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Yeralash, or Eralash (Russian: Ералаш) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) children's comedy TV show and children's comedy magazine. The show has been running from mid 70's to today. Each "episode" is ten minutes long, composed of several shorts (usually three). The show is very popular. Normally, it features children, with problems like school, love, or parents. Often absolutely hilarious. By now, over 200 episodes have come out.

The title song of the series is one of the most recognizable songs in Russia.


Some of the tropes include:

  • Afraid of Needles: Natural and common, with the age of the characters.
  • All Just a Dream: Often while sleeping during the lesson.
  • And I Must Scream: In "Freeze", Dudkin is stuck in one pose while playing bugle, put on a podium and painted to resemble a statue, concious but unable to move or talk. And given the school needed a statue in the hall, he isn't coming down anytime soon...
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Several shorts, like one where a guy is asked by his granny to do some chores, and says (rather rudely) that they'll be done by some famous people (a Russian figure of speech). When he comes home, they are all working (despite being dead).
  • Black Comedy Burst: Although the show has some darker episodes, they often fall into "just plain creepy" category rather than "darkly comedic", and while dark humor isn't overabundant, some shorts are completely innocent for the most part but have become infamous due to a single use of dark humor in them:
  • Breakout Character: Petrov and Vasechkin, known in Russia as stars of their own books and movies, actually debuted in this series.
  • Cosmetic Catastrophe: Done at least twice. One occasion involved the little girl in question scaring off two robbers.
  • Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: The short "Whom to be?" is about a boy's family telling him what they wanted to be in his age, only to hear that he wants to be a gangster (The New Russia in The '90s was that kind of time). Suddenly, the chief gangster of the neighborhood flies through their window, alight after another bomb in his car, and tells the boy "You better dream about being an astronaut".
  • Dirty Kid: The boy in "The Night Watch" uses binoculars to spy on a girl from a neighbouring house as she gets ready for bed, and grows more and more excited as she's removing her clothing...until she pulls down the curtain with a message wishing him good night on it, at which point he just faints.
  • The Dreaded: The english teacher in "Do you speak English?". Everyone runs away when she arrives, and the students are terrified of being interrogated by her, because she gives a 2note  to anyone who doesn't understand English.
  • Ear Ache: The protagonist of the short "Raggamund" gets his ears literally ripped off for ripping another boy's coat. Don't worry, he'll sew them back in their place at home.
  • Escalating War: Two kids start pushing each other... Then they call upon their relatives... Then we have a nuclear war.
  • Everybody Smokes: Many of the kids smoke. One short is about two reporters searching for a student who doesn't. The only one they can find states he quit two weeks ago, and can't go on any longer.
  • Free-Range Children: The amount of independence and self-reliance expected from the children might seem shocking for the foreign (especially US) viewers.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: The aforementioned Ear Ache moment in "Raggamund" is only shown through the sillouhettes of the victim and the executioner.
  • Helping Granny Cross the Street: The show has at least three examples, including those when the kids don't help the granny.
  • Hot for Student: There is a short about a boy who goes to a sorcerer in order to improve the attitude of a female (not too young) teacher who is displeased with his grades. The crush makes her believe she doesn't give him enough attention... how about a few hours of private tutoring every day?
  • Interrogated for Nothing: An episode about a boy first tortured and then shot for refusing to answer how much is 7*8. Turns out he simply didn't know the answer.
  • Interrogation by Vandalism: there is an episode where a few boys come to a girl who refuses to do their homework for them, and punish her by tying her up and starting to cut up her posters of actors and music bands. She actually whimpers as if she's being tortured... until the boys get to one that proves to be a Berserk Button. Then, she breaks free and literally throws them out.
  • Jabba Table Manners: The Princess Who Never Laughed finally laughs after seeing these.
