Series / Pataclaun

...Tres fantasmaaas...

Pataclaun was a Peruvian Sitcom that ran for two seasons from 1997 to 1999. Produced by a theater group by the same name, its origins started in theatre; before its emerging popularity allowed it to land on prime TV. It was considered a very unique series at the time it came out, for its rampant use of irreverent humor, local slang, and on-point satire of current events.

Known as "Peru's answer to The Simpsons" and inspired by old sitcoms similar in fashion to Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, Pataclaun was known and cherished for adapting a new style of humor and script writing onto Peruvian television; mostly the use of Fourth Wall breaks and references to current Peruvian culture. It also popularized the figure of the "claun" in popular culture, which was an updated archetype in theatre for the classical clown figure: the character spoke and had a genuine personality and thoughts aside from just slapstick gags.

Centered around a "dysfunctional family", the series star Machín and Wendy, a parody of a stereotypical Peruvian couple; alongside their observant baby, Monchi. After the pair got married, they moved to a new house; without realizing that the place is haunted by three kooky ghosts: Queca, Tony, and Gonzalete, each of them representing a different facet of Peruvian society. The stories were episodic, mostly dealing with the characters getting new jobs or landing into wacky new situations as the plot demanded. Oh, and yes, the fact that they're "clowns" is mostly just left to be a visual gag.

The characters consisted of:

• Wendy, who was written as a parody of Peruvian housewives. Sweet, kind, and energetic but not very bright. Wendy is very patient with her family even though they usually don't appreciate her selfless nature. She has moments where she displays her witty and independent nature, tho, whenever the others go too far. Is helpful to the point of being an Extreme Doormat. Her best friend is Queca and a rubber chicken who can talk only to her.
• Machín, who was a parody of sexist peruvian men at their worst. Lazy, misogynistic, ill-tempered, and smelly, Machín governs the house and expects his word to be law. It's very easy to anger him, but unlike most bumbling sitcom dads, he has moments where he shows his own cleverness. The ghosts can't stand him and often give him demeaning nicknames.
• Monchi, who is the Straight Man to the rest of the cast. Wendy and Machín's daughter, she's an intelligent and well-spoken baby girl who is often the voice of reason amidst all the wackiness. She's absent for most of the second season due to a trip to Italy.
• Queca, the only female ghost. Claiming to be from a well-off family, Queca represents the "pituco" (rich white Peruvians) class, who's rich and sheltered and idolizes the United States and Europe over her own country. She's not a villain but can be arrogant and self-centered. Claims to be a "lady" but her rough personality comes out whenever she's aggravated. Hates when people call her old.
• Tony, the second ghost, the self-styled "villain" of the show. Vain and sarcastic, Tony usually makes crazy plans to get the story going, mostly so that he can bed Wendy. He's close friends with Queca.
• Gonzalete, the third ghost, a Spanish priest. He intends to bring ethics and morality into the household, but he falls prey to his own sins most of the time. He's more well-meaning than Tony and Queca, but he's usually weak and falls easily to his own faults (lust and greed mainly).

The title is a portmanteau of two different words: "pata", which is Peruvian slang for "friend"; and "claun", which is a direct phonetic spelling of the English word "clown" in Spanish. Thus, the title can be closely read as "your clown friend".

To this day it's still considered one of Peru's finest tv shows, a staple of local culture, and fondly remembered by many.

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This show provides examples of:

