Panel show

The modern trend of comedy panel shows can find early roots with Stop Me If You've Heard This One in 1939 and Can You Top This?

[4][5] Panel shows also feature comedic banter, friendly ribbing and camaraderie among the panelists.

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.

The first known example of a panel show in the world is the radio program Information Please, which debuted on 17 May 1938 on the NBC Blue Network.

An evolution of the quiz show format, Information Please added the key element of a panel of celebrities, largely writers and intellectuals, but also actors and politicians.

The most popular adaptation was Pantomime Quiz, airing from 1947 to 1959, and having runs on each of the four television networks operating at the time.

At times, they were among the top ten shows on U.S. television, and they continue to experience occasional revivals.

[11][13] Later years saw several successes in the format, with Match Game;[14] The Hollywood Squares;[15][16][17][18] Win, Lose or Draw; Celebrity Sweepstakes; Password[19] and Pyramid primarily running in the daytime and airing in their greatest numbers during the '70s and '80s.

Later, Nickelodeon premiered the youth-oriented panel game Figure it Out in 1997,[20][21] the American version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?

[25] From 2013 to 2017, Comedy Central aired @midnight, an internet culture and social 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 titled After Midnight and hosted by Taylor Tomlinson, premiered on CBS.

[3] Perhaps the earliest UK panel show is the BBC radio adaptation of Twenty Questions, which debuted on 28 February 1947.

Panel shows can have decades-long runs in the UK: Twenty Questions lasted until 1976, while Just a Minute has remained on the air, and had Nicholas Parsons as host from 1967 until 2019.

Currently running New Zealand panel shows include the news quiz 7 Days since 2009, Have You Been Paying Attention?

In 2022, Noovo began broadcasting Le maître du jeu, a local French language adaptation of Taskmaster.

French panel shows include Vendredi tout est permis ("Friday, Everything Goes"), an improv game on TF1 since 2011.

Earlier panel shows include Le Francophonissime, a linguistic game on ORTF and TF1 from 1969 to 1981; L'Académie des neuf ("The Academy of Nine"), based on Hollywood Squares on Antenne 2 from 1982 to 1987; Cluedo, based on the board game Cluedo/Clue on France 3 from 1994 to 1995; Burger Quiz on Canal + from 2001 to 2002; Incroyables Expériences ("Incredible Experiences"), about scientific experiments on France 2 and France 3 from 2008 to 2012; and Canapé quiz ("Sofa Quiz"), an adaptation of Hollywood Game Night on TMC in 2014.

German panel shows include 7 Tage, 7 Köpfe ("7 Days, 7 Heads"), Genial daneben ("Idiot Savant"), Kopfball ("Headball"), Die Montagsmaler ("Pictionary"), Noch Besserwissen ("Even Better Knowledge"), Pssst … (similar to I've Got A Secret), Die Pyramide (the German version of Pyramid), Quizfire, Sag die Wahrheit ("Tell the Truth", the German version of To Tell the Truth), Typisch Frau – Typisch Mann ("Typical Woman – Typical Man"), Was bin ich?

Brain Wall, adapted in English-speaking countries as Hole in the Wall, has comedians attempt to jump through oddly shaped holes in moving walls without falling into water, DERO and its successor TORE 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 group Arashi 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., and AKBingo!