Series / That's So Raven

From left to right: Victor, Tanya, Raven, and Corey. Missing: Chelsea, Eddie, and a lot of other people.

"I'm psychic, and I didn't see this coming."

— Raven Baxter

That's So Raven is a Disney Channel show that ran from 2003 to 2007, aimed at a tween audience. The plot revolves around precognitive teenager Raven Baxter (Raven-Symoné) as she gets herself, her friends Eddie and Chelsea, and her family out of various situations, usually by using her Psychic Powers and skills as a "Master of Disguise", neither of which help.

A smash hit during its run, it became the first Disney show to buck the 65-episode trend, the first to run four seasons, and the first to reach 100 episodes. It was also the first series in the Disney Channel Live-Action Universe, being the first live-action series on Disney Channel to participate in a Massive Crossover Event: That's So Suite Life of Hannah Montana (which codified the Shared Universe in the first place).

In 2007, the series received a short-lived spinoff called Cory in the House. It starred Raven's brother, Cory, living in the White House.

In 2016, it was announced that Disney Channel greenlit a Sequel Series to the show called Raven's Home, with Symoné returning as actor and producer. Both Raven and Chelsea are now divorced mothers raising their kids as single parents in the same house—Chelsea has a son named Levi while Raven has boy-girl fraternal twins named Booker and Nia. The main premise of the show happens when Booker's revealed to have inherited Raven's psychic abilities.

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That's So Raven provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc:
  • One episode had a girl on the school newspaper coming very close to discovering Raven's secret (and exposing it to the school). She's foiled in the end, but remains suspicious that Raven is hiding something, and vows to discover what it is. Though this hints that she'll be a recurring antagonist, the character is never seen again.
  • Ben the psychic. He becomes Chelsea's boyfriend at the end of the episode he debuts in, and is then never seen again.
• Abuse of Return Policy: The premise of "Point of No Return" is Raven needs a scientific calculator for her classes, so Victor gives her $100 for it. However, Raven instead spends the money on an expensive dress, planning to wear it to big party that night and then take it back the next day, then use the refund to buy the calculator. However, before she can get to the party Raven drops her lipstick on the dress, forcing her, Chelsea, and Eddie to stay up all night trying to get the stain out. Following several other disasters, she almost gets away with it, but the store finds out and refuses to take the dress back, leaving her father forced to pay $200, and him making her work to pay it off.
• Accidental Public Confession: Numerous examples, as it's a Disney Kid Com.
• Aesop Amnesia: Nearly every single episode had Raven misinterpreting her visions and getting into trouble in an attempt to prevent them from coming true (which, more often than not, led to the vision happening in the first place). Despite this, she never learns to stop and think before jumping to some hilariously wrong conclusion after seeing the future.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Raven enters an air vent in "Clothes Minded" to find some cheese.
• All for Nothing: Double subverted in "Members Only", when after Eddie goes through the Sigmas' humiliating list to become one of them, Raven has a vision where after having discovered his lie about the girls, Dylan rejects him. The vision turns out to be an acceptance, but after the Sigmas get baked beans dropped on them by Chelsea, the rejection sticks.
• All Just a Dream: The Fever Dream Episode "Soup to Nuts", as well as "Don't Have a Cow", which turns out to be one of Raven's visions of her and Chelsea turning into cows.
• All Women Love Shoes: Raven writes a poem and dedicates two art projects to them.
• Always Second Best: In "The Big Buzz", it's revealed that Raven was this for the past seven years for the "Best Dressed" award.
• Alpha Bitch: Alana in Season 2, then Bianca in the third season; alternately, Nikki. Also, Jasmine in the Musical Episode, and in Season 4, both Tiffany and Muffy were this.
• And a Diet Coke: In "Mr. Perfect" Victor and Cory's first customer of Baxter & Son - Cory's idea for a food truck - takes a large order and caps it off with a "Diet Cola".
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Cory to Raven, except when they're working together.
• Anti-School Uniforms Plot: "Clothes Minded" where Raven organizes a protest (everyone is supposed to technically wear the uniform, but in a highly personalized way), but everyone backs out except the mean clique. The plot of the episode is more about Raven accidentally falling in with them, but it does follow the trope.
• Apathetic Teacher: Most of the Bayside High staff, but special mention goes to Mrs. Depaulo.
• Argument of Contradictions: A humorous example in "Point of No Return" where Raven and Chelsea gossip about someone being asked to a party.
  Raven: So I was like "No he didn't! And Chels said "Yes he did! And then I was like "Yes he did!"
• Armor-Piercing Question: In "Food for Thought", Judge Foodie tries to convince the entire school body that the Food Court should stay. To encourage them, she asks "How many of you feel good when you eat fast food?" It's an easy enough question, as everybody at 'court' eagerly raises their hands in agreement. But then Raven asks a question that's a bit harder to swallow: "But how many of you feel sluggish and slow afterwards?" Again, everybody raises their hands, realizing the implication of eating at the Food Court.
• Aside Glance: Raven does this◊ after she and Chelsea dismiss the idea of a TV show about a psychic teenager. See Who Would Want to Watch Us? below.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!; In Escape Claus, Raven was supposed leave the mall as soon as she got the necklace, but she got distracted by a Santa attraction.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Raven and Cory.
• Back Door Pilot: There's an episode where Cory goes to Hollywood but it mainly focuses on actress character Ally Parker. It was supposed to set up a show called Better Dayz, which was later scrapped and Retooled into Hannah Montana.
• Balcony Wooing Scene: In the episode "Blue In The Face", Devon pulls a boombox over his head to bring his girlfriend, Raven, the concert that she was forbidden to attend due to poor grades and a chemical explosion in her school's science lab as a Shout-Out to Say Anything....
• Beautiful All Along: Miss Romano from "The Big Buzz", and generally everyone that Raven, Eddie and Chelsea makeover, such as Tyler from "Psychic Eye for the Sloppy Guy".
