Apanel show orpanel game is aradio ortelevisiongame show in which a panel of celebrities participate.[1] Celebrity panelists may compete with each other, such as onThe News Quiz; facilitate play by non-celebrity contestants, such as onMatch Game andBlankety Blank; or do both, such as onWait Wait Don't Tell Me. The genre can be traced to 1938, whenInformation Please debuted onAmerican radio.[2] The earliest known television panel show isPlay the Game, acharades show in 1946. The modern trend of comedy panel shows can find early roots withStop Me If You've Heard This One in 1939 andCan You Top This? in 1940. While panel shows were more popular in the past in the U.S., they are still very common in theUnited Kingdom.[3]
While many early panel shows stuck to the traditional quiz show format in which celebrities tried to get the right answers and win, the primary goal of modern panel shows is to entertain the audience with comedy, with the game or quiz structure providing subjects for the comedians to joke about.[4][5] Panel shows also feature comedic banter, friendly ribbing and camaraderie among the panelists.[6][7] Scoring is often deemphasised in panel shows. The American version ofWhose Line Is It Anyway? acknowledged this with the introduction, "Welcome toWhose Line Is It Anyway, the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter."QI's opaque scoring system is purportedly a mystery even to its creator,[8]I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue dispenses with points altogether, and many other shows mention points only occasionally or at the end, instead of continuously displaying scores in front of players.
Panel shows can have any number of themes. Many are topical andsatirical, such asWait Wait... Don't Tell Me!,Have I Got News for You,The News Quiz andMock the Week.8 Out of 10 Cats is based onopinion polling;What's My Line? is aboutoccupations;Never Mind the Buzzcocks andFace the Music center onmusic;A League of Their Own,A Question of Sport andThey Think It's All Over aresports-themed;Was It Something I Said?,Quote... Unquote andWho Said That? featurequotations;My Word! involveswordplay;I've Got a Secret is aboutsecrets;To Tell the Truth,Would I Lie to You? andThe Unbelievable Truth deal withlies; andIt Pays to Be Ignorant andI'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue areparodies.
Some panel shows are variations of classic parlor games.Twenty Questions is based on the parlor game of the same name,Give Us a Clue is modelled aftercharades, andCall My Bluff andBalderdash are based onfictionary.
Frequently, a panel show features recurring panelists or permanent team captains, and some panelists appear on multiple panel shows.[9] Most shows are recorded before a studio audience.
The first known example of a panel show in the world is the radio programInformation Please, which debuted on 17 May 1938 on theNBC Blue Network. An evolution of thequiz show format,Information Please added the key element of a panel of celebrities, largely writers and intellectuals, but also actors and politicians. Listeners would mail in questions, winning prizes for stumping the panel.
American panel shows transferred to television early in the medium's history, with the first known example beingPlay the Game, acharades show that aired onDuMont andABC beginning in 1946. The celebrity charades concept has been replicated numerous times since then. The most popular adaptation wasPantomime Quiz, airing from 1947 to 1959, and having runs on each of the four television networks operating at the time. Other charades shows have includedStump the Stars;Movietown, RSVP;Celebrity Charades;Showoffs andBody Language.
TV panel shows saw their peak of popularity in the 1950s and '60s, whenCBS ran the three longest-running panel shows inprime time:What's My Line?,I've Got a Secret andTo Tell the Truth. At times, they were among the top ten shows on American television, and they continue to experience occasionalrevivals. All threeGoodson-Todman primetime shows were cancelled by CBS in 1967 amid ratings declines and trouble attracting younger viewers, although the programs were consistently profitable by being among the cheapest television shows to produce.[10][11] Their cancellations came as attention todemographics and a focus on younger viewers gained currency among advertisers.[12] The departures of these three New York–based shows were also part of a mass migration of television production to Los Angeles, leaving only one primetime show produced on the East Coast.[11][13]
Later years saw several successes in the format, withMatch Game;[14]The Hollywood Squares;[15][16][17][18]Win, Lose or Draw;Celebrity Sweepstakes;Password[19] andPyramid primarily running in the daytime and airing in their greatest numbers during the '70s and '80s. These panel shows marked a shift in the format: whereas CBS' primetime shows had panelists guessing secrets about the guests, these new shows largely featured civilian contestants either playing games in teams with celebrity partners, competing to predict how the panelists would respond to a question or prompt, or determining whether the panelist answered a question correctly. Later,Nickelodeon premiered the youth-oriented panel gameFigure it Out in 1997,[20][21] the American version ofWhose Line Is It Anyway? had a primetime run from 1998 to 2004 onABC and a revival in 2013 byThe CW,[22] whileWait Wait... Don't Tell Me! has become a popular weekend show onNPR since 1998.
