Series / Bassie & Adriaan

Hugely popular Dutch children's duo who have been active since 1978. "Bassie" (played by Bas van Toor) is a naïve, but jolly clown who always cracks jokes. "Adriaan" (played by Aad van Toor) is the more intelligent, serious but nevertheless also happy-go-lucky acrobat.

In real life, the actors are brothers who for more than 20 years had great success as an acrobat duo named “De Crocksons”. Near the end of the 1970s they started making TV series for children. First with help of Dutch TV producer Joop van den Ende, but later (after their cooperation with Van Den Ende ended because of an argument) they started producing and directing the series themselves. Most series feature treasure hunting or other traveling adventures which took them to exotic locations. They are often spied and shadowed by a group of stupid crooks. Several villains made their appearance over the course of the series, the most famous ones being a crime lord named “De Baron” and his henchmen "Vlugge Japie" and “B2”.

The franchise was a huge Cash-Cow Franchise in both the Netherlands and Belgium and was also sold to other countries like France and China. Besides the TV series, several music records, comic strips, radio dramas, short series, theater shows, etc. were made and since the actors kept all the marketing and merchandising rights they became rich. Since 1994 no new shows with both characters have been made, but due to frequent repeats, media appearances and parodies of Bassie and Adriaan remain popular and famous. After Aad retired, Bas van Toor went solo and released two more series of his own.

The series (and the translated titels):

• De Plaaggeest (The Bully or The Prankster): When Bassie fails to set the alarm clock, he and Adriaan oversleep and miss the departure of the circus to the next town. Since neither of them knows where the circus is now, they are forced to find a new job. They are however followed by a costumed villain named “De Plaaggeest”, who loves to play nasty pranks on everyone and keeps sabotaging all the duo’s attempts to find work.
• Het Geheim van de Sleutel (The Secret of the Key): two crooks named B1 and B2 rob a bank and hide the loot in a train station locker. When they mistake Bassie for the man who would be send by their boss to retrieve the key of the locker, they give the key to him. Realizing their mistake, they follow Bassie and Adriaan when the two depart for their holiday in Spain in an attempt to get the key back, eventually going so far as to kidnap Bassie.
• De Diamant (The Diamond): B1, B2 and their boss escape from jail and seek revenge on Bassie and Adriaan. Disguised as Bassie and Adriaan, B1 and B2 steal a valuable diamond. Naturally, Bassie and Adriaan are blamed for the theft and now have to find the real culprits to clear their name.
• De Huilende Professor (The Crying Professor): a strange phenomenon hits the Netherlands; people suddenly don’t feel like laughing anymore and only feel sad. When Bassie and Adriaan investigate the matter, they discover a mad scientist named Archibald Chagrijn is behind this. From his hideout on the Canary Islands he plans to use his invention, griengas (cry gas), to eventually make the whole world stop laughing. The two try to stop the professor, who takes a personal interest in Bassie when it is revealed that Bassie is somehow immune to the effects of his gas.
• Het Geheim van de Schatkaart (The Secret of the Treasure Map): when shopping on a flea market, Bassie buys an old painting behind which he and Adriaan find a piece of parchment. The parchment contains a riddle that, when solved, will reveal the location of a treasure. Bassie and Adriaan of course attempt to solve the riddle. Meanwhile, their old enemy B2 escapes from jail and joins up with the crook Vlugge Japie and his boss Baron van Neemweggen, simply known as “De Baron”, to find the treasure as well.
• De Verdwenen Kroon (The Missing Crown): after escaping from jail, de baron, Vlugge Japie and B2 steal a valuable crown and demand 1 million guilders (the Dutch currency before the Euro) as ransom. In reality however, this is all part of a plan to get revenge on Bassie and Adriaan.
• De Verzonken Stad (The Sunken City): Bassie and Adriaan go on a holiday to Greece. During a diving trip, Bassie finds a round stone tablet with strange signs on it. Curious, they send a photo of the stone to their robot Robin (who is staying with a friend in Belgium) to translate the signs. As the signs are slowly being translated, it becomes clear the stone might be the key to some sort of treasure. But like always, de Baron, Vlugge Japie and B2 are after this treasure as well.
• De Geheimzinnige Opdracht (The Mysterious Assignment): Bassie and Adriaan suddenly keep getting letters from an anonymous sender. He asks them to visit the (at that time) 12 countries of the European Union, and in each country they have to find a package for him by solving a riddle. Meanwhile, De Baron is released from jail and hires two new crooks, B100 and Handige Harry, to help him get revenge on Bassie and Adriaan.
• De Reis Vol Verrassingen (The Journey full Of Surprises): The Baron, inspired by the mysterious assignments Bassie and Adriaan received in the previous series, sends the two a new assignment in an attempt to lure them to the island Curacao and into a trap. Naturally, he fails. Back in the Netherlands, Bassie participates in a quiz show and wins a trip for two to America. The rest of the series follows Bassie and Adriaan as they visit several places in the US, while being followed by the three crooks.

