YMMV / California Dreams

• Awesome Music: Duh. So many of the show's songs are pretty memorable to the point that first season even had its soundtrack released. If not any of the show's songs, then definitely the show's intros and closing credits.
• Bizarro Episode: "Defending Sly's Life". Yes, Clip Shows are common and it wouldn't be the last one the show had, but the framing device of the episode has Sly on trial and that he would be put to death if his honor and reputation weren't convincingly defended.
• Broken Base: Who were the better vocalist team, Matt and Jenny or Jake and Samantha? Fans can't seem to decide.
• Designated Hero: Jake gets this at times. He is usually portrayed as being in the right (and at the expense of other people, especially the other guys in the Dreams), but has shown himself to be something of hypocritical jerk and a pushover. Case in point, although it's Played for Laughs, he isn't afraid to come off as a bully towards the guys and treating them like they were stupid, in particular Sly, but had no problem letting a musical hero of his steal a song he helped him write and take all the credit for it. Plus, he basically cheated on Lorena with Tiffany, but it's all washed over due to them being depicted as soul mates.
• Growing the Beard: Happened after season 2 after they dropped the whole Beverly Hills, 90210 premise with the family.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Tara Reid guest starred as a party girl with a drinking problem. In real life, Reid's party-girl lifestyle, complete with a stint in rehab, would end up derailing her career.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The season 5 episode "Babewatch" parodied the show Baywatch. Packard would later join the cast of Baywatch after Dreams ended.
• Narm:
  • Sly's borderline abusive ageism in the episode "Old" is over-the-top even for Sly.
  • "The Next Big Thing" is a catchy song, but Samantha's lyrics of "He's so funky!" and "Girl, he is fine!" is pretty hilarious and worthy of the show's time period.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Featured Kelly Packard before she turned heads on Baywatch (though she actually had a guest role on that show before this series.)
  • Nikki Cox plays a visually-impaired Girl of the Week of Sly's.
  • Tara Reid portrayed a hapless would-be love interest of Mark's in the graduation episode.
  • Fergie - credited under her full name of Stacy Ferguson - appeared in the Season 3 finale, "Tiffani's Gold" as a new student who Mark, Sly and Tony try unsuccessfully to ask out. Notably; this was far from her first time on a musically-themed series for the former Kids Incorporated cast member.
  • Future Pure Flix Entertainment co-founder David A.R. White played a usher in Season 2's "21 Jake Street".
• Spiritual Predecessor: As well as the obvious general similarities to Saved by the Bell, the character of Tony is in many ways not unlike Will in the The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - both are lively and goofy African-American men from poor ghetto backgrounds who at times feel out of place in their new affluent surroundings, and are good with drums moreover. Moreover, the third season episode "Boyz R Us", even has echoes of Fresh Prince's season one episode "Homeboy, Sweet Homeboy".
• Strawman Has a Point: In the first season, Jenny gets upset with her actor boyfriend Eric, who is depicted as arrogant and selfish, because he won't take time out for her even though she ditched the band for him several times. However, he correctly calls out Jenny by telling her that if she cared about the band at all she wouldn't have ditched them in the first place much like she wouldn't have expected him to ditch his commitment to the school play just to hang out with her.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Season three song "Anytime" sounds similar to "The Sign" by Ace of Base.
  • "The Next Big Thing" sounds like an R&B version of "Who Do You Think You Are" by Spice Girls.
• Values Dissonance: The way Sly treated Samantha upon meeting her - calling her "China Doll" and putting on a cod Asian accent - looks very cringey and borderline nowadays.
  • Second season episode "Can't Buy Me Love" features a school auction where you get to 'buy' people, and Tony gets upset when Matt buys him (albeit as an accident).
• Values Resonance: There is plenty of interracial dating among the series (particularly later on in the series when more POC are added). However, outside of one early Anvilicious episode, it's never an issue with any of the bandmates or their relatives and the couples are happily paired. Even when Caucasian Jake dumped Latina Lorena for fellow Caucasian Tiffany, it was because of their mutual attraction and chemistry to one another than anything to do with race or even their differing social statuses (Lorena's family is well-to-do whereas Jake's family is working class).