We develop a method for deriving integral representations of certain orthogonal polynomials as moments. These moment representations are applied to find linear and multilinear generating functions for $q$-orthogonal polynomials. As a byproduct we establish new transformation formulas for combinations of basic hypergeometric functions, including a new representation of the $q$-exponential function $\mathcal{E}_q$.

We show that the Meixner, Pollaczek, Meixner-Pollaczek, the continuous $q$-ultraspherical polynomials and Al-Salam-Chihara polynomials, in certain normalization, are moments of probability measures. We use this fact to derive bilinear and multilinear generating functions for some of these polynomials. We also comment on the corresponding formulas for the Charlier, Hermite and Laguerre polynomials.

We introduce a double sum extension of a very well-poised series and extend to this the transformations of Bailey and Sears as well as the ${}_6\f_5$ summation formula of F.~H.~Jackson and the $q$-Dixon sum. We also give $q$-integral representations of the double sum. Generalizations of the Nassrallah-Rahman integral are also found.