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Provides examples of:

• Adaptation Distillation: "Het Geheim van de Schatkaart" was adapted from a radio drama Bassie and Adriaan made a few years earlier. In this radio drama, the third crook was a Chinese named Pingpoen. Aad van Toor however considered this character to be too unrealistic for a tv-series, and replaced him with the already familiar B2. Also, for budgetary reasons, several scenes had to be changed or left out (for example: in the radio drama, the crooks burn down the circus, but putting this in the tv series would be too expensive).
• Alphabet Song: One of the associating letters with words variety was made for their first series.

De A van aap en B van bal

C van club en D van dal

E van eend en F van Fred

Dat zijn de eerste letters van 't alfabet

ABCDEFG

Zing dit liedje met mij mee

De letters gaan van A tot Z

De 26 letters van het alfabet

• Aristocrats Are Evil: A baron is the main antagonist.
• Bilingual Bonus: In the season "De Geheimzinnige Opdracht" Bassie and Adriaan travelled to the (in 1992) 12 countries of the European Union. They sang a few songs where they translate words in a certain language (French, Spanish, German, Danish, Italian, Greek, Portugese) into Dutch.
• Big Bad:
  • De Baron can be seen as the big bad of the franchise as a whole, even though he did not appear until “het geheim van de Schatkaart”. The nameless crook boss and professor Chagrijn are the big bads of their respective series.
  • De Plaaggeest was originally planned to be a semi-recurring villain but the character was dropped after parents complained he was giving their children nightmares.
• Big Little Brother: Aad is almost a head taller and a few years younger than Bas.
• Bland-Name Product: in "De geheimzinnige opdracht", during the Denmark-episode, Bassie and Adriaan visit Legoland, Billund, but the name of the park is never mentioned and instead of LEGO, they constantly talk about "toy bricks".
• Bluff the Eavesdropper: In "het geheim van de schatkaart", when finding out the crooks have installed a listening device on top of their caravan, Bassie & Adriaan pretend that they have figured out the riddle on the treasure map and will depart immediately to find the treasure, but Adriaan clearly states they will leave the map in their caravan. The crooks fall for it and immediately go to the caravan to steal the treasure map, resulting in the baron getting arrested.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Bassie and Adriaan frequently address the audience at the start and end of each episode by saying hello and goodbye to the children at home. At the start of a new episode they will explain to them what happened in the previous episode. And the musical numbers in between are always sing-a-long songs.
• Briefcase Full of Money: Used twice. In "De Diamant", Bassie and Adriaan offer one of these to the crooks in return for the diamond, however only the top layer of the briefcase is actually filled with money. The rest consists of pieces of white paper and fireworks. In "de Verdwenen Kroon", the ransom for the crown is delivered this way.
• British Brevity: Each series has an average of 8 - 12 episodes, with De Reis vol Verrassingen being the longest (16 episodes).
• Butt-Monkey: B100 will always be injured or unlucky. It's even his catchphrase: "I'm always unlucky! They're always after me."
• By "No", I Mean "Yes": Bassie frequently says: "Yes, I understand, but I don't get it."
• Camera Spoofing: the three crooks do this when stealing the crown, using a photograph Vlugge Japie took earlier.
• Cassandra Truth: In "de geheimzinnige opdracht", Bassie notices at least once per episode that B100 is following them throughout Europe (although he doesn't know yet that B100 works for The Baron), but every time he tries to show this to Adriaan B100 is gone again and Adriaan does not believe Bassie. That is, untill in the last episode Adriaan finally sees him too.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Allememaggies"- Bassie
  • "Wazeggie? (...) Je hoeft niet zo te schreeuwen. Ik ben niet doof!" - B2
  • "Foutje, moet kunnen, baas." - Handige Harry