A-D

• 15 Minutes of Fame: The ghosts appear on a Talk show where they show their powers and get instantly famous because of it, but start talking badly about the rest of the family and the condition they live in. Soon enough, their fame passes and they end up apologizing for their behaviour.
• Automobile Opening: The second season's opening has the characters riding the family car while going through an animated psychedelic version of the city until they crash in their own home.
• Auto-Revive: In the episode "The Rat", Queca eats a poisoned cake meant for a rat and drops dead, and this serves Machín, Wendy, and Gonzalete to pick up on Tony's schemes. Fortunately, she is a ghost, so she is fine in the following scene.
• Acting for Two: Invoked. In the episode "Change of Religion", the guys have to replace Wendy and Queca, and after a lot of failed castings to find their replacements, Tony makes Gonzalete play Queca and Machín play Wendy. It goes hilariously bad.
• All Women Are Lustful: Queca is the one who is often talking and lusting about hunky men. She is often seen ogling at magazines with male models or about male strippers.
• Animorphism: Queca turned Machín into a donkey as revenge for him making fun of her age.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite all their flaws, every member of the household love each other. Machín is the one who really shows this, because despite often mistreating Wendy and Monchi, he eventually comes around, apologizes, and tries to make up to them. Repeatedly.
• Back for the Finale: Monchi in the last 2 episodes of season 2.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Tony claims to be a professional actor, as one of his many talents and skills. He is as good at acting as he is a good singer. This is made evident in the episode "Machín's Movie", where Tony is seen to be no better than the others.
• Band Episode:
• The first season episode where the girls form a musical group called "Las Jilgueritas", to Tony and Machín's jealousy, who try and fail to form their own duo.
• The second season episode where the family tries to form a Creole Music band.
• Big Eater: It applies to most of them, but especially Machín, Wendy, and Queca.
  • Machín gets very angry if Wendy doesn't prepare the entire breakfast for him, which includes sausages, fried eggs, toast, yogurt, coffee, olives, etc.
  • Queca goes overboard when there's Peruvian food nearby, but she tries to pretend that she is too high class for it.
  • When Wendy was pregnant, Monchi (from inside her womb) made her eat everything on sight, to the point the others had to restrain her, thinking she was possessed. Wendy even ordered 20 roasted chickens for herself, and it wasn't enough to calm her hunger.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Along with their Take That! humor, the Television Network it aired on wasn't free from some jokes at their expense as well.
• Boot Camp Episode: Machín gets drafted to the military in the process of getting a valid Id document, all because Wendy talked up about him to his recruitment officer, thinking she was helping him pass his exam.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: A common staple of the humor of this show to the point the fourth wall may as well not exist and the difference between actor and character is often nil.
  Tony: (after unsuccessfully insisting that Machín should take a bath he looks to the audience) Damn it, I never expected playing the villain in a soap opera would be so difficult.
  • One of the prominent examples of this is in the first episode, where Machín stops the story towards the end and asks the camera to cut the filming; leaving the set to sit amongst the audience. The cast is befuddled by his actions, not knowing if it's the character or the actor, and even take their noses off in confusion.
• Cinderella Plot: A whole episode parodies the Cinderella story with Wendy in the main role, Machín as the Prince, and the Ghosts as the Evil Stepfamily. Of course, this being Pataclaun, it's wackier than your typical Disney fairy tale.
• Companion Cube:
  • Wendy's Rubber Chicken straddles the line between this and Non-Human Sidekick, since it makes chicken sounds and is treated as if it's alive but otherwise is just...a rubber chicken Wendy carries around.
  • In one episode the family starts selling crumpled pieces of colored paper with a string after seeing Monchi playing very affectionately with one. Later when Monchi accidentally "kills" his "friend" with water, Wendy just picks another one and gives it to her, to Monchi's appalling at it being treated so callously.
• Content Warnings: Season 1 episodes started with Monchi making a disclaimer that Pataclaun is not a Kid's Show, since despite having funny clauns, the humor has a lot of Double Entendre, Take That! to political figures, slapstick, and some strong language.
