| Runtime: | Approximately 60 minutes (inc. commercials) |
| Presenter: | Hamish Blake Andy Lee |
| Opentheme: | "Gap Year Theme Song" by Hamish & Andy (2011) "Addicted" by Bliss n Eso (2012–2014) |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Network: | Nine Network |
| Num Seasons: | 4 |
| Num Episodes: | 29 |
Hamish & Andy's Gap Year is a Logie Award–winning comedy series following Hamish Blake and Andy Lee, a pair of Australian comedians, on their trips to various international locations. The first season saw the boys visiting America for ten episodes and broadcast their show weekly from New York City. In its second season in 2012, the show was titled Hamish & Andy's Euro Gap Year, and seven episodes were broadcast from The Lord Stanley,[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] a disused pub[6] [7] in East London, England.[8] The third season, known as Hamish and Andy's Gap Year Asia in 2013, was broadcast from a bar in Bangkok, Thailand, called The Raintree.[9] The fourth season was known as Hamish and Andy’s Gap Year South America.
The concept for the show was created when the Nine Network hired comedians Hamish Blake and Andy Lee for two series in two years. They came across the idea of "Gap Year" when they realised they never took a gap year after high school, so they would film their many adventures overseas, as it was ironic that they had just received a contract for TV.
The show featured the American band Moon Hooch for the first season as an in house band - during the show, they band were dubbed The Buskerteers.
A number of regular segments appear throughout the series:
To date, four seasons of Hamish & Andy's Gap Year have aired.
| Season | Season Title | Episodes | Base Location | Originally aired | DVD release date | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season premiere | Season finale | |||||||
| 1 | Gap Year | 10 |  Brooklyn | |||||
| 2 | Euro Gap Year | 7 |  London | |||||
| 3 | Gap Year Asia | 6 |  Bangkok | |||||
| 4 | Gap Year South America | 6 |  Buenos Aires | 1 July 2014 | ||||
| Episode No. | Title | Original Australian air date | Australian Viewers (millions) |
|---|
A new version of Hamish & Andy's Gap Year was released to Stan in 2015 alongside all other Gap Year series, Caravan of Courage specials, Learn India with Hamish & Andy and Hamish & Andy's Reministmas Special. This version is based on the interview-free DVD, but rearranged and with a few segments (mostly 100-Second New York Lessond segments) deleted. This is also the version available on the Hamish & Andy TV YouTube channel, rather than the original.
The shows were broadcast from the disused Lord Stanley pub in East London (Sandringham Road, Dalston E8).[10]
This season was also the only one broadcast in the UK on ITV4.[11] Euro Gap Year and Gap Year Asia were rebroadcast in Australia throughout December 2020, due to Hamish and Andy not working on a new TV program that year.
| Episode No. | Title | Episode Summary | Hamish vs Andy | Original Australian air date | Australian Viewers (millions) | Ranking on Night | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Episode One | Hamish and Andy travel to Mostar, Bosnia, to jump off the 21-metre tall Old Bridge. They also buy a rabbit which they name "Lenny Rabbitz", and compete in "Rabbit Jumping", a self- explanatory sport from Sweden. | Translation Racing: Players must ask random people on the streets of Rome questions (in Italian), fed to them through an earpiece. Most understood phrases wins. | 1.413[12] |
| ||
| 2 | Episode Two | The boys travel to Lapland (northern Scandiavia), to compete in reindeer racing. They also head out in London to be paparazzi for a day with a professional paparazzi called Jack. Later they crack open their homebrewed beer, Gap Byear, too early, and the beer hadn't even begun to ferment, due to "the freezing cold London summer" as Hamish puts it. | Hitchhike Racing: Players must hitch-hike as far as they can across Europe in 24 hours, starting in Frankfurt, Germany. They cannot pay or bribe potential lift-givers, though they can each send one "Hinder" to their opponent, to lower their chance of hitch-hiking. | 1.365 |
| ||
