Not easy to believe that this stuff is real
Sometimes it's kinda cool but mostly just annoying
Paranormal world, I guess it's a weird place
O'GRADY!
O'GRADY!
—Kelly Osbourne, "O'Grady Theme Song"
O'Grady was an original animated series created by Tom Snyder, Holly Schlesinger and Carl W. Adams (Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, Home Movies) and produced and aired by Noggin as part of its nighttime programming block for teens, called "The N."
The show revolved around four normal teenagers in a suburban town. In each episode, the teens must cope with a different paranormal phenomenon that they call the "Weirdness". Kevin, Abby, Harold, and Beth's lives are complicated enough, and the "Weirdness" adds a hilarious twist.
This series contains examples of:
- Alpha Bitch: Brooke, the the cheerleading captain.
- Ambiguously Brown: Abby has a darker complexion than the other characters, but her heritage is never explained or hinted at.
- Apathetic Teacher: Mr. Lipschitz is almost always emotionless when dealing with his students. When he does seem to care about his students, it's due to the Weirdness rather than genuine concern.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Iris contracts "The Old Cold," she shows off some needlepoint work featuring "a famous scene from the Fatherland." It initially looks like a figure doing the Nazi salute until she explains it's a castle.
- Body Horror: People affected by the Weirdness in "Cop 'Stache" have their faces locked in a distorted grin, all the while causing them to be out of breath, turning their faces red.
- Brutal Honesty: In one episode the weirdness caused people to blurt out the truth.
- Subverted in "Cop 'Stache", where nobody could tell a lie.
- Catholic School Girls Rule: In "Cut the Cord," Harold is partnered with a Catholic school girl named Misty for a big brother/sister program, and he tries to resist falling in love with her.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Iris, a foreign exchange student with an obsession for techno music and a love of chocolate boarding on addiction.
- Comically Missing the Point: After Harold plays a bunch of incredibly gory movies in Driver's Ed, Iris calls him a sick, twisted person. Kevin's immediate assumption is Harold and Iris dated.
- Compliment Backfire: Pete actually openly adored the new outfit Abby got at the end of one episode. Unfortunately, the weirdness that episode was forcing everyone to compliment or agree whenever they tried to talk someone down. Nobody told her that The Weirdness had worn off already, so naturally she assumed that was what was happening and took it as a grievous insult.
- Couch Gag: In the early episodes, Kevin and Abby open the show with different dialogue and different toppings on their pizza each week. Also, each episode begins with the O'Grady logo changing itself to correspond with The Weirdness displayed in each different episode (for example, the logo clones itself in the "Clones" episode).
- Deadpan Snarker: Usually in exchanges between Kevin and Abby. But in most cases, Kevin is often the repeat snarker.
- Crash-Into Hello: Abby does this often with Pete Klesko on purpose.
- Drunk with Power: Phillip says this in the episode "remotes".
- Egg Sitting: With electronic dolls, in the aptly-named episode Robo-babies.
- Emo Teen: Derrick, the guy Abby likes in the episode, "Big Jerk on Campus".
- Funny Foreigner: Iris, a German foreign exchange student who doesn't appreciate it when people come between her and chocolate or when they mock her love of techno music. She's a subversion in that she's not dressed like an archaic German stereotype, but she's still rather odd.
- Granola Girl: Beth and her mother are both obsessed with health food.
- High-School Hustler: Kevin, especially in the Robo-babies episode. He spends the entire story getting paid to do everyone's assignments because he claims to know how to handle the dolls. Abby later discovers Kevin's been resetting the babies via a tiny slot on the back of their necks (his older brothers had taken the class and knew about the reset functions). She applies glue to make the reset slots unusable so Kevin can't scam everyone anymore.
- I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: The episode where the school has to give up sugar, as well as Iris' love of chocolate.Iris: Iris ate much chocolate. Iris love chocolate.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: After hearing about a rumor about Abby potentially dying of an illness, Brooke geniunely tries her best to make amends with Abby and being nice to her throughout the day.
- Left the Background Music On: One episode had music from nowhere as the day's "Weirdness".
- Local Hangout: Eets-a-Pizza, the pizza place where Harold works, is also where the gang goes to talk and hang out.
- Maybe Ever After: It's painfully obvious Kevin and Abby have a thing for each other that they both refuse to admit. It's never fully resolved, but the end of the series finale "Frenched" features Kevin giving Abby his CD as a romantic gesture, seemingly starting a new chapter in their relationship.
- Monster of the Week: The Weirdness, which always changes itself at the worst possible time for the cast.
- The Noseless: Male characters have noses; most female characters do not (Iris is an exception).
- Quirky Town: The premise was a town where odd things happened on a daily basis.
- Riddle for the Ages: Kevin and Abby offer some theories on the cause of the Weirdness in the intro, but no concrete answer is ever given.
- School Idol: Pete Klesko is beloved by the whole school.
- Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy: Abby has a crush on Pete Klesko, even though he can't remember her name.
- Talent Show: The "O'Grady Idol" episode revolves around the upcoming talent show.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Kevin and Abby are friends, but they are always arguing and trying to one-up each other.
- Weirdness Magnet: The entire town is cursed to attract a new weird phenomenon every few days.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- In one episode, Harold helps out the Driver's Ed class by convincing the teacher to show a bunch of incredibly bloody movies about the dangers of bad driving. The movies are so horrific Iris goes up to Harold at one point and calls him a sick, twisted individual.
- Kevin does this to Beth when the school finds out she made an agreement for everyone to get new computers in exchange for going a month without sugar, without getting anyone's consent beforehand.Kevin: What have you done, Beth?
- With Friends Like These...: Kevin and Abby frequently tend to screw things over for one another.