  • ""Drommels, drommels, en nog eens... drommels!"- De Baron
  • "Stommeling, uilskuiken, bal gehakt, frikandel, zak patat, bitterbal, bamihap!"- De Baron
  • "Ik voel het aan m'n neus, die heeft me nog nooit in de steek gelaten." - B100
  • "Ik heb ook altijd pech. Ze moeten ook altijd mij hebben." - B100
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Bassie & Adriaan's robot friend Robin, who was a main character from "De Huilende Professor" to "De Verzonken Stad", is never seen or even mentioned in the last two series. He does appear in some other Bassie & Adriaan media made after the series ended however, including a car commercial and (along with Adriaan) in a Sinterklaas Movie.
  • B1 and the crook boss escaped from prison after "De Diamant" (leaving B2 behind) and are never heard from again.
• Cigar Chomper: the nameless crook boss from "Het Geheim van de Sleutel" and "De Diamant" always carries cigars around. Ironically, he never actually smokes them but only crushes them in his hand when he gets angry. This is even lampshaded by B2 when he is sent to get new cigars.
• Clear Their Name: the main plot of “De Diamant”.
• Code Name: The crooks B1, B2 and B100; the B in their name is derived from "boef" (Dutch for bandit).
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: In "Het Geheim van de Sleutel" and "De Diamant", the three crooks all wear trench coats. B100 also wears a trenchcoat in "de geheimzinnige opdracht".
• Depraved Kids' Show Host: While neither Bassie or Adriaan is anywhere close to this in their own series, as one is a Non-Ironic Clown and the other a Nice Guy, Bassie parodies tends to present him as a Jerkass in satirical shows (Kopspijkers) and talk shows (Jensen). In a now-infamous commercial starring Bas van Toor himself, Bassie is an annoying neighbor who slept with his neighbor's wife, resulting in a baby with clown make-up.
• Disabled Means Helpless: The villain B2 is stone deaf and understands everything incorrectly. Yet when people scream at him he says: "You don't have to scream at me. I'm not deaf!"
• Distinction Without a Difference: Used as a repeated example. Bassie, while drifting to sleep, usually says "I'll go look at that on the inside of my eyes", which implies "I'm going to dream about that".
• Dream Sequence: Bassie often has these. They are mainly used for elseworld scenarios that put the two main characters in situations they wouldn't encounter in the show's regular setting, like showing what it would be like if Bassie and Adriaan lived in the American old west or if they were James Bond-like secret agents.
• Engineered Public Confession: used in "De Diamant" to prove B1, B2 and their boss are the real thieves of the diamond, and again in "het geheim van de schatkaart" to gather enough evidence against the three crooks to get them arrested. For the latter, the heroes even use the crooks own listening device against them to do so.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: It's even Adriaan's life rule: "Whatever happens, keep on laughing."
• Every Car Is a Pinto: in "het geheim van de sleutel", after Bassie en Adriaan jump out of their sabotaged car, the car itself goes off a cliff and catches fire. Downplayed however in that it doesn't explode like in most Hollywood movies, but simply starts burning.
• Evil Laugh: The Baron and de Plaaggeest.
• Exact Words: the hypnotised mooks of professor Chagrijn take their assignments very literally and to the letter. For example; when they are chasing Bassie and Adriaan and the two jump off a cliff into the sea to escape them, the mooks immediately stop their pursuit because their assignment was "run after them", not "swim after them".
• Flanderization: happens mostly to the baron. In his debut series and "de verdwenen kroon" he is indeed a criminal mastermind (maybe not as big as he thinks he is, but still) who can come up with decent plans and from time to time actually poses a threat to the protagonists. In the last two series, he becomes more and more a Harmless Villain who is overly obsessed with getting revenge on Bassie & Adriaan, gets angry (to the point that he can break a phone in half) at the slightest mistake from his minions or setback, and rather than come up with a decent trap keeps insisting of using Handige Harry's unreliable homemade bombs to take down the protagonists.
