Boring but Practical/Live-Action TV

Logos

• The CBS logo, introduced in 1951, was based on the designs seen on barn walls. It was a simple round shape with an eye-like depiction in the center. When William Golden began work on another logo about a year later, his boss Frank Stanton worked like crazy to have the logo plastered on anything and everything he could think of. Stanton's reasoning? "Just when you're beginning to be bored by what you've done is when it's beginning to be noticed by your audience." More than six decades later, it remains one of the media world's most recognizable symbols.
• The core of the (American) ABC network logo has remained practically unchanged for five decades. Like the CBS eye, it is a highly recognized corporate symbol.

Reality Television

• Survivor has a strategy known as "Pagonging" (named after the Pagong tribe, who fell victim to it way back in the first season). Partway through the game, the two teams merge and it becomes every man for himself - but the players hold on to the "us vs. them" mentality, and if all goes well the larger team will stay together and eliminate the smaller team one by one, only turning on each other when (1) they've run out of targets or (2) the last member of that other tribe has won immunity. It's very efficient for those members of the larger team, but predictable and not nearly as fun for the home audience to watch as a chaotic Gambit Pileup.
  • Then there's the strategy of being The Quiet One or Obfuscating Stupidity. Unless pretending to be stupid involves doing something that's funny, you won't get much screentime by staying out of harm's way. That being said, if you can convince the players in control that you're not a threat at all (Natalie White, anyone?), they'll take you to the end under the assumption that you're no trouble to beat.
• In Hell's Kitchen season 3, one of the top performers was Julia, a Waffle House line cook from Atlanta. The professionally-trained chefs (especially those on her own team) tended to treat her like crap and denigrate her skills,^[1] but it turned out she had precisely the skill set Gordon Ramsay was looking for (including good teamwork, promptness with her cooking, and staying cool under pressure). So much so that when she was eliminated near the end, Gordon praised her potential and dedication and then paid for her to go to culinary school
  • In particular, one episode had a breakfast challenge; instead of asking the woman who does this every day of her life for help, the other women told her "go peel potatoes". When Gordon noticed, he ordered the women to let Julia cook; she quickly turned the sinking ship into an overwhelming victory.
• One episode of Food Network's Celebrity Chef Cook-Off had as its Elimination Challenge... grilled cheese. Cheech Marin and Lou Diamond Philips made fancy sandwiches with unusual breads and extra bits thrown in, while Joey Fatone made a basic grilled cheese sandwich, the only embellishment being a smiley face made of sliced tomatoes and a pickle. However, Cheech's sandwich was greasy and LDP didn't melt the cheese, while Joey (who said he makes grilled cheese all the time for his kids) ended up winning immunity because his no-frills sandwich was perfectly made.
• Plenty of episodes in both the U.K and U.S versions of Kitchen Nightmares had chefs making extremely flashy food that was especially difficult or time consuming to cook, or had managers decorate their restaurants with flashy but gaudy styles and using tacky gimmicks to draw in customers. Gordon has them change to fit this trope. Some of the best examples of the former and the later respectively are Rococo's and The Curry Lounge.
• Go onto almost any message board for America's Next Top Model. You'll probably find no shortage of support for Nigel Barker or Jay Manuel (Mister Jay) while It's All About Me Tyra hardly gets any. Part of that comes from their dry delivery, which is almost always in plain simple English rather than the Tyraspeak she is ever so fond of. Hell, even with his silly accent imitations, the flamboyant J. Alexander (Miss Jay, also a fan favorite) can get his point across with next to no mumbo-jumbo.
• In the American Big Brother, there's similar strategies to Survivor. However in this game, it's individual from the very start - so as a result, you want to make yourself appear to be much less of a threat that people won't target you. You want them directing their sights at someone else, not you. Thus, a fair amount of Obfuscating Stupidity is involved in making yourself appear much less of a threat than you actually are. Naturally this leads to a lot of sitting around and letting someone else strategize, so that they make themselves appear to be the threat, not you.

1. ↑ Or as one of the teammates noted, "She works in a fuckin' Waffle House, I mean come on