| 3 | Episode Three | Hamish and Andy go to Venice, where they pilot Gondolas for a day, Hamish also reveals he his one eighth Italian, and acts as if Venice is his hometown, despite occasionally speaking Spanish to their Gondolier instructor. They head to the Netherlands to see which one is the better buttler, by going to the International Butler Academy. | Kiss Racing: Each player has one hour to get as many points for kissing random people on Parisian streets. One point is awarded for each kiss, and another point for each second the kiss is held. | 1.411[13] |
| ||
| 4 | Episode Four | The boys go to Bavaria to compete in "Finger Pulling", a sport in which string is tied to each player's middle finger and they try to pull the other player's hand over a center line. Hamish pulls the short straw and must compete, and is unnerved after meeting a man who lost his finger in a game of finger pulling. In Russia, they go to a fighter pilot training centre and where they are taught how to eject, and not to f****ng touch anything once inside the plane, but before that they must go to a preparation sauna with other trainees. Ultimate Wingman returns, and they spend a day fulfilling other people's London dreams which are sent in and drawn from a pillowcase. | None | 1.183[14] |
| ||
| 5 | Episode Five | Hamish and Andy go to Catalonia to be part of Los Torres Humanas, but Hamish finds out there is a snail festival happening at the same time and joins that instead and he competes in a biscuit eating contest, which he wins, and spends most of the day drinking. In Paris they go into the catacombs where Andy tries to leave Hamish behind. They also try to ride a stage of the Tour de France with Australian cyclist Cadel Evans, but he was "too busy", so instead they decide to go from Gibraltar to Morocco on an aqua trike. | Life size "Guess Who?": The same as regular Guess Who?, but with 12 sets of twins. | 1.090[15] |
| ||
| 6 | Episode Six | In Germany, they compete in "Bus Pulling" where teams of men pull a roadcoach over 30 metres, with some teams managing to do it in around 20 seconds. In Sicily, they try to sell more fish than each other in an hour. The boys head to France, where Hamish has the goal of buying a rollersuit, but after a disastrous trial run, Andy forbids Hamish from buying one. They also go to Gibraltar and set off on their aqua bike to Morocco, fueled by a Red Bull rip-off made by Hamish the night before, which was water with "every performance-enhancing vitamin in the store", Hamish also keeps a "captain's log" during the voyage. | Shop Hiding: Players must go into a shop and ask for something from the storeroom of the shop, and while the employee is getting the item, the player must hide somewhere in the shop. The player who hides for the longest wins. | 1.156[16] |
| ||
| 7 | Episode Seven: Pre Opening Ceremony Special | Australian Olympic athletes are the audience in the Lord Stanley for the filming of the episode. The boys go to Russia and act in Russian "cat theatre", a circus-type event involving cats. During the episode's filming, a torch, which was a model galah lit on fire (a flaming galah), was run from a Walkabout pub in London to light the Lord Stanley's fireplace. They head to Prague for some synchronized swimming, and run "vigorous psychological tests" on Australia's best Olympians. | None | 1.118[17] |
|
The shows were broadcast from a bar in Bangkok, Thailand, called 'The Raintree'.[9]
| Episode No. | Original Australian air date | Timeslot | Overnight viewers | Consolidated viewers | Total viewers | Source | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Viewers | Rank | Viewers | Rank | ||||||
| 1 | Episode One | Monday 8 pm | 1,566,000 | 1 | 160,000 | 1 | 1,726,000 | [18] [19] | |
| 2 | Episode Two | 1,490,000 | 1 | 154,000 | 1 | 1,644,000 | [20] [21] | ||
| 3 | 22 July 2013 | 1,455,000 | 1 | 93,000 | 1 | 1,548,000 | [22] [23] | ||
| 4 | Episode Four | 5 August 2013 | Monday 7 pm | 1,191,000 | 4 | 110,000 | 4 | 1,301,000 | [24] [25] |
| 5 | Episode Five | 12 August 2013 | 1,228,000 | 4 | 132,000 | 2 | 1,360,000 | [26] [27] | |
| 6 | Episode Six | 19 August 2013 | 1,299,000 | 3 | 108,000 | 2 | 1,407,000 | [28] [29] | |
The shows were broadcast from Buenos Aires, Argentina. They also decided to include all of Latin America, rather than just South America, so they could go to Mexico and Central America.
