Series / Danger 5

"What the wallaby are those dinosaurs doing with Hitler? I mean, none of this makes any sense!"

— Tucker

Ever imagined what would have happened if an international team of secret agents had fought Adolf Hitler in the 1960s? If not, that's no surprise, but David Ashby and Dario Russo somehow dreamed up this eccentric premise and went crazy with it. Series 2 switches things up by putting the action in the '80s.

Developed by the creators of Italian Spiderman, Danger 5 is an action/comedy series set in a bizarre Alternate Universe based on cheesy old TV and pulp fiction cliches. It features the Danger 5 team directly assigned to thwart Hitler's diabolical plans, which involve anything and everything from Japanese robots to Nazi-controlled dinosaurs.

Danger 5 began with a short series of Webisodes, followed by a 2 season television series broadcast on its parent network SBS, with an eight episode audio drama season released as an Audible original in 2020.

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Danger 5 contains examples of:

• Achilles' Heel: The otherwise invincible Carbonado-enhanced soldiers are vulnerable to diamond bullets.
• Adolf Hitlarious: Hitler, most of the time.
• Affectionate Parody: Season 1 parodies '60s cinema and TV, pulp fiction, and old Japanese sci-fi. In Season 2, the target is '80s cinema and TV.
• Air-Vent Passageway: "My God. There's Nazis in the walls!" This being in a secure bank vault.
• All According to Plan: Everything that happens to Danger 5 in the final episode is a Batman Gambit by Hitler, until the Colonel gets involved personally.
• Alternate History: World War II in The '60s. The second series has the Cold War in The '80s and includes an Alternate-History Nazi Victory.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: In Episode 4 of the miniseries, Göring shows off several women enhanced in a similar fashion to Hitler's Carbonado bodyguards, but using different gemstones. None of them are quite as bulletproof.
• Amazon Brigade: Hitler's Bodyguard Babes, and the French Resistance in "I Danced for Hitler".
• Anachronism Stew: WWII in the '60s with dinosaurs and mechanically enhanced soldiers.
  • Season 2 has a less overt form of this. Sure, its '80s setting still works for the Cold War, but all the real-world historical figures who show up - Perron, Skorzeny, Kruschev - are associated with the '60s. And that's not even getting into all the dinosaurs and things.
• Animal Assassin: During Claire and Tucker's wedding, they're attacked by giant killer...prawns?
• A-Team Firing: In the Action Prologue of episode one, the main protagonists and antagonists fire directly at each other to no effect other than killing every single random mook/bystander by accident. Hitler of course has Plot Armor, which he demonstrates Once an Episode.
• Ate His Gun:
  • A Running Gag in "I Danced for Hitler".
  • Jackson does this in an Imagine Spot after being Friend Zoned.
  • Danger 5 kill themselves rather than surrender to an invincible Hitler who's taken over the world. He just brings them back to life.
• Atlantis: In "Final Victory", Atlantis is revealed as a real location, ruled by a man named Gibraltar.
• Awesome Aussie: Subverted with Tucker, who is Australian and a rule-following mega dork who gets very little respect from anyone.
• Background Body Part: Dr. Mengele gives virginal Claire the choice of sleeping with him or seeing her friends thrown to the mutants. A pair of lab coats hung up behind Mengele give the appearance of horns.
• Bad Guy Bar: In the first episode, the Black Dog, where Hitler and the Nazis chill out.
• Bad Habits: Hitler's Bodyguard Babes dress as nuns and priests to rob the World Bank in "The Diamond Girls".
  "Ve vould just like to deposit this week's collection."
• Bad Future: In "Welcome to Hitlerland", the team gets transported in time to an alternate timeline where Hitler has sent all the Allied powers to space and rules the world alone. His face and swastikas are everywhere, and everyone worships him.
• Bad Santa: In Season 2, Hitler dresses as Santa, so he can assassinate Colonel Chestbridge while he's out Christmas shopping. He's still doing it after he takes over the world.
• Bald of Evil: "Off with your toupee, Kaltenbrunner!"
• Beast and Beauty: Mengele is about to shoot Claire, when his dinosaur-headed servant stops him. "I love her!"
• Big Bad: Hitler. The team gets into a confrontation with him every episode, and their only mission is always to kill Hitler.

• Big Good: The Colonel. Given a twist in that he's a total jackass. Also, Massimiliano Importante, the President of the World.
• Big "NO!": Several; there's even a Big Goodbye in Italian when a carload of mooks goes off a cliff.
  "Ciaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
• Big Damn Kiss: Tucker/Claire and Ilsa/Jackson kiss in the final episode of Season 1; subverted with the latter when Ilsa goes on to snog the President of the World.
• Big Red Button: Used to activate Stalin's Doomsday Device, and the Ejection Seats on Danger 5's prop-driven fighter planes.
• Brainwashed: Allied soldiers are being turned into Japanese robot-soldiers in "Kill-Men of the Rising Sun".
• Bilingual Bonus: Ilsa's dialog in particular contains a few gems, from bowdlerized subtitles to entirely untranslated cursing.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Ilsa only speaks in subtitled Russian, the rest of the Danger 5 team speaks English, Hitler and various goons speak German, members of the La Résistance speak French, and everyone understands each other perfectly. Until the final episode of Season 2, where Pierre starts speaking in German and no one can understand him, yet they can still understand other German-speakers.
