5 real TV shows that feature great fake TV shows
If only Queen of Jordan, When Dinosaurs Get Drunk, and Inspector Spacetime were real...

In recent years, TV sitcoms from 30 Rock to The Simpsons have excelled at coming up with wild, wacky TV shows that exist within the show's own world, spoofing real TV genres and offering meta-commentary on current pop culture trends. Here, the best shows-within-shows from the five TV comedies that do them best:
30 Rock
It's no surprise that a show centered on a Saturday Night Live-like sketch comedy show was so good at inventing programming slyly modeled on NBC's real lineup. Over the years, 30 Rock offered us snippets of the action drama Bitch Hunter, starring Will Ferrell; Liz Lemon's talk show Dealbreakers; and the CNBC money talk show Hot Box. But 30 Rock really shines when it invents reality TV shows, like the Survivor-type show MILF Island (which eliminates contestants with the line "We no longer want to hit that"), and the Real Housewives spoof Queen of Jordan (catchphrase: "It's my way 'til payday").
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
MILF Island:
Itchy and Scratchy:
How I Met Your Mother
A long-running gag on How I Met Your Mother involves Robin Scherbatsky's checkered past as Canadian teen pop icon Robin Sparkles. With hits like "Let's Go To The Mall" and "Sandcastles in the Sand," Robin Sparkles is a fairly dead-on representation of 80s/90s teen idols. But in addition to her less-than-stellar musical career, the character is also used to spoof pop-star-centric TV shows with Space Teens, in which a hockey-stick-toting Robin Sparkles uses long division to catch a "space burglar." In a more recent episode, HIMYM spoofed the inevitable decline of Robin's pop career with Underneath the Tunes, Canada's answer to Behind The Music, in which a bitter Robin Sparkles reinvents herself as Robin Daggers.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Space Teens
-
Book reviews: ‘Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America’ and ‘How to End a Story: Collected Diaries, 1978–1998’
Feature A political ‘witch hunt’ and Helen Garner’s journal entries
By The Week US Published
-
The backlash against ChatGPT's Studio Ghibli filter
The Explainer The studio's charming style has become part of a nebulous social media trend
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Why are student loan borrowers falling behind on payments?
Today's Big Question Delinquencies surge as the Trump administration upends the program
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published