• Cool Uncle: The ghosts are Honorary Uncles for Monchi, but she only considers Gonzalete to be this since he is the one who pays attention to her the most. Queca often gives some womanly advice to her but insists to Monchi that she calls her "cousin" instead of "aunt", while Tony doesn't care about Monchi in the slightest unless it involves her in some scheme to woo Wendy.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Gonzalete is certainly a little quirkier than the other two ghosts. He's not mean, perse, but a lot of his humor derives from random occurrences he encounters instead of being sarcastic at the others (when he's not lusting after women), like being at a party at any time he's being summoned. His preparation for an exorcism, for example, requires him to make a dance while sporting two ill-fitting pigtails, which he doesn't seem to mind.
• Clown Species: It's never properly established how the world of Pataclaun works, since the main cast, supporting characters and magazine models/some extras always appear with the clown nose; yet other extras and real-life celebrities and politicians appear as they are. For the most part, the fact that they're clauns is just left to be a visual gag. Since this was a Sitcom first and foremost that satirized society and often mocked conceptions about Meta and the Fourth Wall, inventing the lore wasn't probably a priority.
• Crisis of Faith:
  • In the episode where Wendy gives psychotherapy to the rest of the household, she manages to turn Gonzalete into an Atheist punk by making logical questions about God and bad days in general.
  • In the episode "Change of Religion", Queca goes through an existential crisis, wanting to find the meaning of life, so she ropes Wendy in her search through different religions and cults.
• Christmas Episode: Pataclaun had one, in which the family prepared themselves for Christmas, each in their own kooky way. Queca demanded for Wendy to give her expensive presents, while Machín cheaped out of paying an exuberant Christmas feast.
• Depending on the Writer: The character dynamics vary depending on the plot of the episode.
  • Machín and Tony sometimes fight over Wendy, while in other episodes they are best buddies.
  • Monchi is known for being astute and Genre Savvy, but sometimes she can be very naïve when the plot requires her to be an innocent toddler, like the time Wendy gave her a crumbled paper ball as her imaginary friend.
  • Tony's character and his relationships overall depend on the episode. When he's in villain mode, he's very manipulative; often ready to trick all the other characters without a second thought. On episodes where he's much calmer, he's just a little snarky and sarcastic and seems to get along the best with Queca. Similarly, his relationship with Wendy varies on the episode: on some, he finds her very obnoxious, while on others he's desperate to bed her or even gain her love.
• Derailed Fairy Tale: While telling Nandito the "Wendycienta" tale, it gets derailed 3 times:
  • Tony tries to Shoot the Shaggy Dog by immediately killing Wendycienta, but it just causes Nandito to throw a tantrum and Gonzalete has to take over.
  • Queca ends her part by attempting to have the prince end with the Fairy godmother (played by herself), which upsets Nandito again and Wendy has to take over while Queca rants about the godmother deserving the prince more.
  • Finally, Machín tells Nandito the story really ended with the prince finding a sexy woman and hooking with her. When Nandito asks him about Wendycienta, Machín says she also got to live in the castle, which Nandito happily accepts. (Cut to Wendycienta scrubbing the castle floors.)
• Dirty Old Monk: Gonzalete's most well-known character trait revolves around this, whenever he starts looking after women.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: When it's time to send Monchi to Kindergarten, the admission test is treated like how teenagers suffer from stress before the entrance tests for college, from all the family pressuring her to do her best and be perfect, to Monchi starting to feel insecure about her own chances to ace it.
• Downer Ending: A few episodes end badly for the characters:
  • In the episode where Queca sent letters to become alive, Queca ends unwittingly changing bodies with Wendy, with everyone except Wendy hating the new situation. And their attempt to get them back to normal ends with everyone changing bodies with someone else, and they all have to keep sending letters to try to get back to normal.
  • When Gonzalete gets addicted to gambling, he loses the house and the family car to the casino and the episode ends with the family being stranded on the street in a huge box.
  • When the family pretended to be an international Rock band, with the intention of coming clean soon afterward, they gained fame and notoriety very quickly, but at the end of the episode when they finally revealed they were all Peruvian the press and fans abandoned and ignored them pretty much instantly.
  • The episode 'Queca La Vieja' ends with the entire family being accidentally turned into old people by Queca, including herself, with her being too senile to remember the counter spell to remove the curse.
• Dragged by the Collar: The animated first opening shows Wendy inviting Machín to her house by literally dragging him by the feet.