• Bittersweet Ending: Season 2: Hitler has been eaten by Claire's ghost, Tucker has retired to the outback and is able to receive a blowjob from Claire's ghost, Jackson has come to terms with his attraction to men and seems to be in a decent relationship at last, Ilsa rules USSR-Land but finds that Victory Is Boring; Mckenzie, Holly and the (sans hands) Colonel live together in the old Danger 5 house. Pierre is the only exception, as he's shot by the husband of the woman he's sleeping with.
• Black Comedy: Particularly homicidal slapstick.
• Black Comedy Rape: Quite a few examples:
  • Jackson being blown by a North Korean Interrogator. The same interrogator returns as a zombie, but gets his head blown off in a bizarre Brick Joke.
  • Jackson (again) being raped by now-female Rommel until s/he inexplicably turns into a cow and is killed by Ilsa.
  • Ilsa literally rapes Kruschev until his face melts away.
    Ilsa: I knew I was good but that's never happened before.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: The Evil Plan in "Hitler's Golden Murder Palace" is to make golden submachine guns to make the German army invincible...somehow. Rommel takes this up to eleven with his golden tank. All of them turn out to be Awesome, but Impractical.
• Bling of War: Rommel's gold-plated super tank shines like an artillery beacon from a distance. Guess what happens.
• Book Burning: Even undercover on a school campus, Hitler can't resist a bit of book burning.
• Booze Flamethrower: Faced with a fire-breathing lizardman, Ilsa takes a swig and breathes fire back at it, sending its head up like a torch.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Ilsa in "Lizard Soldiers of the Third Reich".
  Jackson: Get off me, you crazy tramp!
  Ilsa: There was something in my head!
  Jackson: You've always got something in your head!
• Brick Joke:
  • In Season 2 the Colonel is surrounded by Hitler and his mooks.
    Colonel: Let's sit down and talk this out...
    Hitler: Nein!
    Colonel: I said sit down! (draws the Sit Down Gun and blasts mooks)
  • In the last episode the Colonel is shouting "Sit Down" in between shots from his shotgun.
• British Stuffiness: Lampshaded when Claire enters a train compartment with a British Field Marshall, and he complains it's already stuffy enough as it is.
• Butter Face: The all-mighty Sheba is introduced via a slow pan up her sexy body...only to reveal she's a beastwoman!
• Butterfly of Doom: Spoofed; our heroes travel back in time to World War II and, despite Pierre frantically trying to convince them of this trope, proceed to kill Nazis with abandon, party with their younger selves, and Set Right What Once Went Wrong. This results in a Bad Future — not because of anything they did, but because they were stuffing about instead of concentrating on their original mission: KILL HITLER!
• Calling Your Attacks: In the giant mecha combat. Again in the Season 2 finale.
• Carbon Skin: In the arc "The Diamond Girls", Hitler's female bodyguards inhale the fumes from a small glass and suddenly their skin gains a black coloration. This is the effect of the carbonado, making the female guards invincible to normal bullets, but they can be downed by diamond ones.
• Catapult Nightmare: Jackson has a nightmare where he's being blown by a male North Korean interrogator. Cue Big "NO!" as he wakes up.
• Chainsaw Good:
  • Hitler's mech's "Victory Chainsaw". It has a flamethrower, too!
  • In Season 2 we have Hitler wielding four linked chainsaws during a school massacre. They also spew fire.
• Chair Reveal: Hitler in "Final Victory" - in a '60s Ball Chair, no less.
• Chekhov's Volcano: Mengele's Antarctic volcano base.
• Christmas Episode / Twisted Christmas: All of Season 2, even when they're moving back and forward in time.
• Cliché Storm: Invoked as part of the parody.
• Companion Cube: In season 2, Claire's severed head.
• Combat Stilettos: A literal version when Ilsa assembles a gun from her heels and shoots Josef Mengele.
• Convenient Misfire: Jackson shoots and kills two Nazi guards, but his pistol jams when he turns to fire a third shot at Rommel - allowing Rommel to take Ilsa as a human shield.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment:
  • Tucker is captured by Italian sailors and forced to drink endless cups of coffee. Though the Italians might have just been partying.
  • A band-playing monkey says when he hears the evil Nazis are going to stick music in concentration camps, "It's time to take this Mengele down from C minor to B diminished."
  • The first episode of Season 2 features Jackson about to receive fellatio from a North Korean soldier. This becomes a plot point again in Episode 5 when Jackson is about to receive the same punishment, this time from a zombified Nazi.
  • In the final episode, the male members of Danger 5 are Trapped in TV Land, a sitcom starring Hitler.
• Couldn't Find a Lighter: Jackson loads a cigarette into his Colt automatic and fires it (fully lit) into Claire's mouth.
• Cradling Your Kill: Inevitably used for Pierre's perfect-cocktail Running Gag, Once an Episode.
• Curse Cut Short / Killed Mid-Sentence: "Danger 5 will hunt you down, motherfu—"
  • "I keep running into you fu—"
• Dangerously Close Shave: Spoofed when an assassin tries to kill Ilsa with a electric shaver.
• Darker and Edgier: Series 2 begins with the death of The Colonel and Claire. Jackson has PTSD. Hitler comes back from the dead after killing Satan. A few one-shot villains from the first series return with varying degrees of Body Horror.
  • Denser and Wackier: That said, the series also becomes even more ridiculous as a result.
• Death by Irony: The Colonel's catchphrase throughout series 1 was "Kill Hitler". In series 2, Hitler kills him.
• Defeat Equals Explosion / Laughing Mad: A female Nazi agent laughs insanely after being thrown out a plane before exploding for no apparent reason.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Numerous dialogue examples, e.g. German golden superweapons made of gold.