From 2002 to 2025, the sports channelESPN broadcastAround the Horn as part of its daytime block of sports news and discussion shows. While presented as ostensibly being aroundtabledebate show, the series did contain some game show-like elements; the panel ofsports journalists earned points from the host based on the strength of their responses to specific topics (and could also mute panelists, if needed), with the lowest scorers eliminated at points throughout the show. The winner received 30 seconds at the end of the show to discuss any topic they wanted.[23][24]
In 2015, ABC announced primetime revivals forMatch Game, which ran from 2016 until 2021, andTo Tell the Truth, which ran from 2016 to 2022.[25] From 2013 to 2017,Comedy Central aired@midnight, an internet culture andsocial media-themed panel game which used a more quiz show-styled presentation—with the celebrity guests buzzing in to earn points from the host for punchlines and responses in various segments.[26][27] In 2024, a reboot of the show, now titledAfter Midnight and hosted byTaylor Tomlinson, premiered onCBS.[28]
The streaming serviceDropout has received attention for many of its shows' similarities to panel shows, notablyGame Changer—a comedy game show with differing objectives in each episode, and the panelists not being given any advance knowledge of what the exact objective will be.[29][30][31]
Panel shows are particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where they have found continued success since theBBC adapted its first radio panel shows from classic parlor games.[3] Perhaps the earliest British panel show is the BBC radio adaptation ofTwenty Questions, which debuted on 28 February 1947. Panel shows can have decades-long runs in the UK:Twenty Questions lasted until 1976, whileJust a Minute has remained on the air, and hadNicholas Parsons as host from 1967 until 2019. Other long-running games on radio includeI'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue since 1972,The News Quiz since 1977,My Word! from 1956 to 1988,[32] andMy Music from 1967 to 1994.[33][34]
The British version ofWhat's My Line? may have been the first television panel show in the UK, with an original run from 1951 to 1963 and several remakes in later years. The word gameCall My Bluff aired from 1965 to 2005, the charades showGive Us a Clue ran from 1979 to 1992, and the improv gameWhose Line Is It Anyway? aired from 1988 to 1998. Current British panel shows have become showcases for the nation's top stand-up and improv comedians, as well as career-making opportunities for new comedians.[5] Regular comics on panel shows often go on to star in sitcoms and other TV shows.
The modern British panel show format of TV comedy quizzes started withHave I Got News for You, a loose adaptation ofBBC Radio 4'sThe News Quiz.HIGNFY, as the show is sometimes known, began airing in 1990, and has been the most-viewed show of the night, regularly attracting as much as a 20%audience share.[35][36][37] The show's success grew after its transfer fromBBC Two to the flagshipBBC One in 2000.
AfterHIGNFY's success, panel shows proliferated on British TV. Notable examples includeQI on various BBC channels since 2003,Mock the Week on BBC Two from 2005 to 2022,8 Out of 10 Cats onChannel 4 since 2005,Would I Lie to You? on BBC One since 2007, and the annual special,The Big Fat Quiz of the Year on Channel 4 since 2004.
On the radio,The News Quiz,Just a Minute,I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue andThe Unbelievable Truth are among the most popular and long-running panel shows, all of which air on BBC Radio 4.
British comedy panel shows feature mainly male guests. A 2016 study that analysed 4,700 episodes from 1967 to 2016 found that 1,488 of them had an all-male lineup, andonly one an all-female cast. The proportion of women rose from 3% in 1989 to 31% in 2016.[38]
Australian panel shows include advertising-focusedThe Gruen Transfer and its various spinoffs onABC1 since 2008, the music quizSpicks and Specks on ABC1 from 2005 to 2011 and again since 2014, news quizHave You Been Paying Attention? on Network Ten since 2013, and tabloid quizDirty Laundry Live on ABC1 andABC2 since 2013. News quizGood News Week aired on ABC1 from 1996 to 1998 and on Network Ten from 1999-2000 and again from 2008 to 2012, sports quizA League of Their Own aired onNetwork Ten in 2013, and pop culture quizTractor Monkeys aired on ABC1 in 2013.