• Flowery Insults: With this being a childrens series, real curse words were of course not allowed. So whenever De Baron gets angry at his henchmen and starts cursing at them (which happens a lot), he uses fast food names instead, like "meatball" and "bag of fries".
• Freak Lab Accident: not seen on screen, but it is mentioned that the mad professor from "De huilende professor" was once a good and highly respected scientist, until a freak accident with some sort of gas drove him mad. He gets better at the end of the series.
• Game Show Appearance: In-Universe, Bassie participates in a (fictional) game show in "de reis vol verrassingen", and unlike most other examples actually wins the finale. In real life, both Aad van Toor and Bas van Toor have appeared in the Dutch game show "wie ben ik?".
• George Lucas Altered Version: Pretty much all the series have undergone subtile changes whenever they got re-released on new media (video, dvd etc.). Mostly it involves the original theme song and background music being replaced. A bigger example is Robin in "De Huilende Professr", whose voice was redubbed by Ina van Toor so it would match the other series (in which she already did his voice).
• Heel–Face Turn: Both de plaaggeest from the first series and professor Archibald Chagrijn from "de huilende professor" eventually realize the errors of their ways.
• Heroic Fire Rescue: in De Diamant, when Bassie and Adriaan come home from a party, they discover their caravan is on fire. Bassie immediately rushes into the burning caravan to rescue their pet parakeet Sweety, and Adriaan follows close behind to rescue Bassie. In the end Adriaan and Sweety get out unharmed, but Bassie has to be taken to the hospital.
• Hypno Fool: the hypnotized mooks of professor Chagrijn. His hypnosis gas puts them in some sort of trance, after which everyone can give them commands by saying "you have been given a new assignment, do....". When Adriaan finds out he too can thus give the mooks commands, he greatly uses this to his advantage.
• Iconic Sequel Character:
  • Robin, Bassie and Adriaan's Robot Buddy, is as famous as the titular duo, but did not appear until the fourth series.
  • The Baron is by far the most famous villain of the franchise, but did not make his debute until the fifth series.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Robin; a robot made from an old radio and alarm clock, that somehowe gained sentienence and a distinct personality due to a short circuit.
• Just a Machine: in "het geheim van de schatkaart", Robin the robot is the only one who witnesses De Baron breaking into Bassie and Adriaans caravan and stealing the painting behind which the treasure map was hidden, and thus the only one who can testify against the baron after he is arrested. But unfortunately, the law does not allow robots to testify in court so De Baron is realeased again.
• The Key Is Behind the Lock: happens to the crooks' car in "De Reis vol Verrassingen". Their attempt to open the door by blowing up the lock goes horribly wrong.
• Laser Hallway: averted. In "De Verdwenen Kroon", the museum in which the crown is located has a laser security system, but it consists of infrared laser beams just like in real life, thus being invisible to the naked eye. De Baron has to use infrared goggles in order to see the beams.
• Left Hanging: "De Geheimzinnige Opdracht" is the only series where the villains (The Baron, Handige Harry and B100) are not captured by the police.
  • Subverted in the next series, "De Reis Vol Verrassingen".
• Long-Runners: Since 1978
• Mad Scientist: professor Archibald Chagrijn from “de huilende professor”, who wants to make all the people in the world stop laughing because he is under the impression that laughter is a waste of energy.
• Manchild: Bassie.
• Meaningful Name: Archibald Chagrijn; "Chagrijn" is the Dutch word for "Grumpy". Also Baron van Neemweggen; his last name is a play on "neem weg", Dutch for "take away".
