Roundhouse

Roundhouse logo

Whenever my life gets me so down,
I know I can go down
To where the music and the fun never ends!
As long as the music keeps playin', you know what I'm sayin',
You know that I can find a friend...
At the Roundhouse!

The oft forgotten show of the two-hour-long Snick block back in The Nineties, with the other three being Clarissa Explains It All, Ren and Stimpy, and Are You Afraid of the Dark?.

Basically, Roundhouse was Nickelodeon's take on a Variety Show such as Saturday Night Live or Mad TV. Set in the titular train roundhouse, the cast would entertain the audience -- both the live, present one and those watching at home -- with skits based around popular culture, as well as musical and dance acts, with a Framing Device of the Anyfamily family and what they went through day by day.

The show ran from Snick's debut in 1992 until 1996, and it was conceived by Buddy Sheffield of In Living Color. No relation to Chuck Norris' most powerful attack.

Tropes used in Roundhouse include:

• Actor Existence Failure: Dominic Lucero was diagnosed with lymphoma after the first season, appeared in the third while undergoing treatment, and died a month before the final episode was filmed. That last episode was made in his honor.
• Biting the Hand Humor: The cast occasionally spoofed (fellow Viacom affiliate) MTV with "Empty-V".
• Bumbling Dad
• Catch Phrase / Share Phrase: "Reprise the theme song and roll the credits!"
  • Fun note: During the second taping of the final episode, they actually said "Reprise the theme song and roll the reruns!" but used the first taping's catchphrase in editing.
• Christmas Episode: Among other things, it spoofed Yet Another Christmas Carol with the Ghosts of Christmas Specials, who had to make their visitation quick because they had to make a Saved by the Bell appearance in less than an hour.
• Cool Chair: Dad's. In one commercial/interview, the actor who played Dad said he could even drive that thing in the water.
• Cool Old Lady: Grandma or an aunt sometimes.
• End of Series Awareness: See "No Fourth Wall" below.
• The Everyman: It's right there in their last name -- "Anyfamily".
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Every episode, they manage to do something.
  • There was the beauty pageant episode, where one of the girls puts a pair of balloons on her chest to be Dolly Parton (a gag that comes up multiple times during the show's run).
  • The sports episode of season one also uses this gag, the "Sheebok" training bra, to attract guys.
    • With the added comment near the end of the sketch from one of the guys: "Wow, I wonder if they make one for guys, too!"
  • There was one memorable quote in the beauty pageant episode:

John: "Don't get mad, get Pest-Off!"

• • This quote from the song "Airbrain" from the beauty pageant episode:

The guys: "Brains are great until we find organs of another kind."

• No Budget: Cardboard props and so forth.
  • Which may have been the point. There's a good chance that the producers were going for Stylistic Suck, giving it a "bunch of friends putting on a show in their backyard trainyard" feel.
  • Actually, the show was Nickelodeon's most expensive to produce at the time, because of the complexity and specialization of the props, even if they were made of cardboard. Most of them, cardboard televisions aside, couldn't be used for more than one episode, as props were typically specific to an episode. Occasionally, things like a hat with socks on it for dog ears will pop up in multiple episodes (the Abusement Park and School Play episodes, for example), but most of the time, props were too specific to use more than once.
• No Fourth Wall: At least once per episode during the entire show's run, but the final episode completely destroys whatever this show had left of its fourth wall.

Ivan: "Cancelled shows, graduation, terminated? Either this is a really convoluted show about endings or we're-"
David N.: "Cancelled! Hello, you didn't get the memo?"

• Parody Commercial
• Rapid-Fire Comedy: When it wasn't working on the week's Aesop.
• Severely Specialized Store: In one bit, two Amazingly Embarrassing Parents look for envelopes at the mall. The map indicates a store named "Gee, I Can't Believe There's a Store in This Mall That Sells Nothing But Envelopes, Can You?".
• Silent Credits: See Very Special Episode below.
• Sketch Comedy
• Stock Parodies: One episode was a spoof of The Wizard of Oz.
• Studio Audience: Like most Nickelodeon shows.
• Stylistic Suck: Word of God has said that it was intended to give the feel of a bunch of kids putting on a show with no real props.
• Title: the Adaptation: Spoofed with Weather Channel -- The Movie, which featured an All-Star Cast: See Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts as a solar eclipse!
• Very Special Episode: About gangs. The ending had it turn out to be All Just a Dream of the Anyfamily son, but when he realizes the problem still exists in the "real world", he finds that the Catch Phrase doesn't work this time; he wanders off confused and the credits -- which start with a text reminder that "Gang violence is no joke" -- roll silently.
• A Worldwide Punomenon: The usual basis for parody commercials among other things. One notable example was the mom doing laundry and "separating the whites from the colors with new Apart Tide."