History Main / SpiesInAVan

** In "Servant With Two Masters", Bodie has to follow his boss Cowley around without him noticing, so he uses a minivan that looks different from the usual fast cars he likes to drive. It comes in handy when he later has to stash a BoundAndGagged minion in the back.

** In "Servant With Two Masters", Bodie has to follow his boss Cowley around without him noticing, so he uses a minivan that looks different from the usual fast cars he likes to drive.

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. [=CI5=] have a red "buggy-boo" that they use for wire-tapping (in the episode "Blood Sports" it's manned by a young Creator/PierceBrosnan). In TheSeventies tinted windows were used by rock stars rather than van drivers, so for straight surveillance [=CI5=] are more likely to use their own vehicles or a nearby apartment or rooftop.

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. [=CI5=] have a red "buggy-boo" that they use for wire-tapping. Given that it's TheSeventies tinted windows would seen unusual on a van, so for straight surveillance they're more likely to use their own vehicles or a nearby apartment or rooftop.

* ''Film/BestSeller'' (1987) opens with a long sequence of the robbers driving through the streets of Los Angeles in a black van. However they're not trying to be inconspicuous at all, [[HiddenInPlainSight as the van is fitted with loudspeakers broadcasting political slogans]].

* ''Series/TheBoys2019''. In "Get Some", Billy Butcher hires a cheap Pack-N-Go truck for their surveillance, commenting that a VanInBlack with flowers on the side would be far more conspicuous. This becomes a BrickJoke in the season final when Butcher sees a black florists van parked outside the hotel they're staying at, and drives past without stopping because he realises the rest of the Boys have been captured.

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. [=CI5=] have a red "buggy-boo" that they use for wire-tapping. Given that it's TheSeventies tinted windows would seen unusual, so for straight surveillance they're more likely to use their own vehicles or a nearby apartment or rooftop.

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. [=CI5=] have a red "buggy-boo" that they use for wire-tapping. Given the era it doesn't have tinted windows, so for straight surveillance they're more likely to use their own vehicles or a nearby apartment or rooftop.

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. [=CI5=] have a red "buggy-boo" that they use for wire-tapping.

* ''Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E4BartTheMurderer'' has Marge comment about it taking two hours to deliver a pizza, which is overheard and causes the van to flee. A minute later, another causal van arrives, '''F'''lowers '''B'''y '''I'''rene.

First, we'll need some spies. They can be highly skilled detectives or bumbling idiots. What we're looking for is the ability to further the plot or provide comedy relief as required by the writers. The spies will work for the organization. Most often, it's a slightly corrupt but well-intentioned {{AntiHero}}ic GovernmentAgencyOfFiction that uses this tactic, but the BigBad will often have these too. Sometimes it's operated by a much smaller organization, such as a private detective or a pair of crooks planning TheCaper.

* ''Series/TheWire'' does this a lot, both by the cops and by Omar (a stick-up artist - he only uses a ''van'' in season one and briefly in season four, though). Featuring such antics as Detective Sydnor complaining that the van is full of Detective Carver's empties, and the fact that Carver is eating such a variety of junk food while on stakeout outside a mini-mart, Omar looking out the van window and watching for hints of where the stash-house is (and Bailey taking notes based on what Omar observed, on a sheet of notebook paper on which they were clearly playing hangman before), Omar and Renaldo watching a convenience store they suspect is a drug front, and getting distracted watching Detective Kima Greggs watching the same convenience store from her own vehicle, and so on. And though no one's actually in it, season 2 features a subplot where the Stevedores Union steals the valuable surveillance van from Commander Valcheck as part of their [[EscalatingWar series of petty revenges on each other]] and begin shipping it around the world, sending Valcheck taunting photos of it from each new location, which continues even after [[spoiler:Sobotka is killed]].

* ''Series/TheBoys2019''. In "Get Some", Billy Butcher hires a cheap Pack-N-Go truck for their surveillance, commenting that a VanInBlack with flowers on the side would be far more conspicuous. This becomes a BrickJoke in the season final when Butcher sees a black florists van parked outside the hotel they're staying at, and drives past without stopping because he realises the rest of the Boys have been captured.

[[folder: Web Original ]]

* When Battlecat and Minx (Battlecat's daughter) of the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'' weren't hanging around rooftops [[TheStakeout staking out a wanted criminal]], they were usually parked in Battlecat's CoolCar staking out a wanted criminal. While their rooftop stakeouts always ended in discussions about Minx's current boyfriend, the car stake-outs would always end up being about Battlecat's still being in love with Minx's mother some five years after the divorce (and after his ex-wife remarried).
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[[folder: Western Animation ]]
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* In''Series/HoneyWest'', Honey and her partner Sam Bolt drive around in a surveillance van with "H. W. Bolt, TV Repairing" written on the side.
* A sketch on ''[[Creator/BillBailey Is It Bill Bailey?]]'' involves two cops surveilling a couple of criminals
meeting for a drugs buy using this method and a hidden wire. Unfortunately for the cops, the two criminals get distracted by a burgeoning friendship based on their mutual ridiculous interests, and they get so caught up in spending hours discussing fatuous nonsense that eventually the cops have to knock on their door and ''beg'' them to shut up.

* A sketch on ''[[Creator/BillBailey Is It Bill Bailey?]]'' involves two cops surveilling a couple of criminals meeting for a drugs buy using this method and a hidden wire. Unfortunately for the cops, the two criminals get distracted by a burgeoning friendship based on their mutual ridiculous interests, and they get so caught up in spending hours discussing fatuous nonsense that eventually the cops have to knock on their door and ''beg'' them to shut up.