• Mooks: Professor Archibald Chagrijn has a great number of henchmen, who he keeps under control with the help of hypnosis gas (a side effect of which is that their face turns green).
• Midas Touch: In "De Verzonken Stad", which is set in Greece, Bassie hears about the legend of King Midas, and proceeds to have one of his daydreams in which he imagines himself as the king (though in a modern day setting). At first he enjoys his ability to turn everything to gold, until he finds out that it prevents him from eating anymore cream pies (they too turn to gold the moment he touches them). And to make the nightmare complete, he accidentally turns Adriaan to gold as well.
• Missed Him by That Much: Since in several series the main protagonists and villains were played by the same actors they are seldom seen in the same scenes together. Most of the time the villains spy and shadow Bassie and Adriaan but each time they are about to close in something goes wrong and without knowing their luck Bassie and Adriaan manage to continue their walk.
• The Mole: In “De Huilende Professor”, Bassie and Adriaan receive help from an anonymous ally who provides them with information about professor Archibald Chagrijn and equipment. In the end, their ally turns out to be a Belgian police detective who had infiltrated in the professor’s organization.
• Musical World Hypotheses: Bassie and Adriaan's adventures are frequently interrupted for a sing-a-long musical number, despite the fact that their adventures take place in the real world.
• My God, What Have I Done?: "Het Geheim van de Sleutel": when B2 thinks he accidentally killed Bassie and Adriaan because his attempt to sabotage their car went horribly wrong, he breaks down in tears stating he is now officially no longer an ordinary crook but a hardcore criminal, and regrets he didn't listen to his mother. He gets right back to his old ways when the two show up alive and well though.
• No Name Given: The boss of B1 and B2 in “het geheim van de sleutel” and “de diamant” is simply known as The Boss.
• No-Sell: Professor Chagrijn's cry gas has no effect on Bassie, because Bassie was exposed to a huge ammount of laughing gas when he was young.
• No Song for the Wicked: Despite the fact that all series feature multiple musical numbers, all songs are sung by Bassie & Adriaan themselves, sometimes joined by a chorus of extra's. The villains never get any songs.
• Non-Ironic Clown: Bassie, defenitely. While he has an occasional mischievous streak, he fundamentally has a good heart and wants to make people laugh and help his friend Adriaan.
• No Water Proofing In The Future: In "de huilende professor", Bassie, Adriaan and Robin are forced to jump from a cliff into the ocean to escape capture from the professor's mooks. Unfortunately, Robin is not water proof, and the experience almost proves fatal to the little robot.
• No Woman's Land: there are surprisingly few female characters in the series. All the main characters are male, and the only woman in the series appear in one episode only roles.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: Villains plotting to take out the titular heroes with a bomb, which more often than not ended up exploding in their faces instead.
• Old-Fashioned Fruit Stomping: In the Portugal episode of "De Geheimzinnige Opdracht", the two protagonists visit a winery where grapes are still processed in this manner. They are even invited to participate in it.
• Old-Timey Bathing Suit: whenever they go swimming, Bassie will wear one of these.
• Police Are Useless: played with in several series, where the protagonists have to do most of the investigation to find the crooks. However, they do frequently work together with the police, and the police are useful in the end when they arrest the crooks.
• Punk in the Trunk: Used twice. Played seriously in "de Diamant", when Bassie and Adriaan hide in the trunk of the crook's car in order to find out where they are going. Played for laughs in "De Reis Vol Verrassingen" when the crook B100 has to ride in the trunk because the car that he, Handige Harry and The Baron use to get to the Airport doesn't have a backseat.
