Snake Oil is an American game show which aired from September 27 to December 13, 2023, on Fox. The show is hosted and produced by David Spade.
Contestants and their celebrity advisors are asked to separate legitimate inventions from made-up ones.
Contestants on the show begin with a "bank" of $50,000 which 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". 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 which is real and bank the money to prevent it from being lost.
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, after the tenth season premiere of The Masked Singer. On August 28, 2023, the guest celebrity advisors for the show were announced.
The first season of the show was met with mixed reviews from critics. Decider's "Stream It or Skip It" review gave it a mostly positive review, commending its premise and contestants, but criticizing the runtime of an hour. It critiqued the program as being too long and felt the editing could have been improved in addition to the pacing of the show. Melissa Camacho of Common Sense Media praised the show's premise but found Spade to have low energy, giving Snake Oil 3 out of 5 stars overall.