Young Rock is an autobiographical Sitcom on NBC starring Dwayne Johnson.
The show follows four distinct period of Johnson's life:
- As a child growing up in a wrestling family and seeing the passion people have for the sport.
- As a teenager trying to fit in and be cool in high school despite everyone thinking he's a narc because he stands over six feet tall and has a full mustache despite only being 15.
- As a young man going off to college and trying to establish an independent identity.
- As a global superstar who's running for president.
This series provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Ata's storylines for the wrestlers. Example: Big John Studd stealing Andre the Giant's parking spot. The camera cuts to a lookalike truck flying off a cliff while Big John Studd voiceovers "I'll get you for this Andre the Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiant!"
- Affectionate Nickname: Growing up, Johnson was known as "Dewey" by his loved ones.
- Always Someone Better: How Dwayne Johnson's college football career plays out.
- Artistic License – History: The show is infamous among wrestling fans for playing fast and loose with who worked in which territory and when. Example: The episode "In The Dark" takes place in Nashville, featuring Jerry Lawler's CWA organization circa 1987 (with Lawler as announcer/host), with Rocky Johnson facing Crusher Yurkov (a young Bam Bam Bigelow) and Downtown Bruno (Harvey Whippleman). The CWA was based out of Memphis and Bigelow didn't use the Yurkov persona outside of his stint in the Dallas/World Class territory. And Lawler never announced or did the interviewing. (That would've been Lance Russell.)
- As Himself:
- Dwayne Johnson stars as himself and provides the framing narration for the series.
- Randall Park appears as a future version of himself who moved on from acting to host a talk show.
- The real Ata Johnson appears at the end of one episode as Randall brings her into the interview.note
- Big Eater: Ata mentions that adolescent Dewey eats huge amounts of food, which is part of the reason why she buys more affordable supermarket brands.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Ata is shown to inspire her son's "It doesn't matter" catchphrase with her furious confrontation over his disrespect to her.
- Brand X: Because money is tight, the Johnsons buy generic supermarket brands, to teenaged Dewey's displeasure.
- Butt-Monkey: Randall Park's role in the wraparound segments, basically.
- Career-Ending Injury: Subverted. While Dwayne suffers a nasty shoulder injury, it only forces him to sit out his first season.
- Catchphrase: Shows the sources of several of The Rock's:
- "Jabroni" is from The Iron Sheik
- "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU (X)!" is from his Mom when he's caught misbehaving.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Of a sort. Once Dewey becomes a part of the CFL, he learns the hard way that Canadian football has slightly different rules than American football.
- Danger Takes A Back Seat: After buying an used car, Dwayne drives off with it before realizing there was a homeless man still sleeping in the back. Fortunately, he's friendly.
- A Day in the Limelight: Dwayne's stories in "Once Upon a Time In..." focus not on his younger self, but on three of the wrestlers who influenced him — Pat Patterson, André the Giant, and his grandfather Peter Maivia.
- Everyone Has Standards: As desperate as Rocky is for fame, he draws the line at using racist tropes, such as appearing in a promo eating fried chicken and watermelon.
- Huge Schoolgirl: Gender Flipped. By the time he's in high school, Dewey is so large that the school bus driver won't let him on thinking he's a creep and his principal speaks to him as if he were an undercover cop.
- Kayfabe: Dewey's parents discuss needing to avoid being seen with certain wrestlers in public despite being good friends because of the need to maintain kayfabe for the audience.
- "My Day with Andre" depicts Dewey's grandmother plotting gathering her wrestlers together to plot out a battle royale, dictating the order in which each wrestler will be eliminated and what moves will be used. She pulls a screwjob on Rocky at the last minute after mistakenly believing that he was planning to defect to a rival promotion.
- Mama's Boy: After a heart-to-heart with the homeless guy living in the backseat of the car he just bought, Johnson decides he'd rather be a good son and take care of his mother than try and impress girls.
- Mean Character, Nice Actor: Invoked. Dewey and his parents go to his grandmother's apartment, which is filled with heels (and Randy Savage) who cheerfully welcome the Johnsons and sit down over a friendly game of cards.
- Mock Millionaire: Rocky Johnson drives a nice car to maintain his public image, but he's struggling to make ends meet and lives with his family in a small motel room.
- Moose and Maple Syrup: After Dewey gets drafted into the CFL, he's seen trudging through a blizzard with zero visibility to be greeted by a local who punctuates his questions with "eh?".
