The Flamin' Thongs is an Australian children's animated television series. The series follows the plans of the dysfunctional Thong Family, as they try to put Whale Bay on the map. The family consists of parents Trevor and Brenda, their 12-year-old son Holden and 14-year-old daughter Narelle. Holden's best friend, Rerp, is a cane toad in a school uniform.
Tropes include:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Grounded for laziness in "Nobody Likes a Smarthouse", Holden turns the Thongs’ home into a remote-controlled smart house. But now the house is too smart and tries to eliminate the Thongs! When it sprouts legs, Holden must shut it down before it leaves town.
- All Animals Are Dogs: Holden starts training a diprotodon (a giant prehistoric wombat). He teaches it basic dog tricks like sit, fetch, roll over, etc., all of which Womby happily learns.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In "A Fright at the Opera", using an alien shrinking-and-enlarging device that falls from the sky, Holden enlarges a seashell to be the Whale Bay Opera House. He forgets to check it’s empty and an enlarged, enraged crustacean creates operatic havoc.
- The Bogan: The Thong Family embody just about every negative Australian stereotype.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": When Rerp gains superpowers and becomes Holden's arch-nemesis, he dons a costume with a big 'R' on the front of it.
- Bungling Inventor: Holden. When his inventions work at all, it tends to be a case of Gone Horribly Right.
- Did You Get a New Haircut?: When Brenda starts turning into a were-koala, Trevor notices something different about her and asks if she's done something with her hair.
- Dream Land: In "Planet of the Rerps", the Thongs test drive Holden’s latest invention, a machine that creates dreams. The machine malfunctions and they all end up in Rerp’s dream, dodging jumbo blowflies and becoming enslaved to King Rerpses III.
- Drill Tank: When Trevor decides that Whale Bay needs a crosstown tunnel, Holden builds a burrowing machine by attaching a giant propeller to the front of Brenda's car. Amazingly, this one works perfectly: unlike most of Holden's inventions.
- Freeze Ray: In "Freeze a Crowd", Holden builds a nuclear-powered air-conditioner to combat Whale Bay’s hottest day ever. When he’s unable to turn it off and they can’t get out of the house, the Thongs face freezing then thawing out in the Whale Bay of the future.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Most of Holden's inventions. He created a wormhole generator by placing a worm and a doughnut in a cement mixer and spinning the mixer at the speed of light, thereby fusing the worm and the doughnut into one entity. This somehow succeeded in creating a wormhole.
- Land Downunder: So, so Australian.
- Meat-O-Vision: When Narelle is attempting to paddle to Switzerland, she hallucinates a whale as a giant ice cream cone.
- One-Word Vocabulary: Rerp's entire vocabulary consists one word: "Rerp". Nevertheless, Holden seems to understand him. Lampshaded is "Jurassic Dork" when Holden asks Rerp what he should name his new pet diprotodon. Rerp replies "rerp", and Holden considers that for few seconds before deciding two pets named "Rerp" would be too confusing.
- Only Sane Man: Brenda is this.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: When Holden makes a koala angry in "Curse of the Were-Bear", it bites Brenda and Kevin and they both turn ‘part koala’! Soon, most people in town are koala-were-bears, and Narelle and Holden have to smash a cursed crystal to turn them back into humans.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: Holden creates a wormhole by placing a worm and a doughnut in a cement mixer and spinning it at the speed of light. Needless to say, It Runs on Nonsensoleum.
- Radiation-Induced Superpowers: Holden gains temporary insect-based superpowers from eating radioactive cockroaches in "Cockroach Boy".
- Reaching Between the Lines: In "Jurassic Dork", not only is Kevin's allergy triggered by wombat hair at Narelle's end of the phone, his resulting sneeze drenches Narelle through the mobile phone.
- Runaway Train: In "Train in Vain", Holden builds a rail system to avoid having to walk to school, but half-way through its maiden voyage, he remembers he forgot to build stops. When the brakes don’t work, the train just gets faster and no one can get off!
- Small Town Boredom: 14-year-old Narelle considers Whale Bay to be the most boring place on earth and desperately wishes she could move to 'the big smoke'. This is despite the chaos her family wreaks on the town every episode.
- Summon Bigger Fish: After accidentally summoning the alien Kevins - who plan To Serve Man - to Earth, the Thongs solve the problem by summoning another alien race who eat Kevins.
- Thing-O-Matic/Advanced Tech 2000: All of Holden's inventions are named "the <something>-o-matic 2000".
- To Serve Man: When the alien Kevins from the planet Kevin intercept the radio broadcast inviting them to the barbecue to celebrate the opening of Radio Whale bay, they arrive intending to eat the Thongs as the main course, and feed them stuffing to fatten them up.
