YMMV / That's So Raven

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Francesca the terrible singer in "On Top of Old Oaky". The band are saved at the last minute when she gets cold feet about performing on stage, so is it simple stage fright? Or did she realise how bad she was? She readily agrees to lip synching to Tonya's voice, and she's never seen with the band again, so did she bow out gracefully afterwards? After all, Cory had to listen to a recording to hear how bad she was, so it's fully possible she heard the same recording.
• Bizarro Episode:
  • "Goin' Hollywood" - while the episode starts off with Cory, Raven, and Victor going to Hollywood after Cory nabs a bit part in the sitcom "Better Days", this only serves as a minor subplot alongside a bigger story involving the "Better Days" star Ally Parker (Alyson Stoner) trying to fit into public school for the first time. Since the episode focuses on an entirely new set of characters that have no connection with the show and never show up again afterwards, the whole story can come off as a jarring addition. This does have an explanation though: it was meant to be a test pilot for a planned Disney Channel sitcom starring Stoner, but since the show never came to be, the episode was left as The Artifact.
  • "Don't Have A Cow" big time. The entire episode takes place in one of Raven's visions which is quickly prevented when she changes the present. Plus for some reason, Raven's grandmother has supernatural equipment that we never get to see outside this episode. None of the episode's events are ever brought up again.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Dr. Sleevemore is this for also being psychic, understanding Raven's pain of being psychic, and developing psychics' skills. He even later returned in a three-part episode of Raven's Home. He was that popular.
  • The other psychics from "Saving Psychic Raven" are this as well.
  • Chelsea's boyfriend Ben from "Double Vision" quickly became a fan favorite due to him also be psychic and relatable. It's gotten to the point where fans wished he wasn't a one episode character.
  • Vivian, Raven's grandmother, also qualifies for being able to have visions when she wants, instead of the occasional ones Raven has, and still using them responsibly, and being an all-around nice woman. She only appears in "To See or Not to See", but she's proven to be a fan favorite among viewers.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • The ship with the most fan-works is Raven/Chelsea. This carried over to Raven's Home, where it became even more popular.
  • That's So Raven has Devon and Raven as the Official Couple. The two even ended up married post-series, though they're divorced by the sequel. Despite this, fans tend to prefer shipping Raven with Eddie.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Raven and Alana can be pretty friendly with each other when they're not fighting.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • One episode has a scene that is either this or Hilarious in Hindsight—Raven tries to wake Chelsea in an unintentionally suggestive manner. A boy that Raven has a crush on sees them, so she frantically tries to tell him that this is Not What It Looks Like. Raven-Symonè revealed herself as a lesbian many years later, so now this scene might come off as her feeling ashamed to make her preferences public while riding high off an acting comeback.
  • Devon and Raven's relationship becomes this; with the spinoff Raven's Home. On the show, they were the closet thing on an Official Couple, and it's revealed on the spinoff that their marriage didn't work out.
  • Chelsea seemingly has trouble with her own relationships. In one episode of the series, she ends up dating a guy (played by Ricky Ullman) who ends up cheating on her and being a jerk. In Raven's Home; Chelsea's backstory involves having been cheated on by her ex-husband (who subsequently got arrested by an FBI agent who also happened to be the other woman).
  • The episode where Raven is passed up for a job because the boss refuses to hire black people ("True Colors") becomes depressing when you hear Raven-Symone bluntly say years later on an episode of The View that she wouldn't hire a person with a "stereotypical black name". Ouch.
  • Raven and Alana's rivalry could come off this way, if you remember their history with the The Cheetah Girls, and group in-fighting caused Raven Symone to acrimoniously leave the group.
  • One episode has Raven misinterpreting one of her visions to think that Eddie is running away, and the reveal that he isn't of course is a happy ending. Too bad by the time of Raven's Home, Eddie doesn't even appear or get referenced due to Orlando Brown's mental health problems and frequent run-ins with the law.
  • Victor and Tanya's marriage can be looked at this way; when Tanya went on a Long Bus Trip to England, it was assumed that she and Victor were still Happily Married while she was away at law school. Raven's Home reveals that despite them being married, they barely spoke to one another during that time and their relationship devolved to the point where Victor didn't even tell her he had a heart attack. Thankfully, their rift is resolved at the end of the episode when Tanya comes back for Victor's birthday.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • After Raven auditions for her school's play of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, she prepares a checked miniskirt to wear if she ends up playing Dorothy.^note She instead lands the role of the Wicked Witch of the East. Years later, NBC's production of The Wiz would have their Dorothy wear a plaid miniskirt.
  • When Raven pretends to be a famous pop star called Liz Anya, the disguise she wears looks a lot like Nicki Minaj - to the point where some fans joke that's where she got her inspiration from.
  • In the episode "Separation Anxiety", Chelsea says "You can't spell WE with an I". She was right. It turns out, you have to spell it with 2!
  • The Dating Shame has an fame-seeking game show host who tried to tear the girls apart just to make the show more interesting; this would later become a key feature of another reality TV host.
  • The Musical Episode "The Road to Audition" has Eddie and an ensemble of basketball players dancing in the school gym, incorporating basketballs into their choreography. High School Musical would feature a scene just like this two years later.