- Mundane Made Awesome: After Johnson blows off a day of checking if the college phones are working with his supervisor Hopkins, it turns out the next day is actually a rare inspection, forcing them to race around campus and check all the phones before the inspector gets to them. Since their day off was spent watching '80s action movies, the whole scene is treated like one, soundtrack and all.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Chad Frost, who is said to be one of the biggest stars in the WWF when Dwayne is starting with the company, is very blatantly supposed to be a stand-in for Shawn Michaels due to the real life grudge between Rock and Michaels. Rock's narration even notes that Frost isn't real and is a replacement for someone he didn't like but was too important to leave out from his stories of the time.
- Old Dog: Dewey's grandmother owns an old, tumor-ridden dog that horrifies everyone but her.Lia Maivia: It's a belly tumor! But don't worry, it's benign!
- Older Than They Look: At 15, Dwayne is often mistaken for an adult. At first, he uses this to get his friends into R-rated movies and buying them beer, until he gets arrested for the latter.Officer: You're under arrests for giving beer to minors.
Dwayne: But I'm a minor!
Office: Yeah, right. And I'm Liza Minelli. - Outgrowing the Childish Name: In "Chest to Chest", teenaged Johnson asks to no longer be referred to as Dewey and instead be called Dwayne. He gets laughed off.
- Parents as People: Rocky may be a loving father and husband, but his constant pursuit for fame and tendency to "work the gimmick" in real life has made things hard for Dewey and Ata.
- Pro Wrestling Is Real: After young Dewey blurts out that he thinks wrestling is fake André the Giant plucks the young boy up to demonstrate that what he and other wrestlers do is very real.
- Running Gag: In Season 2 scenes set in Dewey's childhood, Lia Maivia is repeatedly shown conducting business only to be interrupted by an exasperated FBI agent who reminds her she's supposed to be under house arrest.
- Samoan Dynasty: Depicts several members of the Anoa'i wrestling family. This includes Dwayne Johnson, his mother Ata Johnson, his father Rocky Johnson, his grandmother and wife to the High Chief, Lia Maivia, and Afa and Sika the Wild Samoans, and his young cousin Joe, who would later become Roman Reigns. (Joe's older brother Matt, aka Rosey, oddly does not seem to exist)
- Serious Business: After Johnson innocently orders a cheesesteak without the bread, the people of Philly are up in arms and he has to hastily offer an apology.
- Shout-Out: Season 3’s "Know Your Role" depicts Dwayne's early acting career and his guest roles on The Net 1998, Star Trek: Voyager, and That '70s Show before culminating in his first Saturday Night Live.
- Start My Own: The third season ends with 2032 Dwayne deciding to start his own country.
- Sticky Fingers: Johnson confesses on camera (and to the horror of his campaign manager) that he used to steal clothes in high school as he and his parents couldn't pay for brand products.
- Stunned Silence: Dewey stuns an entire room into silence when he says that wrestling is fake. His father can only apologize for the child's indiscretion.
- Theatrics of Pain: When training to be a wrestler, Dwayne learns how to "sell" a hit to convince the audience that he is in pain.
- Time-Shifted Actor: Four different actors play Johnson at different points in his life.
- Truth-Telling Session: While Dwayne helps Rocky working the night shift at a Chi Chi's restaurant, they engage in a truth session, culminating with Dwayne Calling the Old Man Out for his reckless and irresponsible behavior.
- Typecasting: In-Universe, when Dwayne begins his acting career in "Know Your Role", his first few roles have him as a wrestler, including playing his own father on That '70s Show. When he's offered the chance to host Saturday Night Live, he does it under the condition that he not be cast as a wrestler in any of the skits.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: On the night before appearing in court to testify against Lia, Jimmy Yang is invited by Andre the Giant for a drink. Unable to handle Andre's usual order of 47 whisky shots, Jimmy has a wild night and is late to court the next morning. In trying to recall what he did, his memories take the form of a Binge Montage of him going from nightspot to nightspot, ending with him waking up in the middle of a pineapple field.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: Rocky Johnson is shown clinging to his glory days and continuing to plug away in the hope that he'll get another shot at the limelight.
- Wild Samoan: Depicts the actual Trope Namers, Afa and Sika, but is overall a deconstruction of the stereotype. All of the Samoans in the story are well-spoken and only use the gimmicks in the ring. Dwayne Johnson himself has always been a subversion of the trope.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Subverted. Hopkins is introduced as a campus security volunteer who thinks he's in a hard-boiled cop drama. Then, it turns out he's very much aware how pointless his job is and shows Dewey that they can spend their shift watching movies and eating junk food.
- Young Future Famous People:
- Episodes set during Johnson's college football days feature chyrons that pop on screen, identifying his teammates and the what they'll achieve in their professional careers.
- The same is done with other up-and-coming wrestlers, like Johnson’s cousin Joe, the future Roman Reigns.
