Everybody Hates Chris

1982. That was the year I turned 13. Before I was a comedian, I thought the coolest thing that would happen to me was being a teenager. I was gonna have women, money, stay out late... I thought it was gonna be the bomb!

Boy, was I wrong!

Everybody Hates Chris is an American sitcom apparently based on the life of Chris Rock. Set in The Eighties, it revolves around the home and school life of Chris, featuring his easygoing although money worrying father Julius, sassy if somewhat overreacting mother Rochelle, younger brother Drew (who gets all the girls Chris can't), and "daddy's girl" sister Tonya. It also features the equally (if not more) hapless Greg, Chris's best friend and confidant from school. The series is also narrated by the humorous Chris Rock looking back at his younger self, typically saying the opposite of what the younger Chris thinks.

Chris and his family live in Bedford-Stuyvesant colloquially known as Bed-Stuy, primarily a Black and Puerto-Rican residence. It is home to many comedic recurring characters, including the aptly-named black market dealer Risky, Jerome (who always asks "the little dude from across the street" (Chris) to let him "hold a dollar"), "Doc", owner of the local grocery store, and Mr. Omar, a womanizing funeral director and later tenant to Julius and Rochelle.

Chris attends Corleone Junior High, and later Tattaglia High School, where he experiences racism from students and staff alike as the only black student in the school. His friend Greg is also a target of bullying, though to a far lesser degree. Joey Caruso is the racist school bully who is, ironically, obese and short like some of his victims. Ms. Morello, his naive teacher who's attracted to black men, unintentionally makes racist remarks to Chris, who forces himself to ignore them or accept them as innocuous, while Chris Rock comments on them. Chris Rock later makes a cameo as Chris's guidance counselor.

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Tropes used in Everybody Hates Chris include:

• Accidental Athlete: Chris is recruited by the basketball coach who sees Chris shooting a wad of a paper into a trash can. Alongside the fact that Chris must be able to play basketball, he has Chris join the team. Subverted when Chris fails horribly at the sport.
• The Ace: Drew is a very odd example in that he is Chris' younger brother but still The Ace. He's a ladies man, learns martial arts by just watching TV, and otherwise all-around cool guy, something Chris just can't compete with.
• Ambiguously Gay: Angel, an androgynous boy in Chris' home economics class. His sexuality is never stated outright, but it seems to be implied in his first episode.
• Anyone Remember Pogs?: Well, it is set in The Eighties, so it's understandable that various fads, like Spin the Bottle and the Rubik's Cube, would make an appearance.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:

Police Officer: "Ma'am, your son killed the governor, kidnapped his daughter, robbed the President and ran a red light."
Rochelle: Did he sell drugs?
Police Officer: No ma'am.
Rochelle (to Chris): Get in the house!

• Artistic License: Although said to be based on Chris Rock's early life, there are major differences between the sitcom and what really happened.
• Ass Shove: Chris inadvertently yells at his own mother, resulting in a very embarrassing... incident... with a shoe.
• Beautiful All Along: Chris initially didn't want to go out with Kelly in "Everbody Hates Big Bird" because she was tall, gangly, and nerdy-looking, but did it anyway so he wouldn't hurt her feelings. Because of the aforementioned attributes, everyone called her Big Bird. At the end, she got a total makeover. Needless to say, Chris felt like an idiot.
• Big Man on Campus: Drew. He may be in Junior High School, but he's good at damn near everything he (and other people) does, can "get girls at 12 that [Chris] couldn't get until [he] was 30", and even had his class melt down in a frenzied panic when he was absent due to skipping school.
• Bland-Name Product: Julius buys Gravy Ways, M&N's, and Butterthumbs as a way to save money on Halloween candy in the episode "Everybody Hates Halloween". Rochelle objects and throws it out, prompting Julius to tell her that she's thrown away $2.78 worth of candy and wasted $23.98 on the name brand candy that she bought instead.
  • The family also uses Tussin as a cure-all for every type of ailment.

