~~Half Hour Comedy SitCom~~The Adventures of Lano and Woodley is an Australian sitcom revolving around the misadventures of two somehow-best-friends, The Ditz Frank Woodley and Jerkass Col Lane, who live together in a flat in Melbourne. Lano and Woodley were originally a comedy duo that had had several previous successes and made this hilarious sitcom, although it only lasted 13 episodes.
The show is all about the scrapes they get into in their day-to-day lives, and how they make things worse for themselves.
Full of slapstick, although humour was also derived from witty wordplay.
This show provides examples of:
- A Man Is Not a Virgin: "The Girlfriend" plays with this idea.
- Air Hugging: From "One Simple Task". Although it's more bum-in-the-air-so-we-don't-have-to-touch hugging.
- Alter Ego Acting
- Annoying Patient: Again from "One Simple Task".
- Badly-Battered Babysitter The last two episodes of the series.
- Brick Joke: They are the kings of this. See the end of "One Simple Task," "Starquest," "Tonight You Die," "The Two Men," "Primal Warrior"...
- Casanova Wannabe: Col, at times.
- Catch Phrase: "Love X? Love X? I want to DESTROY X!", "You stupid little skinny man!" and of course the sarcastic "Oh YEAH!"
- The Ditz: Frank, though Col has his moments.
- Easter Bunny: Averted and Subverted in "The Easter Story". Lano and Woodley do attend Sunday Easter Mass AND have the Easter Bunny... which they accidentally decapitate... long story.
- Fawlty Towers Plot
- The Fun in Funeral: Col's mother's funeral in "Mother" is disrupted by endless problems with the tape playing her favourite song ("Danny Boy", unsurprisingly).
- Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Subverted in "Tonight You Die" - Frank freaks out about dying and Col slaps him. Frank snaps out of it but Col keeps slapping him. Frank tries to slap Col to his senses but all that happens is that they end up slapping each other in a continuous line saying "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it." "You snap out of it."
- Heterosexual Life Partners: The two title characters.
- Horrible Camping Trip: From "Primal Warrior". Subverted in that the horrible camping trip occurs in Col and Frank's apartment.
- Ignore the Disability: Neighbour Susannah's lisp.
- I Was Just Joking
- Jerkass: Col - To extremes. And particularly towards Frank. Is regularly seen hitting, insulting and generally abusing his flatmate. But when it comes to the crunch he does care about Frank.
- Line-of-Sight Name: Col's imaginary girlfriend "Jenny Window" in the first episode.
- Mistaken for Dying: Frank, in "One Simple Task"
- No One Gets Left Behind: Subverted in "Tonight You Die"
- Once an Episode: Every episode before the opening credits the duo get fired.
- Overly Long Gag: Multiple times, in every episode, usually whilst jumping or moving around the room.
- The first episode alone has 5 of these, Frank and Col grabbing and shaking each other trying to get the other to "settle down", Col informing Frank that "yep yep yeah" he has had a girlfriend, Col's reaction to Frank talking when he gets a girlfriend, Frank's "I don't want you to go" when Frank goes out on a 2nd date. Also, some of the jokes aren't quite in the "Overly Long" category, but do take longer than you would expect, like Frank acting like he's going to put down a phone, picking it up, and doing that 4 times, as well as another "yep yep yeah" at the end of the episode.
- Pocket Protector: Spoofed in "Primal Warrior". Col shoots Frank in the chest with an arrow. Frank is horrified until he realises that his massive autumn leaf album was in his jacket pocket and stopped the arrow.
- Running Gag: "Love him? Love him?! I want to DESTROY HIM!"
- Colin attempting to repeat something hopeful Frank said, only to break into sarcastic laughter.
- Falling out the window. Normally, but not always, backwards.
- Studio Audience
- Sarcasm Mode: Colin. A lot. The most memorable would probably be in "The Wall" where after a HUGE sarcastic rant Frank asks whether he's being sarcastic. Col replies "YEAH! I'm being REALLY sarcastic," which Frank points out is sarcastically wrong and that he should have said "NAH! I'm not being sarcastic!" Colin then goes into uber sarcasm mode which he can only be brought out of with a Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! moment.
- Saw It in a Movie Once: "One Simple Task." After confusing reality and films with each other for an entire episode ("Col, did we ever help a whale get free?") Frank proves his friendship to Col by pulling a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, fighting off a band of hodlums with a back-pack of pesticide spray and a lighter However it gets spoofed because, after he gives it to Col to have a go Frank remembers that in the film it blew up and killed the guy, at which point boom!
- Previously in that episode he remembers a holiday at the beach in which Col had an affair with a married woman, during the war. Col recognises as Summer Of 42. Frank later brings up a movie about two pizza guys getting beaten up by hoodlums, which happened to them only days ago.
- Theme Tune Cameo: With a twist - The tune in question is not the theme tune, but "Danny Boy". According to the commentary, this is because the song was in the public domain and thus royalty-free.
- Too Good to Last
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Frank's phobia of beards in the episode "Game Show God". Cured at the end of the episode.
- With Friends Like These...
- The Woobie: Woodley. Almost every action he makes is in the first episode gets a sad "awww" from the Laugh Track.