Films with individual pages: Carry On, Sergeant, Carry On Nurse, Carry On Teacher, Carry On Constable, Carry On Regardless, Carry On Cruising, Carry On Cabby, Carry On Jack, Carry On Spying, Carry On Cleo, Carry On Cowboy, Carry On Screaming!, Don't Lose Your Head, Follow That Camel, Carry On Doctor, Carry On Up the Khyber, Carry On Camping, Carry On Again Doctor, Carry On Up the Jungle, Carry On Loving, Carry On Henry, Carry On at Your Convenience, Carry On Matron, Carry On Abroad, Carry On Girls, Carry On Dick, Carry On Behind, Carry On England, That's Carry On!, Carry On Emmannuelle, and Carry On Columbus.
- Accidental Aesop: This is one of the biggest reasons why many critics have begun to show interest in the series again, when they hadn't shown much when it was popular.
- Aluminium Christmas Trees: Being a long-running comedy series from the mid-20th century, it's unsurprising that this trope will occur in at least every movie. For example, bus conductors and buckets of water to put out fires (Carry On Loving).
- Audience-Alienating Era: There isn't a really specified era which could be called this trope, but personal opinions about what part of the series that is seen as this is enough to begin a backlash between fans. What many can agree on, however, is that there were at least two or three eras of this trope.
- The Bernard Cribbins era (the two films Carry On Jack and Carry On Spying) is considered this. With barely any of the actors that you recognise from when the series first began note , it's often overlooked (whether accidental or not), even though it was as successful as many of the other recognisable hits like Up the Khyber.
- Between Carry On Spying in 1964 and Carry On Doctor in 1967. When included, six films were made in the time frame, but even though they were also very popular, the four films between the aforementioned aren't always seen as important or memorable. It's not helpful that during the time, the films had to change their distributing company and then hit one of the first box-office bombs in the series when Phil Silvers failed to bring in the US audience to Follow That Camel!
- When the series branched out to television and stage in the mid-1970s. It wasn't helpful that the TV shows relied on a live-studio audience and the sitcom tropes that other TV shows were doing at the time. Also, many fan favourites barely appeared in either of them (to name a few: Kenneth Williams refused to be in either, Joan Sims refused to be in the stage productions, Sid James only appeared in a handful of TV episodes and one stage production due to contractual commitments with other media, and Charles Hawtrey had already been fired at the time for his alcoholism.)
- Best Known for the Fanservice: Outside of the fans, it's pretty much what Carry On is most remembered for. Unfortunately, this often overshadows all of the other things that the Carry On movies were known for. Carry On Camping is especially remembered for the scene when Barbara Windsor's bikini top snapped off. It's probably the reason why this was the movie that made the most money.
- Broken Base: Fans and critics argue over which film was the best in the series. Either way, it's always widdled between Carry On Camping, Carry On Cleo and Carry On Up the Khyber.
- Creator's Pet: After the positive fan reception the Carry On producers had about Sid James, he became the gimmick that drew the audience in movie after movie.
- Critical Dissonance: The series divided audiences and critics by the time the 1970s rolled around. Although, after Sid James left, as well as Talbot Rothwell, the critics and audience both began to argue over which movies were the ‘worst' post-1974.
- Designated Hero: Depending on the Writer. Everyone in the series had their moment of this trope, but the notable people would be Jim Dale, Kenneth Williams, Sid James and Charles Hawtrey's characters, who often did terrible things to suit them and would get away with it.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: The Carry On team was surprised at the positive reactions about Sid James' appearance in Carry On Constable.
- Esoteric Happy Ending: There are quite a few endings like this.
- Any ending involving Charles Hawtrey's characters that disappear in the middle of the film.
- Carry On Again Doctor has Gladstone drug women into having hormone juice in order to avenge Jim Dale for manipulating him for his own greed. It's referenced at the end of the film that the effects haven't worn off, because Barbara Windsor can still grow facial hair, but could it be far more serious than that?
- Estrogen Brigade:
- The Jim Dale-era notably drew in a bigger audience — many of the audience crush-nursing young women — even with the movies that he didn't appear in, possibly in a hope to see him appear in a cameo. It was also probably why Dale's singing career was successful, long before he became an actor.
- Although not conventionally attractive, Sid James' authoritarian roles when Norman Hudis was series screenwriter brought many middle-aged women to cinemas. Perhaps Dilys Laye trying to seduce him in Cruising was meant to be escapism...
- Fanon Discontinuity
- At Your Convenience caused controversy when it was released (to the point the film took six years to regain its budget from the box office), and some stopped caring about the series after the movie.
