History Series / TheFerals

After it was cancelled, it spawned a successor series: ''Series/FeralTV''. When this in turn was cancelled, Mixy became a host for the [[Creator/TheABC ABC Kids]] programming block for some time, while Modigliana would become the puppet cohost of ''Creature Features''. Before that Rattus and Modi both starred in a recurring segment on the edutainment show ''Numbers Count''.

** In one of the darkest examples to ever feature on children's television, Mixy, from Myxomatosis. [[note]]A lupine disease used to cull feral rabbits in Australia, and something you may know as the nightmarish "white blindness" from ''Literature/WatershipDown''.[[/note]] Doubles as ParentalBonus, considering almost no-one in the target audience would have understood the joke [[AwfulTruth and when they did...]]

* PunnyName: In one of the darkest examples to ever feature on children's television, Mixy, from Myxomatosis. [[note]]A lupine disease used to cull feral rabbits in Australia, and something you may know as the nightmarish "white blindness" from ''Literature/WatershipDown''.[[/note]] Doubles as ParentalBonus, considering almost no-one in the target audience would have understood the joke [[AwfulTruth and when they did...]]

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: The Ferals spend the majority of their time insulting and beating up each other ...but even Rattus breaks down when the gang temporarily believes they'll have to go their seperate ways.
* BatmanGambit: In one April Fools episode, Rattus claims that he's not going to bother joining the other Ferals in their usual prank celebration. After a long and complex array of events, Joe is frantically scrambling to try and get the place back in order in preparation for the "Honorable Society of the Musk Oxen", the latest snobby, uppercrust club he's tried to join... and [[spoiler: the club turns out to have been made up entirely by Rattus,]] meaning every last humiliation and panic attack Joe has gone through all day, as well as all the humiliations suffered by the Ferals as they tried to prove they could pull off a prank [[spoiler: without Rattus, is ultimately the climax of one big prank.]] Then when it's pointed out that [[spoiler: pulling this reveal just after midnight so as not to violate his "prank insurance" means Rattus' prank isn't "square" because it's no longer April Fool's Day, Rattus reveals he turned all of the local clocks forward by one day -- so it's only just ''turned'' April Fools'!]]

* ChristmasEpisode: One that hilariously deconstructs a lot of the usual tropes. [[spoiler: The Ferals try to help Joe out, but that's only because they want in on his Christmas dinner. Their efforts in doing so fail so spectacularly that they break Lenny's camcorder and the results end up on 'Australia's Worst Home Videos' (and even then it's because it was the only entry). The Ferals celebrate anyway because they now have a huge sack of presents, but unlike most Christmas stories where everyone would come together and share, the episode ends with everyone fighting over the prizes.]]

* DarkAndTroubledPast: The Ferals annual reveals this about Mixie. [[spoiler: She was initially bought as a present for a [[EnfantTerrible bratty kid]] who clearly didn't want her. Her owners neglected her (including leaving her in a mountain of her own poop). Eventually the [[SarcasmMode delightful family]] ditched her at an animal testing facility where the other Ferals found her being dipped into experimental chemicals, perhaps explaining why she's pink.]]

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
* GrandFinale: [[spoiler: The shed and flat are destroyed so the Ferals go underground and Lenny and Robbie move out, leaving Joe alone and ruined.]]

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: Frequently one or all the Ferals will turn to the camera and say "Uh Oh..." when they realize something bad is about to happen. But the crown jewel would have to be when Derryn follows it up with an AsideComment [[spoiler: while [[GoThroughMe standing between the shed and an oncoming wrecking ball]] in the Grand finale.]]

* TrashTheSet: [[spoiler: The finale sees the Shed and the human's flats demolished. Joe first ordering the demolition of the shed and Robbie and Leonard's flat out of greed, then the Ferals taking out Joe's flat as payback.]]

* WhamEpisode: In the season two premiere "A Change is as good as Holiday", [[spoiler: a series of accidents leads to the destruction of Robbie and Leonard's flat. The flat remains wrecked for the rest of the series.]]
* WhyAmITicking: "Ratty Ratty Bang Bang" has the cast believe Rattus has swallowed a bomb buried in a pile of cakes he had Derryn steal from Joe. Subverted as [[spoiler: the ticking turns out to be Joe's watch, which had been left beside the cakes, only for Derryn to find the real bomb seconds later.]]