  • Mengele's introduction is an excellent example:
  "Professor Johann Filk of the International League of Sciencemongers. I am a scientist. A man of science. I've been practicing science on this plateau for nearly 10 years."
  • There's also this between Goebbels and Tucker when Tucker, Ilsa and Pierre attempt to smuggle in a bomb in a box, while they are disguised as techinicans.
  Goebbels: And what do these special costumes look like?
  Tucker: Special.

• Designer Babies: Turns out Holly was genetically created to be the perfect Aryan woman.
• Didn't Think This Through: McKenzie attempts to fight off a zombie infection by getting his pump on. (Jumping jacks. What kind of jack did you think he meant?) Nope, doesn't work.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: The dinosaur Ilsa fights can breathe fire.
• Disguised in Drag: Pierre in a corset and blond wig in "Fresh Meat for Hitler's Sex Kitchen". Without covering up his moustache, naturally.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Ilsa makes Jackson lose his staring contest with Tucker by taking off her panties and throwing them in his face. The fact that he can hear Ilsa crossing and uncrossing her long leather boots doesn't help.
  • Lampooned to the nth degree when a teenage boy is too busy looking at porn to notice that a girl has just ripped off her dress and is taking a shower with him.
• Doomsday Device: Stalin has one that will destroy the world if the Nazis conquer the USSR.
• Doppelgänger: Danger 5 are cloned in "Final Victory".
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Ilsa on Khrushchev. She treats it as "revenge" for him dumping her.
• Dressing as the Enemy: How Danger 5 attempt to kill Hitler in the first episode. Also, Tucker dresses as a Nazi captain while infiltrating the Swiss brothel in a later episode. Tucker, Jackson and Pierre repeat this again in a Season 2 episode. The Colonel and Holly dress inside the bodies of Hitler's henchmen.
• Easy Amnesia: How Ilsa explains to Rommel why his wife hasn't been in touch.
  Rommel: You've had amnesia for two years?
  Ilsa: Yes. After I was hit by the mortar in Stalingrad I wandered through Europe with a group of priests until a magician brought back my memories, then I came to find you.
• Establishing Series Moment: The opening scene of the first episode sets the tone spectacularly; Nazi zepplins steal the Eiffel Tower with cheap-looking special effects as the resistance watches on in horror... And when the hideout is raided it's the dog who is shouting the orders.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Any time Danger 5 suddenly realise they're amongst the enemy.
  Tucker: I've only ever traveled on one other airline that had this many canine cop shows.
  Jackson: Yeah? What was it?
  Tucker: It was a...a...before the war, and a... My God! This is a German airline! (stewardesses stick MP-40 submachine guns in their faces)
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Including standard unconvincing 'spontaneous' laughter, or laughter at inappropriate moments like when someone has just died. One such moment even ends with Jackson adding a "'Cause he's dead!"
• Everybody Must Get Stoned: The '80s Danger 5 all snort coke with impunity, even Claire.
• "Everyone Comes Back" Fantasy Party Ending: Every episode in Season 1 features a party in the Danger 5 headquarters featuring the main cast and all the major characters from the episode (including Hitler!) during the credits roll. In Season 2 Claire does return as a ghost to give Tucker a blow job. Averted with Pierre who gets killed in the final montage by a jealous husband.
• Evil Laugh: Delivered by an evil Nazi hound!
• Eye Scream: In a fit of jealous rage, Tucker grabs some rubies and shoves them into Carlos' eyes. While he doesn't enjoy the experience at the time, he adapts to his new ruby eyes quite well.
• Facial Composite Failure: Tucker does up a facial composite of the high school student Hitler is searching for. The result clearly shows that Tucker's a few short of a six-pack.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Hitler is always going to get away. Except in the finale.
• Fanservice: Along with Claire and Ilsa being forced to wear sexy outfits close to Once an Episode, and the men losing their shirts pretty often, the team has an unusually high tendency of being pitted against swaths of beautiful and scantily-clad women.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Diamond women, robots, talking dogs, you name it, it's there.
• Finger Gun: "Who needs a gun, when you've got... imagination!"

• Flanderization: Both Tucker and Jackson are subjected to this in the second season, with Tucker becoming even more of a simpering mamma's boy and Jackson becoming substantially dumber along with much more pathetic. Tucker also makes far more gratuitous references to Australia.
• For Want Of A Nail: After Hitler takes over the world, Pierre tries to make his time-traveling cocktail to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, only he doesn't have the ingredients as the whole world is vegetarian, like Hitler.
• Frame-Up: The team is set up by Hitler (now an Agent at the FBI) as Communist fanatics who killed Holly's parents and kidnapped her. The police searching for her is just a scheme for Hitler to get Holly and eliminate Danger 5.
• Funny Bruce Lee Noises: In "Johnny Hitler", Tucker makes "wha" sounds when he finishes his ninja training by Mackenzie.
• Future Badass: Danger One, a badass Holly raised by the Colonel. Becomes a Negated Moment of Awesome when normal Holly inadvertently blows her head off.
• Furo Scene: Jackson, Ilsa and Claire make use of a hot spring.
• Gambler Groupies: In "Hitler's Golden Murder Palace" Jackson has two classy girls sitting besides him when he's playing. He wins so much at the casino that he gets Hitler's attention, who challenges him to a one-on-one match.
