From left to right: Cosmo, Rowan, Hayden, Jake, Molly and Mia
You're Skitting Me is an Australian youth Sketch Comedy produced By Jigsaw Entertainment for ABC Me. It consists of a group of teenagersnote performing skits, mainly satirising modern life today.
Most of Series 1 and 2's sketches can be found on the official You're Skitting Me YouTube channel
, and full episodes on ACTF's Twisted Lunchbox channel. The same courtesy was not given to Series 3, unfortunately.
Tropes associated with You're Skitting Me:
- All Just a Dream: Subverted by "Billy Blot", which revolves around its titular character constantly assuming that all of the embarassing situations he keeps finding himself in (turning up in a ridiculous costume to a supposedly "fancy dress party", getting stuck in a test he failed to study for, or finding himself at school without any pants) are a dream and thus allowing himself to do whatever he likes, only to be tragically reminded after humiliating himself further that he isn't.
- All Trolls Are Different: The song "I'm an Internet Troll Without the Internet". In it, the troll—who is reduced to roaming the street and insulting strangers to their face—is portrayed as a wizened figure, something like a human-sized Harry Potter goblin.
- Argument of Contradictions: The Mario Bros. invariably devolve into this, and generally just cut away without reaching any conclusion.
- Art Shift: Some sketches are live action, some sketches are animated.
- Ascended Extra: The second series saw the main cast expand from six to twelve; included in that listing were Moya and Branford, who were featured pretty heavily in series one (even getting speaking parts) considering they were not members of the main cast.
- Bedsheet Ladder: One of the "Boy vs. Boredom" sketches has Jeremy attempting to escape from going clothes shopping with his mother by tearing shirts into strips, fashioning them into a rope and using a wire hanger as a crude grappling hook to climb out of a changing room. It doesn't work.
- Brick Joke: Played between skits and even, on occasion, between a skit and the backstage interviews.
- Burping Contest: One sketch is about one of these. It escalates until one of the participants ends up accidentally farting instead, making him lose.
- Credits Gag: The Second Series Segment Ghost Roasters (which parodies of Ghost Busters) features this at the end, where the credits list various film positions (almost all of are taken up by Dylan), in particular following the position of "Best Boy" which is also given to Dylan, there is a position called "Worst Boy" given to his friend Moose. Also for the positions "Assistant to Mr. Dylan/Mr. Moose" Dylan's Assistant is Dylan's Sister (who is also in charge of cattering), while Moose's says "Nobody". Futhermore the opening title is always typed out and initially spelt wrong, before being backspaced and typed correctly; typos include "Ghost Rosters" and "Goat Roasters".
- Deadpan Snarker / Sarcasm Mode: One sketch focused around a school that taught teens to be this. It also had the Incredibly Lame Pun of the name Sarcademy.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: The Zombies sketch is a pretty good example of this.
- Excrement Statement: In one of the 'Bear Cub' sketches, Jeremy is doing work experience in an office and serves a teapot full of his urine to a meeting in the boardroom.
- The Exit Is That Way: After having been humiliated for being afraid of spiders, Ultra Boy attempts to leave with dignity by yelling "Ultra Boy, away!" and striding into the corridor. A few seconds later, he walks past the door again, noting sheepishly that the exit is this way.
- Friendly Zombie: Parodied in "Zombie Kids", featuring two teenage zombie boys. They are intelligent zombies and enjoy typical teenage activities like watching movies, but are also interested in eating brains. However they won't attack people on sight and can be talked out of any hostility. In fact most humans treat their hunger for brains as being irritating teenage behavior rather than anything life threatening.
- Former Child Star: Parodied. A sketch focused on a guy who used to do calendar shoots when he was a baby but has lost his fame as he grew up. 14 years later he tried another photo shoot in which he wore nothing but a nappy and acted like a baby.
- Girl Scouts Are Evil: Another loved topic of sketches.
- Hipster: A common sketch where the eponymous hipsters take their ideals too far. (e.g.
dying in a restaraunt of eating raw chicken because they don't want to eat normal chicken) - Hypocritical Humor: The Caveman sketches often has Ugg the inventor create a new invention (like a calendar) only for his fellow caveman to criticise the invention and how it can't be useful for them. After the criticism is done a situation pops up where the invention is useful but they don't realise it.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: On occasion.
- Instrument of Murder: A sketch had a girl attempting to return a recorder that acted as a blowgun. In the end, she store swapped it for one that fired a disintegrator ray.
- Intentionally Awkward Title: The title is a play on the Australian expression "You're shitting me", i.e. "you're having me on".
- Inventing the Wheel: One of Krunk's inventions was the wheel. As normal, he was told It Will Never Catch On and the wheel is pushed away, where it rolls downhill and kill a mammoth (off-screen).
- It Will Never Catch On: The Cavemen sketches. Krunk makes consistent attempts to civilise his fellow cavemen, with ideas of modern technology from paper, to soap, to social networking, but his attempt are always futile as another caveman always ends up rejecting his ideas.
- Just the Introduction to the Opposites
- Megaphone Gag: "Inappropriate Times to Use a Megaphone" always ends with someone yelling something secret, personal or embarrassing through a megaphone in a crowded place.
