The Tropey Pestwall Universe

Yes, Zoran Yu! He played aspiring doctor and devoted brother Maury Ng. God, he needed a hug.

He was one of the best characters in the show’s early years, before Yu decided to try to make it big in America and get written off the show mean-spiritedly He went on to co-star on the show The Meds. And it’s definitely a connection, because that’s just Maury.

Sure his name was now Zhang and he had a bizarre British-Transatlantic accent, but it was Maury. Same dedication, same tragic sister, same romance. I believe the fan theories that he faked his death.

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Sep 29th 2023 at 6:06:24 AM

Well, I won’t include it.

What’s The Meds, and did it do any other crossovers?

Edited by AlmightyTallestSmall on Sep 29th 2023 at 5:07:33 AM

More or less a Foreign Remake of Excellence with more a focus on the day-to-day jobs the students had. Didn’t last long because Fox but it’s gotten a bit of a cult following mostly cause of all the early talent it brought on.

It had a real Love to Hate relationship with St. Tropesius, with an entire episode dedicated to mocking its ending. Because of Yu, they got the entire cast to cameo in it at various points. It may or may not be canon, cause no one’s ever confirmed.

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Sep 29th 2023 at 6:15:26 AM

Did Excellence & Zeal get any other crossovers?

How about The Meds?

If not, what other show was on that Comic Relief album?

Edited by AlmightyTallestSmall on Sep 29th 2023 at 5:55:18 AM

I haven’t watched much of Excellence and Zeal, but I still remembers this on publicity stunt during it’s first season. To boost ratings for the at first stagnant show, they crossed-over with Ida’s World, a CBS sitcom of all things. Ida (played by Jessica Ash) was an up-and-comer fresh out of college to teach the freshmen she knew back in high school, while dealing with her stern principal father. Since it was a co-production between US and UK, Ida went onto Excellence (for an “exchange trip”) and they brought star Tony Horton onto Ida as a guest.

The weird thing though is there was no contact between either of the writers’ room, so both characters ended up hugely O.O.C.. Ida was way less goofy while Anthony was turned into a full Disney Channel character.

Can you tell me more about Ida’s World?

I had a look on a blog that went through an Excellence phase (it's a humbling experience to get obsessed with a 20-odd-year-old show that your followers don't care about lol) and they reposted a 2006 forum thread from an old fansite. One of the show's writers, Emily Binham, shared a script for a crossover episode that never got made; the show was cancelled before it could exit pre-production.

It was intended as a Breather Episode from a season-long story arc. It involved Edd Pope and his band Pegasos going on a trip to Australia for the summer holidays. They ended up competing in an epic Battle Of The Bands with Fletcher And The Firehearts from the show of the same name. (Despite Pope's lack of rapping ability, he's an awesome drummer!) According to Binham, she had the idea during a family holiday to Sydney, and the crew were excited to finally get it made, but it wasn't to be.

Edited by Riolugirl on Sep 30th 2023 at 10:28:47 AM

That’s a shame.

What’s Fletcher and the Firehearts, and did it have any more crossovers?

It was about a quartet of twenty-somethings (Neil, Ken, Darcy and Fletch), who all came from different backgrounds in Australia, but who were brought together to live in Brisbane and become the next big pop act on Australian Idol. And although they may not always get each other’s feelings, they’ll still try to be brothers in arms.

It was a mid-oughts comedy in the vein of The Monkees, being both a sitcom and music show. The Firehearts actually spawned several top 20 hits. And even though it never made much waves outside of Australia, I heard it was huge on Nine Network and the talking point of many-a-blogs.

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Sep 30th 2023 at 9:56:03 AM

Any other crossovers?

I remember the the Firehearts made an cameo in a series about an animatronic band trying to become popular again by going on a reunion tour in the modern age, the show is called "Willb E.'s Animatron-zing Band: Reunion Tour", the band consisted of three members, Willb E, the main guy of the band, Dave Dingo, the drummer of the band, and Renelle the Fox, the token-female of the band, it was a comedic show and it had a cult following with animatronic fans.

As for the cameo, they appear along with other bands from other TV shows too in the big finale concert episode, before the scene where Will B.'s Animatron-Zing Band do their big finale tour, the band appears as Dave Dingo tells that their great, and Neil says that him and his friends have fun performing too as Will B. and his band go on stage.