• Ghostapo: "Fresh Meat For Hitler's Sex Kitchen" has Hitler leading occult rites in the basement of a Gothic castle. Season 2 doubles down on this, with a Nazi plot to assassinate the Pope and replace Christmas with Odin worship and The Krampus. When that fails and Hitler is finally killed, he murders Satan to come back as a zombie and later possess a teddy bear.)
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: Dead Hitler, playing in a nightclub with Hitler's body on display. Then he comes back to life as a zombie.
• Gladiator Games: Mengele forces his prisoners to fight his mutants.
• Good-Guy Bar: The tavern that La Résistance are operating out of. The Danger 5 HQ doubles as one, as well. In fact, one might also argue that anywhere Pierre goes automatically becomes this trope.
  "Drinks?"
• Gorn: Mostly it's a pretty bloodless show, but when Mengele is torn apart by his dinosaur mutants, it spontaneously becomes very graphic. Given they suddenly started walking like zombies beforehand, it's probably a reference to the obligatory zombie movie disembowelment.
  • Season 2 goes and takes it up to eleven, with Claire getting her head chopped off in the first episode, then Carlos Mendeza getting his head chopped off and Hitler killing a random girl with a shark.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Ilsa is jealous because Hitler prefers Claire be brought to his quarters instead of her. Jackson and Rommel fighting over Ilsa, too.
• Groin Attack: A villain who's trying to murder Claire finds that tucking a Colt .45 in your pants is a very bad idea.
  • Hitler tests his golden MP40 on a target with aiming circles on the head and groin. And at the end of the episode Ilsa expresses her annoyance over Jackson's jealousy by using her Femme Fatalons on his crotch.
• Guns Akimbo: Hitler with his golden submachine guns.
• Guns Do Not Work That Way: Like everything else, reality goes out the window like a fleeing Hitler.
• Gun Stripping: Future Badass Holly does the blindfold version while delivering exposition of how she came to be.
• Hairy Hammerspace: Stalin's stache, which he uses to bizarre if manly effect. The same gag is repeated with the President of the World's Dodgy Toupee in "Final Victory".
• Half-Human Hybrid: In "Lizard Soldiers of the Third Reich", Dr. Mengele produces half-human, half-dinosaur Nazi soldiers. Later it turns out that Mengele himself is a lizardman.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Ilsa.
  (On the verge of being eaten by a T. rex) "And I always thought I'd die of alcohol poisoning."
• Heal It With Fire: Jackson fires his Luger into a wound to sterilize it.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Inverted; Tucker suddenly realises they're on a German airline because all the in-flight movies are about corrupt police dogs.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Well... more just Text. The GIs in the opening of "Lizard Soldiers of the Third Reich".
  "Remember, we love you. Like a lover." (leans in for an Almost Kiss, only to clonk their helmets together)

• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Happens often to the virginal Claire.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight / Cannot Spit It Out: Claire and Jackson are being strangled by brainwashed Tucker and Ilsa. Claire admits to Tucker that "we need you and...I can't go on without you!" This wakes up Tucker, who promptly knocks out Ilsa while Jackson is stumbling over his own Love Confession. Afterwards, however, Claire refuses to admit to Tucker that she actually meant what she said.
• I'll Take Two Beers Too: Jackson.
  "I'll take Double Jim Bourbons on the rocks. ... No, two of them."
• Immune to Bullets: The Carbonado-enhanced girls and the Japanese robo-soldiers. Later, Hitler himself.
  "My God, they're weapon-proof."
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: In "Diamond Girls", the nuns who break into the World Bank have crucifixes that can shoot ammo.
• Improvised Weapon:
  • In "Diamond Girls" Ilsa shoots a Nazi woman through a cable phone.
  • In "Revenge of the Lizardmen" Ilsa makes a gun out of her stiletto and shoots Mengele.
• Indy Ploy: "I've got a plan." "What is it?" "Improvise."
• I Need a Freaking Drink / Smoking Is Cool: As per the Deliberate Values Dissonance of the series.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: The same actors are reused over and over again for different minor roles in different episodes.
• It's All My Fault: Tucker after Claire is apparently killed due to his water phobia.
  • And again when Claire is killed by Mendeza's sword
• The Jailbait Wait: Hitler orders that a Designer Baby be created of the perfect Aryan woman. He's told he has to wait eighteen years before she grows up.
• Jerkass: The Colonel. His aggressive authoritarian-style leadership makes him slightly less repulsive than Hitler.
  • He reveals in Series 2 that he doesn't care if the Danger 5 team gets killed in action, as it would mean that he'd get the credit for all their heroic deeds.
• Just Friends: "The Friend Zone? NOT THE ZONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!"
• Kaiju: In "Final Victory" the Nazis and the Japanese let giant monsters/robots (Danger Warrior, Tank Demon, Knight Demon, Sleepy Demon. Their names are displayed in Japanese) roam the Earth to destroy cities.
• Killed Off for Real: Claire in the first episode of season 2, despite people being reincarnated as a Running Gag.
• Knockout Gas: Used to knock out Tucker and Jackson in "Diamond Girls" while they guard a secure bank vault.
• Large Ham: About 80% of the cast seems to fulfill the trope to some degree. Special mention, though, has to go to Khrushchev in the fourth and fifth episodes of Season 2, where he proceeds to dominate the screentime and is clearly enjoying it.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Mengele makes Jackson and Ilsa fight each other to entertain Hitler.
• Light Feminine Dark Feminine: Virginal Ice Queen Claire and hard-drinking Sensual Slav Ilsa.