  • Jive Turkey: The first episode plays with it. A boy tries to tell his neighbor about something that happens, with the neighbor apparently not understanding due to the slang. Then the neighbor turns the table by taking a few lines by Nikolai Gogol and retelling them in the same slang
  • Laser-Guided Karma: It's common for characters to end up falling victim to their own schemes.
    • In the sketch "Freeze" the protagonist messes with everyone by telling them to "freeze", leading to them getting in trouble when they do. In the final scene, a schoolgirl tells him to "freeze" while playing bugle and uses him to replace a missing statue.
  • Lots of Luggage: One of the shorts has a boy going on a trip with a friend of his. The friend said to only take the most necessary things. See the result.
  • Megaphone Gag: One episode had a guy shout instruction at people mounting a poster upon the side of a building. At the end, a boy comes and points out the guy has a loudspeaker on his belt... so the guy turns it on and shouts "shut up!" at the boy.
  • Miles Gloriosus: The short "Tough Guys" has a biker gang stopped by an old man with a goat barely up to his knees, who tells them "pay up, or we'll headbutt you all". They pay up, the man leaves, and then one of the guys says "Do you know why we weren't headbutted? Because we're a GANG!"
  • Mismeasurement: In the Measure Seven Times short, a schoolboy takes the proverb "measure 7 times, cut once" too literally and makes a stool 7 times larger.note 
  • Negative Continuity: The events of the shorts have no bearing on each other, each serving as a blank point, although the show does have a few recurring characters, such as Father Frost and Petrov and Vasechkin.
  • Nobody Here but Us Statues:
    • In "Mannequin", a girl working at the store accidentally breaks a mannequin and convinces a boy to stand in its place until she gets a new one. He doesn't exactly do his best to stand still and freaks an older shop assistant out.
    • In "Museum", a girl and her grandfather observe wax figures of various famous people, until they come across one of a boy labeled "Vova Kopeikin". When they ask what he is famous for, it turns out to be sneaking into the exhibit and posing as part of it at least 7 times.
  • Offscreen Inertia: Multiple characters in "Freeze" are forced to stand (or sit) still when they're told to "freeze", and not a single one of them is seen moving afterwards.
  • Operation: Jealousy: Girl grabs one random boy off the street and ask him to accompany her to her house. While hugging and kissing in front of her bully boyfriend to make him jealous. Once they come in, boy asks how is he supposed to come back home with bully sitting outside very angry. Girl disguises him as a girl and tells him to come back that way. Once the boy comes out, bully seeing how his girlfriend is looking down from the balcony, wants to take revenge, grabs the poor boy thinking he's a random girl and does the same strutting and hugging procedure. So he got involved in two operations "Jealousy" from both sides.
  • The Paralyzer: "Freeze-Frame" features a camera that completely immobilizes anyone it takes a photo of, to the point where said person not only can't move, by can't be moved by others. And given that the boy who found it uses it on other kids for this exact purpose, you don't have to be a genius to figure out what happens to him.
  • Puppy Love: All the time.
  • Refugee from TV Land: One of the shorts is about a bicyclist from a school mathematics textbook forcing two kids to finally solve the problem involving him.
  • Relative Error
  • Saw a Woman in Half: In the episode “Illusioner”, a kid does this to his teacher. When he puts her back together, despite the other students’ objections, she intends to return the favour with a chainsaw...Luckily, it was All Just a Dream.
  • Skinny Dipping: Done by the protagonist in "The Naked Truth", with predictable results.
  • Standard Hero Reward: The Princess Who Never Laughed.
  • Take That!: "Alina-Malina" is one towards modern bloggers. The titular girl has a hundred thousand YouTube subscribers, her videos have her lying about her lifestyle and mocking her teacher for rightfully caling out her behaviour. She is taken to the principal, who is also a blogger, but rather unpopular, and makes fun of his students' work on video. And of course, instead of disciplining Alina, the principal decides to make a collab with her to raise his views.
  • Wax Museum Morgue: "Freeze" features an interesting variation, as the protagonist isn't killed, but rather forced to stand still as he's painted white and put on display to replace a missing statue. On the other hand, nobody seems in a hurry to let him go...

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