YMMV / The Amanda Show

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • "When I kiss a girl, I SLURP her!"
  • "No coconut rubbing on the beach."
  • "I ran out of head."
  • "I ask for Amanda, and you give me crab?"
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Are Melody and Thad genuinely unaware that their songs are offending people, or are they trolling them?
• Awesome Music:
  • Stewart Copeland of The Police composed the theme, so it's not surprising that it's great.
  • While not as talked about, "For All I Am" by Lisasmith is a surprisingly good banger for the Moody's Point skit, so much that fans of the show were surprised that there was a full song for it!
• Broken Base:
  • Moody's Point was either the best part of the show or a benign tumor that took over the show (but was still good by kids' TV standards).
  • The Penelope Taynt skits are either super annoying or super hilarious.
  • The show as a whole itself. It is either funny enough and enjoyable, or a badly acted comedy show with annoying characters.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Stealing a policeman’s pizza? Mean. Eating it right in front of him to bribe getting yourself into a studio you're banned from? HILARIOUS!
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Penelope Taynt, Amanda's Number One Fan, Please!
  • The Dancing Lobsters as well, which was acknowledged early on when they got several bags of fan mail in a Green Room sketch.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Watching Amanda Bynes in her youth in a series written by Dan Schneider can be difficult due to many child stars having opened up about bullying from him and inappropriate behaviour. In recent years, footage of a 15 year old Amanda in just a bikini sat with Dan in a jacuzzi circulated, and reportedly, Dan used to make her give him (and other women) massages on set.
  • Penelope being an insane Loony Fan for Amanda becomes this after Amanda Bynes suffered a mental breakdown in the mid-2010s.
  • An episode of Judge Trudy featured a doctor being sued for giving a boy a shot. Where the doctor provided basic reasons for why shots are necessary for kids, the boy just raved about how shots were 'just evil'. Cut to the late 2010s in which the anti-vaccination movement led to several outbreaks of diseases that had once nearly been eradicated such as measles.
  • The half-serious cliffhanger ending of Moody's Point becomes this when the 2021 revival of another hit Dan Schneider show ended in a nearly identical fashion.
  • Quiet on the Set confirming that naming a character Penelope Taynt was intentionally throwing in a very kid-unfriendly in-joke.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • In "Stranded", Judge Trudy and the Bailiff become the last two people in the car. Not only do they not turn against each other, showing that they're thick as thieves, they decide to hijack the car (the keys were negligently left in the ignition by show staff) and use the prize money to enjoy a day at Las Vegas together.
  • In the introduction monologue of an early episode, a random woman comes out on stage and introduces herself as Amanda Rodriguez and host of tonight's show. Amanda [Bynes] eventually comes out and has to politely explain the "Amanda" name refers Amanda Bynes. Amanda Rodriguez apologizes for interfering and begins to leave but Amanda Bynes invites and convinces her to stay for the rest of the show.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: See here.
• Ho Yay: Considering the obsessive drive to be close to Amanda, the detailed knowledge of her personal life and physique, and certain bits such as blissfully sniffing Amanda's shirt and sleeping with pillows with Amanda's face on them, it's very easy to read Penelope as a young Stalker with a Crush.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Bring in the dancing lobsters!" ^ExplanationJudge Trudy's catchphrase and the dancing lobsters in general.
  • "What's that supposed to mean?!" ^ExplanationMisty's catchphrase for when she gets offended
  • " AHH! SPIDER!" ^ExplanationOne particularly memorable Totally Kyle sketch about when a spider landed on Kyle's face
  • When Amanda Bynes suffered a mental breakdown in the 2010s, a lot of memes comparing her to Penelope started popping up.
• More Popular Spin-Off: Both Drake & Josh and iCarly outlasted this series, though The Amanda Show is popular in its own right.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Being the first big vehicle for Amanda Bynes has made it impossible to discuss the show without speculating on its impact on her mental health and whether Dan Schneider's mentorship towards her was appropriate. It mostly comes up nowadays as a core example of Schneider's favoritism towards his young stars and the inappropriate culture fostered on the show's set.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Drake Bell, Josh Peck, and Nancy Sullivan were all main cast members before debuting on Drake & Josh.
  • Taran Killam (before he was on MADtv and Saturday Night Live) was Spaulding on Moody’s Point.
  • One of the other cast members was Lara Jill Miller, who played Kathy (though this wasn't her first on-screen role— she had previously been on the 1980s sitcom Gimme a Break!).
  • Sheila from "The Girl's Room" in seasons 2 and 3 was played by a young Reagan Gomez-Preston.
  • Gary Anthony Williams was Judge Trudy's bailiff.
  • Ashley Tisdale played Daphne in one episode and a girl in the audience who tries to help Amanda cure her cold in another episode, before her success with Disney Channel franchises High School Musical and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
  • Shiri Appleby played a nerd in two Girls' Room skits.
  • Adam Brody played Greg Brady on When Bradys Attack.
  • Corbin Bleu appeared in a skit where the cast performs in his bedroom.
  • Before he was Beans on Even Stevens, Steven Anthony Lawrence was the little brother in the "Becky Swanson" and "The People Store" sketches.
  • Francesca Marie Smith, best known for Hey Arnold! made a few on-and-off appearances, notably in the commercial parodies..
  • Listen to Raquel Lee's voice. This was before she was Nubia Gross.
• Spiritual Successor:It's a kid-friendly version of The Carol Burnett Show, complete with a spoof of Burnett's opening question-and-answer segment.
• Squick: Plenty of sketches play this for laughs, but especially the Dooper sketches, where the main gag is that the titular restaurant (which changes its focus every sketch) sell foods with gross and often disturbing ingredients.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The theme song sounds very similar to the Wizard's Peak level theme in Spyro the Dragon (1998). Considering Stewart Copeland composed both the theme song of this show and the original Spyro games, this probably wasn't an accident.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: One of the "When... Attack" sketches was "When Old Ladies Attack" which could be seen as a rip-off of the "Hell's Grannies" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus. It’s unclear if the writers knew about that sketch or not.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Sketches that only appear in one episode like Jack and Jake, Nurse Zelda, and Snipatorium would have made good recurring sketches.
• Too Good to Last: Despite its popularity, the show lasted only three seasons and was apparently canceled just so Amanda Bynes could star in What I Like About You instead.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • One of the recurring skits Blockblister parodies Blockbuster, which went defunct in the early 2010s due to (among other factors) stiff competition from streaming and DVD mailing services like Netflix. The Blockblister skits also parody films that were popular in the late 90's and early 2000's such as Austin Powers and Titanic.
  • "The Girls Room" lacks any references to social media or smartphones, which would normally pop up in later works featuring high school girls and Alpha Bitches.
  • LFO - a short lived Boy Band - guest star on one episode to perform a live single, showing that the series was made during the time when boy bands were all the rage (tragically members Devin and Rich both passed away in the 2010s).
  • The recurring "When (X) Attack" skits parody the When Animals Attack specials and other such shows Fox seemed to air ad nauseum at the time. Said shows have since fallen into obscurity.
  • The "Stranded" sketches are a blatant parody of Survivor; while Survivor is still on the air, it's nowhere near the cultural phenomenon it was at when The Amanda Show ran. "Judge Trudy," a ripoff of Judge Judy, has a similar fate—the show ran until 2021 but was far more popular and novel when The Amanda Show was on the air.

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