Bro Town
Bro'Town (2004-2009) is New Zealand's first primetime animated series produced by the comedy group "The Naked Samoans", and one that proved to be a wild success throughout the country. Filled with satirical cultural references and hilarious antics, it follows a group of teenagers living in Morningside as they bumble their way through school, puberty and life.
The group consists of Vale and Valea Pepelo, Sensitive Guy and Manly Man brothers; Sione Tapili, who thinks of himself as more popular and intelligent than he actually is; Rodney "Mack" McCorkenstein-Taifule, a soft-spoken and cultured young man with adopted parents; and Jeff da Maori, who lives with his mum and eight dads. There are many other characters that flesh out the city, some more prominent than others.
Every episode starts and ends in Heaven with an argument or event ocurring that God, portrayed as a large, white haired Pacific Islander with dreadlocks and wearing a lavalava (Traditonal pacific island male dress), who then tells a story to show the people the error of their ways. Many characters have appeared in Heaven at the start and end an episode such as Jesus (portrayed as a slightly naive teenager), Genghis Khan, Gaius Julius Caesar, Mahatma Gandhi, Marie Antoinette and many others.
Many guests have starred on the show, most of them being prominent in New Zealand or Pacific culture. Some guest stars include: Former All Black Michael Jones, Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, Actor Keisha Castle-Hughes, Prince Charles, Rove McManus, Tana Umaga, Scribe, John Campbell, Carol Hirshfeld, and Lucy Lawless.
The series ran for 5 seasons before ending with a total of 36 episodes, finishing in 2009.
As you can see, this page is still very empty, so any contributions would be appreciated!
- Ambiguously Gay - Mack.
- Asian Store Owner [1]
- Big Bad - Agnes Tapili
- Big Beautiful Woman - Agnes Tapili
- Catch Phrase - Jeff da Maori. For those unfortunate enough to have not seen it, the famous phrase is "not even, ow!" For a time it had wormed its way into New Zealand slang.
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Valea, on the topic of girls. "Peow, peow!" |
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- Celebrity Star - Including, but not limited to: former Prime Minister Helen Clark, the 3 News hosts (one of which who may be John Campbell, but I seem to have forgotten the names of them), the entire New Zealand rugby team, New Zealand rapper Scribe and Prince Charles. In a subversion of the article description, it appears the guest stars are just thrown in for the hell of it.
- Does Not Like Shoes - Jeff.
- Haunted House - In "Know Me Before You Haunt Me."
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood - Most of the characters (that aren't white) have had rough childhoods, but none seem to be overly affected by it, and sometimes it helps. In the first episode, Sione has a flashback to his mother whacking his head into a bible repeatedly and this ends up causing him to remember all the measurements of Noah's Ark.
- King of All Cosmos - The God in Bro Town is an amiable Polynesian chap, whose job is to keep order amongst the potentially-conflicting personalities in heaven.
- Luke, I Might Be Your Father - Jeff does not know who his biological father is. He's probably one member of a biker gang, so Jeff just refers to all of them as "Dad".
- Meaningful Name - Vale and Valea are the Samoan words for dumb and dumber, respectively. Which is silly, 'cause Vale is one of the more intelligent characters on the show.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy - Mack,
- Product Placement - Common New Zealand products are often displayed such as; L&P soft drink, M&Ms, various Starburst candys and Watties canned goods. not for advertisement but to show the commercial side of Kiwi culture
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man - As explained above.
- Stock Foreign Name - Wong from Hong Kong, and also his family.
- ↑ Psst, NZers! Apparantly those crazy Americans group Indians under Asians. It's crazy, I know.