy Show

    The Simpsons · 1990

    A cat and mouse cartoon that runs inside Krusty's show and is mostly the mouse killing the cat, at length. Over the years Marge got it censored, the network gave it a dog named Poochie, and it parodied Tom and Jerry harder than Tom ever got hit. Best show in Springfield.

Honorable mentions

  • A futuristic hospital set with a chrome gurney, a dramatic spotlight and a vase of wilted metal flowers.

    All My Circuits

    Futurama · 1999

    A robot soap opera starring the very dramatic Calculon, who is an actor robot playing a robot doctor. The plots are absurd and the acting is worse, by design. Bender watches devotedly. Somewhere in the year 3000, it is outlasting everything.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A grand old Los Angeles theater stage with a sketch comedy set, an empty audience and a dark marquee outside.

    Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

    Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip · 2006

    Aaron Sorkin's drama about a legendary sketch comedy show, where the sketches meant to be hilarious mostly were not. It was canceled after one season. 30 Rock, with the same premise and less self-regard, ran seven. The fake show had one job.

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