- Mistaken for Exhibit:
- A sketch had the two hipsters discussing the meaning of their favourite piece of street art, only for it to be revealed to be a No Parking sign.
- Another sketch had the hipsters arguing about whether a piece of art was avant garde or surrealist. A cleaning woman then sweeps up the scrunched up piece of paper.
- News Parody: Jolliemont High Witness News, a news report based around a whole school.
- Our Genies Are Different: One sketch features one that's found in a bin.
- Overly Long Gag: The Mario Bros. sketches invariably become an Argument of Contradictions that go on and on and on and on and on and...
- Perky Goth: One set of sketches features a trio of emo kids, and a fourth one who doesn't quite get it and irritates the others by being continually upbeat.
- Picked Last: Taking to ridiculous lengths in a sketch where the team captains pick a teacher, a dog, a rubbish bin and a bush before one of them is forced to take the last kid.
- A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: In one of the "Tatiana the Sailor" sketches, Tats's friend Em was supposed to be disguised as a Somali pirate. However, having no idea what a Somali pirate actually was, she instead appears as one of these.
- Playing Sick: Two sketches, "Barf in a Bag" and "Cold-n-Flu Sick Kit", depict Parody Commercials peddling products designed to help students invoke this trope. Unfortunately, if they're misused, they have the potential to make the user actually sick.WARNING: Swallowing Barf in a Bag may result in illness and actual barfing. If pain persists, Too Bad, maybe you should have studied for that exam in the first place.
- Postmodernism: The show parodies parts of modern life including Hipsters and the newest fads.
- Road Trip Across the Street: Combined with Short-Distance Phone Call in one sketch. A schoolgirl calls her mother and begs to be picked up from school. When her mother finally relents, its revealed that their house is literally across the street from the school.
- Robo Speak: The way Internet Speech Girl talks all the time. One occasion she actually overloads and makes the windows shutting down sound before collapsing on the table.
- Running Gag: Pops up from time to time, the most significant one was the joke about how bad a Dim Sim smells. The final sketch had everyone in Jollimont High Witness News fall unconscious because a student on vacation left a weeks old Dim Sim in his locker by accident.
- Ruthless Modern Pirates: Tatiana once tried to pretend that her boat had been boarded by Somali pirates (although Tats kept calling them "Salami pirates"). However, her friend Em had no idea what a Somali pirate actually was, and instead dressed as A Pirate 400 Years Too Late.
- Satire/Parody/Pastiche: The show's focus.
- School of Hard Knocks: Viking High School. Technically, the staff there were attempting to prevent the students from settling their differences with lethal weapons, but without much success.
- Searching the Stalls: Molly and Mia do this in a sketch about why girls go to the bathroom in pairs. It turns out it's because of the risk of ninja attack.
- Sentenced to Down Under: A recurring sketch features two prisoners in stocks discussing their transportation and what they thought of their new life in Australia.
- Shame If Something Happened: A standard tactic of the evil Girl Guides.
- Short-Distance Phone Call: Combined with Road Trip Across the Street in one sketch. A schoolgirl calls her mother and begs to be picked up from school. When her mother finally relents, its revealed that their house is literally across the street from the school.
- Sketch Show: The format.
- Stock Punishment: "The Australian Stock Kids" has two convicts locked in the stocks. While one of them complains bitterly, the other goes on about how lucky they are to be in Australia and how he plans to work hard when he is released, buy some land and have his own set of stocks in his backyard so he can relax.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The ending to every Ned the Panda sketch in which he often ends up in an otherwolrdly situation only to die because he can't survive in space or be too deep underwater.
- A similar case happens with the Rex the Dinosaur segments which always ends with him eating people he makes friends with because he's a tyrannosaurus rex.
- Technology Marches On: One of the show's favourite style of jokes. Constantly poking fun at things from last-gen being completely forgotten or non-existent, to the point where they're reintroduced as something completely new. Some examples include:
- With so many iPhone apps, the iPhone is being used for everything except as a phone, so the show introduces a 'phone app' allowing people to call each other in real time, rather than waiting on messages and never getting replies.
- In the 'Parent Information Call Centre' Sketch; a parent asks how to operate a VCR, only to be told no such thing exists.
- Taking a jab at how high unemployment is these days, the Hipsters decide that getting paid jobs would be 'non-conformist' since no one does it anymore.
- Too Dumb to Live: Tatiana, the rich girl who decides to go a sailing trip around the world despite having absolutely no experience and not knowing she had to take the trip alone.
- What Measure Is A Nonhuman: Parodied with the zombie segments where the zombies wish to be treated normally despite constantly eating flesh.
- It is reflected in the cast interviews, where the cast begin a fake charity so zombies can be treated like humans.
- Your Mum: One sketch had a school dedicated to teaching people how to master the art of insulting others by using "Your Mum is!" in response to any comment.
- You Say Tomato: One animated sketch focused on two tomatoes arguing over the pronunciation of a word like "aluminium" or "tomato". The guy pronouncing the words wrong often got beat up by the other guy.
