YMMV / Everybody Hates Chris

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Is Ms. Morello obliviously racist to Chris, or does she pretend to be oblivious so she can get away with being racist?
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Is Ms. Morello's racism hilariously over-the-top? Or is she just another unpleasant person in Chris' miserable life? In the series finale, does she overlook the fact that Chris was being picked on by his teacher that resulted in him getting late something she was in on or did she genuinely wish to avoid causing a major school scandal.
  • There is also Rochelle, there are some who appreciate her for being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who sincerely cares for her family, having many admittedly funny and awesome moments, and not being a pushover. Others find her Hair-Trigger Temper and her domineering attitude over Chris, Julius, and her family in general to be too much to bear. Many also believe her to be a bad wife and mother. There are some who Take a Third Option, recognizing Rochelle's glaring faults but also recognizing her virtues.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Chris' overreaction in "Everybody Hates Bomb Threats", in which he finally punched out Caruso. Considering all the shit Caruso has put Chris through throughout the series, he had this one coming too long. The fact that Caruso more or less admits doesn't have much going for him in the series finale is also satisfying when you take into consideration Chris goes on to become successful.
  • Rochelle's violent temper, when it is justified:
    • Beating the crap out of an irresponsible babysitter that abandoned the kids, put Chris through emotional hell, and even brought a baby is considered an epic moment for her.
    • Rochelle punishing Tonya for trying to lie about Drew hitting her.
  • Tonya getting in trouble whenever her attempts to get other people in trouble backfire on her or when Drew manages to outsmart her.
  • When Chris decides to drop out of school because he has had enough of the crap that everyone puts him through, Julius standing up to Rochelle on his son's behalf by telling her that she can't make Chris do what he doesn't want to do is rather satisfying considering what a Control Freak and how her actions put Chris through hell both directly and indirectly throughout the series.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Ms. Morello's racist remarks would normally be offensive, but her oblivious and cheerful nature makes them hilarious.
  • Caruso's insults towards Chris are obviously racist in nature, but the sheer creativity of them makes them darkly humorous.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kill Moves gets much love due to his hilarious Cloudcuckoolander nature and being an example of Crazy Is Cool.
  • The Rock family's renter Mr. Omar is also quite loved due to his charismatic nature, dark humor, and his quotable catchphrase: "Tragic! TRAGIC!"
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This show is very popular with Brazilian audiences, a verifiable cultural phenomenon, likely due to the very well made dub and the poorer working-class setting, which makes Chris a very relatable protagonist; it also helps that by airing on public Brazilian TV channels, it reached quite a large viewerbase. One of the biggest examples of this trope for Brazilian audiences since El Chavo del ocho. Tichina Arnold mentions in an interview that she loves visiting Brazil because "[she's] a star there! People love [her]!", while Vincent Martella not only recognized his fame by posting a picture wearing a shirt spelling "Eu sou famoso no Brasil" ("I am famous in Brazil"), but also wore a shirt of the Brazilian selection, and posted a video reacting positively to his character's dubbing.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Julius' health problems are this, when you learn that real life Julius Rock died relatively young in 1988. A brief line in "Everybody Hates Houseguests" reveals that the series' Julius is also deceased by the present day, despite a few non-canon Cutaway Gags showing him as an old man, one of them showing him alive in 2028.
  • In one episode, where Julius gets a second job, the narration jokes that asking if Julius wants another job is like "asking Amy Winehouse if she wants another drink". This line isn't so funny now since she died as a result of alcohol abuse.
  • It is explained that the reason Julius always has the big piece of chicken is so he is well fed enough to work his second job and endure the abuse of his boss without flipping out and getting fired...or worse. This starts to look more acute after Terry Crews confessed that he was sexually assaulted at a party by a top Hollywood honcho and he didn't fight back not because he lacked the ability, but because he was well aware of the Scary Black Man trope being at play and didn't want to derail his career and be seen as a brute.
  • In the series finale, Chris' mother mocks him for trying to justify going for a GED by pointing out Bill Cosby got a GED because Cosby was a comedian. In real life, it turned out to be a pretty good thing she didn't want Chris to be like Bill Cosby.
  • In Everybody Hates The Pilot, there's a scene during Caruso's beatdown of Chris where he puts his foot on Chris' neck. Pretty uncomfortable to watch as of 2020, to say the least.
• Hate Sink: Miss Morello, who is almost always indirectly rude and condescending towards Chris and even disguise her compliments as racial slurs.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Greg is shown to wear costumes as pajamas. One of them includes a Robin costume. A few years later, his actor, Vincent Martella, would provide the voice of the teenage Jason Todd in Batman: Under the Red Hood.
  • In one episode, Julius thinks that Rocky should have been called "Apollo". About a decade later, a Sequel Series to the Rocky franchise called Creed begins, though it centers around Apollo's son rather than Apollo himself.
  • In "Everybody Hates Valentine's Day", Greg gets a card from a girl named "Joy", played by Cassidy Lehrman. 8 years later..
