Bad Man in the mansion with some kids.
Pay attention, it's Maths Mansion
The game show where you get to test your maths ability!
Feel the tension, in Maths Mansion
Let's see how good at learning maths these kids are gonna be!
If they want out, then they must earn it
There's no leaving, 'till they learn it!
The only way of getting out is mathematically! (Evil Laugh)
— Opening theme
Maths Mansion is a British math Edutainment Show that lasted 4 seasons from 2001 to 2003 with 40 episodes in total.
Bad Man locks a group of kids inside Maths Mansion. The kids have to solve math questions correctly and earn Maths Cards. When they earn enough Maths Cards, they are allowed to leave the mansion and go home.
Sad Man regularly interrupts the show to happily sing and play math games with his puppets, and Bad Man tries to get the viewers to look away from Sad Man. Bad Man also leaves the mansion to ask people on the street to solve math problems.
"No more Wikipedia, it's TV Tropes time!":
- Alliterative Title: Maths Mansion.
- A Dog Named "Dog": A mole named Decimole.
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Bad Man asks the audience a math question in the last scene of each episode.
- Arc Words: "No leaving without learning" is repeated throughout the show. It means that the kids can't leave the mansion until they've solved enough problems to escape.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Bad Man is pretty honest about being a villain. He puts it right in his name.
- Child Hater: Bad Man treats the contestants and the children in the Real Life segment harsher than he treats the adults.
- Dramatic Thunder: A thunderous underline is used at the end of the opening to show how sinister Bad Man is.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Two batches of kids have to learn for 20 episodes (due to failing to get the required cards for the first season) to get free from Maths Mansion.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first episode has the kids lined up beside the chairs with Bad Man choosing two of the six contestants to challenge. After that episode, the selection process is never shown again.
- Evil Laugh: The theme song ends with one of these.
- Expository Theme Tune: The theme song explains that the kids are locked in the mansion and have to escape by solving math questions.
- Extreme Omnivore: The Decimole eats everything he can eat, including Sad Man and Bad Man in the finale for fun.
- Foil: Sad Man's happy and he tries to make his lessons bright and fun. Bad Man's dark and he's more focused on getting the kids to work.
- Hostile Show Takeover: Sad Man always interrupts the show with his overly-cheerful skits about math. This always annoys Bad Man.
- Just in Time: The kids might finish their tests right before the time is up.
- Large Ham: Sad Man and Bad Man.
- Later-Installment Weirdness: Given that the fourth season is its last, the last three episodes have the contestants get involved with the connection between Bad Man and Sad Man.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "Not the Great Big Hen", Bad Man asks a woman to do math and he says it would be cool if she was on TV.
- Non-Indicative Name: Sad Man isn't sad. He's actually pretty happy and joyful.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: TV static is used whenever the show switches from Sad Man to Bad Man or vice versa.
- Open-Door Opening: In the intro, Bad Man opens the gates to Maths Mansion and brings the kids inside.
- The Place: Maths Mansion is named after the mansion that the show takes place in.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: There's an episode titled "The X and Y Files".
- Portmanteau: "Decimole" is a portmanteau of "decimal" and "mole".
- Sequel Reset: Every season has 10 episodes. After each season, the contestants have to start from scratch and collect the maths cards to escape again.
- Series Mascot: The Decimole is highly associated with the series.
- The Stinger: Many episodes include funny scenes with Sad Man after the credits. In The Stinger for the final episode, Decimole decides to eat Bad Man.
- Title Theme Drop: In "Not the Great Big Hen", Bad Man asks if the kids will do well in Maths Mansion. This causes the last few seconds of the theme song to play while images of the mansion are shown on-screen. It's a downplayed example since it's only a few seconds of the theme song.