E-I

• Easily Forgiven: Zig-Zagged in the Arequipa episode, at the end everyone forgives Wendy for tricking them into going to Arequipa since ultimately they all enjoyed the trip. But since her antics left them all stranded they force her to carry all their luggage as they return home walking.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Early episodes had the characters take off their noses for a gag, or to deliver An Aesop, it quickly disappeared and afterward their noses stayed put at all times.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Tony's full name is Antonio Eusebio Lechuga ("lettuce") Facundo. Naturally, he never goes by his full name; and in the episode, the girls find out the truth, and they bully him mercilessly for "having a vegetable name".
• Everyone Has Standards: From all people, Machín is the only one who doesn't see it as a good thing that Queca and Gonzalete were getting married out of convenience (Queca only wants to get married so people won't call her a "spinster", Gonzalete only wants to have a wife because for the episode all clerics can get married, and Wendy only wants Queca to get married so she can have her baby)
• Evil Twin: Wendy has a twin sister named Janet Wendy, who is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and a Gold Digger, that nobody knows about. Tony discovers her in a talk show and tries to use her to take over Wendy's life, while Janet Wendy thinks they are millionaires and agrees.
• Expository Theme Tune: The first season's theme song explained how Wendy and Machín met and how they ended up living in a house with 3 ghosts. The second season instead used a cover of Witch Doctor with changed lyrics as its Thematic Theme Tune.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Machín has delivered these to Tony on occasion, in Oner scenes where Tony is replaced by a puppet in his image for the duration of the beatdown.
• Fat and Skinny: Downplayed with Queca and Wendy but their interactions are often like this.
• Fetus Terrible: Monchi was quite manipulative of Wendy while she was still in the womb, controlling her into eating whatever she liked and refusing to be born way past the point she needed to.
• Fire Fighting Episode: An episode of the second season had Machín get a job as a Firefighter, Wendy was initially thrilled but then started worrying about the dangerous nature of the job and conspired with Queca to turn Machín into a coward so he would quit. Predictably the episode ended with Wendy being trapped in a fire, with Machín recovering his valor and returning to being a Firefighter just in time to save her.
• Five-Man Band: Before Monchi's birth and after she leaves the house, the family fits the roles.
  • The Leader: Machín, as the man of the house.
  • The Lancer: Wendy, as the wife. Can overlap with The Heart as the most selfless claun.
  • The Big Guy: Tony is the one who comes up with the schemes.
  • The Smart Guy: Gonzalete, as the spiritual guide for being a priest.
  • Girly Girl: Queca is the one with the womanly advice and the claun most interested in fashion and luxuries.
• Forgot to Pay the Bill: 2 Episodes where Machín actually refuses to pay the phone bill/the entire house's utilities because he feels the ghosts are taking advantage of the house facilities without paying anything back.
• For the Evulz: Tony's main motivation for creating conflict is because he is the Card-Carrying Villain of the show. Depending on the plot, he is seen having normal friendly interactions with the rest of the household, with his more antagonistic attitude being reduced to the snarky friend.
• Fluffy Fashion Feathers: Part of Queca's Iconic Outfit during the first season.
• Friendly Ghost: The ghost trio can be a little callous and selfish in general, but they overall work for the side of good.
• From Beyond the Fourth Wall: With there being No Fourth Wall, the characters will often talk to the audience and ask for opinions, items, or favors and will promptly be given them directly from the camera. For example, Monchi asks for a solution when she was left behind in the house and was given a Home Alone VHS.
• The Gambling Addict: In one episode, Gonzalete becomes addicted to winning at games, to the point nobody wanted to play with him anymore. He ends up at a casino, losing the house in the process.
• Grass is Greener: The Missing Episode "Happy 28 de Julio" revolves around Machín trying to move to Florida after hearing how good his brother has it there, thinking he'd hit it big too, and other members of the family either supporting his decision to tag along or wanting to stay in their home country.