  Claire: I'm sorry, Ilsa. If I only had the nerve to sleep with Mengele he would never have put that thing in your head.
  Ilsa: All you had to do was sleep with him? (tries to throttle Claire)
• Literal Disarming: Hitler Boss shoots off both hands of the Colonel when he puts on a ring that would supposedly give him god-like powers.
• Love at First Punch: Ilsa and Jackson try to kill each other on their first meeting.
• Love Makes You Dumb: In "Back to the Führer", Tucker sees the chance to meet the old Claire, who hasn't been killed yet. Pierre warns him that his actions will cause serious disruptions in the fabric of time, but Tucker doesn't care.
  Tucker: I can't hear you Pierre, I'm in love.
• The Man in the Mirror Talks Back: In "Merry Christmas, Colonel" Ilsa's reflection tells her she's disappointed in her. Ilsa magically zips her away.
• Man on Fire: Hitler shoots a gambler whose head bursts into flame for no apparent reason other than Hitler using a golden gun.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Surprisingly inverted. As Mooks tend to be beautiful women, there are far more female casualties across the series than there are male. Additionally, Claire spends almost all of series 2 Killed Off for Real, while Pierre, who is also seemingly killed, is only offed in the final moments of the last episode.
• Military Maverick: Jackson has some of these tendencies.
• Miniature Effects: Used in every external shot so far. Deliberately unconvincing, to keep with the series' theme.
• Mission Briefing: Given by an eagle-headed colonel.
  "And as always, KILL HITLER!"
• Mister Seahorse: After the Dog Dome was destroyed, The Colonel ate an embyro and hatched the egg of Danger One, AKA The Other Holly.
• The Mole: "Turns out this little mouse is actually a rat."
• Mr. Exposition: Zeppelins start raining down gas on the Americans guarding the Statue of Liberty. Everyone starts choking except Jackson, who's calmly smoking a cigarette.
  GI: (coughing) Say, are they those military-issue cigarettes, the kind that coat your lungs in a layer of thick menthol, making you impervious to gas?
  Jackson: Yeah.
  GI: Why didn't I get any? (dies)

• Most Definitely Not a Villain / American Accents: The German air hostess.
  "Oh ma Gard, welcarm to Bahama Airlines! Would you very much care for an All-Amarican beverage?"
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: "Russians don't have emotions."
  • Ilsa being flogged by Nazi torturers. "This is nothing compared to Siberia."
  • Goes and gets subverted big-time later on when Ilsa is clearly upset over being dumped.
• Multinational Team: Danger 5. Tucker from Australia, Claire from the UK, Jackson from the US, Ilsa from Russia, and Pierre from 'Europe'.
• Music Soothes the Savage Beast: Pierre wins over the monkey-men with his drum skills. Ilsa also proceeds to calm Khrushchev over the phone.
• Must Have Caffeine: The Italian submariners need a crate of coffee beans parachuted in to them every hour.
• My Future Self and Me: In "Back to the Führer", everyone on the team meets their past selves. Pierre is a bit reluctant, Ilsa and Jackson are mistaken for the enemy but they quickly reveal themselves, Tucker attacks his old self in his quest for Claire, and Claire is dead in the future, so she obviously doesn't travek back in time.

• Mysterious Antarctica has a jungle-filled crater with dinosaurs, likely a Shout-Out to The Land Unknown (1957).
• Naked People Are Funny: Pierre's reaction to consuming the juice of a "Drug Orange";
  Pierre: ...Naked ...Time ...Begins
• National Stereotypes:
  • Jackson: the rough-and-ready, patriotic maverick American (as seen here).
  • Pierre: the smooth-talking, urbane, womanising European (according to Word of God, his nationality is "Miscellaneous European").
  • Ilsa: the hard-drinking Russian Femme Fatale.
  • Claire: the sexually-repressed stuck-up Brit.
  • Tucker: The earnest and more than a little dorky Australian.
  • The Italian submariners are only interested in coffee, women and song.
    • And in "The Diamond Girls" Danger 5 find themselves being chased by a carload of mooks.
      Pierre: They're definitely Italians.
      Claire: How can you tell?
      Pierre: Well they're all immaculately dressed. And the driver keeps looking at his hair in the rear view mirror.
  • The Swiss bleed money.
• Nazisploitation: Parodied.
• Nonverbal Miscommunication: As she's being led away by Nazi soldiers:
  Claire: [winking] [subtitle: Stay on mission. We can handle ourselves.]
  Tucker: [winking back] [subtitle: What?]
• Not Quite Dead: Danger 5 finally kill Hitler in the last episode, only to find they've killed his clone and the real Hitler is piloting a giant robot. They destroy the robot and are given the Key to the World, only for Hitler to turn up again in The Stinger. Season 2 takes this up to eleven with every character being killed and resurrected (except for Claire, much to Tucker's continued distress).
• Now or Never Kiss: Ilsa and Tucker share a drink and an Almost Kiss as they're about to be eaten by the T. rex.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: "Lizard Soldiers of the Third Reich" has music-crazed electric-guitarist gunslinger prehistoric primates. And mind-controlled Nazi dinosaur-men.
• No-One Could Have Survived That: And spoken just after Hitler gains immortality too.
• The Nth Doctor: While not explained, but the Pierre in Season 2 (played by Malawi/Zimbabwean Pacharo Mzembe) meets the Pierre of Season 1 (played by Italian Aldo Mignone), and the original Pierre recognizes him as his future self, which means something happened between Season 1 and 2 that made Pierre black.