• Put on a Bus: several characters, mostly the villains. Examples include B1 and the crook boss after "De Diamant", and Vlugge Japie and B2 after "De Verzonken Stad". In the second case, Japie does have a brief appearance in the first episode of "de geheimzinnige opdracht", where he is seen abandoning the Baron.
  • For Japie The Bus Came Back in the last series; he has a role during the Curacao story arc.
• Race Against the Clock: in "de Diamant", after Bassie and Adriaan are arrested, but it is revealed their finger prints don't match those found at the crime scene, the police commander lets them go but informs them that they will be arrested again if no new evidence that they're innocent is found in the next 3 days. Bassie actually keeps a pocket clock with him to keep track of how much time they have left.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: for De Reis vol Verrassingen, during the Curacao arc and the Florida Arc Handige Harry stays in the hotel all the time while only The Baron and B100 set out to confront Bassie and Adrian. The reason for this was that actor Paul van Soest could not join the cast at these locations due to other commitments (the scenes inside the hotel rooms were filmed later, in The Netherlands).
• Replaced the Theme Tune / Rearrange the Song: there are 2 main theme songs for the franchise as a whole, and the lyrics of the second one have been slightly altered between series to suit the plot better.
• Road-Sign Reversal: this is one of the pranks De Plaaggeest plays on Bassie and Adriaan. Because of it, the two accidentally set up their tent on a soccer field rather than the camping place they were looking for.
• Robot Buddy: In "De Huilende Professor", Bassie accidentally creates an intelligent robot named Robin while trying to make a clock radio out of a broken alarm clock and a broken radio. Robin remained a main character up till "de verzonken stad".
• Rule of Three: When Bassie cries Adriaan will ask him twice what is wrong and only the third time, when he actually asks him why he is crying Bassie explains the reason of his grief.
• Running Gag: Zillions!
  • Bassie often says "Dat moet ik eens even aan de binnenkant van m'n ogen bekijken." ("I have to look at that from the inside of my eyes."), upon which a dream sequence follows.
  • Bassie is excited at the prospect of eating whipped cream cakes.
  • Whenever Bassie is sad or frightened he starts making high pitched squeaking sounds. Then Adriaan asks him twice "what is wrong?" until the third time when he asks: "Bassie, why are you crying?", whereupon Bassie finally explains the reason of his grief.
  • Bassie often teases Adriaan by making jokes at his expense, whereupon Adriaan always laughingly says: "Wacht, ik zal je!" ("Wait, I'll get you!")
  • One of the villains, Handige Harry, usually prepares bombs that explode in the faces of the villains themselves because Harry did something wrong. This causes the Baron to become furious.
  • Whenever his henchmen lose track of Bassie and Adriaan the Baron crushes his (cell)phone in furious anger.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: several characters, mostly the villains.
  • Vlugge Japie: several times when he encounters Bassie & Adriaan. One of his catchphrases during these scenes is "Wegwezen, en snel" ("Run away, and quickly"). At the start of De Geheimzinnige Opdracht, the Baron reveals his plans to take revenge on Bassie & Adriaan. Vlugge Japie decides he has learned his lesson (after begin put in jail by them three times), wants no part of it and quickly abandons the Baron.
  • B2: at the start of "Het Geheim van de Schatkaart", the Baron, B2 and Vlugge Japie are attempting to break into a house. During one scene B2 encounters Bassie and wants to run away, as Bassie & Adriaan are the cause of him being put in prison twice.
  • Handige Harry: at the end of "De Geheimzinnige Opdracht", the Baron wants to take revenge on Bassie & Adriaan yet again, but Handige Harry tries to talk the Baron out of it.
  • In the last episode of "De Geheimzinnige Opdracht", Bassie & Adriaan attempt to flee the Baron by crossing a river with a dam that's about to open. Most of the Baron's mooks flee, with the exception of Handige Harry and B100.