• Big Eater: Chantel, a girl Eddie dates has an incredible appetite which stresses Eddie out because of his tight budget.
• Big Sister Instinct: Cory may be an annoying younger brother, but you do not mess with him. Raven is scary when mad at you for messing with Cory. (Note: read "scary" as "incredibly scary and possibly slightly mad!")
• Big, Fat Future: An interesting case. In "Food for Thought," Raven has two visions that reveal that unless she and Chelsea can stop Trans-Infinity Farm's food court program, everyone at their school will develop an enormous behind, and the company will get to put its foods in every school in the country. Thankfully, they stop this and prevent it from ever occurring.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: In "Taken to the Cleaners", Tanya confronts Raven about her list of chores, and her listing them turns into this for a few seconds.
  Tanya: Raven, are you listening to me?
  Raven: Yeah, I heard every blah-I mean word!
• Blessed with Suck: Raven claims to be this in certain episodes, saying her visions cause trouble for her, and get her in crazy situations very often.
• Blunt "No": Senorita Rodriguez had this as her Catchphrase, and this was always used for comedic effect against her students' questions, like Raven campaigning to play Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz in the school play:
  Senorita Rodriguez: Raven, I was wrong. You should've gotten the part of Dorothy.
  Raven: So I'm getting the part?!
  Senorita Rodriguez: No.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Towards the end of "Driven to Insanity", Raven's parents explain to her that although Raven may want her independence, lying isn't the way to earn it. However, they also acknowledge that Raven is right: they should bother to listen to what she has to say more often instead of constantly shooting her down constantly.
  • "The Lying Game" has both Raven and Cory point out they each had their respective reasons to act the way they did during career day. Raven was stricter than usual because, naturally, she was nervous about messing up her temporary job as a teacher. Meanwhile, Cory has to defend he was honest when he said he was delegated to hand out snacks because he was currently the class's star student, despite her belief he's still a goof-off and a trouble-maker.
• Bottle Episode: Out of the 100 episodes in the series, "Party Animal", "Wake Up, Victor", "Vision Impossible", "Hook Up My Space", and "When There's Smoke" are the only five to never leave the Baxter residence, while "Separation Anxiety" is the only episode to use only the regular cast.
• Boy Band: Boyz N' Motion.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: When Eric shows up at Raven's house thinking that she's the new Russian exchange student Natasha in "Bend it Like Baxter", he gives her Solyanka, which is apparently made of "pickles, sour cream, and fish heads".
• Butt Biter: Donna Cabonna's dog gets poor Raven this way twice in one scene.
• Brick Joke:
  • In "Psychics Wanted", the plot is suddenly interrupted for a scene in which Tanya and Victor try to find money in Cory's room to pay for a pizza they ordered, only to be captured by his security system. Cory rushes in hoping to have trapped Raven, but is surprised to see his parents instead as he takes a bite out of the delivered pizza. At the end of the episode, Raven tries to think of a way to pay for the water bottles in the school vending machine. Cut to Raven trapped by Cory's security system, as Cory watches on and takes a sip out of a water bottle.
  • Another one was used in "If I Only Had a Job". At one point, Raven calls Cory a "munchkin", a comment that has seemingly little to no relevance to the plot...until the very end of the episode, where Raven shows off the costumes she designed for the school's production of The Wizard of Oz and brings out Cory, clad as a munchkin.
• Camera Abuse: Subverted in "Psychic Eye for the Sloppy Guy" when Cory swings his golf club (that he was using to practice golf with Victor) into the shattering camera...which turns out to be Victor's fancy new TV.
• Camping Episode: "Skunk'd".
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Towards the ending of "Five Finger Discount", Cory decides against shop-lifting and puts the monkey key chain back, while his so-called "friends". double down on their titular past time. As such, when a (real) security guard tells them all to empty their pockets, Cory is lucky his pockets are empty, a reflection of his clear conscience. The other boys, on the other hand, have their pockets full of all the stolen toys and knick-knacks they pickpocketed from the store.
• Childhood Memory Demolition Team: The plot of "On Top of Old Oaky".
• Child Prodigy: Raven's younger brother Cory, has proven himself to be far smarter than most people around let on. Not only his he a master schemer and strategist, one episode shows that he has single-handedly managed to create his own money security system that not even his own family can get past. Not bad for a 10-12-year-old child.
  • And then there's his friend William who manages to out-prodigy even Cory himself, to the point where his own classmates poked fun at him for being so smart. He's suggested to be elementary-school-aged and his younger than Cory, but he already knows how to plays the clarinet and keyboard. He's also a talented scientist and engineer who had managed to "invent" gadgets in several episodes. He once offered to improve Raven's fashion clothing
• Christmas Episode: "Escape Claus".
• Clip Show: In the penultimate episode of Season 3 "Vision Impossible", the gang looks at Raven's memories on a large TV screen.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Chelsea.
• Cooking Duel: An entire show about them exists, and Victor and Raven are invited on to compete against the former's culinary school rival in "Chef-Man and Raven".
• Counter-Productive Warning:
  • There was a problem in school and the principal gets really angry. Raven gets a vision where the school forces the students to wear uniforms. Raven asks the principal not to do it. The principal said he was not planning to, but that it is indeed a great idea.
  • When the mean clique of the school is angry about having to wear uniforms and show Raven a big wheel of cheese, Raven remembers a vision about a cheese getting rotten and stinking the school. Raven asks her not to follow that plan. Only for them to say they were planning on just eating it, but that it was a great prank.
  • And finally, when one of the girls says she knows where to put the cheese wrapper. Raven gets a vision of them putting it on Raven's friends' lockers to frame them. She asks them not to put the wrapper in the lockers. She says she meant to put it in the trash bin, but then says that's a better idea.
• Country Mouse: Raven's country cousins.
• Crossover: That's So Suite Life of Hannah Montana.
• Cue the Rain: Turned up an extra notch. Raven got stuck in a limo's moon roof when going to prom. Then it started raining on her. "Well at least It Can't Get Any Worse"...cue the gale force winds.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Chelsea.
