A French sketch comedy series which spawned more than a dozen adaptations around the world, punny-named so because "Camera Cachée" is French for Candid Camera. The original French series lasted from September, 2001 to December, 2003. A number of the adaptation were still ongoing as of 2011.It basically involves a fixed camera, installed in a coffee vending machine. Said vending machine is inside a corridor within a company with No Name Given, next to a heavilydysfunctional office.The camera never moves unless in cases of Camera Abuse (which happen alot), all while accurately filming the employees' quirky habits.But what could possibly happen in the relax area, to deserve enough interest to install a camera in a coffee vending machine?EVERYTHING.This series, sadly, has never been re-done in English. However this doesn't mean we can't list some tropes here. The series concept has however been sold across many countries, who have copied or made their own scripts based on the concept. The Quebec version, for examples, features a gender-neutral bathroom door in the room where the coffee machine is, allowing for other situations.A character sheet (also about the Italian version) is under construction, although the most characters have essentially already been covered by now. Pictures about minor characters - or even one-time guest stars - are not strictly required, but still welcome nonetheless.
This series (the names listed come from the Italian version) provides example of:
Adult Child: Silvano, mostly due to the relationship with his mother.
Affectionate Nickname: Paolo often calls his friend Luca "Bubino" (as much as Luca hates this nickname). Also sometimes Patti calls Silvano "Silvy" and Silvano calls Patti "Pattina".
Paolo: "Silvano, "apple" is spelled with one P, right?"
Silvano: "No, Paolo, with double P..."
Paolo: "Are you sure? Even if the apple is just one?"
However, despite him being clueless about anything remotely academic, Paolo is shown to be able to scheme at times and his ability to trick his clients makes him the best salesman in the company. He also seems to have a vast knowledge about cars. He borders on Genius Ditz.
Brainless Beauty: Anna and Gloria. Patti's sister Titti, a minor character who only appeared in a few season 1 episodes, was this as well.
Brilliant, but Lazy: Luca and Paolo are actually pretty good in their respective jobs- when they fail it isn't because they're not skilled, but because fate said so. With that said, good luck seeing them working: they'd much rather spend their time in the Relax Area than doing something constructive.
Paolo: "I might be a beast but I'm a professional, for the love of..."
The Bully: Andrea, who else? (with Luca, Paolo and Silvano being his favorite targets of abuse).
Luca and Paolo as well, especially towards Silvano. And the fact is that Luca used to be the bullied one in high school.
Butt Monkey/The Chew Toy: Silvano is by far the biggest one being also Luca's and Paolo's favorite target. Basically everyone in the company considers him the official Butt Monkey.
He actually gets many girls outside his workplace, mostly hookers and sluts, but still. It has been mentioned that he has an intense sex life unlike Luca.
Vittorio: "Ah, if it isn't that little comunist bastard with his tall, brainless pal!"
Geller "In the ancient region of..." following a boring story about ancient chinese populations.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Several characters did just disappear without being mentioned again, most notably: Anna (one of the most prominent characters in the first two seasons), Jessica, Anselmo, psychologist Nadia along with other minor characters. But the biggest change was in the fifth season starting in 2011: Ilaria, Gaia, Giovanna, Emma, Maria Eleonora, Caterina and Carminati are all missing in the new episodes and seem to be just forgotten by the other characters.
Comes Great Insanity: De Marinis once challenged Luca to become "boss for a day", since the latter accused the former to be unfair and declared to be a way nicer boss if given the chance. By the end of that very sketch, he became so "good" at giving orders to prompt a company-scale rebellion.
Couch Gag: in the beginning, the opening for each sketch provided the series' logo, printed on a small plastic glass while it gets filled with coffee. Then, in the second season, a few variations have been made, such as both the plastic glass and the stream of coffee being misplaced, or the plastic glass being flipped over by the coffee itself. The third season upped the ante with even more absurd variations such as the plastic glass slowly lowered by chains and filled with concrete, a small scuba-diver-action-figure popping up from the plastic glass, the plastic glass being absent and the coffee flooding everything, the plastic glass glowing in the dark, a fish falling off the machine...
The Danza: Luca Nervi and Paolo Bitta are played by Luca Bizzarri and Paolo Kessisoglu respectively.
Dead Baby Comedy: subverted in that nobody makes jokes about certain subjects. This doesn't mean the character just won't stopbeing complete assholes to each other. Their mistreatment of Wanda, an old employee, counts as this trope.
Deadpan Snarker: Luca, about his friend Paolo and... well, about anything that's weird in general.
