Life in the Big Easy gets a little more complicated and way more spirited when the Hathaway siblings move into a house full of ghosts.
"The Haunted Hathaways" centers on a single mother named Michelle Hathaway (Ginifer King) and her two daughters Taylor and Frankie, (Amber Montana, Breanna Yde) ages 14 and 9 respectively. After Michelle goes through a divorce, she moves her family from New York City to New Orleans and opens a bakery, only to discover a family of three already living in the house that they move into. Single father Ray Preston (Chico Benymon) and his two sons Miles and Louie (Curtis Harris, "Lil’ P-Nut" Flores), ages 13 and 9 respectively, are very proud of this home because it is where the boys were born and where they have spent their entire lives and afterlives! Yes, the Prestons are ghosts, and together with the Hathaways become The Brady Bunch with a supernatural twist.
It now crosses over with the network sister show The Thundermans and lasted for two seasons until it was canceled in late 2014, ending its run in March 2015. Benjamin "Lil’ P-Nut" Flores eventually moved on to star in Game Shakers after that, with Brianna Yde starring on The Loud House and School of Rock.
This Series Provides Examples Of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Delaney in "Haunted Mentor".
- The Ace: Taylor is hinted as being this, having been an honor roll student and star gymnast at her previous school in New York City, in addition to her popularity and being an Extracurricular Enthusiast.
- Action Dad: Ray, who possesses the body of a food critic visiting the Hathaway's bakery in the pilot as a means of ruining their business and pushing them away.
- Big Applesauce: Where the Hathaways originate from.
- The Big Easy: Where the show takes place.
- Big "NO!": Combined with Skyward Scream when Frankie saw her electric keyboard destroyed in "Haunted Whodunit".
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Taylor.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
- In an attempt to get Miles angry, Frankie destroys sock puppets, bowties and sock puppets wearing bowties.
- Frankie's initial idea for the Gymnastics Team Parade Float, alligators, water cannons, alligators firing water cannons.
- Butt-Monkey: The Inchworm mascot is a regular victim of accidents caused by the main characters. Susan gets her taste of this trope when she is injured four times in one episode by Meadow's anxiety induced clumsiness.
- Captain Obvious: In "Haunted Secret", Frankie's had a fake arm as a ghost illusion by Louie to hide her badly bruised arm from her mother. In the end, after Louie lost control of it and it fell off, flopping on the table. Frankie then announced that was not her arm. Michelle lampshades it by pretending to be shocked.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Apparently cell service isn't so hot in the bakery, as demonstrated when Taylor was trying to win a radio contest in "Haunted Kids".
- The Charmer: "Miles, rhymes with smiles".
- Cheerful Child: Frankie.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Emma who occupied the role of Taylor's best friend in season 1 is abruptly replaced by Meadow in season 2 with no explanation offered or even mentioned.
- The offscreen reason was that Brec Bassinger who played the role of Emma was starring in her own show Bella and the Bulldogs.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Michelle brings the security video of Chad being controlled by the Green Ghoul to the Thundermans, the first thing Barb notices is that Hank ate all the lemon squares in the bakery.
- Control Freak: Michelle, who often cracks under the pressure of giving her daughters a decent upbringing.
- Crazy-Prepared: Miles keeps a bucket of ectoplasm near the Ghost Portal mirror in case the Hathaways ever need to enter Ghost World.
- Cute Ghost Boys: Louie and Miles.
- Cutting the Knot: When the ghostbuster's ineptitude fails to stop the banishment ritual, Taylor solves the problem by breaking the crystal orb.
- Deadpan Snarker: Taylor and Ray delve into this on occasion.
- Death Glare: When Taylor gets annoyed, she definitely will use this on whoever is irking her at that moment.
- Deceptively Cute Critter: In the episode Haunted Telescope, Louie volunteers to take care of the class ferret. However, things quickly go awry when the ferret tricks him using its cuteness and then possesses him.
- Ectoplasm: Ectoplasm is depicted as a bright blue opaque goop. Covering a living person in ectoplasm allows them to travel through a mirror to the ghost world, but once it wears off they can never return. Louis uses it to give Frankie a trip to the ghost world for her birthday in "Mostly Ghostly Girl".
- Embarrassing Middle Name: In "Haunted Boo Crew", it is revealed Michelle's middle name is Barbarella.
- Expository Theme Tune: The show's theme song describes how the Hathaways are trying to make things work out living in a haunted house.