  • Chris did a crack about the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the first-season episode "Everyone Hates Christmas", comparing his father's poor performance as a mall Santa to the then-lowly baseball team. While they haven’t won a World Series yet as of 2021, the Rays have been fairly consistent contenders since 2008.
  • Upon the airing of "Everybody Hates The Substitute Teacher", many jokes were made by the fandom about how much Orlando Jones and Tyler James Williams look alike, and how the former could easily play the latter's father. Years later, Orlando Jones actually does play Tyler James Williams' father.
  • In the episode “Everybody Hates Graduation”, Julius decides not to invest in the George Foreman Grill. Bad decision, Julius.
• Ho Yay: At least, this is how two different pairs of girls view a couple of passionate arguments between Chris and Greg.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • Anytime Chris ever complains or stands up for himself he'll be portrayed as being wrong.
  • A somewhat lesser example. Albert in "Everybody Hates the New Kid", is definitely in the wrong for poking fun of students (and influencing Chris to do the same) and blaming Chris for spray-painting an explicit insult towards Miss Morello instead of owning up to it, however, he was also portrayed as being in the wrong for not wanting to tolerate Miss Morello's usual casual racism (after already putting up with it previously). Chris even tells Albert to not be bothered by it.
• Magnificent Bitch: "Everybody Hates the English Teacher": "Ms. Rivera", real name Karen Rodriguez, is a con artist who's been at large for eight years, moonlighting as Tattagla High School's English teacher. When her cover becomes at risk of being blown, Karen disguises herself as a Mormon under the alias of "Perez" and escapes the border. Embezzling a quarter million dollars of the teachers' pension plan, Karen hides out in Utah, coming back to Brooklyn one last time to say goodbye to Chris before moving to Hollywood.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Due to the title, people tend to replace the titular Chris with other characters also named Chris. Such as Chris Thorndyke being the most popular.
  • Almost immediately after a certain event involving Chris Rock and Will Smith in the 2022 Oscars. Fans were quick to make edits on the already memetic slap. At times using Will's show as well◊.
  • Julius' threat to the man hurting his son, "You think I'm playin'", has also gained a lot of popularity.
  • Greg Pontepretano ^note Originated from a Brazilian image from around the early 2010s, a photoshopped edit featuring each member of the Rock famly, as well as Greg, wearing the jersey for a different Brazilian soccer team - with Greg's team being Ponte Preta. More than a decade afterwards, in the post-irony era of memes, Greg was singled out from the image and became a meme by himself called as "Greg Pontepretano". After Vincent Martella started pandering to the show's Brazilian fans in 2024 and wore a Brazilian jersey, many people have been asking him to wear a Ponte Preta jersey in order to turn this into an Ascended Meme.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Tyler James Williams' most notable roles outside of this very role include Noah, Russ Montgomery, Lionel Higgins, Cyrus DeBarge, and an adult Leo Dooley.
  • Terry Crews later became one of the Old Spice guys, briefly hosted Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 2014-15 and playing badass-yet-worried Sergeant Terry Jeffords.
  • Greg is played by Vincent Martella, who would later go on to voice Phineas Flynn, Hope Estheim, and Jason Todd.
• The Scrappy:
  • This show should arguably be called "Everybody Hates Tonya" due to Tonya being an Annoying Younger Sibling who barely gets any comeuppance for her actions (towards Chris and Drew).
  • Keisha comes off as a Scrappy due to her character derailment in future episodes of the show. She started off as nice girl towards Chris, but in later episodes, she developed a nasty personality. Fans rejoiced when it was revealed that she moved to Compton.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Anytime Tonya gets busted.
  • When Julius gives Rochelle a classy shut up when he revealed that he made a credit card account so he could buy their wedding rings. May count as a Moment of Awesome.
  • Keisha when she and her family are Put on a Bus to Hell as shown by their car getting shot at while fleeing from where their new home was supposed to be.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The audience is supposed to at least understand why Rochelle is so quick to beat and verbally assault her kids, but considering how much joy she derives from these two actions, along with how cruel her behavior is even for the standards of the time period, some viewers find it very difficult to sympathize with Rochelle at all.
• Wangst: In the episode "Everybody Hates the GEDs," Rochelle complains about how she won't get to witness Chris walk across the stage and participate in a graduation ceremony when Chris decides to get a GED instead. This came off as whiny due to Rochelle's self centeredness. She didn't even consider the fact that Chris would have had to repeat another year of high school if he decided to stay in school, and was only against Chris getting a GED due to him not being able to participate in a graduation ceremony if he went that route. Also, Rochelle could easily have that graduation ceremony with Drew and Tasha, so it's not like she would have never had that experience.
• The Woobie:
  • Chris feels like he is in Drew's shadow all the time, his sister is a brat, his mother disciplines him more than plenty, and he always gets picked on all the time.
  • Julius lives in semi-poverty, has to work multiple jobs to support his family and has a bossy and overbearing wife who constantly quits her jobs.

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