(Luca notices one of the small, round, silver-colored tables stuck to the ceiling)
Luca:"Why is one of the tables stuck to the ceiling?"
Geller:"Next time you'd better be more careful about when taking a vacation then; turned out we'll both be away from work within the same time range, instead of you coming back to work when I'm on holiday."
Dumbass Has a Point: Paolo, on occasion, usually much to Luca's total shock.
Dumb Is Good: stupid characters (like Patti, Silvano, Anna, Gloria...) tend to be way too naive and innocent to be as mean and cynical as others. Patti in the later seasons is far less naive and more and more shrill and bossy.
Subverted with Paolo who is dumb and just as much of a Jerkass as his smart friend Luca.
Enemy Mine: Arch enemies Ilaria and Gaia on a few occasions teamed up against Luca and Paolo.
This is the point of the whole relationship between Luca and De Marinis. They are openly hostile to each other, the former being a "Communist" who claims the director his natural enemy because of their opposite political leanings, but actually they are always making secret agreements and plotting together against the other workers for their own personal profit.
Epic Fail: most characters are prone to this. Mostly noticeable in a sketch beginning with Luca screws up and gets tea instead of coffee; instead of simply throwing it away, he tries to give it to someone else*
Fiery Redhead: Gaia and especially the director's daughter Chiara De Marinis. Totally subverted with Anna (who can be a brunette or a redhead depending on the episode) and Wanda.
Flanderization: Patti, big time. She was already considered a Scrappy (because of her ugliness. Seriously.) and the fact that she Took a Level in Jerkass in season 5 didn't help either.
Also Paolo. In season 1, with all his flaws, he still had a common sense, he was just less book smart than Luca. In later seasons, he was really dumbed down, to the point he never gets the simplest thing and Luca has to explain anything to him multiple times. His idiocy reached its peak in season 4 though, it was a bit toned down in season 5.
Silvano was less of a wimpy doormat in the very first episodes. He was still a Butt Monkey but he was actually able to react to people and in one episode after being insulted by Luca, he loudly yells back at him. In later episodes, apart from very rare Berserk Button moments of unexpected violence, (possibly Crowning Moment of Awesome) he was a total Extreme Doormat.
Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Paolo's sons Brad (foolish) and Jonathan (responsible). Interestingly, in the beginning they are both shown as Enfant Terrible, but at some point, to Paolo's absolute disdain, the oldest son Jonathan started reading, studying and getting good grades. Obviously Paolo is often mad at him because of it and favours little criminal Brad instead.
Funny Background Event: all the time. We often get to see... stuff randomly happening in the background; more often than not, it's likely to involve Andrea and his baseball bat. And some poor guy running away from him.
Genius Ditz: Silvano and how. Yes, he acts like an idiot (TOH-GOH!), he's extremely gullible, childish, naive and he's generally considered the dumbest character in the show. Yet, he's a math genius and excels at everything related to numbers, logic and statistics (his abilities with numbers are supposed to be better than any computer's or calculator's). He also knows everything about the animal world (because of his love for documentaries); he has a degree in economics with the highest score; he's a great chess player, is good at every board game, can solve the Rubik Cube in a few seconds and so on... His main problem is the lack of common sense and social skills.
Gosh Dang It to Heck!: while minor swears are allowed within the show, most of the dialogue borders on this even when characters are particularly pissed. This doesn't mean there aren't rare exceptions.
Hilarity Ensues: the very premise of the series. Everything can happen in front of the coffee vending machine, every character may appear at any given (and least appropriate) moment, and most notably, every plan canwillbackfire.
Hopeless Suitor: Paolo to Gaia (actually to every female character except Patti, but Gaia is his dream girl). Since there's no Gaia in season 5, rigth now he seems very (sexually) attracted to Gloria.
Luca mostly to Emma and Maria Eleonora (and the other girls as well, except Patti of course).
Olmo to Anna.
Psychologist Sergio to Anna as well.
Patti to everyone, but she has to settle with the only one interested, Silvano. Maybe Silvano is the one she really loves but she just desperately wants to have sex with anyone.
Hypocrite: while Luca is a Communist, he doesn't exactly always stick to the ideals and values that Communism would imply.
Jade-Colored Glasses: It seems that the contract requires to wear them constantly.
Jerkass: someone more than others but well, pretty much everyone with Luca, Paolo, De Marinis, Andrea, and Vittorio being the best examples. Also Alex who is a big Jerkass to Luca (she gets better in season 5 though) and Geller, a Magnificent Bastard who genuinely enjoys driving the other people crazy.