* {{Slapstick}}: The humans aren't safe either.
** SlapstickKnowsNoGender: Neither are Moddi and Mixy, for that matter.

* RealisticHumansCartoonyAnimals: The human cast is played by actual people while the animals are played by puppets.

* PunnyName: In one of the darkest examples to ever feature on children's television, Mixy, from Myxomatosis. [[note]]A lupine disease used to cull feral rabbits in Australia, and something you may know of as the nightmarish "white blindness" from ''Literature/WatershipDown''.[[/note]] Doubles as ParentalBonus, considering almost no-one in the target audience would have understood the joke [[AwfulTruth and when they did...]]

* PunnyName: In what is one of the most dark examples to ever feature on children's television, Mixy, from Myxomatosis. [[note]]A lupine disease used to cull feral rabbits in Australia, and something you may know of as the nightmarish "white blindness" from ''Literature/WatershipDown''.[[/note]] Doubles as ParentalBonus, considering almost no-one in the target audience would have understood the joke [[AwfulTruth and when they did...]]

''The Ferals'' was a television series created and broadcast in Australia for 1994 through to 1995. The series was set in a nameless town somewhere in the Australian suburbs and focused on a specific house being rented by two university students, the eccentric yet affable Leonard (a science student), and the simultaneously more and less grounded Robbie (a medical student and a girl, despite the name). The show revolved around the interactions between the two students, their landlord Joe, and the focus of the show, the motley crew of four noxious animals living in their shed -- Rattus P. Rattus (a black rat), Modigliana (a feral cat), Mixy (a rabbit) and Derryn (a feral dog).

After it was cancelled, it spawned a successor series: ''Series/FeralTV''. When this in turn was cancelled, Mixy would become a host for the [[Creator/TheABC ABC Kids]] programming block for some time, while Modigliana would become the puppet cohost of ''Creature Features''. Before that Rattus and Modi both stared in a recurring segment on the edutainment show ''Numbers Count''.

* AllThereInTheManual: The Ferals annual revealed a backstory for each member of the gang and showed how they all came to meet.
* AmusingInjuries: All the time, of note was the episode where Rattus keeps getting injured as he attempts to go to the moon, until finally he's on crutches for the final act.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Mixy is generally the least offensive of the Ferals, but when she wants, she can be just as bad as any of them. Modigliana liked to pass herself off as a prima donna, but was one of the nastiest of the group, and a frighteningly skilled brawler when she got her temper up.
* BlackComedy: One of the reasons the show was fondly remembered was because of its macabre stance towards humor. Mixy's name, for example, is admittedly derived from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis Myxomatosis]].

* {{Catchphrase}}: "Gonna get ya"!

* ComedicSociopathy: The first episode begins with Rattus and Moddy smacking each other out through the shed window, only to run back inside and do it to the other. This is not an isolated incident.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: The Ferals annual reveals this about Mixie. [[spoiler: She was initially bought as a present for a [[EnfantTerrible bratty kid]] who clearly didn't want her. Her owners neglected her (including leaving her in a mountain of her own poop). Eventually the [[SarcasmMode delightful family]] ditch her at an animal testing facility where the other Ferals find her being dipped into experimental chemicals, perhaps explaining why she's pink.]]

* EasyAmnesia: One episode had Mixy lose her memory after the gang sent her out to bury what they thought were gold coins; Mixy only learnt while she was out that they were actually chocolate coins. After Robbie leaves Derryn in charge of Mixy's care, she regains her memory when Derryn tests something he saw on TV and hits her over the head again.
* FluffyCloudHeaven: Modigliana has a fantasy of one when she thinks she's dying, complete with Rattus as a fan bearer. Who insists that, "This isn't cat heaven, this is ''rat hell!''"
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: It is made repeatedly clear that the main reason anyone tolerates Joe is that he is their landlord; the Ferals each have their moments where at least one of them annoys the others, but Joe is the one most regularly the victim of the events that befall the group because his arrogance lands him in trouble and nobody cares enough to help him.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: In "School's Out", Joe attempts to get the Ferals forced to go to school by sending a letter to the education commissioner revealing their lack of an education. However, when the Ferals are forced to sit an exam to determine their fate, Leonard and Robbie agree to help the Ferals cheat on the test as they were sitting the exam on very short notice and had been genuinely trying to improve, while Joe was forced to sit the exam himself because the letter he sent had such atrocious spelling and penmanship. As a result, the Ferals all pass the test with flying colours while Joe is faced with being sent back to school ''himself'' because he failed the test.
* IdeaBulb: Often. Derryn once had an [[TheDitz Idea Candle]] and Lenny had an advanced ceiling Light Bulb.