Tonya: Mom! Chris got hit by a bus!
Rochelle is seen grabbing her purse and an economy size bottle of Tussin as she runs out the door.

• • One episode also includes the epitome of the trope: generics that are so generic they are just black and white packaging with what's in it in block letters.
    • This is Truth in Television. In Australia at least, the 2 main generic products are Black & Gold, with gold packaging and black letters, and Home Brand, with white packaging, black lettering and a red logo.
      • In the southern United States as well. Always Save brand products are ALL in stark yellow packaging with the type of product in black lettering (from cigarettes to salt to even tampons). Best Choice is similar in black packaging with white lettering but at least has somewhat of a colorful logo.
  • Also seen in the same episode is, as Chris' narration puts it...

'Chris: That's right, "Cookie!" Not "cookies", Cookie."

• Bluff the Impostor: Sort of in "Everybody Hates Basketball". Rochelle tells their new tenant (who she is afraid is a serial killer) that she heard he's from Chicago. When he says no, he's from Philly (and just says it's okay), she is suspicious because according to her, people from Philly can't shut up about it. It turns out that he's wanted by the FBI.
• Breathe on the Fan: Chris' father is so cheap that he even complains about how much electricity this stupid fan game uses.
• But Not Too Black: Drew. His favorite things include hockey, magic, and ANYTHING having to do with Asian culture. Also the lightest skinned member of the family.
• Butt Monkey: Chris obviously. Also Greg to some extent.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Basic formula for every episode.
• Captain Ersatz - The episode "Everybody Hates Homecoming", in which Chris hits it off with a girl named Jenise Huckstable. She even has a doctor and a lawyer as parents, a dance intro sequence upon entrance to her house, and a laugh-track inside her living room. Clint Huckstable happens to like gaudy sweaters, sweet potato popsicles, and has a very distinctive voice, as well.
• Catch Phrase: Jerome's "Little dude (from across the street)! Lemme hold a dollar!", Julius's "That's $X (and Y cents) worth of ______", and occasionally Rochelle's "I ain't raisin' no babies", and "I don't need this! My man has TWO jobs!", just to point out a few
  • Don't forget Greg's "You are so in there" and Mr. Omar's "Tragic."
  • And Michael's "BIG MAAAN!"
• Character Development: Most notably Chris, though most of the other young characters qualify.
• Chekhov's Gag: Julius gives Drew a Wayne Gritzky jersey in the episode "Everybody Hates the Buddy System". Then in the episode "Everybody Hates Gretzky", a couple of white guys try to steal Drew's jersey, but back off when they realize it's misspelled.
• Comically Small Bribe: Julius actually tries to bribe someone with a penny.
• Completely Missing the Point: The episode when Chris refuses to do the dishes when Rochelle. Like always, Chris's mom asks him to do it, but never makes Drew and Tonya do any chores, which he deems unfair and unreasonable. The entire episode, Chris and Rochelle are at odds with each other, with Julius trying to get both sides to meet in the middle (with Julius noting to Rochelle about how illogical her decision making can be, and that Chris has fair reason to be angry). In the end, Chris and Rochelle apologize, but Chris still winds up doing the dishes by episode's end while Drew and Tanya watch TV.
• Content Warnings: Within the episode "Everybody Hates Fat Mike", for when Rochelle curses out Julius.
• Cosmic Plaything: Chris, it's the entire premise of the show.
• Crapsack World: Pretty much how everything around Chris - and solely Chris - works.
• Crazy Homeless People: Kill Moves.
• Daddy's Girl: Tonya.
• Deadpan Snarker: Chris Rock, as narrator.
  • And when he guest starred as Chris's guidance counselor.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Julius: "You lost ten dollars?! That's $10 worth of dollars!"
• Diabolus Ex Machina: It just cannot end well for Chris. Ever.
  • To the point where even when everything DOES end well, with him becoming class president, it took a dream to pull this trope off.
  • The only episode that this troper can think of where things DO end well is the babysitting one. It ends with Chris deciding to rat out the horrible babysitter to his parents, and his mom preparing to beat her up.
  • Another was the Christmas Episode, where even though Chris is in the hospital, his family visits him and the episode closes as they're opening their presents.