Even the supposedly "nice" Patti is evolving into this more and more.
Karma Houdini: it doesn't matter how much of a slut Alex is, she never pays for it. Likewise, anyone who acts as the "villain" of the sketch equally never pays for it.
Definitely Andrea, annoyingly so. Every single character (including Alex, Gaia, De Marinis, even Geller) gets some humiliation or punishment in at least one episode. But there's basically no episode in which Andrea gets any sort of karmik comeuppance for being right-down sadistic and cruel. When it seems like he got screwed, he ends up beating up some Butt Monkey just because he's there. So the audience still remembers he's always the strongest.
Luca and Paolo depending on the episode, although most the time they get the karmik punishments that they deserve (usually thanks to Andrea or Geller).
Ilaria: "You, instead, will just keep working knowing that your colleagues are paying because of you!"
Luca: *beat* "Oh well."
Of course, Andrea is the most triumphant example: while Luca did have his nice moments, Andrea just beats people because they're annoying him.
Large Ham: Luca, the Communist employee in charge of organising strikes, whenever he starts being overly melodramatic. And when he's actually talking about strikes, he starts Chewing the Scenery.
Love Redeems: parodied in the episode "La Bella e la Bestia" ("The Beauty and the Beast") where Andrea, after a one-night stand with Gaia, claims to be madly in love with her and tells Luca and Paolo that he wants to be a better, nicer person just for love. Luca and Paolo obviously take advantage of the situation and start to pick on the new nice Andrea, who doesn't react violently anymore and he's basically become another Silvano. When Gaia arrives, she's seriously disgusted by Andrea being a pathetic doormat and tells him that it was his tough badass attitude what made him appealing. So end of their "love story". Andrea of course immediately went back to his old self and you can imagine what he did to Luca and Paolo.
Nerd: Silvano is a textbook example, while Olmo tends on the Otaku variant.
Nice Guy: Michele Carminati, Paolo's nemesis, is usually a friendly and good-natured person. Also Silvano of course, although his kindness is mostly due to his shy and naive nature. And when he really gets mad can be as violent as Andrea.
Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Andrea, Vittorio and Guido Geller are this in-universe. Also, Silvano: while usually cheerful and naive, when he talks about his mother it can border on disturbing.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Andrea is the all-time master of this, really. You name it - any episode featuring him is bound to end like this, whether you get to see it happening or not.
Odd Friendship: Luca and Paolo. The first time they met they hated each other: now they're best friends.
Patti and Alex. Also Paolo and Patti in the episode "Momento d'intesa".
Only Sane Man: Luca. It can't be otherwise since he's always dealing with Paolo's antics and he and Paolo are 95% (if not more so) of the show.
The female characters (except Patti), whenever they appear in a sketch, are usually this.
Opposites Attract: Luca and Alex. Not that opposites actually: they are both ill-natured, cynical, sarcastic, rebellious and anti-conformist. But there's a big difference: Alex Really Gets Around and Luca is always alone and never gets a girl. Ever.
Another difference is that Luca is a self-proclaimed intellectual Book Worm, Alex...not so much.
Playing Cyrano: Luca played Paolo's Cyrano in an episode to help him to find the right words with Gaia, withouth screwing up. With terrible (and hilarious) results.
The Prankster: Luca and Paolo are a well known duo of troublemakers.
Paolo and Luca's plans, whatever they are, backfiring.
Paolo not being able to properly end a proverb, like: "All's well... [beat] all's well".
Paolo bursting out of the bathroom whenever he hears his name (or not), enthusiastically yelling "TALKIN' 'BOUT ME?!"... usually at the least appropriate moments.
Geller narrating boring and incomprehensible stories about ancient chinese populations, when he wants people to learn a lesson.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: usually provided by Luca when Paolo ruins a plan in a stupid way, but there are many other examples of this trope throughout the series.
The "ultimate joke" seen in one episode ("Il re degli scherzi", that is, "The king of jokes") consists of a wave of coffee flooding the relax area bursting out of the elevator.
One episode parodied The Matrix, quoting lines of dialogue word for word.
Another episode parodied Final Destination, and Patti avoided a scripted death several times (although this ended up causing chaos). She eventually died by the end of the sketch when the vending machine fell on top of her (a rare case of the view moving).
In the episode Ugly Bitta Paolo, forced to wear braces and red glasses after a car accident, is ridiculized and made fun of by the other workers including Patti, Pippo and Wanda because of his "ugliness". At the end of the same episode there's a reference to another American TV show when Paolo (now without braces and glasses) starts dressing and acting like Gregory House.
