With the EuroMillions jackpot reaching a massive £65 million and starting to make headlines, it got us thinking about lottery storylines in some of our favourite TV shows.
Friends
Over the course of 10 seasons, Friends covered a lot of topics, and of course the lottery came up. In the episode called “The One With The Lottery”, the state lottery hits $300 mil prompting the gang to club together and buy numerous tickets, with the exception of the sceptical Ross.
Phoebe’s psychic tells her they’ll win, causing the gang to fight. In the end Phoebe takes the bowl of lottery tickets and hurls them over the edge of the balcony. While the gang are able to recover a few, over half are missing.
It’s later revealed that Phoebe did win, $3 in total. Of course they wouldn’t have had this problem had they used Lottoland’s award winning app, which saves your tickets online!
Family Guy
Peter Griffin isn’t known for smart purchases, or financial sense, and a recurring joke in later episodes is how Peter actually finances his hijinxs.
After seeing the lottery on the local news Peter decides it’s the best way to improve his family’s dire financial circumstances, and spends their savings on a load of tickets. Amazingly one ticket is a winner, turning the Griffins into overnight millionaires.
After living a lavish lifestyle and paying Joe and Quagmire to perform for him, Peter’s card is finally declined in a fancy restaurant.
Luckily for the Griffins, a small investment loan Peter had given Glenn Quagmire turned out to be profitable, and the family are able to return to their old lifestyle, just in time for next week’s episode.
The Simpsons
Unsurprisingly, Family Guy’s foray into the lottery wasn’t the first time they shared similarities with a Simpsons plot, although our favourite yellow family’s lottery story is a little different, and doesn’t involve Homer shooting his friends with a BB Gun.
After skipping a date with Marge to buy a lottery ticket, Homer crashes his car and is sent to hospital. Waking up to find he’s a millionaire, he makes Barney pretend to be the winner to escape blame from Marge.
Showering the family with anonymous gifts, he’s eventually found out by Bart, who blackmails him into doing his bidding. Eventually, tiring of being Bart’s slave, he takes Marge in a hot air balloon to reveal the truth, and admitting he has spent all the money, Doh!
