[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lifesupporttitlesmall_9888.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Life Support is here for you!"]]
[[quoteright:350:~~HalfHourComedy [[TheParody Parody]]~~]]
''Life Support'' was an Australian cult comedy series that aired on Creator/{{SBS}} between 2001 and 2003, and parodied lifestyle shows such as ''BetterHomesAndGardens'' while simultaneously using associated tropes to satirise the hell out of Australian society. A lot of its humour came from the hosts suggesting dangerous, dubious or often wildly illegal advice with completely straight faces.

The four main characters were:
* Sigourney, played by Rachael Coopes: an always-chipper blonde who taught modern women all about how to win men and use handicrafts to [[SarcasmMode make the world a better place.]] Notably the only character to be played by the same actress for the entire run of the show.
* Todd, played by Brendan Cowell and later Duncan Fellows: a brash, masculine (and slightly dim) HandyMan.
* Penne, played by Abbie Cornish and later Alison Barnes: a streetwise juvenile delinquent who offered lessons in "how to scam The Man".
* Dr Rudi, played by Simon Van Der Stap [[TheNthDoctor and later Jack Finsterer]] [[spoiler:(or so we're made to believe...)]]: a slick, suave and [[ManipulativeBastard completely amoral]] South African gynaecologist with all sorts of tips about health and wealth.

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!''Series/LifeSupport'' contains examples of:
* AesopAmnesia: Dr Rudi gives advice on making your teenage daughter fat to ensure she doesn't get pregnant at school. In another segment he also gives a teenage girl advice on how to get male attention.
* AmoralAfrikaner: Dr Rudi, though his exact ethnicity is Anglo-African instead of Afrikaan.
* BavarianFireDrill: Penne pulls this on a line of people queueing for concert tickets by wearing a fake Ticketek shirt and telling them the tour was cancelled.
* BetterThanABareBulb: TheOtherDarrin is alluded to a couple of times.
** Penne's transition in series 2 is briefly acknowledged.
** In series 3, Todd mentions that he hasn't had much interaction with the others...this series. In the finale he wonders out loud if [[spoiler: the real Dr Rudi]] "got anyone with him?".
* BrickJoke: A segment at the beginning of Episode 5 shows Penne preparing to steal a TV whose box she spotted in the owners' garbage. Later in the episode, she gives advice while on trial for that same theft.
* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler: The original Dr Rudi returns in the final moments of series 3.]]
* CallBack: There are a few nods throughout the series to earlier episodes.
** An ad for "Femme Brush", a do-it-yourself airbrushing cream spruiked by Sigourney, appears on Penne's TV an episode or two later.
** The first episode of Season 2 briefly shows Penne in a Chamber Mouth T-shirt, a band introduced in the second episode of Season 1.
* CampGay: Dr Rudi's advice for men who wish to "compliment" women in the workplace is to act like a gay stereotype to avoid sounding too sincere.
* CatchPhrase: Each host has one.
** Sigourney: "As a modern woman..."
** Todd: "So take a tip from Todd..."
** Penne: "See ya!"
** Dr Rudi: "Howzit!" [[spoiler: Becomes a plot point in the series finale - spoken in the familiar voice of the old Rudi, played by Simon Van Der Stap, who has come to confront the impostor about to marry Sigourney.]]
%%* TheCasanova: Dr Rudi.
%%* ComedicSociopathy: Served with a smile!
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: One mailbag segment has the hosts treating a vitriolic complaint letter as glowing praise.
* CookingShow:
** Parodied in Todd's recurring "Todd's Treat" segments, which involved Todd passing off ordinary food as fancy recipes - coffee as homemade Prozac, for example, or toasted beef stew sandwiches as spring rolls, or imitation crab meat as an exotic seafood delicacy.
** One especially amusing example involves Todd's response to a viewer letter complaining that lifestyle shows always showed the same tired old recipes, and requesting that Todd show them how to make a dish like they'd see in the country's finest restaurants. After several minutes of proudly pointing out to the viewers all the French cooking terms and ingredients he's using, Todd puts the finishing touches on... [[spoiler:a Big Mac and fries.]]
-->'''Todd:''' That's the thing with restaurant recipes... they're always more expensive when you cook 'em with [[IncrediblyLamePun fresh verbs.]]
* DisproportionateRetribution: A lot of the advice handed out by the show. Parents gave you an embarrassing name? Have them arrested! Foreign friend invites herself to stay at your place? Make it impossible for her to enter the country and ruin her reputation! Guy doesn't call? Accuse him of date rape!
* TheDitz: Todd and Sigourney both have elements of this. Todd in particular once prematurely announced the end of a show in a segue, then had no idea what the next segment would be. It was his ''own'' segment.
* DrJerk: Dr Rudi is the suave, charming and horribly amoral variety.
%%* EmbarrassingFirstName: See "My Nayme Is", below.
* EmoTeen: The phenomenon is parodied in one episode with a segment on "Chamber Mouth", a thankfully fictional depressive rock band whose lead singer [[RefugeInAudacity permanently has a loaded shotgun in his mouth]].