Sitcom Arch Nemesis: the whole unnamed company has the Digitex Company in the same building; in season 4, with the union of the two companies Paolo sees Digitex worker Michele Carminati as this, who is also his rival in his selling job, but Carminati doesn't hate Paolo back and wants him to join his working team instead.
Gaia and Ilaria are this to each other; also season 4 has Ilaria and Maria Eleonora.
Small Name, Big Ego: Luca defines himself "tall, charismatic, charming, honest, serious, idealist and a cinema expert". Oh well. He's really kind of a cinema expert anyway. About the rest...
Sorry I Fell On Your Fist: When Andrea draws near, you will suffer. And if the sketch isn't over, you will also apologize for bleeding on him.
Spanner in the Works: any stupid character will ruin any plan at the worst moment possible.
Patti in season 5, so much: there are several episodes completely about Patti, her pregnancy and Silvano, in which Luca and Paolo don't even appear and they are supposed to be the main characters!
Status Quo Is God: the trope is generally in full effect, as the only thing remotely resembling a coherent continuity is the change of said status quo between seasons.
However, the trope is acknowledged and sort of deconstructed by Luca in a Season 5 sketch, where Silvano being fired for the nth time invokes in the former an... unusual reaction. Luca spends the whole time of the sketch in front of the coffee vending machine, constantly ranting in Creepy Monotone about how "it's always the same story, nothing ever changes, nothing ever happens", etc. This creeps out De Marinis so much, that he thinks it's another strategy of Luca to help Silvano keeping his job (and it isn't); Silvano then hugs Luca in gratitude, and he replies "You see? Nothing happened". After Luca acknowledged the never-changing status quo, he basically took advantage of it to help Silvano by doing absolutely nothing. At the end of the sketch, Paolo remarks that "You've been there since this morning... I can't see you like this, let's go home". As soon as they leave, the coffee machine falls over. Considering it could have crushed Luca, he snaps out of his depression and says in a surprised voice, "Oh well, so something DOES happen!".
The Stoner: Alex, though we never get to see her stoned.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In season 3 Emma replaced Anna as the director's secretary. They were totally different chararacters though as Emma was nothing more than a boring Replacement Scrappy. After Emma's departure in saeson 5 they introduced the new secretary Gloria who was basically another Anna, the ditzy airhead type of secretary.
Too Dumb to Live: Silvano, Paolo (more in the later seasons) and Gloria.
Took a Level in Jerkass: Patti in season 5. Pregnant Patti is now a histerical, shrill bitch and downright abusive towards Silvano. She's always been the most dominant in their "relationship" but in the most recent episodes she's getting worse and she literally treats him like a dog all the time.
Troperiffic: you've already seen the tropes not related to specific episodes. Keep in mind this is a sketch show. As a consequence, many and brief episodes means many subjects covered, with some episode being based about tropes themselves. You get the picture.
While not at the same level, this is also true for the nameless company. If you are harrassing a colleague of Luca and Paolo, they will get you.
Luca: "That's how you treat your boyfriend?"
Digitex Guy: "I'm not his boyfriend."
Paolo: "And those roses?"
Luca: "Pippo, leave this to us, hunny."
Digitex Guy: "There's a misunderstanding-"
Paolo: "Pippo, did this bastard break your heart?"
Pippo: "YES!"
Paolo: "Then there's no misunderstanding."
*And beating ensues*
The Unfair Sex: if the men are plotting a plan to get to have sex with any of the women, be sure that by the end of the sketch the plan will backfire and the women will react accordingly.
The Unseen: several, mostly related to Paolo, the Anti Role Model. Paolo's family (his wife Valeria and his sons, Brad and Jonathan) and criminal buddies (Pino, the one nicknamed Budello, as well as Maruska the hooker). There's also Lello, along with his restaurant; the President of the company (the first one and the new one after season 3); Silvano's mom and her old next-door neighbour, Mrs Bollini.
Vitriolic Best Buds: Luca and Paolo are a strong Type 2. Although Luca is usually the most vitriolic one.
Silvano seems to consider Luca and Paolo his best friends. Of course they don't treat him like a friend (not even like a human being) as they always take advantage of Silvano and pull on him cruel pranks, but in very very rare occasions, they actually try to help him or give him advice particularly about his relationship with Patti.
Writing Lines: Paolo once screwed with the women, and as a result they forced him to write several times the supposed Aesop on a giant paper sheet that covered the entire floor.
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