• Nude-Colored Clothes: Ilsa doing the Basic Instinct thing during the staring contest. A closeup means it qualifies a Special Effects Failure.
• One-Winged Angel: Parodied. The sexually-transmitted Nazi virus turns people into blonde-haired, blue-eyed German-speaking Nazis.
• One World Order: Outside of Nazi Germany, it seems as if the Free World has largely united under a World President, though individual countries are still mentioned.
  • Season 2 goes and throws this idea out the window, with USSR-Land apparently being its own country and run by Nikita Khrushchev.
• Once an Episode: Most of these are also Overly Long Gags.
  • Hitler escaping by jumping out of a window.
  • The Colonel ending his debrief with "KILL HITLER."
  • Claire being sexualised one way or another.
  • People dying in Pierre's arm and telling him a drink mixing recipe.
  • Every episode ending with a fictional advertisement.
• Operation: Jealousy: After Ilsa finding out that her husband, Kruschev is longing after Holly, she pretends to date Jackson and takes some photos with him. She sends all the pictures to Kruschev, and later asks him if they made him jealous.
• Overly Long Gag: Hitler escaping by jumping out of a window. EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE.
• Pants-Positive Safety: General Chang tries to murder Claire, only to find that keeping a Colt .45 shoved down the front of your pants is a very bad idea.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Only Danger 5 and Michelle recognize who "Johnny Hitler" really is. Extra points for Hitler's high school disguise, which consists only of a varsity jacket.
• Patriotic Fervor: Jackson, as fitting due to being an American
  Jackson: There's no way in hell I'm running around France when Lady Liberty herself is in danger!
• Phallic Weapon: A rifle pokes out of a toilet to shoot Hitler. A boy reading porn on the toilet grabs the barrel for masturbation.
• Poking Dead Things with a Stick: In "Revenge of the Lizardmen", Tucker pokes Holly with his katana when she's shot down by the lizardmen.
• Previously on…: In Season 2. Each montage includes a scene that wasn't actually shown in the previous episode.
• Product-Promotion Parade: Exaggerated in the ending credits of each episode from Season 2.
• Psychic Link: Shown in squick-inducing detail with the Shaman woman's link with Tucker — a tentacle shoots into his forehead, his eyes roll up and white fluid spurts from his mouth.
• Psychic Nosebleed: Tucker upon hearing improvisational music, and Jackson during a staring match with Tucker. Tucker also receives one in Season 2 due to Hitler opening his velcro wallet.
• Psychic Powers:
  • Ilsa has the psychic power to calm monkeys and open locked elevators by swaying sexily and humming the Tetris theme.
  • Pierre's psychomixology:
    Pierre: Tucker. How is that Vodka Marconi, my friend?
    Tucker: Satisfactory.
    Pierre: (concentrates and stares at the cocktail, which begins to bubble)
    Pierre: How about now?
    Tucker: Above satisfactory!
• Psycho Serum: Cocaine in Season 2, even by the good guys.
• Pulp Magazine: Goes so far as to spoof this on its website, where the pulpy pastiche articles are treated as factual news stories on the Danger 5 'verse.
• Putting the Band Back Together: At the beginning of Season 2, Jackson is lonely and still yearns for Ilsa, Ilsa is doing undercover work for the USSR as a dancer in Argentina, Tucker and Claire have got married, and Pierre is managing nightclubs in Japan. By the end of the episode, the team is reunited after the death of the Colonel.
• Race Lift: In season 1, Pierre is played by Italian actor Aldo Mignone. In season 2, he has been recast with Pacharo Mzembe, an actor of Malawian descent^note Although he was born in Zimbabwe and grew up in Australia. Becomes truly ridiculous in the Time Travel episode of season 2, where Mignone returns as Pierre's past self, suggesting some in-universe event that changed Pierre's appearance so radically. To make matters even sillier, the Mignone Pierre immediately recognizes the Mzembe Pierre as his future self.
• Reaching Between the Lines: Ilsa shoots someone over the phone. The same gag (of sorts) is reused again in the early episodes of Season 2 where Khrushchev sends items to Ilsa over the phone system: a babushka bomb, a "drug orange" and a "well done" sticker.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl: Claire, particularly in the first season. In "Lizard Soldier of the Third Reich", she shows more skin covering her breasts when entering the hot spring, then Ilsa does. And she wears fuzzy white lingerie while Mengele's prisoner in the back half of the episode.
• Remember the New Guy?: Kilroy, a 2D cartoon dog who appears in "Final Victory". Pierre treats him like a good friend who he has always been there, although none of the other characters interact with him. Besides Hitler, when he kills him.
• Remonstrating with a Gun: The eagle-headed colonel's Sit Down Gun. Naturally he makes a point of pointing it at Claire.
• Retraux: Core part of the show's appeal.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Kilroy, a 2D cartoon dog, in "Final Victory", who previously hasn't appeared before, interacts with live-action Pierre and Hitler.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Pierre kills the Danger 5 clones after Hitler shoots Kilroy.
• Room Disservice: "Red wine with chicken?"
• Rule of Cool: Drives the plot.
• Running Gag:
  • Dying characters passing on to Pierre the recipe for "the perfect <some cocktail>".
    • Subverted in the "previously on" recap at the beginning of the fourth episode of season 2. We see a dying character talking to Pierre about the "perfect salmon bouillabaisse" (a scene that didn't actually happen in any of the previous three episodes) and Pierre responds by pointing out that it's a soup recipe and he hates soup.
