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[[File:APEC_Chaser_Security_ID.jpg|frame|[[Bavarian Fire Drill|This]] will [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|get you into the red zone at APEC]].]]
{{quote|''"Being offended by The Chaser is like going to a strip club and being offended by the nudity."''
|'''Julian Morrow'''}}
''[[The Chaser's War on Everything]]'' was an Australian half-hour comedy show produced and broadcast by [[The ABC]] (the Australian one) and hosted by funny-men Andrew Hansen, Chris Taylor, Chas Licciardello, Craig Reucassel and Julian Morrow, collectively referred to as The Chaser.<ref>Members of the team not usually mentioned are Dominic Knight (who prefers to remain behind the scene as a writer) and Charles Firth (who went solo in 2007).</ref> The show has aired in many countries across the world, from Israel to the UK, Poland to South Korea.▼
▲{{quote|''"Being offended by The Chaser is like going to a strip club and being offended by the nudity."''|'''Julian Morrow'''}}
The Chaser began as creators of a satirical newspaper, called ''The Chaser'' (not dissimilar to ''[[The Onion]]''). After a slow start, sales skyrocketed when they published then Prime Minister John Howard's phone number. This got the attention of Australian interviewer and TV star Andrew Denton, who got them a spot on the ABC, Australia's government-funded network; the result was ''The Election Chaser'', a short series covering the 2001 federal election and taking the piss out of everyone involved. They then went on to do the news parody show ''CNNNN'' (Chaser Non-stop News Network), mostly mocking [[CNN]] and Australian current affairs. They followed this with more coverages of elections, a stage show, and then their most famous work: ''The Chaser's War on Everything''.<ref>Rejected names for the show include ''Hey Hey It's The Chaser'', ''The Age of Terror Variety Hour'', ''Thank Allah It's Friday'' and ''The Chaser is Right''.</ref>
▲''The Chaser's War on Everything'' was an Australian half-hour comedy show produced and broadcast by [[The ABC]] (the Australian one) and hosted by funny-men Andrew Hansen, Chris Taylor, Chas Licciardello, Craig Reucassel and Julian Morrow, collectively referred to as The Chaser.<ref>Members of the team not usually mentioned are Dominic Knight (who prefers to remain behind the scene as a writer) and Charles Firth (who went solo in 2007).</ref> The show has aired in many countries across the world, from Israel to the UK, Poland to South Korea.
The show was more relaxed than ''CNNNN'', extensively used parody and satire, and
▲The Chaser began as creators of a satirical newspaper, called ''The Chaser'' (not dissimilar to ''[[The Onion]]''). After a slow start, sales skyrocketed when they published then Prime Minister John Howard's phone number. This got the attention of Australian interviewer and TV star Andrew Denton, who got them a spot on the ABC, Australia's government-funded network; the result was ''The Election Chaser'', a short series covering the 2001 federal election and taking the piss out of everyone involved. They then went on to do the news parody show ''CNNNN'' (Chaser Non-stop News Network), mostly mocking [[CNN]] and Australian current affairs. They followed this with more coverages of elections, a stage show, and then their most famous work: ''The Chaser's War on Everything''.<ref>Rejected names for the show include ''Hey Hey It's The Chaser'', ''The Age of Terror Variety Hour'', ''Thank Allah It's Friday'' and ''The Chaser is Right''.</ref>
▲The show was more relaxed than ''CNNNN'', extensively used parody and satire, and they didn't pull any punches either. The [[Seven Network]] and the [[Nine Network]], both the 'big' commercial stations in Australia, were frequently poked fun at, particularly with regards to their dubious current affairs reporting. They also mock the ABC, which doesn't seem to mind them poking fun at or criticising material produced or transmitted by them. (This is probably because the ABC is entirely government-funded, so there are no sponsors to offend.)