Currently running New Zealand panel shows include the news quiz7 Days since 2009,Have You Been Paying Attention? New Zealand since 2019,Taskmaster New Zealand since 2020, andGuy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee since 2023.
CBC Radio One currently broadcasts two long-running radio panel shows:The Debaters, which debuted in 2006, andBecause News, which debuted in 2015.
In 2022,Noovo began broadcastingLe maître du jeu, a localFrench language adaptation ofTaskmaster.
In 2014,Super Channel ordered 36 episodes of a panel show calledToo Much Information.[39] A revival ofMatch Game aired onThe Comedy Network from 2012 to 2014, the news quizFront Page Challenge aired onCBC Television from 1957 to 1995, and the charades showParty Game aired in syndication from 1970 to 1981.
French panel shows includeVendredi tout est permis ("Friday, Everything Goes"), an improv game onTF1 since 2011. Earlier panel shows includeLe Francophonissime, a linguistic game onORTF and TF1 from 1969 to 1981;L'Académie des neuf ("The Academy of Nine"), based onHollywood Squares onAntenne 2 from 1982 to 1987;Cluedo, based on the board gameCluedo/Clue onFrance 3 from 1994 to 1995;Burger Quiz onCanal + from 2001 to 2002;Incroyables Expériences ("Incredible Experiences"), about scientific experiments onFrance 2 andFrance 3 from 2008 to 2012; andCanapé quiz ("Sofa Quiz"), an adaptation of Hollywood Game Night onTMC in 2014.
German panel shows include7 Tage, 7 Köpfe ("7 Days, 7 Heads"),Genial daneben ("Idiot Savant"),Kopfball ("Headball"),Die Montagsmaler ("Pictionary"),Noch Besserwissen ("Even Better Knowledge"),Pssst … (similar toI've Got A Secret),Die Pyramide (the German version ofPyramid),Quizfire,Sag die Wahrheit ("Tell the Truth", the German version ofTo Tell the Truth),Typisch Frau – Typisch Mann ("Typical Woman – Typical Man"),Was bin ich? ("What am I?", the German version ofWhat's My Line?) andWas denkt Deutschland? ("What Does Germany Think?").
EarlyJapanese panel shows include話の泉 ("Source of the Story"), based onInformation Please onNHK Radio 1 from 1946 to 1964;二十の扉 ("Twenty Doors"), based onTwenty Questions on NHK Radio 1 from 1947 to 1960;ジェスチャー ("Gestures"), a charades show onNHK General TV from 1953 to 1968; and私の秘密 ("My Secret"), based onI've Got a Secret on NHK General TV from 1956 to 1967.
Currently, a wide variety ofJapanese variety shows are popular, and many of them featureowarai comedians,Japanese idols, and other celebrities playing games.
Some games involve bizarre physical stunts.Brain Wall, adapted in English-speaking countries asHole in the Wall, has comedians attempt to jump through oddly shaped holes in moving walls without falling into water,DERO and its successorTORE have celebrities solve mental and physical challenges to escape traps and hazards or presumably die trying,VS Arashi has a team of celebrities compete against J-pop groupArashi and their Plus One guest(s) in physical games,Nep League has various celebrity teams competing in various quizzes that test their combined brainpower in the fields of Japanese, English, General Knowledge, Etc., andAKBingo! similarly features members of pop groupAKB48 and others competing in physical challenges and quizzes.
Other shows include日本語探Qバラエティ クイズ!それマジ!?ニッポン ("Is it really!?"), a celebrity word game;くりぃむクイズ ミラクル9 ("Miracle 9"), a show somewhat similar to Hollywood Squares;Numer0n, a celebrity numbers game; andオールスター感謝祭 ("All Star Thanksgiving"), a semi-annual celebrity quiz. There are many other games featuring celebrities within Japan's variety genre.
Prime Minister Ōta is a show featuring many comedians and politicians debating fictional proposals in a sort of game show version of a legislative chamber.
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...was a regular on the NBC daytime panel showThe Hollywood Squares,...
...NBC'sHollywood Squares, the most popular game or panel show on television today.
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