    • Though Chris' Christmas present from Julius was getting the gifts out of layaway. And he has to pay him back.
  • There's also the New Year's episode, Chris FINALLY gets a kiss from Tasha, that ended pretty well aside from Rochelle getting upset at him over messing up her good luck charm or something like that.
• Did Not Do the Research: In one episode, Chris' dad imitates Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men... a movie that came out roughly a decade after the series takes place. This was probably just a Cutaway Gag though.
  • Rock is narrating via flashback, and his perception of the events often takes artistic license. Just before that cutaway, we see another one with Julius as Batman from the 1989 movie.
  • The show's soundtrack is usually accurate for the time, except for a clip of Red Hot Chili Peppers' 1991 "Suck My Kiss" that pops up in a few early episodes.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off: Rochelle, who at one point manages to literally put her shoe up Chris' ass.
• Downer Ending: If the situation starts off fine, something goes wrong. If the situation is already bad enough, Chris is subjected to more torment.
  • Also, the series finale has him dropping out of high school in the 10th grade, to keep true to Chris Rock's real life. But considering how Chris' life turned out after that, it's not so much of a Downer Ending.
• Drunk with Power: Chris, in "Everybody Hates Hall Monitors".
• Egg Sitting: In "Everybody Hates Eggs", Chris had to do this. The episode went from Oh Crap to fine, but being Everybody Hates Chris...
• The Eighties:
  • Averts The Seventies even though in real life, Chris Rock turned 13 in 1978; he has said that if he set the show in the seventies, everyone would have to wear afros and disco suits.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Apparently, the one thing Risky won't sell is Playboy magazine, at least to kids (or, at least to Chris).
  • And apparently the one crime that Rochelle couldn't forgive of her children is selling drugs.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: The opening credits depict a textbook cover that reads "Everybody Hates Trigonometry".
  • "Everybody Hates Math" is even the title of one episode.
• Exact Words: In "Everybody Hates Bomb Threats", Chris's teacher tells him he has to memorize a speech or else he'd fail the 10th grade. He never said anything about reciting it.
• Freak-Out: Chris, who had trouble memorizing a speech in "Everybody Hates Bomb Threats" and would fail 10th grade if he didn't. Temporary, and played for laughs.
• From the Mouths of Babes: In "Everybody Hates the Babysitter", the babysitter is a teenage mother. Tonya tells the babysitter's mother "My mom told me she would kick me out if I had a baby 'cause she ain't raisin' no babies. Why didn't you kick her out?"
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Well it is a family show, despite being a Chris Rock show.
  • During one episode, Chris and Greg talked about plucking girls. Constantly.
• Gilligan Cut: Like in "Everybody Hates the First Kiss", when Greg suggests that Chris do "lip ups" to help him kiss better.
• Gossip Evolution: In the first episode, Caruso beat the hell out of Chris, then he and his friends chased Chris down to beat him up some more, until he caught a bus. In "Everybody Hates Sausage", somehow that story got turned into various, escalating ones, ranging from Chris knocking out Caruso's teeth to Chris beating up his family and taking his house.
  • In the Season 2 episode "Everybody Hates a Liar", Chris helps remove a mouse from Tasha's room, and after the task is completed, a grateful Tasha gives him a peck on the cheek while they are outside after the event. Jerome sees them, and when Chris denies attempts to dissuade anything more with a 'yeah, you know', word spreads through the neighborhood and their school and ranges from him kissing her to being her boyfriend to the point where Chris, whom has since been confronted by Tasha's grandmother (who confronted Rochelle) and his parents, had to declare to the whole neighborhood nothing actually happened. He even apologized to her grandmother personally, though it did little to convince her that he wasn't a hooligan, but at least Tasha finally forgave him.
• Heel Face Turn: Malvo, in "Everybody Hates Ex-Cons". Until the very end of the episode. And then until he meets Peaches.