• Jerkass Woobie: Sydney, who starts out as a rude, snarky brat, but is soon revealed to have lost her biological parents, and has been placed in several foster homes at a painfully young age.
• Memetic Mutation: "Home skillet biscuit" ^ExplanationRaven calls Loca this in one episode.
  • Raven's screams at how overly dramatic she is are this.
  • "YA NASTY".^ExplanationRaven's best known Catchphrase, which she would say often throughout the show when disapproving certain choices her friends/her family/Cory would do
• Like You Would Really Do It: Vision Impossible: Show of hands, how many of you actually thought Raven would permanently lose her visions?
• One-Scene Wonder: Or rather, One Episode Wonder. Chelsea's boyfriend Ben from "Double Vision" really made the most out of his single appearance on the show.
• Out of the Ghetto: A both female and Black-led sitcom that was so popular it exceeded Disney Channel's usual limit (they typically cancelled a show after it had run for 65 episodes) and even got a spin-off and a sequel series a decade later.
• Retroactive Recognition
  • Long before her breakout role on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Brenda Song appeared as a character named Amber in "A Dog by Any Other Name".
  • Vanessa Abrams was Raven's one-time rival for Bayside's Best Dressed award.
  • Cody Linley, better-known as Hannah Montana's on-again, off-again love interest Jake Ryan, appeared as Daryl, the leader of a gang of pre-teen punks who encouraged Cory to join them in shoplifting from a junk store.
    • The same episode also featured Christopher Massey, Kyle Massey's real life brother, who would later star in Zoey 101.
  • A young David Henrie, better-known as male lead Justin Russo from Wizards of Waverly Place (and Luke Mosby), played the recurring role of Cory's friend, Larry.
  • Sam from the season one episode "A Dog by Any Other Name" is played by Mike Erwin, who would go on to voice the titular character in Jak II: Renegade and become his official voice actor in subsequent games.
  • Of course, let's not forget Ashley Eckstein, better known to the fandom as Ahsoka Tano, played Raven's rival Muffy.
  • Tiffany Haddish gave a tour of the Biodome over 10 years before Girls Trip turned her into a star.
• She Really Can Act: Raven-Symone as Raven Baxter. Master of Disguise? Check. Expert of the psychic look? Check. Large Ham? Double Check. Let's just say, there's a very good reason Raven got to be the star of her own show.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Serena Valentine from A Fish Called Raven. She could have been a great antagonist for the show, trying to find out the truth about Raven's secret and expose it. Too bad she was a one-shot character.
  • Other psychic teenagers Raven met throughout the series (specifically, the students of Dr. Sleevemore's Psychic Institution, and Chelsea's boyfriend from season 3) never made re-appearances.
  • Eddie's friend who was forbidden by his racist, abusive father from talking to Eddie. It's implied that he and Eddie were as close as Raven and Chelsea and their forced separation is one of the most tearjerking moments of the series, even if told second hand. It would have been a true Heartwarming Moment to see him and Eddie try to reach out and find each other as young adults, and to know that the friend never stopped caring about Eddie, either.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Raven in the episode “Mother Dearest.” While it wasn’t right for Raven to be badmouthing her teacher, said teacher was a Sadist Teacher who would make snippy comments to the students.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Eddie and Chelsea in "To See or Not to See". They know Raven can't control when her visions occur, or what she sees, but they're still mad at her when they humiliate themselves because of her visions. Even when she stops telling them her visions, they still blamed her for all bad things that happened unexpectedly. As a result, Raven was left in a tight spot between what she should do. It takes Viv's inspirational/psychic chat with Raven to make her feel better.
  • Raven in "Psychic Eye for the Sloppy Guy". Raven's sad at the end when she doesn't get a chance to be with Tyler but it was her own fault for being shallow as she wasn't interested in him until after she gave him a makeover. She didn't like him for who he was despite the fact he was a nice guy and had an amazing artistic talent even before the makeover.
  • Victor in "Mad Hot Cotillion". In a subplot, he grounds Raven for a week after she accidentally misses her great aunt's 80th birthday, despite the fact that she received a vision of her friends needing her help in a Mexican restaurant and that she wasn't even informed about it. As a result of the grounding, Raven Goes Mad From Isolation, which would imply that she Hates Being Alone. As the episode progresses, Raven finds out that Victor has been hanging out with Chelsea and Eddie, which makes him a Hypocrite because he forbade her from seeing them since she's grounded, yet he has the audacity to hang out with them. After helping out Cory with his problem in the main plot, Victor extends her grounding time after she goes out to help her brother of all people. Victor changes his mind when realizes he Was Too Hard on Her only after Raven solemnly goes up to her room. The ending implies that Raven might've given her father the Silent Treatment after everything he's done.
• The Woobie:
  • Raven Baxter can be this at times. Especially with all the trouble her visions get her into. Plus, occasionally her quote-unquote "friends" have proven to be very unsupportive at times, and usually has to get involved in all kinds of dangerous situations. Sometimes, you just want to give her a hug.
  • William isn't safe from this trope either. He's one of the smartest characters on the show, but his classmates pick on him for that exact reason and use him for their personal interests, rather than accept him for who he was. The closest person he has to a friend is Cory Baxter, and even he likes to use William from time-to-time. Plus William has shown to be younger than Cory, making him a prime target for bullying. Poor kid.

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