• The Ghost: Machín's mother and brother, who lives with his father and in Miami respectively, are often mentioned but never appear.
  • She only appears in one episode, but Lorenita Rivasplata also counts. Once Tony is exhausted from Wendy rejecting him once too many times, Queca sees to introduce him to her friend Lorenita on a date, in the chance he might finally get a girlfriend. We only know of Lorenita based on what Queca and Tony tell us, giving us a picture of an overall nice, blonde girl. Considering Tony was seriously thinking of marrying her after dating her, she was probably the real thing and a big deal.
• Girlfriend in Canada: To prove a point against Machín, Wendy makes up a fake ex-boyfriend named "Toñito de Osambela" who is supposedly more rich and handsome than Machín. Machín also makes up a fake ex-girlfriend named "Lolita the Contortionist". And the episode becomes a flexing war on who had the best fake ex. However, in Season 2, it turns out that Toñito was real, since Machín confesses to Wendy that he made Toñito break up with her (could be either a Retcon or just a throwaway joke for the episode).
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: One episode has a series of competitions between Machín and Tony vs. Wendy and Queca, with Gonzalete serving as the judge. When the final test ends in a draw because Gonzalete wanted to do An Aesop about collaboration, neither team was happy and beat him up for this.
• Giver of Lame Names: One of Wendy's quirks is that she is really bad at making up names on the spot, like whenever she tries to give an insult to Tony (like "face... of... a napkin... with all the corners folded"). A glaring example is the fake name of her fictional ex-boyfriend "Toñito de Osambela". Queca had to rework the name by signing a gift card as "Toñito the Insatiable" to get Machín jealous.
• Godzilla Threshold: Summoning Mamá Antonieta is treated as this when the family fails to have Machín break his promise to not bathe again, it works but she creates more problems when she then tries to force Tony and Queca to marry.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: The family's interactions with Tony depend on the episode. When he's with the Villain Ball he's scheming and manipulative, often trying to get at Machín. Episodes where he's much more playful instead change their interactions to be of two sarcastic friends.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Machín is usually mad at almost everything, it's very easy to get him on edge. Gonzalete has a temper as well, but it's for a much more comedic effect due to being random small fits over the most mundane things.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Machín to Wendy so very much, whenever he belittles and insults her. He's supposed to be a parody of sexist men in the first place, tho; so the unsubtleness works to make him more unlikeable.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • In the episode where Machín promises not to bathe again, they manage to make him change his mind by bringing Tony's mother to deal with him, but then they have to deal with her trying to get Tony and Queca married. Finally, they manage to get her to leave with a magic potion that makes her forget the promise to get them married, but Machín accidentally drinks the rest of the potion, and the episode ends with Machín again refusing to bathe.
  • Defied in another episode where the ghosts run the Phone tab and spend the episode getting enough money to pay it, at the end, Machín and Wendy leave satisfied and when the ghosts try to abuse the house phone again they find it has been locked tight by Machín and is unusable.
• Historical Longevity Joke: One of the most common topics when making fun of Queca is her age. Apparently, Queca is so old that she appears in a history book along with Miguel Grau, or that the cookies made for her Quinceañera are so hard and old that they were used to build Macchu Picchu.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Tony may be handsome and smart (at least according to himself)...But he cannot sing. He's driven new neighbors away due to how terrified they were of his voice.
• Insult Backfire: All of Wendy's insults towards Tony, whenever he angers her. In her defense, the poor girl tries... Key word is "try". Played with, in that, her insults are so inoffensive and downright strange that they just make Tony either laugh or look on weirded out.