The Chaser's stunts have gotten them into trouble a few times, culminating in an incident during the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) being held in Sydney in 2007: despite their expectations that the stunt would go no further than the outer boundary, their fake motorcade [[Gone Horribly Right|entered the Red Security Zone]] (the highest level security zone), despite having 'FAKE' and 'This is obviously a joke' stamped on their "passes", and with a. Chas, Julian, and a number of the crew for the show got arrested. It was this prank alone that started international buzz and later a bidding war for American syndication, eventually won by [[G 4]] in late 2008.
It returned to air in 2009, this time with only ten episodes. Only two episodes in, it caused controversy over a sketch about terminally ill children. This also led to questions about whether it has [[Jump the Shark|jumped the shark.]] In case you were wondering, it didn't; they even managed to handle their own shame in a funny (but in no way disrespectful to the victims) way. This turned out to be their last season, for several reasons - among them, they were getting too easily
They planned to return to television in April 2011 to cover [[The House of Windsor|the royal wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William]] - In their own words, it was to be "uninformed and unconstitutional" - but the BBC and the royal family [[Serious Business|put a stop to that]] a week before the wedding by amending the
In 2011, The Chaser team returned with their new show ''The Hamster Wheel'', a (relatively) low-key version of The War with more of a focus on discussion of politics and modern media rather than attention-grabbing stunts like APEC. Following the end of ''The Hamster Wheel'''s 2011-season conclusion, members of The Chaser have gotten involved in other projects across the ABC - Chas Licciardello is currently an anchor of ''Planet America'', an ABC News 24 program discussing American politics, and most of its members sometimes sit on the panel of ''The Drum'', ABC News 24's news analysis and debate program.
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* Julian Morrow: Does a lot of the more political stuff; comes up with 'fixes' for things.
* [[All Crimes Are Equal]]: Parodied with their Citizen's Infringement Notices.
* [[Ax Crazy]]: Chas borders on this at times.
* [[Badass Mustache]]
* [[Butt Monkey]]: Current affairs shows ''Today Tonight'' and ''A Current Affair'' provided a seemingly ceaseless source of [[Narm|narmful]] and [[
* [[Candid Camera Prank]]: ''Lots'' of these.
* [[Caught
* [[Channel Hop]]: Averted, despite many requests from commercial efforts. Yet we all know the Chaser could not be as good as it is if it was on a commercial network; its freedom comes from how the ABC doesn't have to answer to potentially offended corporate sponsors who may threaten to pull the plug on sponsorship. Also parodied in the series itself.
* [[Cluster F-Bomb]]: The end of the fourth ''Yes We Canberra'' episode has this. In [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV-inAzEleE song].
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* [[Credits Gag]]
* [[Crossover Punchline]]: The cast once cameoed in Ryan Shelton's segment on ''Rove'', [[Leno Device|to demonstrate what life would be like if there was no such thing as Politics.]]
{{quote|
Well, nothing. There's no such thing as politics. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}DJ-dpSlsOUQ\] }}
* [[Crowd Song]]: The "If Life Were A Musical" segments, always done for real.
* [[Cute Kitten]]: Politics. ''With Cats.''
** Somewhat sadly, that's actually probably the best way to teach people about politics now.
* [[Dead Baby Comedy]]
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: The whole group, but Andrew in particular. "[[Teens Are Monsters|They appear to be...on a porch.]]"
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* [[Embarrassing Tattoo]]: Chas attempts to make one side of his body look like Daniel Craig and gets a tattoo of a 'Japanese character' on his upper arm. He ends up with a tattoo of [[Hello Kitty]].
* [[Excuse Question]]: Parodied.
{{quote|
* [[Expospeak Gag]]: The "Detective Superintendent Clive Pugh" segments, exaggerating a police tendency to speak in a verbose and slightly non-committal manner. Parodied up to and including ''an [[The Immodest Orgasm|immodest orgasm]]'' expressed this way.
* [[Fan Disservice]]: All too often. Chas and Andrew once smeared manure all over each other. In the middle of Federation Square. While wearing BDSM outfits.