• Dark Horse Victory: Double subverted in "The Big Buzz" when Señorita Rodriguez accidentally gestures toward Ms. Romano for the "Best Dressed" award, causing her to win. However, she then gives credit to Raven for convincing her to get a makeover and a confidence boost, handing the trophy to her afterwards...then deciding to keep it "as a precious reminder of this wonderful day".
• Dating Service Disaster: "When 6021 Met 4267" has Raven (the former) matched with Eddie (the latter).
• A Day in the Limelight: "Goin' Hollywood" where Cory goes to Hollywood and meets a child actress who wants a normal life. The episode mostly focuses on her. It was a Back Door Pilot for a show that never got picked up.
• Deadly Euphemism: In "Cake Fear" when Raven asks her babysitter what she did to Chelsea, she responds with this:

  Mrs. Patterson: Let's just say...she's watching over us...from a better place. *Raven, Eddie, and Cory gulp*

  • Subverted in the very next scene, where Chelsea is in a TV Production truck listening to Victor telling her it's All Part of the Show.
• Deep South: In "Country Cousins", Raven travels down the south to visit her country cousins.
• The Dentist Episode: "Numb and Numb-er" deals with Raven accompanying Cory to a dentist appointment to help him get over his fears and having a vision of him supposedly having a cavity; once they get there and Raven tests it out, it turns out she has the cavity, and begins freaking out along with him.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • After Chelsea and Raven meet the new Alpha Bitch Bianca in "Boyz 'n Commotion", she tells them that she'll believe they got the Boyz 'n Motion to perform at the school when she sees it. Then Muffy says when Bianca sees it, she'll believe it.
  • One of the headlines in the babysitter's scrapbook in "Cake Fear" is "Revenge Seeking Baby Sitter Seeks Revenge".
• Deteriorates Into Gibberish: When Raven and Cory fess up to eating their mom's birthday cake and blaming their old babysitter for it, Raven is so scared she ends up doing this.
• Deus Angst Machina: All of Raven's visions have to be misleading and end up getting her in trouble. Some of them don't even come true at all.
• Disrupting the Theater: In one episode, Cory, Chelsea, Eddie, and Eddie's girlfriend all go to see a movie. Cory is driven crazy by Chelsea's loud carrot-eating and Eddie and his girlfriend kissing endlessly to the point where he can't watch the film, and ends up complaining about them loudly enough to get himself kicked out for being disruptive.
• Distinction Without a Difference: In "Sweeps" Raven has a vision in which the play she produced gets booed off the stage. She witnesses a terrible performance and tells Chelsea that the script she wrote is terrible. Chelsea asks her if she wants her to change it, and Raven tells her to give it a "tweaky tweaky" instead.
• Distracted by the Sexy: In one episode, Cory's band holds auditions for a singer. Cory picks a girl who is severely Hollywood Tone-Deaf, but he is so smitten with her that her singing comes across as angelic to him. His bandmates have to record her and play him the tape in order for him to realize what she actually sounds like.
• The Ditz: Chelsea and Sierra.
• D.I.Y. Disaster: In "Opportunity Shocks", a very prominent business man is to visit Victor's restaurant. Victor creates a Foreman grill-type device that both "grills and chills". He demonstrated his creation by having it grill a steak and chill some jumbo shrimp. However, he crossed a few wires and instead, the grill flash freezes the steak, and the chiller turns the shrimp into a charred lump with tails.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The first instance of this on Disney Channel; Raven-Symone, Orlando Brown, and Anneliese Van der Pol performed the show-titled theme.
• Dodgeball Is Hell: Getting out of Dodge is an episode centered around this.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Chelsea has several instances of these. Clare the dog daycare owner in "Dog Day Aftergroom" also gets one.
• The Door Slams You: At the start of "Mr. Perfect", Raven opens her front door and accidentally nudges Eddie and Chelsea behind it.
• Double-Edged Buff: In the episode "Leave It to Diva", Raven catches a cold, which temporarily gives her the ability to read minds.
• Downer Ending: "Campaign in the Neck", "There Goes the Bride", "The Big Buzz", "Hizzouse Party", "Point of No Return", "Unhappy Medium", "Sister Act", "Soup to Nuts", and "Members Only".
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: Said by Chelsea to Cory and Raven in "The Lying Game" during her half-day as a detective in training and after hearing of the siblings' school ordeal.
• Election Day Episode: Chelsea runs for coverclass president because the school is literally falling apart and she wants to make a difference. Raven has a vision Chelsea won't win, and does everything she can to prevent her vision from becoming true. Despite an inspiring speech during the debate, she still doesn't.
• Embarrassing Statue: In "Art Breaker", Chelsea makes a sculpture of Raven for an art show. However, Raven finds the sculpture offensive to her since it depicts her with bird-like features including wings and a beak.
• Enfant Terrible: Baby G in "Country Cousins".
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Juicer may be a bully who likes to try and squeeze the juice out of other kids' heads, but the penultimate episode revealed that he hates cigarettes and he's even called in to tell Cory that smoking is wrong.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Raven, her cousins, and Chelsea in "Country Cousins".
• Extranormal Institute: The Psychic Institute in "Saving Psychic Raven".
• Eye Recall: Raven's visions are shown by a dramatic zoom in, and out of her eye.
• False Friend: A few times, seeing as it's a Kid Com by Disney Channel.
  • A non-kid variant—during a tea party between Raven, her grandma and her grandma's high society club, Raven (who had temporary Telepathy due to reing from a "psychic cold") hears the thoughts of one of her grandma's "friends" who, to put it bluntly, isn't very friendly, internally insulting grandma Baxter in a stuffy, snobbish manner. Raven is understandably disgusted and after coming clean to and reconciling with her grandma at the end of the episode, is quick to warn her about this (her grandma ends up admitting that she always suspected that this particular associate of hers was probably bad news).