* FemmeFatale: Sigourney is prepared to have Penne ''sabotage an electrical substation'' to make sure the lighting at her boyfriend's house makes her look attractive.
* GoneHorriblyRight: Dr. Rudi's [[IBangedYourMom "I slept with your wife"]] counterargument does more damage than it should have; resulting in a loud, painful-to-watch fight that looks like it will end in divorce. Of course, Dr. Rudi isn't phased by any of this.
* HandyMan: Todd. He's good with tools.
* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: Dr Rudi's new look is explained as him getting corrective surgery to look less gay.
* IBangedYourMom: Dr Rudi advocates the "wife" variant as a way to win arguments.
* ImpossiblePickleJar: In the seventh episode of season three, Sigourney does a segment on tightening jars around the house so that your boyfriend can open them and get a boost to his ego.
--> '''Sigourney''': So, if you want your boyfriend to feel like the big man, you only have to give him something little to do. So get yourself a tightening tool, tighten every jar in the house and watch his self confidence flourish.
* InformedAttractiveness: Inverted. When Dr Rudi talks about women's looks, he's accompanied by a "homely" woman that would actually be quite attractive if she just washed her hair or put on foundation.
* TheLadette: Penne, Penne, Penne.
* MommasBoy: Todd, amusingly enough, still has his mother do his laundry. He even asks her, on air, not to sew the sleeves back onto his shirts.
* MyNaymeIs: Penne, pronounced "Penny". She's so unhappy with the spelling, she actually arranges for her parents to be arrested in Germany under an obscure local law.
* NatureAdoresAVirgin: Penne suggests girls invoke this trope by lying about their virginity to potential sex partners.
* TheNthDoctor: For Season 3, Dr Rudi, originally played by Simon Van Der Stap, was replaced by Jack Finsterer. This was explained away as having had MagicPlasticSurgery to "look more heterosexual". [[spoiler:Then it turned out that the new Rudi was an impostor, and the old Rudi showed up at his and Sigourney's wedding to take his life back.]]
* OnceAnEpisode: In Season 1 Sigourney cooking some increasingly ridiculous dish to end the show, much to Dr Rudi's consternation. Season 2 instead has Sigourney suggest some increasingly outlandish activity to do while waiting for the next episode.
* PoliticalOvercorrectness: Dr Rudi, particularly in series 3 regularly comments on how political correctness is affecting social activity. One episode has him coach a man in how to get away with sexually harassing his female colleagues by giving off a gay vibe.
* PrecisionFStrike: Penne's reaction to [[spoiler: the ''real'' Rudi's return in the series finale.]]
* PrisonRape: One of the Todd's Tips segments suggested [[BlackComedy plying rapist cellmates with romantic gestures]] [[CrossesTheLineTwice so that it always happened "with a genuine sense of affection"]].
* RefugeInAudacity: And ''how!''
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Dr Rudi is the sensitive guy (in that he's more highbrow, not that he's more of a gentleman) to Todd's manly man.
* ShipTease: Sigourney and Dr Rudi. They shared as kiss in one segment that Todd was quick to point out. Series 3 drops an increasing number of hints that they're going steady but haven't told Todd or Penne. Finally confimred in the penultimate episode, which ends with them announcing their engagement.
* SquirrelsInMyPants: Todd's advice for awkward dancers is to wear miniature solar panels on his jacket which are connected to some wires that he clips onto his nipples. The intention is to have the flashing lights in a nightclub send rhythmic jolts throughout his body. The result looks even more awkward.
* StepfordSmiler: Heavily implied with Sigourney.
* StoryArc: Though the show's format would seem to make arcs implausible, there is an ongoing storyline throughout Season 3: Dr Rudi, who has had MagicPlasticSurgery (and thus [[TheNthDoctor been replaced with a new actor]]), keeps receiving threatening letters in the mail, which appear in each episode's mailbag segment. [[spoiler:It's revealed in the finale that these letters are from the ''old'' Dr Rudi, played by Simon Van Der Stap - the new Rudi, played by Jack Finsterer, is an impostor.]]
* TheTalk: In true Life Support style, Dr Rudi suggests using an old porno movie to teach kids where babies come from. Sigourney helpfully chimes in and recommends the sound be turned down, so the kids "don't hear any [[DoubleStandard nasty swearing]]".
* TokenGoodTeammate: Todd is probably the least cruel of the group, as his advice doesn't involve manipulation or come at anyone's expense. At least not as much as the others does.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Penne is the tomboy to Sigourney's girly girl.
* TurnOfTheMillennium: Satirised a lot of the issues relevant in Australia at the time (some of which, depressingly, persist to this day).
* TheUnreveal: One of the letter segments has Dr Rudi and Sigourney skimming through a series of letters without reading them out loud for the convenience of the audience. Instead they just read out the writer's names and give them context-free advice for what would have to be some risque queries.
* TheVamp: Penne has been known to use her wiles on men (and occasionally women) to get what she wants with minimal effort. Sigourney has hints of this.
* VoxPops: With real live people on the street. Probably.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The very last episode ends on a cliffhanger [[spoiler: as the real Dr Rudi reveals his replacement was an impostor right before the credits roll.]]