Panel show

A recording of radio panel show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, featuring, from left, announcer and scorekeeper Carl Kasell; host Peter Sagal; and panelists Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts and Keegan-Michael Key before a live audience.

A panel show or panel game is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participate.[1] Celebrity panelists may compete with each other, such as on The News Quiz; facilitate play by non-celebrity contestants, such as on Match Game and Blankety Blank; or do both, such as on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. The genre can be traced to 1938, when Information Please debuted on U.S. radio.[2] The earliest known television panel show is Play the Game, a charades show in 1946. 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? in 1940. While panel shows were more popular in the past in the U.S., they are still very common in the United Kingdom.[3]

  1. ^ Russell Davies, host (9 April 2011). "Episode 2". Let's Get Quizzical. 1 minutes in. BBC Radio 4 Extra. Retrieved 19 May 2011. In the old days, quizzes and panel games were easy to tell apart, because quiz competitors were people you'd never heard of, and panellists were more or less well-known figures. More recently, though, the rise of the celebrity quiz has complicated the picture.
  2. ^ "Quiz show". Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
  3. ^ Davies, Serena (10 July 2008). "For an extra point, why are panel games so popular?". The Telegraph. London.