• Secret Identity: De Plaaggeest. We never get to know who he really is, because he only appears in costume and when he does his Heel Face Turn, he just sends a letter to Bassie and Adriaan to apologize but does not unmask in front of the camera. It is however strongly suggested throughout the series that he is in fact their friend Douwe.
• Sequel Goes Foreign: the first series was entirely set in the Netherlands, but every series afterwards is partly or entirely set in a foreign country, exept for "De verdwenen kroon".
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The show frequently used the theme from the horror movie Halloween and The Exorcist during chase scenes.
• Spider-Sense: In the last two series, De Baron has become so frustrated about constantly being thwarted by Bassie and Adriaan, he actually developed some sort of sixth sense for detecting them. If the two of them are near, he always gets nervous.
• Stupid Crooks: most of the antagonists of the series fall into this category.
• Vehicular Sabotage: in "Het Geheim van de Sleutel", B1 and B2 sabotage the protagonist's car in an attempt to leave them stranded in the middle of nowhere so they can steal the key back. Unfortunately, instead of the radiator, B2 accidentally sabotages the breaks.
  • B2 attempts this in "Het Geheim van de Schatkaart" by demonstrating the effect of laying caltrops under the tires. Unfortunately, he demonstrates this on the crooks' own car, which forces them to steal Bassie and Adriaan's.
  • Earlier in "Het Geheim van de Schatkaart" a group of boys keeping lookout for De Baron get the idea to stop Vlugge Japie and B2 by tying the rear bumper of their car to a tree. The two crooks still get away, but not without wrecking the chassis of their car.
    • When Vlugge Japie attempts to pull this very same trick on Bassie and Adriaan on Lanzarote, he forgets to tie the rope in time and is dragged along the road, eventually ending up landing in a cactus bush.
• Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: In "Het geheim van de schatkaart", when Vlugge Japie is imprisoned in the same cell as B2 (who has been in prison since the end of "De Diamand"), he notices B2 has been marking his days this way. The wall is so full with tally marks already that Japie remarks B2 should get some new wallpaper soon.
• Terrible Trio: most of the series have three crooks as the main villains: In "Het geheim van de sleutel" and "de diamant" they are B1, B2 and their boss (officially the former series also has two additional villans named B3 and B4, but they only appear in two episodes), from "Het geheim van de schatkaart" to "De verzonken stad" the trio consists of De Baron, Vlugge Japie and B2, and the last two series the trio consists of De Baron, Handige Harry and B100.
• Tracking Device: used twice:
  • in "De huilende professor", Bassie & Adriaan use a tracking device to trace Joris when he returns to the professor's hideout afther the police deliberately allowed him to escape from his prison cell (see also Trick-and-Follow Ploy below). When the professor discovers the tracking device, he has Joris and his mooks use it to set a trap.
  • in "de geheimzinnige opdracht", after B100 keeps losing track of Bassie & Adriaan, Handige Harrie sends Bassie a walkman that contains a tracking device, allowing the crooks to follow them on a GPS screen. Ironically; despite this new advantage, B100 is still unable to keep track of Bassie & Adriaan, especially because the device only works when Bassie is actually using the walkman. The device is even turned against the crooks when Bassie loses the walkman in Belgium and B100 finds it, causing Handige Harry and de Baron to think that Bassie & Adrian are coming to them when B100 is on his way back.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Slagroomtaart (cream pie) for Bassie.
• Trapped the Wrong Target:
