Snake Oil (TV series)

Snake Oil is an American game show that premiered on September 27, 2023, on Fox. The show is hosted and produced by David Spade.

Contestants and their celebrity advisors are asked to separate the legitimate inventions from the made-up ones.

Format
Contestants on the show begin with a "bank" of $50,000 that they can choose to invest in a selection of eight different products which are presented to them by entrepreneurs at the beginning of the show. The products presented to the contestants are a combination of real products and fake products, or "snake oil", and contestants must decide which products are legitimate ventures. Winning contestants receive up to $220,000 for correctly guessing which products are real and which are snake oil, contingent on their score going into the final round and how much of a risk they choose to take. If the contestant finds out the other player made a mistake and picked a Snake Oil product they can choose to poach the product that is Real and bank the money to prevent it from being lost.

Production
On April 18, 2023, it was announced that Fox had ordered the series, with David Spade as the host. Spade also serves as the producer. On July 11, 2023, it was announced that Snake Oil would premiere on September 26, following the tenth season premiere of The Masked Singer. On August 28, 2023, the guest celebrity advisors were announced.

Critical response
The first season of the show was met with mixed reviews from critics. Decider's "Stream It or Skip It" review gave the show a mostly positive reviewing, highlighting its premise and contestants, but criticizing the hour-long runtime as being overly long and describing Spade's hosting as seeming "half-asleep" at some points. Melissa Camacho of Common Sense Media also praised the show's premise but found Spade's hosting to be low energy, giving the show 3 out of 5 stars overall.