The 40 most popular 1980s reality TV shows, ranked. Click any show for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Jeopardy!
1984 · US
America's favorite quiz show where contestants are presented with general knowledge clues in the form of answers, and must phrase their responses in question form.


Cops
1989 · US
Follow real-life law enforcement officers from various regions and departments of the United States armed with nothing but with cameras to capture their actions, performing their daily duty to serve and protect the public.


The News Puppets
1988 · FR
A parody of a newscast, the show is a caricature of the political world, the media, personalities or more generally of French society and the current world.


Xou da Xuxa
1986 · BR
Airing weekday mornings, the show featured segments of games (mainly competitions and musical numbers) interspersed with cartoons. Despite the consistently negative reactions from intellectuals and specialized critics, Xou da Xuxa quickly became the most successful children's program in the history of Brazilian television, transforming its presenter into a phenomenon from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.


America's Funniest Home Videos
1989 · US
America's Funniest Home Videos is the longest-running primetime entertainment show in ABC history. Each week AFV shines the spotlight on hilarious videos. Fans tune in to witness failures and fiascos and to submit their own mishaps for their chance at stardom.


Wetten, dass..?
1981 · DE
A long-running German-language entertainment television show based on the format of the British show You Bet! and the American show Wanna Bet?.


Wheel of Fortune
1983 · US
This game show sees contestants solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a giant carnival wheel.


På spåret
1987 · SE
På spåret is a popular Swedish TV game show broadcast on SVT since September 5, 1987. The show, which is intended to be humorous yet educational, has remained one of the most popular TV shows in Sweden, attracting an average of 2,150,000 viewers during the 2007 season. The all-time record was set in March 1990, when 3.7 million people tuned in to see the show. This means that nearly every second Swede saw the game show. På spåret is an original format developed by Ingvar Oldsberg for SVT, and he hosted the show for many years. Author and tennis legend Björn Hellberg was promoted from contestant to permanent Oldsberg sidekick in 1995 after winning for four straight seasons. Famous gourmet, restaurant-owner, and former contestant Carl-Jan Grankvist sat in for Hellberg during the 2004 season. In 2009, after 21 years, Oldsberg left and Kristian Luuk took over as the host. Björn Hellberg too decided to leave and was replaced with Fredrik Lindström.


CCTV Spring Festival Gala: Crosstalk and Sketch
1983 · CN
No overview available


La Chance aux chansons
1984 · FR
No overview available


Bebê a Bordo
1988 · BR
In an action-packed plot set in São Paulo, Ana gives birth to a child in Tonico's car, but abandons the baby to escape the police after becoming involved in a robbery.


Body Language
1984 · US
Body Language is an American game show produced by Mark Goodson Productions. The show aired on CBS from June 4, 1984 until January 3, 1986, and was hosted by Tom Kennedy. Johnny Olson announced until his death in October 1985; Gene Wood and Bob Hilton shared the announcing duties afterward, and had substituted on occasion before that. The show pitted two teams against each other, each consisting of a contestant and a celebrity guest. The gameplay centered around the party game charades, in the same vein as the earlier Goodson program Showoffs, but contestants also had to solve word puzzles to win money, making Body Language a cross between Showoffs and Password Plus.


Verstehen Sie Spaß?
1980 · DE
No overview available
Musikantenstadl
Musikantenstadl
1981 · AT
Musikantenstadl is a live television entertainment program broadcast in the German language throughout Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. It features Austrian, Swiss, and German popular folk music, international pop and folk music as well as interviews and comedy. As a production of Eurovision, is co-produced by the Österreichischer Rundfunk, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Schweizer Fernsehen. Aside from the live television broadcasts it also tours in Austria and Germany as live concerts. It is currently hosted by Andy Borg and its location of broadcast varies between towns in different regions in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The show could be compared to being a much larger German version of the UK 1970's entertainment show The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club. However Musikantenstadl consists of a large ski lodge Set construction and not a Social Club.