  • Chelsea once met a boy (played by Ricky Ullman of Phil of the Future) who claimed to be a vegetarian like her in order to get on her good side. Raven ends up having a vision about him eating ribs and ends up trying to expose his lie to Chelsea.
• Fancy Camping: Raven in "Skunk'd".
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The teens at the Psychic Institute look down on "normies".
  • Raven is afraid of becoming a victim herself if her secret ever gets out.
• Feel No Pain: In "Pin Pals", Raven repeatedly hits the upright piano in the living room out of enthusiasm, which causes the top to slam down on her hand. Her reaction?
  (without moving even her lips)
  Raven: "If I wasn't so excited, this would really hurt!"
• Fictional Board Game: In "Four's a Crowd", Tanya and Victor, who wanted a night alone, end up getting stuck with Eddie and Chelsea, who play a knockoff of Twister called Contwingo. It apparently runs on points, and on Victor's first move, Eddie pranks him by crushing a water bottle and mimicking the sound of cracking bones, causing Victor to move his hand and hand over points to Eddie and Chelsea.
• Five-Finger Discount: The subject of the episode about Cory of the same name.
• Five-Temperament Ensemble: Tanya and Eddie (choleric), Chelsea (melancholic), Victor (phlegmatic), Raven (sanguine), and Cory (leukine).
• Flanderization:
  • Chelsea's slight ditziness in Season 1 later becomes extreme idiocy by the end of Season 2. In early episodes, she was even smarter (or at least more sensible) than Raven by being the voice of reason. By the third season, the way Anneliese van der Pol delivered her lines as Chelsea was slower and even sounded dumber. This is reversed in Raven's Home, where she's closer to her Season 1 portrayal.
  • While Chelsea got this the worst, the rest of the cast arguably had it too. Some of their traits (Cory being obsessed with money, Raven screaming when excited, Victor being a Bumbling Dad and Eddie being like an older version of Cory) were arguably exaggerated in the later episodes. Tanya pretty much managed to avoid this, although this might have partially been due to having been Put on a Bus.
• Food Porn: Invoked in “Food for Thought”, where a new school lunch program introduces some truly mesmerizing menu items like giant onion rings, chocolate pancakes, and yard long hot dogs. Of course, this distracts the characters from realizing it’s all incredibly bad for them.
• Foreshadowing: In 'There Goes the Bride', Raven puts on a wedding dress and kisses Devon at the altar. They are not getting married in this episode, but guess who's revealed to be Raven's ex in Raven's Home? They must have had that scene as adults at some point.
• The Freelance Shame Squad: Happens occasionally with the Bayside High students reacting to the trio's predicaments, but none more profound than Eddie failing to rock climb in "To See or Not To See".
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: At the climax of "Fur Better or Worse", Raven must decide between going through with her chinchilla fur coat design and losing her best friend or giving it up and keeping it. Obviously, she chooses the latter.
• Fully Absorbed Finale: The Suite Life of Zack & Cody episode "That's So Suite Life of Hannah Montana" takes place sometime after "Checkin' Out", the canon last episode of That's So Raven^note Due to Disney Channel airing the episodes Out of Order, "Checkin' Out" was aired in the middle of the last season., in which Raven plays a large part. She has a vision of Cody getting into trouble at Carey's party, which is the driving force behind the main plot, and is pivotal to the subplot, where, with Maddie's help, she ends up selling her dresses to London Tipton and Hannah Montana.
• Fundraiser Carnival: Near the end of "Smell of Victory", in which Eddie is hiding an embarrassing pimple from Krystal, a girl he likes. Raven forcibly volunteers stinky boy Ben Sturky for the water dunking tank...and she fills it with soap.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • Señorita Rodriguez's Future Leaders United in Business (FLUB) club in "Mind Your Business".
  • Victor makes one up on the spot for SASHA (Safe Arrival System Helping Americans) in "Hizzouse Party".
• Girl Posse: Nicki's hairspray girls and Alana's (and then Bianca's) posse.
• Got Me Doing It: In "Skunk'd", after Señorita Rodriguez contemplates contradictions on whether Raven should stay and watch the campsite or go with the group to look for Chelsea, she tries to go as well, but breaks a heel and ends up saying the same thing.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: Raven's grandmother lets out a note that breaks the Baxters' kitchen tulip vase when she visits in "To See or Not To See".
  • Happens again later in the same episode with Chelsea, who shatters the judges' glasses when she sings an unnecessary high note for her choir audition.
• Granola Girl: Chelsea.
• Grounded Forever: It's implied Victor did this to Raven and Corey at the end of "Hizzouse Party", but by the next episode he seems to have changed his mind.
• Guys are Slobs: The Boyz 'n Motion leave a huge mess the night that they stay at the Baxters' house in "Boyz 'n Commotion".
• HA HA HA—No: Raven did this to Chelsea a couple of times.
• Hilarious Outtakes: From the stinger of "To See or Not To See."
• Hippie Name: In one episode, a singer named Rayne Bow performs for Chelsea's vegetarian club. When Rayne is locked in a closet, Raven tries to cover for her and pretends to be a singer named Sunshine.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: A heroic example in "The Big Buzz". Raven goes to the school counselor for advice to get an award that she's been trying for seven years, and she suggests the counselor get a fashion makeover. This ends up giving her an energy and confidence boost to end up winning said award (albeit accidentally), then going on to win a zucchini growing award as well.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Invoked in "That's So Not Raven", where Raven is told she isn't skinny enough to model the clothes she designed for a fashion show, and had her head superimposed on a thinner model's body. She and the twig-thing model then team up and both wear the outfit on the runway. Also deconstructed when both of them chew out the magazine owner that's sponsoring the show, saying that no one, is as skinny as they look on magazines, even the model admits she's not that skinny.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: When Cory's band holds auditions for a singer, the girl he chooses is this. Except not to him, because he is so smitten with her, he hears her singing beautifully. His other bandmates secretly record one of their rehearsals and play it back to him so he can hear how awful she really sounds.
