House Gang

1996, Total running time 156 Minutes (6 x 26 Minutes)

An Australian sitcom that shoots from the hip but is straight from the heart. Irreverent and frequently riotous, House Gang is about learning to live together. Trev, Belinda and Robert are three flamboyant and strong-willed young people with intellectual disabilities. In this series, they are forced to share their rented house with the bankrupt owner Mike and his difficult daughter Chloe.

Dumped Realising that Belinda has the best and biggest room in the house, Chloe decides to have it for herself, not realising that Belinda has just been dumped by her boyfriend Scott. Meanwhile, Robert has discovered Jack's herbal smoking-mix and mistaken it for marijuana. Robert shares the news with Mike who decides that Jack must be a drug-fiend.

Winners Trev is determined to do well at his swimming trials, even if it means disrupting the lives of everyone in the household. Chloe meanwhile, has learnt that she is a possible prize-winner at the school speech-night, but doesn't want Mike to attend for fear of acute social embarrassment. But as Mike becomes more engrossed in Trev's training, Chloe finds herself suffering pangs of jealousy.

Nightmare It's Saturday night and the gang are getting ready for their Video Movie Marathon, when Scott phones Belinda begging her to give him another chance. Chloe is horrified when Belinda agrees to meet him. Now she's stuck at home with the boys! Mike, Trev, Robert and Jack settle down to watch some gory splatter-flicks and find themselves scared witless by the videos.

Truth or Dare Robert decides he is sick of being nice, invests in a grunge wardrobe and announces that he's going to be bad. Considering herself the expert in evil, Chloe suggests a Game of Truth and Dare, but the tables are turned when Robert and Trev return from the bottle shop with VJ, a tough punk girl who has taken a shine to Bad Boy Bob.

Sex When Belinda comes home from her women's group with a Safe Sex board-game, Chloe decides that everybody in the house is unhealthily obsessed with "It".  Sex, that is. Trev has fallen in love with Lucy and is grumpy because they can never be alone, and Jack is in a dither because she's met someone new. Far worse, Mike has started seeing Chloe's mother again and there is talk of a reconciliation.

Don’t Call Me Stupid Three young flatmates with intellectual disabilities face an emergency! The toilet is overflowing and the kitchen sink is blocked but nobody will come because the landlord never pays his bills. Enter Mike, the bankrupt landlord and his bratty private-school daughter, Chloe. When Mike fixes the plumbing, Trev suggests that Mike and Chloe move in. Robert and Belinda aren't so sure - Mike's a slob and Chloe's a snob!  Jack, the gang's social educator returns from a conflict resolution course and so successfully resolves the conflicts, that it's agreed Mike and Chloe can stay.

A Film Australia National Interest Program in association with Alfred Road Films and Accessible Arts Inc for SBS Independent. Produced and developed in association with the NSW Film and Television Office; produced in association with the Australian Film Commission; the Dept of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs and the Dept of Human Services and Health. © 2011 National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

FREE Teachers' Notes - Download here