- The Talbot Rothwell era ended in 1974 (the last film he wrote being Carry On Dick) when he retired due to health reasons, which was the point that many began to hate the films after his departure (see Sequelitis).
- Carry On Columbus was poorly-received by most of the fanbase when the series decided to make a return in the early 1990s. Even many of the regulars that were alive at the time openly criticized it — many of them refusing to appear — and Jon Pertwee (who made cameos in the series a couple of times) was disappointed to find out that he was in the movie (he thought it was the Christopher Columbus movie from Ridley Scott). It's probably why the film's not included on the series' anniversary film box-sets.
- The television series Carry on Laughing! is often overlooked.
- The Norman Hudis era (Sergeant to Cruising) is often ignored — at least, the movies that didn't have the majority of the recognisable cast from the mid-1960s (aka Sid James, Joan Sims, Kenneth Williams, Bernard Bresslaw, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques, Barbara Windsor, Peter Butterworth...)
- Also, the movies outside of this era that didn't have many of the cast (Carry On Jack, Carry On Spying, Carry On Cruising).
- Fandom Heresy: The belief that the movies made after Carry On Dick are just as good as the rest of the series, or even better. That opinion is enough to rub many fans the wrong way.
- Fountain of Memes: Kenneth Williams, who is the only member of the cast that has at least two or three quotes.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Of all the Carry On films that the United States could like was Carry On Nurse, which is often a film that suffers from Fanon Discontinuity (it was a Norman Hudis movie, after all). It was so popular, it aired in the American cinemas three years after it was released.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- Carry On Dick finished with Dick Turpin and his gang riding off into the sunset, managing to escape the police. Pretty cool, until you realise that this was the last film that Sid James ever did before his death two years after, after taking his hiatus from the series in order to do other projects. He quite literally rode off into the sunset out of the series.
- Some of Charles Hawtrey's characters became alcoholics as the series progressed into the '70s, and it was mostly Played for Laughs. Then it turns out that they were written like this on purpose because Hawtrey had become a heavy drinker due to his depression after his mother's death and his severe loneliness, and the production team allowed him to feed into his problem in order to save arguments. He was later fired for upsetting some of the actors in his drunken state.
- Hattie Jacques' characters sometimes received snide comments about being a large woman, and later died in 1980 due to complications with her health and her struggles to lose weight.
- Terry Scott's lecherous moments sour after he was outed before he died as having a "reputation" in the media industry.
- Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams' characters being mocked by the story for their flamboyance, especially when both actors suffered from gayngst that contributed to their addictions and depressions.note They also had a mutual dislike of each other (much like their characters) because they envied the other for handling their gayngst better than they did.
- Imogen Hassall's character in Carry On Loving only sparking interest in Terry Scott after she has a makeover (read: wears a short skirt with prominent cleavage) would unfortunately mirror Hassall's career. Known for being a Ms. Fanservice, the film industry later discarded her (presumably for younger actresses), and other tragedies in her life led to her suicide in 1980.
- He Really Can Act:
- Jim Dale, who was formally a Grammy Award-nominated singer/songwriter with not a credible enough acting history before that.
- Through Carry On Jack, Juliet Mills successfully stepped out of her sister and father's shadows.
- Ho Yay: There was a fair bit of this in the films. In the mid-60s onwards, this was more common. Surprisingly, only a few of these moments happened between the two well-known closeted gay actors Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams.
- Those times when a character in drag falls in love with a colleague of the gender that they're pretending to be.
- Carry On Jack had Albert fall for Sally (in disguise as him), and Carry On Matron had Cyril (in disguise as a student nurse) and Susan. Both couples were caught kissing by other characters, who reacted in confusion.
- Kenneth Williams' characters also had the habit for falling for disguised men in drag.
- The infamous scene in Carry On Matron when Kenneth Williams sprays a foam fire extinguisher on Charles Hawtrey certainly hits an unintentional Does This Remind You of Anything? moment.
- Those times when a character in drag falls in love with a colleague of the gender that they're pretending to be.
- Just Here for Godzilla
- For the bikini-snapping scene (Carry On Camping)
- For the dinner scene (Carry On Up the Khyber)
- For the shower scene (Carry On Constable)
- Love to Hate: Practically all the actors, whether they were the heroes or the villains. Especially Sid James.
- Memetic Badass: Sid James, for definite, who always got away with anything.