J-R

• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite being sexist, dirty, and rude, Machín has been shown to have a soft spot for his family and comes around the Aesop in the last act of the episodes.
• The Jinx: Tony has a nerdy cousin named Hertes Malasu (in Spanish, it reads closely to "bad luck"- "mala suerte"), played by the same actor as Tony; who visits the family whenever his cousin is out. Hertes has so much bad luck that he can't even eat food, due to being allergic to almost everything. The other clauns are terrified of Hertes because every time he comes over, they all suffer horrible accidents.
• Just One Extra Ticket: Machín receives an all-paid trip, meant for the previous owner of the house, to Iquitos for 2 people. But instead of taking Wendy with him, Tony turns it into a 3-person ticket, so Tony, Machín and Gonzalete go on the trip while telling Wendy and Queca they are going on a spiritual retreat.
• Ladyella: For the Cinderella parody, the main character is called "Wendycienta", the Spanish equivalent of the trope.
• Like Father, Like Son: All members of Machín's side of the family are not only played by Carlos Alcantara (Machín's actor) but share all his traits, as seen on both Don Carlos (Machín's father) and Nandito (Machín's nephew).
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Monchi is very different from Wendy. Unlike Wendy, she is very Genre Savvy and Street Smart, showing that she got her wits from Machín.
• Longest Pregnancy Ever: Wendy was pregnant for over a year because Monchi was too comfortable in her situation, it took Queca threatening Monchi directly to get her to decide to be born.
• Masquerade: The fact that he lives with ghosts is kept a secret from Machín's family, so whenever they are around he has to remind them to not use their powers or appear suddenly around the house,
• Mistaken for Cheating: Tony's favorite tactic. Every time Machín arrives late to the house, he tries to put ideas in Wendy's head in hopes to ignite a fight between the two.
  • In one episode, a baby exactly like Machín is left at the doorstep, but instead of separating them, Wendy decides to take the baby and rise him as her own. It turns out Tony created a baby clone of Machín to frame him as a cheater, but it didn't work, prompting him to confess only then.
• My Beloved Smother:
  • Tony has one of these in the form of Mamá Antonieta (played by the same actress as Wendy), an overbearing woman who is always criticizing her son and expects him to marry as soon as possible. The other characters can't stand her either, except for, oddly enough, Machín.
  • Wendy is this to Monchi, to the point she spends a whole episode sobbing about Monchi leaving the house, and in later episodes commenting that she would attach the new baby to herself 24-7.
• New Job Episode: A few episodes revolved around Machín getting a new job, with him becoming a Mailman, Firefighter, and minibus driver (At the same time Wendy became a Policewoman), among others.
• The Nicknamer: A common staple of the show's humor is the characters giving each other unique different nicknames whenever they interact. The champion of these is Tony, who has a monicker for all the members of the household.
• No Accounting for Taste: Machín and Wendy have this kind of marriage, with Machín as the abusive loud macho husband and Wendy the meek and happy Housewife that somehow likes all the abuse that goes towards her.
• Non-Human Sidekick: The rubber chicken mostly interacts with Wendy and the audience never sees him reacting like a normal character, but the cast often states that he's alive and sentient. He only gains prominence in the Christmas episode; when he steals the presents after he notices how the clauns acted very selfishly over the Holidays.
• Non-Ironic Clown: They're a little sarcastic and can be jerks from time to time, but the clauns are much friendlier and harmless than the typical Monster Clown we see nowadays.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A huge aspect of many jokes, and an important aspect to consider in claun theatre. When the actors wear their noses they're always the characters, even when not filming or not following the script. If they take the nose off then it means the real actor starts speaking.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Unlike the popular depictions of transparent and translucent ghosts, the trio's supernatural abilities include conjuring spells and teleportation. Aside from a few gags and tricks here and there, the ghosts act like normal, everyday people. We never find out how they died or why they haunt that specific house.
• Out of Focus: Gonzalete has generally less screen time than other characters, which is pointed out on occasion.
• Older Than They Look: Queca wants to pretend that she is young, but it's pretty evident that she has been under the knife quite many times. Machín even found her photo in a History book, more specifically in the Pre-columbian history chapter.
• Only Sane Man: Girl in this case, but Monchi still fits. She's also a little quirky, but compared to Wendy's ditziness, Machín's abrasiveness, Gonzalete's lewdness, and Tony and Queca's vanity; she's really the better off claun.
  • Machín of all people in the episode where Queca and Gonzalete want to marry out of convenience, he is the only one who sees a problem with it while Queca, Gonzalete, and Wendy are focused on their own interests and Tony doesn't care.
  • Gonzalete can be this also from time to time, when Monchi often isn't around. It's mostly done to contrast how he has better morals than Tony and Queca, whenever they act too classist or selfish. For example, in the episode where Angelito arrives at the house, he was the only one aside from Wendy who wanted to take care of the baby; and chided the other ghosts for dismissing the child due to his skin color.
• Parental Savings Splurge: Queca goads Wendy into using Monchi's College savings on themselves, saying she's going to grow an ungrateful adult and it's not worth it, and Wendy goes along with it. Later Machín loses his salary (all 5 Soles of it) and tells Wendy they need to dip into the savings to get by that month, leading Wendy to convince the others to get odd jobs to avoid having to tell Machín she splurged it all already.
• Pest Episode: 2 of them, 'La Rataza' and 'El Centro de Lima'.
• The Pig-Pen: Machín has pride in the fact that he doesn't bathe. He smells bad enough to make the police come over to investigate, confusing him for a corpse.
• Put on a Bus: Monchi goes to travel the world in the second half of the first season because her actress was moving away to Italy. She comes back for the last two episodes of the second season, right before the series finale.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Queca and Tony get along pretty well (except when Tony has to be the villain of the episode) and are strictly friends, since both of them can't stand each other physically, to the point they even gag in disgust whenever they are obligated to kiss.
• Rich Bitch: Queca usually thinks she's better than anyone else just because of her status and Caucasian features. It's later revealed in a Season 2 episode through Sheilla, her great great great grand niece, that she was really from native-Peruvian descent and used to live in Cajamarca, but she commuted to Lima, dyed her hair and wants to conceal it.
• Ridiculously Alive Undead: The ghosts are basically living people except they have powers, are immortal, and have to haunt a house. But that last doesn't come up very often, so they act as if they are basically alive but with powers.
• Rotating Protagonist: Each character gets a few episodes of focus, while other episodes focus on the human duo, the ghost trio, or the family as a whole.
• Running Gag
  • Wendy talking with her rubber chicken, getting angry at it for some reason, and beating it up.
  • Queca being summoned and presenting herself like some celebrity, or alternatively letting her wild side show and loudly asking for some beers.
  • Monchi asking Gonzalete a simple question but then continues to ask for deeper/more philosophical clarifications until Gonzalete gets flustered and blows up in anger or tries to escape.
  • Tony flirting with Wendy, her getting angry and trying to insult him without success, then him sending her on an elaborate quest with the promise of some funny reward just to get rid of her.
  • An early episode of the second season had Queca repeatedly summoned just as she was about to marry someone.