• Hidden Depths: Kill Moves. In the beginning, the audience knows him as a borderline-psychotic homeless man who knows deadly martial arts. Later in the series, it's revealed that he was always savant-like, also has a talent for math, was an air traffic controller, and came from a wealthy family. However, when Reagan started downsizing and he lost his job, Kill Moves spiraled downward on a path of paranoia and schizophrenia and wandered the streets until Gazoo told him that he'd only find true happiness by living in a box.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood
• Hustler: Jerome, and Risky.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title starts with "Everybody Hates".
• It Will Never Catch On: This is why Doc refused to invest in Sushi in "Everybody Hates Homecoming".
  • And in "Everybody Hates Graduation", Julius declines to invest in the George Foreman Grill.
  • In one episode, Chris' uncle who is always trying some get rich quick scheme is selling tapes from his car, and nobody wants to buy them. The tapes are of Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Public Enemy and a few big 90s rappers.
• Jerkass: Caruso.
• Laugh Track: Averted, except for a parody scene in "Everybody Hates Homecoming".
  • Lampshaded in the same episode, to boot.
    • And in "Everybody Hates the Ninth-Grade Dance".
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: "Slava Slav"? Though not all that lawyer friendly, though the character isn't based that much on Flava Flav. It was a parody of rappers in general.
• Lazy Bum: My Uncle Michael was almost 40 and never had a job. He put the "um" in "bum."
• Like a Broken Record: The very end of "Everybody Hates DJ's".
• Literal Ass-Kicking: Who knew that you could send your children through time and rewrite their DNA, with just the back of your hand?
  • Or literally slap the black off your brother?
  • Or, even closer to the trope name, literally put your shoe up your son's ass?
• Lovable Coward: There are "got your back" guys, and "I'll be back" guys. Greg was a "I'm running like a bitch" guy.
• Mistaken for Racist: Caruso, by everyone, until the series finale. It is revealed that he only acted racist because he was jealous of Chris' intelligence.
• Mr. Exposition: The doctor who occasionally pops up on the show. However, he doesn't so much explain the plot as he does concepts related to the plot that the audience may not be familiar with, such as what the gout is or the causes of hypertension.
  • And sometimes Chris Rock himself.
• N-Word Privileges: Early on, Caruso uses the word on Chris, but it being Brooklyn Beach in the 80's, gets away with it, but according to the narration "did the same at a DMX concert twenty years later and got stomped."
• Never Trust a Trailer: Pretty much the entire last season (last two?) had promos with things that just never happened in the episodes.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "Everybody Hates Bomb Threats", it's revealed at the end that Chris' fake bomb threat led the bomb squad to ignore another bomb threat... which resulted in a school being blown up.
• The Nicknamer: Jerome. All the neighborhood kids are some variation of "little dude" to him, Chris being "little dude from across the street."
  • And Mike, to some extent. He always addresses Rochelle and Julius as "'Shelle" and "BIG MAN!!!"
    • Plus Caruso, who always refers to Chris as a different black person, real or fictional.
• No Ending: The series finale. Just as Chris asks for his GED scores, the screen goes black.
• No Name Given: Chris's family's name is intentionally not given, although it could be Rock it is not wholly accurate in its interpretation of Chris Rock's childhood. Mr Omar even calls Chris's parents Mr. Julius and Ms. Rochelle to avoid saying their surnames.
  • IMDb says it's Rock. Also, the episode "Everybody Hates My Man" kind of confirms it - just listen closely to the announcer at the football game when Chris is laid out immediately as he enters the field.
• Nostalgic Narrator
• Nothing but Hits: The show thrives on this trope, especially its soundtrack, though it's none the worse for it.
  • In one episode, though, Tonya listens to Billy Ocean. Who's heard of Billy Ocean?
• Oh Crap: Chris in "Everybody Hates Bad Boys", after (inadvertently) yelling at his mother.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: Frequently, especially in "Everybody Hates Mother's Day" when Chris Rock and adult Tonya have an argument in the voiceover booth, while the camera pans between young Chris and Tonya respectively.