  • Every season 2 episode recap for that matter features one scene involving Pierre that's never actually shown in previous episodes.
  • Season 2 has Pierre always having "the right song" for a particular moment, then pulling out a cassette tape depicting as such: usually something like "Stop Bitin (My Friend's Face)".
  • The fake advertisements at the end; season 1 has regular products for adults, and season 2 has kids' toys based on events and characters in the season.
  • The eagle-headed colonel picking on Claire in every briefing.
    Claire: That's a Tyrannosaurus rex!
    Colonel: No, Claire, that's a Tyrannosaurus rex. Try thinking first before you open your mouth.
  • A Running Gag in itself, The Colonel usually at the end of his debriefing would add in as part of the mission "Kill Hitler".
  • Hitler jumping out the window. The same window.
  • "My God! This is a German [X]!"
  • Holly and her desire to get takeout. Extra medium.
• Sanity Slippage: Tucker after Claire is killed.
• Satire/Parody/Pastiche: Mainly the latter two.
• Scarpia Ultimatum: Mad Doctor Mengele gives Claire the choice of sleeping with him or seeing her friends thrown to the mutants. A pair of lab coats hung up behind give Mengele the appearance of horns.
• Scenery Censor: A pterodactyl is doing something nasty to a Screaming Woman behind a strategically-placed flower vase.
• Screw Yourself: Hitler tries this on Holly-Hitler in episode 6 of season two. When Holly-Hitler stops him, he remarks, "Every man would have tried."
• Sealed Evil in a Teddy Bear: Hitler possesses a Teddy Bear at one point.
• Sentai: Danger 5, with the help of magical rings, transforms into a superhero team with different coloured costumes for everyone in "Wwelcome to Hitlerland".
• Series Goal:
  KILL HITLER!
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Ilsa in Rommel's casino.
• Shaped Like Itself:
  Mengele: I am a scientist — a man of science.
  Chang: You always were a joking man, Glenn. A man of jokes.
• Shirtless Scene: Tucker running around Antarctica with his shirt off. And when they get to Switzerland and he has to impersonate a Nazi officer, his shirt gets ripped open pretty quickly.
  • Tucker-ninja during the training montage.
• Show Some Leg / Smoking Hot Sex: Ilsa has to stop Goebbels from entering the room where Danger 5 waits. A cut later and a stunned Goebbels does up his fly and staggers off while Ilsa gets up off her knees and calmly lights up a ciggie.
• Shout-Out:
  • The eagle-headed colonel's jacket is a dead ringer for the ones worn on The Prisoner.
    • During "Final Victory" Hitler appears in an egg shaped chair, similar to Number 2's. Complete with automatic rotation.
  • The pterodactyl's... assault... seems to reference a particular memetic porn video.
  • The Toku parody— you can even hear a sound effect from Jet Jaguar!
  • In series 2, episode 2, Ilsa wears the girls' school uniform from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • Japanese-speaking McKenzie has the head of a white lion.
  • Hitler's roller coaster car goes back in time when it hits 88 kilometers per hour.
  • Holly rides the majestic, feathered white Greg the pelican to the sound of tinkly synth-pop.
  • Welcome To Hitlerland features another Toku shout-out, this time with Super Sentai (specifically Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers / Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger). Albeit Super Sentai that avert Just Shoot Him.
• "Shut Up!" Gunshot: The "Sit Down Gun" used by Colonel Chestbridge during his Mission Briefings.
• Sigil Spam: The Nazis put swastikas everywhere.
  It's not plugged in. (sees the socket pins on the power cord are shaped like a swastika) My God! It's a German plug!
• Slipping a Mickey: Claire tries to do this to Mengele; unfortunately he recognises it from taste immediately.
• Smoking Is Cool: As per the period (a statement in the credits declares the show is not trying to advocate smoking).
• Special Effects Failure (In-Universe): Visible wires, obvious models, incomplete makeup, People in Rubber Suits. This just adds to the charm.
• Spot the Imposter: In "Final Victory", Hitler clones the whole of Danger 5, and the boys have to choose between the clones of Ilsa and Claire and their real selves. Tucker proceeds to play the flute to see which Claire has an emotional reaction, so he shoots down the clone, since supposedly clones can't be emotional. This wouldn't work on Ilsa, since according to Pierre "Russians don't have emotions", so Jackson asks them "Why shouldn't I kill you". After the Ilsa clone says "So we can be together forever" Jackson shoots her, as the real Ilsa would never say that.
• Spy Drama: Part of the premise.
• Stuff Blowing Up: With gusto.
• Sudden Downer Ending: In Series 2, likely a parody of the similarly jarring ending of Miami Connection.
• Suddenly Always Knew That: In "Kill-Men of the Rising Sun" Hirohito has a code book to control his robots, but all of it is written in Japanese. Claire then very conviently reveals that she learned Oriental Languages at Cambridge.
• Super Window Jump:
  • Hitler in Season 1, involving the same footage every time.
  • In Season 2, Claire finally catches Hitler without a handy window nearby only for Carlos to cut her head off. Hitler doesn't have to flee through windows, because most of the time he has the advantage. Instead there's a Running Gag of Danger 5 crashing through the flimsy set walls.
• Suspiciously Small Army
  "Field Marshall Jenkin's entire platoon has gone Nazi."
• Stripperiffic: Ilsa's Custom Uniform of Sexy. And most other female characters.
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Practically part of the premise.
• Stylistic Suck: 100% invoked. Everything from the dialogue, costumes, acting, "special effects," choreography, and sound are deliberately surreal, cheap, exaggerated and low-quality.