S-W

• Self-Deprecation: The show isn't shy of either making fun of their actors or doing meta jokes about its production, especially at Wendy being the head writer.
• Seven Deadly Sins: The plot of one episode has God talking to Gonzalete, offering to make him a Saint if he succeeds at finding the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins in one place.
  • Monchi becomes Greed since in her search she becomes addicted to gaining money in a casino just to have more.
  • Queca becomes Envy since one of her favorite past times is badmouthing celebrities who have more than her.
  • Tony has Lust since he is constantly trying to seduce Wendy.
  • Machín has both Wrath and Sloth since he gets mad for Wendy not fixing his car, while he just wants to be lazy around the house.
  • Wendy is Gluttony, as she won't stop stuffing her mouth with food.
  • Turns out that Gonzalete becomes Pride since he starts displaying moral superiority while accusing the rest of his family. Ironically, this is what cancels his chances to be a Saint, since he also has a Deadly Sin deep inside.
• Silly Spook: The 3 ghosts aren't scary or do much haunting (they "haunt very nicely" as the song goes), an episode has them receive a letter from the administration telling them to step up their job as ghosts and scare someone or be replaced.
  • Zig-Zagged with Cousin Hertes who is very nice and dorky but others fear him for the bad luck he brings, Averted with Mamá Antonieta who is very imposing and feared in her own right.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Usually, if two characters are gonna be at each other's throats, it'll be often Machín with somebody else. Either Tony when he's playing the villain for the episode or Queca most of the other times. Queca and Machín have a notable size difference so the comedic effect doubles when they fight.
• So Bad, It's Good: Invoked. In the episode "Machín's Movie", an eccentric millionaire named Mr. Multi wants to fund Machín's movie precisely because he wants to do something different since he is bored and wants to do something with the short life he has left. After the horrendous results, and the family acknowledging that everything in the movie is bad, Mr. Multi is the only one who truly enjoyed it. Too bad the household couldn't make use of the check before he died.
• Shipper on Deck: Mamá Antonieta wants Tony to marry Queca despite all her flaws, but only because she doesn't want her friends to gossip about Tony being single. Monchi also imagines an alternate future in which both got married and are expecting.
• Shipper with an Agenda:
  • Tony's mother tries to have him married off to Queca simply to preserve her own status.
  • Wendy herself tried to set up Queca and Gonzalete to marry so she could use their eventual offspring as a Replacement Goldfish for Monchi who left last season.
• Shout-Out: There are so many! There's a season this show was constantly compared to the Simspons:
  • Queca lives inside a bottle just like Jeannie in I Dream of Jeannie.
• Stage Mom: Tony sees Monchi as a future Child Celebrity and proposes to be her manager in the future. The entire family becomes this when they submit Monchi's profile to a casting for a snack commercial and get really angry when another girl is selected, so they try to create drama between the two kids for clout when both kids only want to be friends and save the Hills of Lachay from becoming a wasteland.
• Storybook Episode: The series has 2, one in each season.
  • First season is "Wanda"; in which Wendy, frustrated by the ghosts' words, writes a historical romance to show them that she has a talent for writing stories. The family ends up playing the characters in the novel in ironic casting, since Wendy is inspired by them to create her characters, and is frustrated by how unhelpful they were that day. So Wendy is now the beautiful Lady Wanda, stuck in a love triangle between her lowly servant Machín and her foolish suitor Sir Antonio. The vain Queca turns into her maid, horny Gonzalete is now a fop; and Monchi turns from a cute baby to the wealthy Madame, Wanda's strict mother.
  • In season 2 we have "Wendicienta", an overall straight retelling of Cinderella, once Nandito comes to visit and Wendy tells him a fairy tale to calm him down.
• Strike Episode: Wendy gets tired of cleaning after the others and being taken for granted so decides to stop doing housework other than cooking and forms a strike in the middle of the living room.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Wendy often converses with her rubber chicken, and an episode was centered on how she can talk to any animal and the characters' schemes to use this for their benefit.
• Studio Audience: The series was filmed in front of one, and sometimes it was shown as part of a Breaking the Fourth Wall joke, like in the first episode where Machín decided he had enough and left the house to sit with them.
• Superpowers for a Day: After showing jealousy of the ghost's powers, Queca gives Wendy a potion that gives her the ghost's Reality Warper powers for 24 hours, and ends up using them to try to take over the government. Machín also accidentally takes the potion but when he realizes he has powers, he just uses them to get a spot on the 'Alianza Lima' soccer team.
• Take That!: Pataclaun wasn't shy when doing some obvious takes at the government^note The Fujimori government from 1990 to 2000 was considered a dictatorship, so there were a lot of references to the President and the Intelligence Director, Vladimiro Montesinos, in an age when doing that on National TV was taboo.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Tony's the resident "heartthrob" of the show and he often boasts that he has many fangirls throughout the whole country. However, this is more an exaggeration because of his ego, to cover many of his obvious flaws (mainly his small hands).
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: When Queca and Wendy left to find a new religion the rest of the cast tried to get some replacements but ended with a parade of bad imitators until they finally found a pair that could very well fill their roles...except they were too expensive to hire.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Monchi spends an episode trying to convince the family that there is some monster under her bed with none of them caring, to the point she moves to the living room to avoid it. Then Tony teleports and locks her in her bedroom For the Evulz, where she ends up befriending the gremlin living in there, and brings him back to scare Tony with it.