• Huddle Shot: In "Cake Fear" with Raven, Eddie, Chelsea, and Cory, who are trying to find a way to get into their babysitter's bag and find out what's in it.
• Human Ladder: Raven, Alana, and Loca perform one in "Clothes Minded", so Alana can put cheese in the air vent.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Eddie's response to Raven's inquiring where he got the money he gave her in "They Work Hard For His Money" (Raven had a vision where she thought she saw Eddie steal it from the school store safe).
• I've Heard of That — What Is It?: In the opening to "Blue in the Face", Devon tells Raven he has tickets to a Blue Rain concert; Raven claims to love them, then says she's never heard of them.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Raven, but she comes to accept her gift. Eddie's temporary psychic spotlight in "He's Got the Power" annoyed her with this.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In "Stark Raven Mad", after Jalen, the football team captain and Raven's science project partner, sees Raven trying to wake up Eddie and misinterpreting it, he says this:
  Jalen: I, uh...I just remembered I gotta do something back in that direction. *Points towards the stairs and runs off*
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Chelsea instantly guesses the exact number of ping pong balls in a jar (237), when Raven asks her how she knew she says that it's obvious in "Radio Heads".
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: In "Soup to Nuts", Raven does this while faking an illness to avoid going to school. This is brought back up later, when Raven finds out that she missed a Senior Surprise Day trip to a water park due to her "illness".
  Raven: Senior Surprise Day? And I missed it?!
  Cory: Yeah, because you were "so cold, so cold".
  Raven: You keep going, you're gonna be out cold in a second.
• Ironic Echo: "Food for Thought" has one such phrases. At one point, Raven has a vision of Judge Foodie calling her associate, eagerly saying the school body voted "yes" to Food Court and gleefully muses over how the whole thing is going to "make them zillions". Towards the climax, when Raven and Chelsea's presentation about healthy eating is winning over the school body, Judge Foodie is calling her associate and uses the word "zillions" again, only this time, it's to gripe about how losing favor with the students is going to cost them dearly.
• Irony: In one episode, Cory caught a cricket and wanted to use it to scare Raven. Later when it escapes and is let loose in the house, we learn that Raven is the only one in the house who likes the cricket, because its chirping helps her sleep.
• Jabba Table Manners:
  • Raven's country cousins when they eat dinner.
  • Also, Matthew, an older guy Raven dates once. Not exactly a turn-on for Raven, to say the least.
• Jerkass: Stanley and Leonard Stevenson.
• Kids Are Cruel: Cory at times, but he's generally nice and his pranks are all Played for Laughs.
• Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy: Subverted when it's apparently how Chelsea figures out the location of her's and Raven's favorite singer Pressure's dance studio. Raven immediately mentions the one being referred to is her.
• Last Resort Takeout: Subverted in "Dissin Cousins" when Raven, who doesn't know how to cook, sets up a pot of boiling water and a plate of ingredients to make it appear like she does. Chelsea is the one getting the food...but it's seafood, and her Granola Girl nature causes her to spare the crabs, unaware that they're supposed to be eaten.
• Laughing at Your Own Jokes: In the episode "On Top of Old Oaky". Raven and her friends climb a tree called "Old Oakey". While in the tree they sing "On top of Old Oakey" (to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey"). Suddenly the tree snaps and falls over with them in it.
  Señorita Rodriguez: [singing] Well, now Old Oakey is on top of you! [laughs] Oh, I crack myself up!
• Layman's Terms: In "Vision Impossible", when Raven is being told by Doctor Sleevemore how the oscillating machine works, she's confused. Sleevemore then tells her how it works without the tech mumbo-jumbo.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Said by Victor to Cory at the end of "Too Much Pressure" regarding the latter's humiliating foreign dance class.
• Line-of-Sight Alias: "If I Only Had a Job" has Eddie needing to come up with a name for Raven's latest disguise. He chooses Liz Anya (after seeing a plate of lasagna). Raven isn't too pleased, but Eddie points out she could have easily been called "Pork Choppa" instead. Gets a Call-Back in Raven's Home, where the person "Liz Anya" actually exists.
  • Tried by Cory in "Point of No Return" when Victor asks Cory to name a friend that goes shopping by himself. He looks at the salad bowl in front of him and comes up with "Pete Saladbowl". Apparently, Victor has never seen him cause he always goes out shopping by himself.
• Long Runner: The first Disney Live-Action Kid Com to achieve this feat.
• Large Ham: Raven, with her bizarre, outlandish mannerisms and Sassy Black Woman attitude. Even more so when she's in disguise.
• The Last Straw: A literal example in "Members Only". When Eddie is holding the Sigmas' books and straining under the weight, a member puts a plastic straw on top of the stack, causing Eddie to collapse and drop the books.
• Little Boy Seeks Big Girl: Cory towards Chelsea in early episodes. Later Stanley towards Raven.
• Magic Meteor: Eddie gets powers for one episode by a meteor passing that only happens once in a while.
• Major Injury Underreaction: After taking a fall that would be concussion-inducing in Real Life, Raven almost always says "I'm Okay!!"
• Man-Eating Plant: In "When in Dome", Raven encounters an enormous Audrey II-like flytrap while trapped in a biodome.
• Meaningful Name: The raven was the sacred bird of Apollo, the Greek god of prophecy.
• Mistaken for Fake Hair: In "Mismatch Maker", Cory finds a lost dog and doesn't want to give it up to its owner. At one point, a kid named Chauncey, who looks nearly identical to Cory (and is also played by Kyle Massey), comes over to claim the dog, but Victor thinks it's Cory in disguise and tries to pull his "wig" off. And that's when the real Cory walks in...
  Victor: I'm so sorry! I thought you were my son!
  Chauncey: Is this the way you treat your son?!
• Mistaken for Quake: In "Shake, Rattle, and Rae", Raven has a vision that the bookcase will fall because of an earthquake. Sure enough, the house begins to shake. It turns out, though, that it wasn't an earthquake. It was Victor crashing his car into the garage wall.