* JerkAss: Joe, the landlord; greedy, narcisstic, self-absorbed and desperate to get more power.
** Rattus and Moddy as well.
* MadScientist: Leonard, or "Lenny", seems to be studying to be this. The house is full of his weird inventions, with one episode revolving around his attempt to build a robotic helper, which Joe promptly tries to market without Lenny's permission, and another revolving around a matter cloning machine he'd created accidentally while trying to create a printer that wouldn't jam.

* PetTheDog: The Ferals are not nice or good people but they clearly have a soft spot for Robbie and help her out from time to time. This includes them allowing her to cat-scan them for a university project and encouraging her to ask out the sexy dentist she's attracted to. In ''Prime Suspect'', when Mixy claims to have witnessed Robbie murder Joe (actually just part of Robbie's rehearsal for a play), the other Ferals are shocked that she would even think she was capable of such a thing.
* PunnyName: In what is one of the most dark examples to ever feature on children's television, Mixy, from Myxomatosis. Doubles as ParentalBonus, considering almost no-one in the target audience would have understood the joke ([[AwfulTruth and when they did...]])
* RealisticHumansCartoonyAnimals: The humans are played by actual people while the animals are played by puppets.
* TheScrooge: During the period when he thought he'd won a million dollars, Joe clearly came across as one, willing to spend thousands on an expensive car for himself but becoming outraged when he found that Lennie had thrown away a near-empty tube of toothpaste as 'wasting money'.
* SilkHidingSteel: Mixy is generally the most reasonable and sweet-tempered of the gang, yet quite capable of bullying the others into following her lead when she felt inclined to stand up for herself.
* {{Slapstick}}: The humans weren't safe either.
** SlapstickKnowsNoGender: Neither were Modi and Mixy, for that matter.

--> '''Rattus''' (While holding a cricket bat): I spy with my little eye... [[SchmuckBait somethin' ending in "Ow!"...]]

* {{Tomboy}}: Robbie (as if the name doesn't give her away), who was constantly getting into weird hobbies.
* TrashTheSet: [[spoiler: The finale sees the Shed and the human's flats demolished. Joe first ordering the demolition of the shed and Robbie and Lenard's flat out of greed then the Ferals take out Joe's flat as payback.]]

* WhamEpisode: In the season two premiere ''A Change is as good as Hoilday'', [[spoiler: a series of accidents leads to the destruction of Robbie and Lenard's flat. The flat remains wrecked for the rest of the series.]]
* WhyAmITicking: ''Ratty Ratty Bang Bang'' has the cast believe Rattus has swallowed a bomb buried in a pile of cakes he had Derryn steal from Joe. Subverted as [[spoiler: the ticking turns out to be Joe's watch, which had been left beside the cakes, only for Derryn to find the real bomb seconds later.]]

* YuppieCouple: Keith (a koala) and Kylie (a kangaroo), the "Bogans from the Bush", who basically sat around mocking the Ferals and looking down on them for being noxious introduced species.

!!This show includes examples of:

* ChekovsGun: It's very rare that Leonard's latest invention won't have some impact on the current plot, either causing the crisis or in some way contributing to its resolution.

* BatmanGambit: In one April Fools episode, Rattus claims that he's not going to bother joining the other Ferals in their usual prank celebration. After a long and complex array of events, Joe is frantically scrambling to try and get the place back in order in preparation for the "Honorable Society of the Musk Oxen", the latest snobby, uppercrust club he's tried to join... and [[spoiler: the club turns out to have been made up entirely by Rattus,]] meaning every last humiliation and panic attack Joe has gone through all day, as well as all the humiliations suffered by the Ferals as they tried to prove they could pull off a prank [[spoiler: without Rattus, is ultimately the climax of one big prank.]] And then when it's pointed out that [[spoiler: pulling this reveal just after midnight so as not to violate his "prank insurance" means Rattus' prank isn't "square" because it's no longer April Fool's Day, Rattus reveals he turned all of the local clocks forward by one day -- so it's only just ''turned'' April Fools'!]]

* ButtMonkey: EVERYONE.