Surprise, Surprise
1984 · UK
Surprise, Surprise is a British television programme originally hosted by Cilla Black and produced by London Weekend Television for ITV. It ran for 14 series from 6 May 1984 to 5 September 1997, after which four annual specials were produced between 1998 to 2001. In 2012, the show returned after a 11-year hiatus. The revived version is produced by ITV Studios and presented by Holly Willoughby. The show is currently in its second series.


Bullseye
1981 · UK
Bullseye was a popular British television programme. It was first made for the ITV network by ATV in 1981, then by Central from 1982 until 1995, and was hosted by Jim Bowen.


Countdown
1982 · UK
The clock is ticking as contestants compete in games of lexical dexterity and numerical agility.


Un giorno in pretura
1988 · IT
No overview available


Geld oder Liebe
1989 · DE
No overview available


Rosa Baiana
1981 · BR
Rosa Baiana is a strong and courageous woman, the companion of Edmundo Lua Nova, who abandoned her with seven children to travel the world. Her children, Agenor, Ivan, Bráulio, Walter, Orestes, Cláudia, and Edinho, ended up connecting their lives to oil, working in the oil fields of Bahia, without, however, detaching themselves from their mother, the ultimate authority and final word in the family. Rosa imposes her personal worldview on everyone. The children don't dare contradict her, even when their lives conflict with their mother's standards. Until the day Edmundo Lua Nova returns home after twenty years away.


Maçã do Amor
1983 · BR
Lia rises professionally and finds the strength to ask her husband, Mário, a good-natured rogue, for a divorce. The separation will decisively influence the life of one of her sons, Chico-Tico, who begins to show symptoms of a rare neurological disease known as "absence syndrome." Through temporal lapses, the boy absents himself from the present life, living in another reality, of which he later retains no memory. In the village where the family lives, there also reside Nicola, a teenager infatuated with older women; his mother, Filomena, an Italian woman who tries to contain her son's passionate outbursts; Seu Oliveira, the newsstand owner, a friendly Spaniard with a slightly anarchist past; and his two daughters, Margô and Heleninha. Also living in Lia's house are Astrides, the maid who dreams of parading with the Mangueira samba school, and Manequinho, her son, who works at Seu Oliveira's newsstand.


Bingolotto
1989 · SE
Bingolotto is a Swedish highly popular primetime television game show lottery that was first broadcast 1989 on local TV and since 1991 nationwide on the Swedish network TV4. The show is a collaboration work between Swedish TV channel TV4, the Swedish lottery game company Folkspel and the Swedish sports life. The show premiered on 16 January 1989 on the local TV channel Kållevisionen with the highly popular Leif "Loket" Olsson as show host. Since the beginning, the show has give 14.25 billion Swedish crowns to the Swedish sports life centre.


CMG Spring Festival Gala
1983 · CN
The CMG Spring Festival Gala (formerly known as the CCTV New Year's Gala; commonly abbreviated in Chinese as Chunwan or 春晚) is a Chinese New Year special gala produced by China Media Group (CMG). The Gala is a live variety show featuring music, dance, and comedy performances alongside official messaging, held annually on Chinese New Year's Eve since it was first aired in February 1983. It was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most watched national network TV broadcast in 2012 and is widely recognized as the world's most watched television program.


Takeshi's Castle
1986 · JP
Takeshi's Castle is a Japanese game show that aired between 1986 and 1990, on the Tokyo Broadcasting System. It features the Japanese comedian Takeshi Kitano (also known as Beat Takeshi) as a count who owns a castle and sets up difficult challenges for players (or a volunteer army) to get to him.


Family Fortunes
1980 · UK
Two families go head to head as they try to name the post popular answer to survey-based questions posed to 100 people for a chance to win a jackpot prize.


Zomergasten
1988 · NL
This VPRO's ‘summer classic’ is based on an equally simple and refreshing idea that originated in 1988: When during the summer most of the channels are showing reruns, ask interesting people people to curate their ‘favorite television evening’ and let them clarify the fragments in a long-form interview/conversation. The programme was first aired in 1988. Each episode takes up an entire Sunday evening, lasting typically three hours. It consists of an in-depth studio interview with a notable Dutch, Belgian or other Dutch-speaking foreigner, interspersed with cinema or television footage selected by the guest, which is subsequently discussed. Guests include writers, scientists, television personalities, politicians or business people.