• Papa Wolf: Julius handled his business when Malvo threatened Chris in "Everybody Hates Chain Snatching".
• Pet the Dog: Well, cat, in Caruso's case.
• Police Are Useless: At least for blacks. Even in the first episode; one cop walks by while Caruso is beating the crap out of Chris, looks at them... and keeps on walking.
• Produce Pelting: In the episode "Everybody Hates Elections", Chris is running for class president and finds himself in a debate against his opponent (the biggest bully on campus). Chris is really liking how his opponent is winning over the crowd, so he starts emulating him. One line Chris likes is "_____ now, _____ tomorrow and _____ forever." Problem is, he fouls up and ends up saying "Detention now, detention tomorrow and detention forever." Cue about 200 pounds of mainly lettuce and tomatoes, with lots of other fruit and veggies mixed in, being tossed right at him.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: Keisha moves away... to Compton, California.
• Recurring Riff: "Everybody haa-aates Chriiis!"
• Running Gag: Several, some occurring more than others.
• Sassy Black Woman: Rochelle and Tonya.
• Scary Black Man: Averted with Julius, despite his actor's previous roles; Rochelle is the real power in the household.
• Seven Dirty Words: Alluded to: "That look means all seven of the words you can't say on television, but because this is a family show, she can only say this."
  • Chris actually listens to a George Carlin record with the seven dirty words in "Everybody Hates Dirty Jokes". Each word is rendered as its place on the list--for instance, the episode's final line is "Number three!"
• Shaggy Dog Story: "Everybody Hates the Buddy System". The principal tells Chris to hang out with Caruso in the hopes that Chris will understand why Caruso beats him up everyday. He pairs the two students together on a field trip, and purposely leaves them behind at a museum so they'd have to work together to find their way back to school. When Chris (predictably) learns nothing and reports back to the principal, the latter reassures the former that he did learn something after all: "You learned that I was wrong."
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Monk.
• Shout-Out: The names of the schools in the series are Corleone Junior High, Lamont Sanford Junior High and Tattaglia High. The "Everybody Hates Homecoming" episode is one to The Cosby Show.
• Smoking Is Cool: "Everybody Hates Being Cool".
• Snowball Lie: In "Everybody Hates Bed-Stuy", Chris takes Doc's story about his romantic adventures and turns it into a story about a serial killer loose in the neighborhood, in order to turn in a good story for the school newspaper. Unfortunately, that story got relayed to local news outlets, and Chris was finally forced to kill it when a cop had a gun to Julius's head.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Caruso beating the crap out of Chris in the first episode with "Ebony and Ivory" in the background.
• Stepford Smiler: Rochelle, of all people, become this, when her father dies right at the dinner table from a heart attack.
• Tempting Fate: Usually before everyone's schemes (especially Chris's) go wrong.
• Timeshifted Actor: In a similar vein to The Wonder Years, this show follows Chris Rock's childhood.
• Token White: Greg Wulliger.
• Troperiffic: With Race Tropes.
• Two-Teacher School: Only a handful of teachers are shown repeatedly, Ms. Morello being the most shown.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Doc's girlfriend takes over, in "Everybody Hates Doc's".
• We Sell Everything: Risky, usually out of the trunk of his car or the inside of his jacket.
  • Except Playboy. Booze, cigarettes, bets, and Plutonium, to the under-aged, but not Playboy.
• The Worst Seat in the House: Julius winds up with these whenever he buys tickets from Risky.
• You Fail Logic Forever: Pretty much all of Rochelle's justifications for anything.
  • A particularly egregious example was when Rochelle was supposed to mail an envelope for Tonya so she could get a Billy Ocean poster. However, Rochelle forgets to mail the envelope and leaves it in her purse, opting instead to buy a poster from Risky. When that fails, Tonya kindly asks her mother for the envelope so she can mail it herself.
    • Chris Rock: My mother always did the best for us she could, even if it didn't make a bit of sense.
  • Though to be fair, Rochelle's far from being the only offender. She's just the most frequent.
• You Would Do the Same For Me: Not that the character did...