• Mistaken for Thief: In "Country Cousins", Raven and her friend Chelsea visit some of Raven's relatives in the country to mend a feud that started when everyone thought Victor had stolen a precious gravy boat, which had really been buried by Raven and her cousin Betty Jane when they were little kids.
• Movie-Theater Episode: "Saturday Afternoon Fever" features Raven sneaking back-and-forth between watching a sappy romantic movie with her mother, and watching a movie with her date at the same time. Meanwhile, Cory has to watch a lame G-rated movie with Victor, and the two complain about it the entire time.
• Mundane Utility: "Saving Psychic Raven" shows one of Raven's new also-psychic acquaintances using his heat-generating abilities to instantaneously roast a marshmallow and pop a bag of popcorn.
• Musical Episode:
  • "The Road To Audition", in which Raven, Chelsea, Eddie, and the rest of the school vie to impress a (supposed) secret talent agent from the TV show "Undercover Superstar". It's mostly diegetic with five of the songs being In-Universe performances, while Cory's song falls under the "all in their heads" hypothesis.
  • "Sweeps" is a lesser example since it's about the struggle to put on a musical; regardless, it still has three songs sung by the characters.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Ben "Stinky" Sturky.
• Needlework Is for Old People: The subject of the B-plot of "Dog Day Aftergroom" where Cory tries to get Victor to kick his newfound habit of knitting (but making money off of it at first).
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Half the time, Raven trying to prevent her visions from coming true is what causes them to come true.
• No Indoor Voice: As per Disney Channel sitcom tradition, most of the characters are prone to getting rather shouty at times. Raven also tends to yell a lot, especially when she's excited.
• Nobody Here but Us Statues:
  • In "Art Breaker," Chelsea makes a statue of Raven for an art show that blends her friend with the actual bird, making her, as Raven puts it, "a freak with a beak." When Raven inadvertently destroys the statue, she covers herself in clay and feathers to pass herself off as the piece. She gets hungry while in disguise, and asks Eddie to help her eat something—so he gives her "a hot and spicy jalapeno pepper popper."
  • In "Five-Finger Discount," Raven sneaks into a store to spy on Corey. At one point, she ends up behind a display of dolls. When a security guard sees her, she smiles and pretends to be the head of one of the toys to keep from being caught.
• Noodle Incident: In "Mother Dearest".
  Cory: I call it "The Three C's".
  Raven: Now what does that stand for? Crazy, creepy, and constipated?
  Cory: That was one night!
• Not on the List: Raven tries and fails to make it on the list for Donna Cabonna's party in "Pin Pals". She finds out the hard way when she gets there.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In one episode, Cory fakes needing help in math, which is normally his best subject, so he has an excuse to spend time with the very attractive tutor. Once Victor actually sees the tutor, he quickly gets wise to Cory's scheme, and hires an older man to teach him instead, leading to Cory quickly dropping the act.
  Victor: "Daddy I'm dumb!" Yeah right.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: In "Where there is Smoke", Raven gives Corey a smoking intervention under the belief that he's started smoking. Among those at the intervention is Cindy (who is herself the real smoker). As the intervention draws on, Raven and her friends list all the side effects and consequences that come with smoking, unwittingly deterring Cindy of her new bad habit.
• Oh, Crap!: Raven's had so many of these moments, it's practically one of her catchphrases. Of course being a Disney show, the writers had to use a G-rated version of "crap".
  • Teach Your Children Well: When Raven was trying to get Tanya's desk away from her so Tanya would see the rude note she accidently sent to her, Raven lost control of the desk, which rolled out of the school and crashed somewhere.
  • A Dog by Any Other Name: Raven when she realizes she has to take her shirt off in gym class when she's placed on a skins team.
  • Escape Claus: Raven, Eddie and Chelsea all have this reaction when they realize they ditched school to go the same mall Mr. Petracelli was at and risked getting caught by him.
  • Blue in the Face: Raven realizes she's the only student in the hallways, and is about to be late for her class.
    • Again, when Raven accidently creates an unstable chemical reaction, that would endanger the other classmates.
  • Chef-Man and Raven: Raven has a moment when she realizes she accidently ate a mushroom (which she was allergic to).
• Old Master: Raven's grandmother is also psychic, but over the course of her long life she has learned to control her power. Not only can she see the future whenever she wants, she chooses what she sees and gets context. She uses this to preempt her grandson's attempts at pranking her.
• Only Sane Man: Chelsea of all people plays this role in "Food for Thought"—she's the only person who realizes that a constant diet of junk food will have terrible effects on the body and mind. It does make sense, however, when you remember that she's a Granola Girl. Nobody pays attention to her...at least until Raven has a vision of everyone at the school developing "a lotta junk in the trunk."
• Out-of-Character Moment: Raven in "Juicer Consequences". She is a complete self-absorbed bastard for most of the episode for no reason other than the fact that the storyline requires her to be.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Raven constantly disguised herself, including sometimes as an old man despite looking nothing like one and sounding exactly like a teenage girl, speaking in a false deep voice.
• Parent Service: In "Driven to Insanity", T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh wears a dress for most of the episode that is surprisingly revealing by Disney Channel standards.
• Party Scheduling Gambit: The Parties', guest starring Zenon'' star Kirsten Storms as Nicki.
• Piggy Bank: In "Hizzouse Party", Raven smashes hers to start getting money for a replacement lamp that she "accidentally" broke (Cory orchestrated it to distract her so he could set up the titular party).
• Police Code for Everything: "Five-Finger Discount" has Raven impersonating a mall security officer and almost being caught by a real one, who asks her for a code. She says "903" which is apparently for a swarm of bees, making everybody (including Cory and his shoplifting friends) freak out.
  • Then subverted when cop-disguised Raven asks the one for shoplifting, to which she responds there is none and they just call it that.
    • Then parodied when Raven tries to put her borrowed mustache back, which hurts when she rips it off and makes her scream "1027 for mustache burn!".