** Then they made out.
** And [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|admitted to enjoying]] ''[[Norbit]]''.
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** [[Non-Action Guy]]: Dominic Knight
* [[Football Hooligans]]: Parodied with one skit which involved selling balaclavas and (fake) knuckledusters in club colors to [[Rugby League|Canterbury Bulldogs]] fans.
* [[Fun
* [[Gag Sub]]: The first season in 2006 did this a lot with videos of Osama Bin Laden.
** Returned in ''The Hamster Wheel'' with footage of Libyan protesters 'complaining' about Sonia Kruger replacing Kerri-Ann Kennelly on some morning television series. Released footage from what would've been their royal wedding coverage did the same thing with victims of the Tohoku earthquake and their eagerness for, well, the royal wedding.
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* [[Improbable Hairstyle]]: Andrew has a different (and even more ridiculous) one every week.
* [[Insane Proprietor]]: The Crazy Warehouse Guy.
* [[Karmic Death]]: Chris in the [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]]. "Fittingly, he died of cancer." Clearly God's reaction to "Make A Realistic Wish" was the same as pretty much [[Dude, Not Funny|everyone else's.]]
* [[Kent Brockman News]]
* [[Large Ham]]: All of them have their moments, but Chas in particular.
* [[Lawful Stupid]]: The Citizen's Infringement Officer, full stop.
* [["Mission Impossible" Cable Drop]]: Craig during the 2007 opening credits.
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: Both averted and parodied.
* [[News Parody]]
* [[Never Speak Ill of the Dead]]: Deconstructed - in song, no less - with "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU17zYt6nBQ The Eulogy Song]".
* [[No Indoor Voice]]: The Crazy Warehouse Guy.
* [["Not Making This Up" Disclaimer]]: The Middle East TV segments carried the disclaimer "All translations independently verified by the ABC" to let people know [[Poe's Law|it]] wasn't a [[Gag Sub]].
* [[Photoshop Filter of Evil]]: Averted and played straight.
* [[Only in America]]
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* [[Parodied Trope]]: Note how many examples here are parodies of the trope in question. They ''really'' like to do this.
* [[Rattling Off Legal]]: Parodied. "I'd talk slower than this but my car is parked in a tow away zone."
** Taken further in the election specials in 2007, where Andrew and Chris played voiceover people.
* '''''[[Refuge in Audacity]]'''''
* [[Religion Is Magic]]: Parodied with faith healers who push people over to make them better, and The Secret to get what you want.
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** [[Point and Laugh Show]]
* [[Sound Effect Bleep]]: Used in the Eulogy Song; while they probably could have gotten away with actual swearing, the general opinion was [[Too Soon]]. Also, using the sound effect only serves to make the song funnier.
* [[Spooky Photographs]]
* [[Strongly Worded Letter]]: A recurring character in the final season was an angry letter writer continually offended by the show. Ironically, the character debuted in the same episode as the "Make a Realistic Wish Foundation" sketch, but that wasn't the segment he was objecting to.
* [[Stylistic Suck]]: The Making of Politics With Cats, probably to appease [[Fan Dumb|complainers.]] Averted with the caption at the end, which claimed that "6387 cats were harmed during the making of this series."
* [[Take That]]: Between [[Idiot Ball|A Current Affair]], [[Narm|60 Minutes]] and especially [[Butt Monkey|Today]] [[
* [[The Guards Must Be Crazy]]: APEC motorcade. Enough said.
* [[Those Wacky Nazis]]: ''Housefrau Hitler''. No, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7K5y9sL3mU go on].
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* [[Viewers are Morons]]: Played straight and [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] many times.
* [[Wall Crawl]]: Andrew during the 2007 opening credits
* [[Witty Banter]]
* [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]]: Season 3 ended with a parody.
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[[Category:Comedy Series]]
[[Category:Australian Television Shows]]
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