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Ah, bowling! The sport of the common man. Generally when TV shows portray someone as an everyday working class hero, the writers make him a member of a bowling team. Could result in just references to a team, a singular bowling episode or a chance for a character to be Bested At Bowling. Trope name is a parody of Bowling for Dollars, a syndicated American Game Show format of The Seventies.
Sometimes, a Canadian series will have that country's distinctive five pin variant: five pins with rubber rings around the wide bottom and smaller balls with no finger holes. But neither Canada nor the United States will ever show any other type of bowling (sorry, candlepin and duckpin lovers).
Examples of Bowling for Ratings include:
- 7th Heaven: Eric delays telling the family that he needs an open-heart surgery, so he decides the family should go bowling.
- All in The Family
- The Big Bang Theory
- Cheers
- Dead Like Me: George joins Happy Time Temp Agency's bowling team in one episode. There's also the Plague Division of reapers from the extended pilot, which spends its time lawn bowling and intently watching rodents for signs of another epidemic.
- Dexter: Dexter joins a bowling team in Season 2.
- His biological father also became an avid bowler after turning his criminal life around.
- Ed
- Eureka: An episode had the show's bowling league playing against that of Area Fifty One.
- The Flintstones
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: And fittingly enough, the episode's name is The Big Lablooski.
- The Golden Girls
- Happy Days
- Home Improvement
- The Honeymooners
- The Huckleberry Hound Show
- King of the Hill: In one episode Peggy is afraid to go bowling since her embarrassing shoe size would be displayed on the heel.
- The King of Queens: Doug and Carrie and their friends Deacon and Kelly are on a bowling team.
- Laverne and Shirley
- The Looney Tunes Show
- Malcolm in the Middle had one of the best examples of this, with a Rashomon type episode showing what would happen if Lois took the boys bowling, or if Hal took them instead.
- Married... with Children
- My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: The Cutie Mark Crusaders attempt to get bowling cutie marks at the start of The Cutie Pox.
- My Wife and Kids
- The Odd Couple
- The Office (US): Where Ryan is working when Micheal recruits him for The Micheal Scott Paper Company.
- Pac-Man
- Parks and Recreation: Leslie hosts an appearance at the bowling alley as part of her campaign for city council (and to show up someone who criticized her in a focus group).
- Regular Show: Skips Strikes. In typical RS fashion, the game's stakes are taken ridiculously high thanks to Rigby betting the team's souls in a bowling match against Death and his accomplices.
- Rocko's Modern Life
- The Roman Holidays
- Rugrats
- The Simpsons
- That '70s Show: S4 Ep11, "The Third Wheel".
- Touched By an Angel: "The Perfect Game". Not to be confused with the other TBAA ep entitled "The Perfect Game", which is a baseball episode.
- United States of Tara
- Veronica Mars: Season three features a painful-if-you've-been-in-this-situation "not a date" bowling episode.
- Wait Till Your Father Gets Home