• Popular Is Evil: Raven is first bullied by Alana, then Bianca, both head of the Girl Posse at the time.
• Pretending to Be One's Own Relative: In one episode, the titular character gets in trouble with one of her school teachers, who insists on talking to one of her parents. Not wanting it to happen, Raven disguises herself as her mother (but looks completely different from her actual mother Tanya, taking advantage of the fact that the teacher doesn't know how Raven's parents' look). Tanya discovers this and scolds Raven not only for the ruse itself, but also for Raven's awful disguise.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: William at times.
• Previously on…: Done for the two-part "Country Cousins".
• Produce Pelting: In "Ye Olde Dating Game", Chelsea gets peppers chucked at her for trying to sing at her medieval-themed dance, which nobody likes her song selection for.
• Prophecy Twist: Once an Episode, Raven's visions will turn out completely differently than what she expects.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Tanya suddenly and without warning apparently went to England to become a lawyer. She's never seen or heard from again (her actress, T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh, had to leave the show after Season 3 to take care of her grandmother, who had been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease). Who knows if she even knows that her husband became first chef for the president.
  • Along with a boatload of other characters. The most shocking being a boyfriend Chelsea has who is established a psychic, and then never gets mentioned again.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: Alana gets sent to military school for being "so bad" in the third season.
• Psychic Powers: Raven.
• Stock Punishment: Ye Olde Dating Game, has a teacher in a jester costume ends up in the pillory, which includes the main character Raven. She manages to break free, but brings along with her and fights two jousting horsemen.
• The Rashomon: The episode "The Lying Game", where Raven and Cory share their versions of what happened when Raven went to Cory's class for Job Shadow Day.
• Reactive Continuous Scream: Cory and Tanya exchange one after Tanya opens the front door and Cory, who just watched a horror movie alone, believes it's real during a power outage in "The Dating Shame".
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Alana, who was played by 3LW and The Cheetah Girls' Adrienne Bailon, took a Long Bus Trip when she was "so bad she went to military school." In real life, Bailon and Raven-Symone had internal disputes while they were in The Cheetah Girls, which caused Bailon to refuse to reprise her role and Raven to leave The Cheetah Girls.
• Record Needle Scratch: Happens in "Ye Olde Dating Game" with Raven attempting to ask a guy out to the spring dance; the scratch occurs when Raven tries more and more outrageous tactics to get him to notice her.
• Red Sock Ruins the Laundry: An animal example in "Dog Day Aftergroom", where Raven's pink knitted wristband falls into the tub of the dog she and Eddie are washing, causing it to turn pink. Eddie then mentions a personal straight example, along with the embarrassing fact that he still wears pink.
• Rich Bitch: Nicki from "The Parties" episode, although Muffy may also qualify.
• Right Behind Me: In "Shake, Rattle, and Rae" Raven gets fed up with the bullying of Alana and her posse during a test, so she snaps and retaliates by throwing their notebook pages back at them. Chelsea warns her of Mr. Finn, who Raven realizes is standing there.
• Roadside Wave: Raven, stuck in her limo's sunroof in "Save the Last Dance", gets soaked by one while the limo is stuck at a convenience store.
• Running Gag: From "Chef-Man and Raven": Chelsea screaming whenever Leonard Stevenson's full name was said out loud.
• Secret Keepers: Raven's family plus Eddie and Chelsea.
• Sassy Black Woman: Raven, Tanya, and probably most females in their family tree could count.
• Say My Name: Comes up as a gag in "Clothes Minded".
• Scatting: Tanya tries to do this on the stage of Victor's new restaurant in "Out of Control". It's...cringy.
• Scooby Stack: Raven, Chelsea, and Eddie do this in "Escape Claus" to escape the school.
• Seers: What Raven's psychic powers amount to.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Most of them. Usually when Raven tries to prevent a certain vision from coming true, she makes it happen instead.
• The Show Goes Hollywood: Goin' Hollywood.
• Shrunk in the Wash:
  • In "Point of No Return" Raven tries to get a lipstick stain out of an expensive top she bought for a party. The stain gets out...but the top is now a negative size.
  • It's also invoked in "Food for Thought" when Eddie complains how his pants feel smaller, then decides this trope must've happened. It's also Played for Laughs when Chelsea points out that his pants were bought recently, so he reasons they must've shrunk in the bag, rather than come to the conclusion that the fast food is the culprit for his "shrinking" pants.
• Sibling Team: Raven and Cory team up on multiple occasions, usually if it benefits them both.
• Slow Transformation: The Halloween episode had Raven and Chelsea slowly turning into cows due to a spell mishap. Thankfully, it actually happened in Raven's vision, so she was able to prevent them from spending the rest of their lives mooing and milking.
• Spanner in the Works: In "Food for Thought", Judge Foodie and the Food Court had plans to not only implement themselves into Raven's school, but also other schools across the country. And they would've gotten away with it, if not for Raven's powers giving her two very important visions. The first vision shows her the consequences of eating too much fast food in the long run, converting her to Chelsea's side and setting her on the path to discourage others from eating Food Court food. The second one alerts her of Judge Foodie's plans, motivating her and Chelsea to set up a presentation that would ultimately convince the school body not to buy into Judge Foodie's Food Court.
• Spicy Latina: Alana. Bianca as well, but her ethnicity was never stated.
• Spider-Sense: Raven usually gains this when Ben Sturky is nearby.
• Spin-Off: Cory in the House.
• Spit Take: Happens in "If I Only Had a Job" after the trio, pretending to be celebrities, are told by Victor's Jerkass boss that Victor no longer works at the restaurant they're dining in.
• Spoon Bending: In "Saving Psychic Raven", Raven meets a group of psychics like her, one of which demonstrates her ability to do this.
• Stalker with a Crush: Stanley, towards Raven.
• Standardized Sitcom Housing: The interior sets of the Baxter pad are remarkably similar to those of the Winslows of Family Matters and the Tanners of Full House. In adding to the reference, Candace Cameron of Full House guest starred in one episode.