• Treasure Hunt Episode: Wendy stages a fake treasure hunt to get the family to travel to Arequipa, which Machín is all too happy to lead, acting like Indiana Jones the entire time. Queca then finds out the truth and uses the opportunity to add more clues to lead them to good tourist spots, but things get complicated when it's time to give an actual conclusion to the hunt and Wendy spends the last of her funds buying a 'treasure' for Machín to find.
• Tsundere: It turns out that her hostile interactions with Machín was in reality a cover for Queca having the hots for him, and she has let it slip in in some episodes.
  • In the episode where all the ghosts take turns to write the plot for the episode because Wendy was still sulking about Monchi's absence, Queca writes a story where Machín dumps Wendy to leave with Queca.
  • This comes up when everyone thinks the End of the World is coming, so she tries to throw herself at him. When the whole misunderstanding is cleared, she starts getting defensive about Machín, despite nobody asking about him, and later tries to excuse herself claiming that she said all those things because of the heat of the moment.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Unkempt, lazy slob Machín and Wendy.
• Underdogs Never Lose: Played With, when Wendy entered the Miss Peru contest, to say she did terribly in the first half, would be an understatement, but manages to win anyway because Queca and Gonzalete do a magic spell to prevent her from being humiliated.
• Undying Loyalty: Wendy and Queca are best friends, but it's clear that Wendy is the most dedicated to their friendship than Queca, to the point Queca takes advantage of Wendy's goodness to use her as a servant, and Wendy has forgiven Queca for many of her faults, like abandon her for a man, or the many times Queca has called her dumb.
• Vacation Episode: The series has a total of four episodes where they travel to different Peruvian destinations:
  • Tarapoto. Queca and Tony convince Wendy to take some vacations, but they fail to make a clone of her, so they pretend to Machín and Monchi that Wendy has been kidnapped.
  • Cuzco. Machín and Wendy have their anniversary trip to Cuzco, but the ghosts tag along with them, not giving them a moment of privacy. Meanwhile, nobody is looking after Monchi at home and she gets into some "Home Alone" Antics.
  • Iquitos. The guys want a break from the women, so they take advantage of a travel prize for the previous owner of the house. The girls decide to follow them just to spite them.
  • Arequipa. Wendy wants some family vacations, but since nobody in the household wants to travel anywhere in Peru, Wendy pretends that she found a treasure map that leads to a big loot in Arequipa, taking advantage of Machín's recent obsession with Indiana Jones.
• Villainous Crush: Depending on the episode, be it genuine infatuation or just to prove that he can be a Casanova Villain, Tony is insanely into Wendy and finds every opportunity possible to try to sleep with her. It never comes to fruition because either Wendy is uninterested, or Machín finds a way to spoil his plans.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Arguably the ghosts. They seem close and friendly enough but they're ready to insult and criticize each other if one screws up.
• "Walk on the Wild Side" Episode: Attempted by Queca and Wendy after the guys leave on a 'Retirement trip', but Wendy is only able to come up with lame activities, prompting Queca to abandon her to spy on the guys, leading her to discover they were actually on a secret vacation trip.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!:
  • After being mistreated one too many times, Wendy gives Machín some Easy Amnesia by hitting him with a frying pan, and she and eventually the rest of the family manipulate him into being their servant. After a while though, Wendy begins missing the old Machín and tries to get him back to normal, only to find Machín had recovered on his own and left, realizing how badly he had treated Wendy before getting the amnesia.
  • Machín and Gonzalete decide to vindicate themselves after having a near-death experience/realizing what a bad priest he has been. They start performing noble and altruistic tasks, but soon enough begin to compete with each other over who is the best of the two, driving the rest of the family nuts until they get told to drop it off.
  • Played for Drama when Tony gets a new girlfriend and Wendy gets jealous that he isn't lusting after her anymore, manipulating him into dumping the new girlfriend so she'd have him constantly fawning for her.
• World of Snark: The cast is sarcastic to a fault, especially Tony and Queca. The big exceptions are Wendy and Gonzalete, since their jokes derive more from their ditzy or wacky tendencies.
• Written by Cast Member: Invoked. After Monchi leaves, Wendy is so depressed that she can't even bring herself to write the scripts for the following episodes, so the ghosts take turns to try writing plots for an episode. None of them work and Wendy (the actual Wendy Ramos) has to force herself out of depression and take over the show again before they ruin everything.
• You Are Fat: Aside from constantly making fun of Queca being fat, this is also the plot of some episodes.
  • Machín enters a mid-life crisis when Monchi calls him "fat and old", so he tries to diet and act more like a youngster. This only disturbs the others.
  • Wendy and Queca get tired of being called fat constantly, while Tony is stood up by Cindy Crawford, so he decides to get revenge by changing the world's beauty standards so Cindy and other models lose their jobs. At the end of the episode, Wendy and Queca admit that they wrote the script to feel better about themselves.
• Zany Scheme Chicken: Queca tried to conquer Tony to prove Wendy that men were easy to make fall in love, Gonzalete got wind of it and helped Tony get even, with it turning into a race to see which team called it quits first.