- Expy: Miles is a friendly ghost who wants friends and has relatives that love to scare people away. Now where have we heard that?
- Or how about this: a family living above an eatery with magical beings with access to amazing powers and creatures from a nether-world. Now where have we heard that one before?
- Or this one: a sitcom about a protagonist who buys a house that's haunted by the ghosts of its former occupants, and learns to live with them. Seems a little familiar...
- A family of girls has to share a house with a family of boys. They must somehow form a family.
- An in-universe example, Taylor and Emma have the same relationship as Phoebe and Cherry from The Thundermans, smart brunette and dumb best friend.
- Fantastic Racism: Ghosts have a serious problem with humans to the point that it is nearly a crime against nature for a ghost to befriend a human.
- "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: In "Haunted Brother", Frankie accidentally hypnotizes to become a bad, scary ghost when it was meant for Louie. At first, Louie is thrilled and sees the new Miles as the cool brother he always wanted. But when Miles soon turns into an Abusive Offspring towards Ray and a Big Brother Bully, Louie decides he wants the nice Miles back.
- Forgot About His Powers: It's a plot point in several episodes (and a major point in Haunted Mascot) that the Prestons can't touch solid materials because they're ghosts. However, we see Ray help Hank Thunderman build a 'ghost cage' in The Haunted Thundermans, and Louie moves a sheet, picks up a cookie and carries around a plastic bag with Taylor's muddy shoe in Haunted Whodunnit.
- It could be possible that moving corporeal objects requires a ghost to focus on the object in question and move it with their Mind over Matter power.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: The main cast is split between three white females and three black males.
- Genki Girl: Frankie, in spades.
- Genre Savvy: Taylor is clearly all too aware of how it appears to be talking to a ghost no-one else can perceive, so she pretends to use her mobile phone whenever she is conversing with Miles near her human friends.
- Groin Attack: In "Haunted Duel", at the start of the episode Louie transforms into a golfer and hits ray in the groin he falls in pain with a high pitched squeal due to the pain.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: In "Haunted Prank", Miles is mulling whether or not to look in Taylor's backpack. His dilemma is personified by an angel on one shoulder and another angel with a slightly more rebellious attitude (crooked bow tie and returns library books late) on the other.
- Haunted House: well, duh.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- In "Haunted Principal", Michelle marvels at how relaxing the koi pond is, and how fish are such magical creatures - just before she orders baked salmon for dinner.
- In "Haunted Ghost Tour," Michelle asks Ray to haunt the bakery as a tourist attraction. Louie is desperate to be a part of it, but Michelle fears that his novice ghosting skills will only hinder the event. In one scene, Michelle insists that Taylor let Frankie and Miles help her gymnastics team build their Mardi Gras float, over Taylor's protests. Michelle tells Taylor, "Hey, at the end of the day, it's about being there for your family!" She then turns around and tells Ray, "Okay, so about Saturday, make sure that Louie is nowhere near me."
- Hysterical Woman: Michelle, at some points.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Taylor, who offers to be Miles' friend after he saves her from being humiliated among a group of potential new friends.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Taylor, according to the pilot.
- Miles himself admits to having trouble befriending humans due to being a ghost, claiming that it's been a while since he genuinely had a friend.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the episodes are called "Haunted ________." The first episode is "Haunted Pilot".
- With Mostly Ghostly Girl, this has changed; now, all the episode titles refer to ghost-related things and events.
- Invisible to Normals: Ghosts can only be seen by people who live in their house, and a few special others who have the "gift" such as superheroes.
- Inverted in that Meadow can see ghosts anywhere (which we saw in Haunted Mascot when she, Taylor and Miles went to the dry cleaners). Of course, this could be Foreshadowing future events...
- Averted as of Haunted Whodunit (when Frankie uses Kevin to sample Miles' voice) and ''Haunted Mascot (when we find that Louie has an online video channel that has a solid viewership for things such as his Richard Simmons-style exercise spots).
- Ironic Echo: A thematic one, if not exact dialogue, at the end of "Haunted Science Fair":Taylor: Just think of how good you're going to feel after doing it on your own.
- It's All About Me: Taylor, at her worst.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Miles goes here when things get problematic for his family. He held off the ghost cops in Mostly Ghostly Girl, and actually forced the Green Ghoul (a much more powerful Level 13 to his Level 5) out of a possessed Phoebe in "The Haunted Thundermans".