• Stand-In Parents: In the pilot, Raven posed as her own mother at a parent-teacher conference to prevent her mother from finding out how bad her grades were. When the mother (inevitably) found out, she was both angry that Raven had lied to her and offended because of the insulting fat suit Raven had used for the disguise.
• Straw Loser: Chelsea.
• Suck E. Cheese's: In "Four's a Crowd" Raven, Cory, Devon and his 'innocent' sister Nadine go out to a family style pizza restaurant called "Pizza Pals", complete with a malfunctioning mechanical pirate!
• Suspiciously Prescient Planning: In "Rae of Sunshine," right before the local Bayside Sunshine Girls set off on their camping trip, a sudden downpour forces them to cancel their plans and stay at Raven's house instead. Mrs. Valentine, the chaperone for the trip, immediately prepares to go pick her husband up for an "impromptu" trip to Las Vegas, reasoning that since the van is rented for the entire weekend, she might as well use it if the girls can't. Raven sternly asks Mrs. Valentine if she knew it would rain and planned all this, which the woman denies... right before pulling an umbrella from her bag.
• Teens Love Shopping: Raven has an unhealthy obsession with it, which is touched on every few episodes or so.
• Test Kiss: Raven and Eddie share one in the last episode. The results were ambiguous...
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Parodied in "The Lying Game". When Raven gives her side of the story of what happened during career day, she frames Cory's sleeve-tearing as having happened because he tore away from his "angelic" sister's "redeeming" grasp.
  Evil!Cory: I wanna be bad!
• Title Theme Tune
• Token White: Chelsea.
• Totally Radical: In "Teach Your Children Well" Tanya, when she's substitute teaching for Raven's English class, says a theoretical interpretation of what Romeo and Juliet would sound like if it were written today. It's awkward.
• Totem Pole Trench: Stanley and Cory sneak into a party Raven is throwing by doing this.
• Trauma Button: In "Dog Day Aftergroom," the gang accidentally turn their boss Clarie's dog's white fur pink. Upon seeing this, she faints in shock. Afterwards, anytime someone says "pink," she passes out.
• Trope Codifier: Everything the Disney Channel doesn't owe to Lizzie McGuire, it owes to That's So Raven. The Laugh Track, the reliance on cliched plots, all come from here. It was also the first show to break the infamous "65 Episode Policy", running to a full 100, paving the way for future shows to also break 65 (including the Un-Cancelled Kim Possible).
• Two Girls and a Guy: With only a Eddie/Raven Ship Tease and no drama.
• Two-Teacher School: Senorita Rodriguez and Mr. Lawler. There were other teachers as well as another principal at the school but they were put on Long Bus Trips.
• Unexpected Positive: Raven and Cory go to the dentist. Cory's scared, so (after having a vision in which one of the pair is shown to need a filling) Raven gets in the chair to show him that it's not so bad. Guess who needs the filling?
• The Unreveal: Played for Laughs in "Five Finger Discount", where Raven, Chelsea, and Eddie win a mystery prize from a soda sweepstakes. While it's implied to be some sort of pet, the script goes out of its away to avoid telling us what it is exactly. Raven gets a vision of it, but we never see it. She tells her friends what it is, but is cut off before we could hear it. When the trio finally receives it, it never shows up onscreen. Then it dies at the end and all they have left is a picture of it, and we still don't get to see it because the person who took the picture blocked it with their thumb!
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Raven is a fashion designer.
• Valentine's Day Episode: "Hearts and Minds".
• Valley Girl: Raven imitates Chelsea while talking to her future date over the phone in this manner in "Driven to Insanity".
• Verbal Tic: Principal Lawler has a propensity to expectorate when he speaks. When he spoke into a microphone in one episode, the saliva he spat shorted it out.
• Very Special Episode: Surprisingly for a Disney kids show, Raven had episodes that addressed issues such as racism ("True Colors"), shoplifting ("Five Finger Discount"), and smoking ("When There Is Smoke").
• Villain Song:
  • Raven and Chelsea's In-Universe musical, "Sweeps", has one called "You've Got to Work Your Fingers to the Bone", sung by the greedy miser played by Eddie.
  • The Musical Episode "The Road to Audition" has Jasmine's song "Theater Queen", in which she tries to impress the supposed undercover talent agent by singing about how amazing she is.
  • Bianca, Muffy, and Loca have a very short one called "Bianca Says" in the episode "Boyz 'N Commotion".
• Wacky Fratboy Hijinx: A rare high school version; Eddie, after getting pledged to a popular group called the Sigmas, gets hazed via a long list of humiliating practices and tasks.
• A Weighty Aesop: "Food for Thought", in which Raven's school becomes a food court full of junk food (which is at least partly Truth in Television) and Raven and Chelsea try to stop it.
  Raven: Put down the pies! Do not maximize! You got to exercise, or the scale will rise and so will your thighs!
  Eddie: Now who wants some fries?
• Wild Teen Party: Raven and Cory host one in order to pay for a broken lamp; there's even a mechanical bull.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Usually, the A and B plots were kept mostly separate. However, in one memorable instance, the B plot had Cory addicted to online video games, heading very obviously toward a formulaic "everything-in-moderation" Aesop. Halfway through the episode, a goat from Raven's story chews through the wire of Cory's joystick, and we never hear anything about Cory's subplot ever again.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The Wizard of Oz in "Soup to Nuts".
• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: In "He's Got the Power", someone tells the now-psychic Eddie that he should get his own TV show. An unamused Raven comments "Who would watch a show about a teen psychic?" before glancing at the camera.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Raven would regularly have a vision of something bad happening, and, in attempting to stop it, cause the vision in the first place. A prime example is "Five-Finger Discount": Raven sees Corey getting caught shoplifting by a security guard. She rushes to the mall to prevent this, but to get close to him, ends up putting on a security guard outfit—thereby catching Corey, just like the vision predicted.

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Yup, that’s me!