• Surreal Humor: Why are there people with eagle-heads in this series? Or talking dogs?
  • "Do you WANT me to use the Sit Down Gun??"
  • "What the wallaby are those dinosaurs doing with Hitler? I mean none of this makes any sense!"
• Taking the Bullet: Pierre falls in love with his Girl of the Week in "Fresh Meat for Hitler's Sex Kitchen", only for her to die throwing herself in front of bullets fired by a brainwashed Ilsa. Pierre takes the bullet for Tucker in Season 2, only for him and everyone else to die anyway (they get better).
• Talking Animal: Hitler has a talking German Shepherd.
• Talking Appliance Sidekick: Pierre's motorcycle can talk.
• Tap on the Head: Spoofed with Tucker setting an egg timer on his wrist for one hour, then karate chopping a mook, and calmly explaining that the mook will now be unconscious for an hour.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: After the team returns to a Nazi dominated future the Parody Commercial at the end of the episode is promoting an oddly pro-Nazi board game as if the Time Travel had an effect on show's production.
• There Was a Door: Justified given the flimsy sets.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: How Hitler is defeated in Season 2. It doesn't kill him of course, but then he's swallowed by a giant Ghost Claire.
• Time Bomb: Ilsa puts a bomb in a microwave and sets the timer (which comes off in her hand when she has to reset the device).
• Tinkle in the Eye: "The power stream!"
• 10-Minute Retirement: In Season 2, Tucker says his spying days are over and has little interest in avenging the Colonel's death, until Claire is killed.
• Toku: Parodied (naturally) with the Japanese robot soldiers in "Kill-Men of the Rising Sun", "The Final Victory" and "Welcome to Hitlerland.".
• Theme Park Version: Every single country in the world, but the U.S.S.R. in season two, referred to only as "U.S.S.R.-Land" even in its own signage, takes the cake.
• Two-Fisted Tales: The main source of inspiration for the first season is the men's adventure magazine genre, that dominated barber shop shelves during the '50s, '60s, and '70s.
• The Virus: Sexually transmitted Nazism. The only cure for which is "impure" Swiss blood. Yes, really.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Wacky like you wouldn't believe.
• Training Montage: Tucker undergoes one to pick up some ninja skills from McKenzie, after being humiliated by 'Johnny Hitler'.
  Tucker: I killed this dog and harvested its owner's tears, just like you said.
  Mckenzie: I never told you to do that!
• Truce Zone: The Bahamas, for some reason.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Mengele's mutants attack him once the crystal is destroyed.
• Unobtainium: Carbonado. The mineral that makes Hitler's female bodyguards bulletproof and his plan to make an army of them.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Between Ilsa and Jackson. Also between Claire and Tucker, but she's saving herself for marriage and he's too clueless to recognise her romantic hints. And the latter one gets resolved in the first season finale.
• Unusual User Interface: Ilsa uses her breast up against a door-opening suction cup.
• Valley Girl: Holly in Season 2.
• Verbal Tic: Pierre randomly interjects "my friend" in his speech to anyone he's speaking to.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Happens Once an Episode with Hitler escaping from Danger 5's A-Team Firing via a Super Window Jump through the same window every time. Our heroes then all look exasperated and never bother to chase him.
• Webisodes: Used only to start the show off.
• Wedding/Death Juxtaposition: On Tucker's and Claire's wedding, they get attacked by killer prawns who kill several guests. Tucker and Claire escape, but Claire is Killed Off for Real by Hitler later that same day.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Pierre's generic Mediterranean accent. Could be done intentionally, as Pierre has been revealed to have undergone many different aliases over his lifetime.
• Whip of Dominance: In "Kill-Men of the Rising Sun", Jackson is forced to fight a whip-wielding mind-controlled Ilsa in a gladiator battle. Fittingly Dr. Mengele also specifically got her dressed in a dominatrix-themed gladiator attire.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Tucker is afraid of water.
• William Telling: 'John Baccarat' (Jackson) while blindfolded shoots holes in cards held in a woman's cleavage.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • Jackson in "Fresh Meat for Hitler's Sex Kitchen".
    Get your fascist mouth away from me!
    You hit a woman!
    I hit a Nazi!
  • He also barely hesitates to backhand Ilsa while she is under the control of a mind-control crystal.
• World of Action Girls: Along with Claire and Ilsa, there is an unusual tendency for Mooks to be gorgeous, scantily-clad women. Of course, this is constantly mined for Crosses the Line Twice-style comedy, as these gorgeous women are brutally and often humorously killed by the dozen.
• World of Ham: A veritable World War of Ham!
• Would Hurt a Child: After massacring a family, their son comes downstairs and asks if Hitler is Santa. Hitler agrees, leaving him a gift-wrapped hand grenade with the pin out.
• Yellowface: In "Kill-Men of the Rising Sun", all the Asian roles speaking roles are almost all played by recurring cast members in yellowface and speaking dubbed Japanese. This becomes Leaning on the Fourth Wall as the Evil Plan involves Allied soldiers being turned into Japanese Super Soldiers by Hirohito's machine. Pierre's Girlof The Week is the only actual Asian person there.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: Tucker uses a Finger Gun to make Your Head Asplode after losing his own weapon.
  "Who needs a gun when you've got imagination?"
• Zeppelins from Another World: Used to steal the Eiffel Tower.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Hitler starts one after killing Satan. The zombies are so harmless that the only ones that actually kill people are Hitler himself and Claire's severed head.

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