- Ray also showed that he could "nut up or shut up" when he used his powers to slow down the Green Ghoul long enough for Max and Phoebe to take him down.
- Like an Old Married Couple: In Haunted Besties, Louie and Frankie move into the treehouse so they can live by their own rules. When they find themselves with just a couple of hours to prepare for their parents coming over for dinner, Louie and Frankie begin arguing with each other exactly the way a married couple would.
- Little Miss Snarker: Frankie, sometimes.
- Little Mister Snarker: Louie.
- Mama Bear: Michelle to her daughters.
- The Masquerade: implied (in The Haunted Thundermans) that superheroes are part of keeping the secret of ghosts, which includes policing them in the human (physical?) world. The Hero League is in charge of catching dangerous ghosts, and Phoebe & Max Thunderman are aware of the numerical system of ranking ghosts' power levels. There's also technology available to detect ghosts, strip them of their powers and capture them for an indefinite period, and jewels called 'Demonite' that can prevent ghosts from possessing humans.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While ghosts can't be seen by most humans, they can be videotaped and their voices can be recorded by normal video- and audio-recording equipment.
- Mexican Standoff: In "Haunted Duel" Miles, Taylor, and Michelle all want the lucky coin and eventually come to this. Michelle threatens to post an embarrassing baby picture of Taylor, Taylor threatens to cut up Miles' bow tie, and Miles threatens to ruin Michelle's pie. Ultimately offscreen, they all make good on their threats and decide to throw the coin away.
- Missing Mom: The Prestons', for unknown reasons.
- Disappeared Dad: The Hathaway girls' father, who remained in New York after he and their mother divorced. And played within Ray's case, as he's a physically present father who can literally disappear.
- Mysterious Past: The reason as to why the Prestons are still lingering about as ghosts has yet to be revealed.
- Though later episodes do indicate that ghosts have a society of their own so it could be that they simply don't wanna move out of their house.
- Nice Guy: Miles.
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: In "Haunted Kids", Louie tries to convince Miles to do another competition with him despite Michelle's orders. Miles is at first hesitant, but Louie then calls him chicken and starts making chicken noises. Miles holds his ground until Louie says "clucky-cluck".
Miles: Did you just "clucky-cluck" me?
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The Prestons can do things that ghosts in most other fiction cannot. For example, they can create illusions of creatures that are actually visible to humans, such as a giant snake head.
- Papa Wolf: Ray is very protective of his two sons.
- After accepting the Hathaways as family, you really shouldn't mess with his girls either.
- Paranoia Gambit: Annoyed with Taylor for going into her room to recover the phone charger, Frankie responds by inflicting one of these on her sister. As if the horrific images seared into Taylor's mind from Frankie's custom security system wasn't punishment enough.
- Potty Failure: Happens to Frankie's friend Nina in "Haunted Kids", she asks where the bathroom is only to get interrupted, then later on it's mentioned that she had an "accident" causing the others to back away from a spot on the carpet.
- The Cutie: Frankie.
- The Perfectionist: Michelle, as well as her daughter Taylor.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Frankie serves as the tomboy to Taylor's girly girl.
- Frankie is the tomboy to her nemesis Penelope's girly girl.
- Tsundere: Taylor, especially towards Miles.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Louie.
- Plucky Girl: Frankie, the first person to genuinely befriend and accept the ghosts.
- Right Behind Me: Delivered verbatim by Taylor just after she says that Scott can't see her covered in garbage and realizes Frankie is looking at him.
- Secret-Keeper: The Hathaways, for both the Preston and Thunderman families.
- James becomes one after finding out that Miles and his family are ghosts in "Haunted Bowling", as does Meadow in "Haunted Surprise".
- Shout-Out:
- In "Haunted Besties", Miles "loves it when a plan comes together".
- Swapped Roles: Tired of dealing with the problems of their kids and under the impression it will be easier to deal with children of the opposite gender, Michelle and Ray trade parenting duties for the day. They end up having simultaneous nervous breakdowns and being reduced to tears.
- Toxic Friend Influence: This was explored between Louie and Frankie in "Haunted Prank" with the Ray and Michelle blaming the other's child. It's safe to say it's equal parts both ways.
- You Were Trying Too Hard: An implied version with Louie in "Haunted Science Fair": He manages to pull off his first successful on-screen scare in the one instance where he isn't actually trying to scare anyone.
- A Wizard Did It: How Meadow (accidentally) became able to see and hear ghosts. She got hit round the head with Madam Lebeaf's staff.