- My Real Daddy: Despite director Gerald Thomas, producer Peter Rogers and a number of performers working on the series throughout its history, many fans agree that Talbot Rothwell's scripts were the catalysts that really held the series together. Case in point — the early, Norman Hudis-scripted films are generally regarded as So Okay They're Average, while the latter films made without Rothwell's involvement are considered to be really, really bad.
- Older Than They Think: In the 1960s the British were basically doing the same sort of suggestive humor that the Japanese do in modern day manga and anime.
- Overshadowed by Controversy: Carry On Dick was overshadowed by Sid James and Barbara Windsor's affair a few months before, and Carry On England was overshadowed by Sid's public death. The latter film suffered terribly because of it.
- Questionable Casting:
- Having men as old as Sid James pretending to be in their twenties, who wants to be the one who makes a woman his character's age (or teenage girl) lose her virginity for his own selfish need.
- Making white people play non-white characters by darkening their faces with make-up. Not to mention, actual non-white people appeared in background roles next to the fake non-whites, making the effect even more jarring.
- Sequelitis: Even the fans of the series claim that Carry On Behind is where the franchise began to fall apart completely.
- Shallow Parody: Because of the critical reaction to some of the franchise's content, when an outsider that only knows about a few traits from the series, their parody of Carry On is more of a satirical representation of the Awful British Sex Comedy genre/trope.
- Signature Scene
- The drunken antics of the hotel guests after (roughly) five guests spike the punch. (Carry On Abroad)
- The dinner scene in the Ruff-Diamonds' mansion in which the Indian natives fired bombs and shot at the building while the guests ignored the debris falling down around them. (Carry On... Up the Khyber)
- Barbara Windsor's bikini top flying off and hitting Kenneth Williams in the face. (Carry On Camping)
- Squick: Whenever Sid James (or any other older man) becomes fixated on a teenage girl.
- Tear Jerker: As a comedy series there isn't enough for a full page but in Carry On Teacher there is a couple
- Mr Wakefield has discovered the students creating their traps for the last day and tells the boys to come after the assembly.
- Miss Alcock and Mr Grigg admit their love and plan marriage and how they won't use his theory with their kids.
- Just Mr Wakefield is going to cane the first boy, Miss Short comes in with one of the girls, she told the teacher the truth, they found out about his plan to leave the school and Wakefield is shocked and sadden when he realises the misbehaviour was out their desire for him to stay knowing that a petition was useless. Even Miss Short is close to tears explaining the love the students, Wakefield refused to cane the students.
- In the end Wakefield chooses to stay at the school which produces happy tears.
- Trope Codifier: For Affectionate Parody and Whole-Plot Reference.
- Trope Maker: For Awful British Sex Comedy, because of its censor-bending from the double entendres and innuendos, despite not going into foreplay.
- Values Dissonance: Not surprising — seeming how this was a movie series that spread through mid-20th century Britain.
- Hattie Jacques and Patsy Rowlands often want to get married for the sake of being married.
- Not to mention, the moment Hattie's character in Carry On Loving has a chance of getting married, she immediately resigns.
- The theme song to Carry On Emmannuelle is about a man who is annoyed about his girlfriend always begging for sex, and despite wanting to do other things like going to a nightclub for the evening, he has sex with her because he fears that she will leave him if she thinks that he's "getting bored" of her.
- Terry Scott in Carry On Matron trying to rape the disguised Cecil, who repeatedly refuses to date him. It's Played for Laughs, as if Cecil was actually a female, but was a typical joke that comedies used at the time.
- Adult men trying to win over teenage girls, although it's hard to tell because there is a lot of Dawson Casting in the series (since Sid James was in his fifties at the time, and was focused on thirty-something women pretending to be sixteen).
- Bernard Bresslaw, a white Jewish Cockney, portraying Southern Asian and/or black characters in blackface. It should be noted that in British media, white people in blackface was used up until the 1980s, what with the revival of the Black and White Minstrel Show on BBC.
- Hattie Jacques and Patsy Rowlands often want to get married for the sake of being married.
- Values Resonance: It's notable how many positive romantic characters do not fit the mould of conventional attractiveness in media. Hattie Jacques' romantic (and/or sexual) desires are rarely belittled or mocked because she's a fat woman, and 5'2" Kenneth Connor gets chased or pampered by amorous women. Meanwhile, Charles Hawtrey—a skinny, inoffensive man with large eyes and Nerd Glasses—is often The Casanova and fathers many children, and "face like a roadmap" Sid James has a May–December Romance/seduction almost Once an Episode.
- The Woobie:
- Charles Hawtrey was often this, especially if his characters were either The Cassandra or the cloudcuckoolander.
- Bernard Bresslaw, occasionally.