  • De Geheimzinnige Opdracht; in the Belgium episode, thanks to the Tracking Device hidden inside a Walkman the crooks send to Bassie a few episodes earlier, De Baron and Handige Harry think the two protagonists are on their way to them, and set up a booby trap involving one of Harry's homemade bombs. Too late do they find out that the signal is actually from their fellow crook B100 (who found the walkman after Bassie lost it), and they fail to warn him before he triggers the bomb. Good thing for B100 that Non-Fatal Explosions are in effect in this show.
  • In the first 3 episodes of the next series, De Reis vol Verrassingen, the Baron, inspired by the events from De Geheimzinnige Opdracht, decides to set another trap for Bassie & Adriaan. He sends them a Forged Message supposedly from the same guy who send the two protagonists on all their assignments in Opdracht to trick the two into finding a hidden package on Curacao. This package contains another bomb. Unfortunately, Vlugge Japie, another old adversary of Bassie & Adriaan who used to work for the Baron, is also on Curacao. Naturally, he hears about this package, assumes it contains something valuable, and sets out to get it before Bassie & Adriaan do. He succeeds, thus triggering the bomb and saving the two protagonists (again, he survives thanks to Non-Fatal Explosions).
• Treasure Map: "Het geheim van de schatkaart" naturally resolves around one of these. It comes with an extra challenge in that one first has to solve a riddle to find out exactly which island the map is about, and where the starting point of the map is on said island.
• Trick-and-Follow Ploy: Bassie and Adriaan do this with Joris to find Professor Chagrijn's hideout.
• Tricked into Another Jurisdiction: This is how the bad guys (de Baron, B100 en Handige Harry) were arrested at the end of "Bassie en Adriaan: De reis vol verrassingen" (or "Bassie en Adriaan op reis door Amerika", depending on when you watched). After an adventurous journey through the U.S. (during which the villains secretly tried to sabotage them), Bassie and Adriaan finally figure out that they're being followed. Hence, Bassie and Adriaan come up with a plan to get them arrested for a crime the villains committed prior to the eponymous journey (a burglary shown near the start of the season). They decide to lure the bad guys to Sint Maarten (which has a French and a Dutch jurisdiction). There, they taunt the bad guys into leaving the French jurisdiction and entering the Dutch one, where they're promptly arrested by the Royal Marechaussee.
• Try and Follow: also twice:
  • Done by Bassie and Adriaan themselves in "De Huilende Professor". When they are being chased by the Professor's mooks, they jump from a cliff into the ocean.
  • Done by Vlugge Japie in "De verdwenen kroon". To escape from Bassie and Adriaan he drives his car into a river, revealing it to be an amphibious vehicle which the protagonist's car is not.
• Upside-Down Blueprints: In one of the shorts, Bassie goes camping for the first time, but when setting up his tent he holds the instructions upside down and sets up his tent accordingly. He doesn't even realize his mistake until Adriaan points it out to him.
• Wet Cement Gag: Happens to Bassie in De Reis vol Verrassingen. First, he accidently leaves his footprints in wet cement next to the hotel they are staying at. Then, when fixing his mistake, he manages to get himself stuck in the cement and has to be freed by Adriaan. Later, after Bassie again fixes the concrete, the 3 crooks following them get stuck in it.
• Worthless Treasure Twist:
  • The supposed treasure from “De Verzonken Stad”. The partial translation of the signs on the stone suggest it is gives the location of sources of wealth and/or power. But in the end, it turns out the stone actually contains a philosophical message about the 3 greatest treasures someone can have: freedom, health and happiness.
  • Subverted in “Het Geheim van de Schatkaart”. Upon finding the treasure chest, it turns out it is filled with black pepper; which in the time the treasure was hidden was still a very valuable spice in Europe, but by today's standards is very ordinary. All in all, it appears the treasure is worthless. Later however, it turns out the chest itself is actually made from solid gold, and is thus the real treasure.

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