American Gladiators
1988 · US
American Gladiators is an American competition television program that aired weekly in syndication from September 1989 to May 1996. The series matched a cast of amateur athletes against each other, as well as against the show's own gladiators, in contests of strength and agility. The concept was created by Dan Carr and John C. Ferraro, who held the original competition at Erie Tech High School in Erie, Pennsylvania. They sold the show to The Samuel Goldwyn Company where the concept was enhanced and became American Gladiators. An effort in 2004 to launch a live American Gladiators show on the Las Vegas Strip became mired in a securities fraud prosecution. However, the television series was restarted in 2008. Episodes from the original series were played on ESPN Classic from 2007 to 2009. Several episodes are available for download on Apple's iTunes Service.


Chi l'ha visto?
1989 · IT
No overview available


WWF Club
1980 · DE
No overview available


KBS Drama Awards
1987 · KR
The KBS Drama Awards is an awards ceremony presented by the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) for outstanding achievements in Korean dramas aired on its network. It is held annually on 31 December. The highest honor of the ceremony is the "Grand Prize", awarded to the best actor or actress of the year.


You Bet!
1988 · UK
You Bet! is a British game show based around the format of the German show Wetten, dass..? developed by Frank Elstner. You Bet! ran on ITV, mostly on Saturday nights but sometimes on Fridays, between 20 February 1988 and 12 April 1997, initially hosted by Bruce Forsyth from 1988 to 1990, then by Matthew Kelly from 1991 to 1995 and finally by Darren Day from 1996 to 1997. It was replaced the following year by Don't Try This At Home!, which emulated the challenges of You Bet!, but were considerably more risky and dangerous.
Wedden, dat..?
Wedden, dat..?
1986 · NL
No overview available


Catchphrase
1986 · UK
Catchphrase is a British game show based on the short-lived U.S. game show of the same name. It originally aired on ITV in the United Kingdom between 12 January 1986 and 19 December 2002. It was presented by Northern Irish comedian Roy Walker from 1986–1999; followed by Nick Weir from 2000–2002, and Mark Curry in 2002. In the original series, two contestants, one male and one female would have to identify the familiar phrase represented by a piece of animation accompanied by background music. The show's mascot, a golden robot called "Mr. Chips", appears in many of the animations. In the revived version of the show, the same format remains, but there are three contestants. In August 2012, it was announced that Stephen Mulhern would host a revived version of the show beginning on 7 April 2013. On 21 August 2013, it was confirmed that Catchphrase has been re-commissioned for a second series, following the success of the first.
Flitterabend
Flitterabend
1988 · DE
No overview available


Miss Teen USA
1983 · US
A beauty pageant formerly run, since 1983, by the Miss Universe Organization for girls aged 14–19.


Billboard Music Awards
1989 · US
The Billboard Music Awards are honors given out annually by Billboard, a publication covering the music business and a music popularity chart. The Billboard Music Awards show had been held annually since 1990, with the exception of the years 2007 through 2010. The event was formerly staged in December but since returning in 2011, it has been held in May.


Questions pour un champion
1988 · FR
Samuel Etienne hosts this emblematic game, which sees four candidates compete each evening around questions of general culture.


The Guldbagge Awards
1981 · SE
The Guldbagge Awards is an official and annual Swedish film awards ceremony honoring achievements in the Swedish film industry. Winners are awarded a statuette depicting a rose chafer, better known by the name Guldbaggen. The awards, first presented in 1964 at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm, are overseen by the Swedish Film Institute. It is described as the Swedish equivalent of the Academy Awards. The awards ceremony was first televised in 1981.


Une Famille en Or
1986 · FR
French adaptation of the popular American game show.


محمد رسول الله
1980 · EG
No overview available
1980s television saw the serialized primetime drama take hold and cable begin to fragment the audience that networks had held uncontested for thirty years.
Reality television spans competition formats, documentary-style follow shows, and dating series. It's the most-watched and least-written-about corner of TV, and its formats travel internationally better than almost anything else.