Wait, I just remembered something...

There was this weird teen romcom from 2005 in which Michael Dane's daughter Ashlee (19 at the time, and before she proved she really can act) played the female lead, Cassie Quinn. She had a photo frame in her room of Michael Dane in his Angus P.D. era. It's a minor meme that Angus P.D. and the movie exist in the same universe, and given the crossovers I wouldn't be surprised.

What the frick was it called, though?

I don’t know.

Anyways, what other bands appeared in the Willb E. Finale?

Yeah Riolu I know what you're talking about, Ms. Stork! My sister loved it when she was younger. Ashlee Dane was an introverted high-school senior who to get close to her crush and all the other cute boys pretended to get pregnant overnight. Despite the subject matter, it was pretty light and had all the trappings of rom-coms then. It even had a Alpha Bitch bully played by punkpop idol Kathy.

Jessica Ash was the mom in that too, during her career slump. It was pretty weird seeing her play a parent barely older than her daughter.

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Sep 30th 2023 at 12:07:51 PM

What other bands appeared in the Willb E. Finale, if anyone remembers?

One of the highlights of that finale was the Layton Buzzard reunion performance. The trio had split up the last time we saw them in Season 3 of The Tryhards, but they were back like they never left!

Their performance was very well-received overall, and introduced their source material to a new audience.

Also, what happened about the master document?

Edited by Riolugirl on Oct 2nd 2023 at 9:43:48 AM

Yeah, I remember watching The Tryhards when it first aired back in the day. For what started as a weird story arc in some bad Marlin Peters sitcom, it really blossomed and by the end of the season stole the show. Little me had a bit of a crush on the drummer Barry.

I was ecstatic when they actually started playing as a real band. But that whole incident with their real-life bassist, and the show forcing in drama and tensions really broke the band. I’m glad they’re as popular as they were back then.

Coincidentally Layton Buzzard also made some appearances on Ida’s World and the premiere of Silver Pistol.

bump

When did The Tryhards air?

I’d say it aired from around 1993-97, but they didn’t introduce the band until the second season.

Fun fact about Layton Buzzard though. Their name is a reference to an old dumb Spy Fiction series from the 60s: it was the title character’s name in The Eagle Has Landed. That show had the breakout role of Jimmy Williams (as Layton’s sidekick), who would go onto play a big role in Tropesisus.

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Oct 3rd 2023 at 9:22:04 AM

Wasn't Buzzard himself also named after a senior crew member's hometown of Leighton Buzzard? I think I saw in an interview that it was a placeholder name that ended up sticking.

Now, IIRC, there was a one-off mini tournament on University Challenge in August 2001 where teams of actors representing TV student bodies competed for their team's nominated charity. The team representing Excellence consisted of Lee Blyton (Edd Pope), Jason Twells (Andy Bye, two months before the character was killed off), their captain Steph Albertson (Gina Clements) and Danny Okoro (Mike Goring, the newest member of the cast at the time of recording).

The Excellence team won their first match against the cast of Common Room by 105 points to 75. They had a shaky start, with Blyton landing them at -5 early in the contest for an incorrect interruption, but ultimately they pulled off the win. Blyton recovered some of his dignity by being a big help in the music round, Twells proved what he meant in interviews about being a "country flag nerd", Albertson's love of 80s sci-fi proved useful, and Okoro had considerable knowledge of animal biology!

Ultimately, though, they lost the tournament to the winners of the other match. (Don't remember who their opponents were though.)

Later that year, Excellence's one-off, non-canon crossover Christmas Special had Gina form a rivals-to-friends bond with Emmie from Common Room. The two shows had Friendly Fandoms ever since, and Emmina is a popular Crossover Ship.

As far I remember, the team Excellence lost to were an obscure show called Queens And Princes, which only ran during 2001.

A show that had a very similar style to The Golden Girls, and was about this group of wine moms heading back to college to escape their lives and hang out with their embarrassed adult sons. It wasn't very good, and was mostly pushed by Channel 5 because it had nothing else to air. I've heard rumours that they wanted to start the next season with a Very Special Episode about one of the sons almost getting into a bus crash on campus, before…y'know.

Nowadays it’s only remembered for having Marybeth Stevens in it and it’s weird crossover.