| Episode No. | Episode Summary | Hamish vs Andy | Original Australian air date | Timeslot | Overnight viewers | Consolidated viewers | Total viewers | Source | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Viewers | Rank | Viewers | Rank | |||||||||
| 1 | Episode One | Hamish and Andy begin in Mexico and go to a town in which they partake in wearing paper-mache bull hats, which are loaded with fireworks. They go to Nicaragua and decide to fulfill two dreams: Climbing an active volcano, and cooking a lasagna on an active volcano. Hamish convinces Andy to see a Shaman to fix his sore shoulder, and in Cultural Eating, Andy gets Hamish to eat teredo worms. | Stranger Soccer/Football: Players are given a small soccer ball/football, and must drop the ball onto a stranger's foot or shin before the target person crosses a line about 20–30 metres from a mini goal, if a goal is "kicked" after the target crosses the line, the ball is deemed offside and is not a goal. People walking by the goal can defend or save the ball with no consequence, but they cannot help the ball along once it has been kicked. | 7:30pm Tuesday | 983,000 | 7 | 127,000 | 5 | 1,110,000 | [30] [31] | ||
| 2 | Episode Two | The boys once again begin in Mexico with a simulation border crossing. Neither of them 'make it'. Then they travel to Colombia to meet some tribesmen who specialize in blow darting, resulting in a game of (blow) darts, which Hamish and his partner win 24-22. By losing, Andy had to dress up in a monkey suit whilst villagers blew darts at him. Finally, in Cultural Eating, Andy had to eat an eye from a Bolivian "specialty" dish, called 'roast face'. | Brazilian Wax Racing: Players must get strangers to wax their skin as many times as possible within 1 hour. After 45 minutes players are allowed to have their 'nether-regions' waxed, with backsides worth 2 points and the front 3. | 967,000 | 6 | 87,000 | 4 | 1,054,000 | [32] [33] | |||
| 3 | Episode Three | Corporate Fat-Cat Racing | 1,014,000 | 6 | 123,000 | 4 | 1,137,000 | [34] [35] | ||||
| 4 | Episode Four | None | 1,047,000 | 6 | 102,000 | 5 | 1,149,000 | [36] [37] | ||||
| 5 | Episode Five | Monkey Run: Players have 100 bananas strapped to them, and must shuffle across an obstacle course with their feet chained together and try to have less monkeys take away bananas than the other player. There is a banana attached to the player's groin which is a 30-point penalty of it is taken. The Player with the most bananas left is the winner. | 8:40pm Tuesday | 987,000 | 9 | 216,000 | 1 | 1,203,000 | [38] [39] | |||
| 6 | Episode Six | Photo Stalling: Players must offer to take a photo for a group of tourists in Rio, Brazil, but then stall as long as they can before taking the picture. If anybody in the group moves from their pose, the player loses. The second round challenged players to get the tourists to stand in as many different poses as possible before the tourists ask for their camera back. | 1,000,000 | 8 | 201,000 | 2 | 1,201,000 | [40] [41] | ||||
Hamish & Andy have won 5 Logie Awards from 16 nominations for their work on Hamish & Andy's Gap Year.
| Year | Nominee | Award | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Hamish Blake | Most Popular Presenter | ||
| Gold Logie: Most Popular Personality on Australian TV | ||||
| Hamish & Andy's Gap Year | Most Popular Light Entertainment Program | |||
| 2013 | Hamish Blake | Most Popular Presenter | ||
| Gold Logie: Most Popular Personality on Australian TV | ||||
| Andy Lee | Most Popular Presenter | |||
| Gold Logie: Most Popular Personality on Australian TV | ||||
| Hamish & Andy's Euro Gap Year | Most Popular Light Entertainment Program | |||
| 2014 | ||||
| Andy Lee | Most Popular Presenter | |||
| Gold Logie: Most Popular Personality on Australian TV | ||||
| Hamish Blake | Most Popular Presenter | |||
| Hamish & Andy's Gap Year Asia | Most Popular Light Entertainment Program | |||
| text-align:center;" rowspan="4" | 2015[42] | Hamish Blake | Gold Logie: Most Popular Personality on Australian TV | |
| Andy Lee | ||||
| Most Popular Presenter | ||||
| Hamish & Andy's Gap Year South America | Most Popular Entertainment Program |