Line #49 Series/HeyDude


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/y9wwx1m.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Ted, Brad, Buddy, Melody, and Danny.]]
3	->''Better watch out for those man-eating jackrabbits... and that killer cacti!''
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5	''Hey, Dude!'' is a sitcom that aired on {{Creator/Nickelodeon}} from 1989 to 1991. It follows the misadventures of the teenage summer help at the Bar None Ranch in Arizona, as well as its owner, the rather clueless Benjamin Ernst. Mr. Ernst, after years of being a nebbish pencil-pusher, gets the urge to be a cowboy, so he buys the Bar None and becomes its manager. Since his only qualifications (if you can call them qualifications) are his enthusiasm for bolo ties and ten-gallon hats, he's quickly in over his head. Consequently, he has little time to supervise the young staff, who leap on the opportunity to romance each other and concoct schemes... in the most wholesome possible way, of course. The staff are:
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7	* Brad, the horseback-riding instructor. She comes from money and has occasional snobbish tendencies, but also works hard and can take care of herself.
8	* Ted, who does most of the scheming, and constantly tries to hook up with Brad.
9	* Danny, a Hopi Indian who is always on hand to warn Ted that he's proceeding down an unwise path.
10	* Melody, a bubbly blonde lifeguard. She isn't exactly TheDitz, but is generally more [[TheIngenue innocent and trusting]] than the rest of the staff.
11	* Jake, Mr. Ernst's nephew, who appears when Ted leaves for a brief interval, and remains for the rest of the series' run. Jake is a surfer, a drummer, and a general space cadet.
12	* Kyle, a late-run addition who is a bit lunk-headed, but possesses more cowboy-like qualities than any of the other staffers. Also likes Brad.
13	* Lucy, the only other visible adult, who makes up for what Mr. Ernst lacks in managerial skills. A bit of a tough customer.
14	* Buddy, Mr. Ernst's son, who is not part of the staff but usually is a part of the plot. He is basically a younger version of Mr. Ernst, except he didn't want to move to a dude ranch and would much rather go back to New York.
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16	Although it didn't have a LaughTrack, ''Hey, Dude'' managed to use many well-known sitcom tropes in the short time that it was on. [[http://www.shoutfactorystore.com/prod.aspx?pfid=5257435#axzz1Koqrnekt Its first season was released on DVD on July 19th, 2011]].
17
18	!!This show provides examples of:
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20	* AgelessBirthdayEpisode: The "Guys vs. Girls" episode for Danny, and there is another episode that has an ageless birthday for Mr. Ernst.
21	* AlphaBitch: Brad's a borderline case. Her acquaintance Kimberly Carroll, from "The Good, The Bad, The Obnoxious," is a more clear-cut case.
22	* AndYouThoughtItWasAGame: Mr. Ernst, who, in one episode, thinks he's wearing a fake snake around his neck.
23	* AntiAlcoholAesop: In "Melody's Brother", Melody is forced to cover for her brother when he is shown to have a drinking problem, and she tells him that he needs to stop as their father has such a problem as well and she doesn't want him to turn out like him. He eventually gets the message when he gets into a drunk driving accident a couple of days later.
24	* BattleOfTheSexes: The title of the very episode, no less. Ted and Danny argue with Brad and Melody over chores and general gender matters, so the group sets out to prove which gender is better by competing in horse racing, cooking, and catching fish. Each contest ends in a draw due to various technicalities or loophole reasons.
25	* BelligerentSexualTension: Brad finds Ted annoying but they also have a lot of chemistry, so her sniping at him comes across as this.
26	* BerserkButton:
27	** Don't insult Danny's heritage. Also don’t mention to anyone else that he once overflowed Mr. Ernst’s toilet and flooded his bathroom.
28	** Don't call Jake by the nickname his mom gave him: Jake-a-roo.
29	* BettyAndVeronica: Melody and Brad fit the character types, but without the romantic rivalry. Melody and Ted have more of a LikeBrotherAndSister thing going.
30	* BeautyContest: One in which Brad and Melody are the only contestants. In the talent portion, Brad's talent is packing a suitcase. Melody begins to have a breakdown when she thinks she could lose to 'packing luggage.'
31	* BlatantLies: In one episode, Melody essentially passes off Brad's entire history as her own to impress a wealthy and snobbish ranch guest.
32	* TheBusCameBack: Ted came back to the show after David Lascher's NBC sitcom ''A Family for Joe'', which also starred Juliette Lewis and Ben Savage, was canceled after only nine episodes.
33	* CallBack: When Ted meets Brad, Brad has to save Ted when he tries to take on a wild horse. When Brad meets Kyle, Kyle ends up having to do the same thing with Brad.
34	* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: Mr. Ernst is approachable and easy-going, if prone to daffy ideas; Lucy is knowledgeable and the main disciplinarian, but has NoSocialSkills.
35	* CaptureTheFlag: The ranch's traditional method of choosing the head staff member (Ted) is to have the job go to the winner of the annual game. Yes, really.
36	* ChainedHeat: Brad and Ted get handcuffed together in the well-remembered "Arm Spasm/Leg Cramp" episode. The episode even [[DiscussedTrope discusses the film]] ''Film/TheDefiantOnes''.
37	* ChristmasEpisode: "Ride, She Said" from Season 4. When Brad's parents send her an early Christmas present, Melody gets the idea to throw a Christmas in July party.
38	-->'''Melody:''' Why do I sense that you're not overflowing with the Christmas spirit?\
39	'''Brad:''' [[LampshadeHanging Because it's July. Because it's a 105 degrees in the shade. Because Santa Claus is at home with his air conditioning set on tundra. And because a snowball from the Bar None refrigerator does not a blizzard make.]]
40	* CityMouse: Buddy, who would love to go back to New York. But his dad is a CityMouse who really wants to be a CountryMouse, so he's stuck.
41	* CookingDuel: In "Battle of the Sexes," Buddy is selected to be the judge of the cooking contest. The 'muffin' served by Ted and Danny is practically inedible, but the girls cook a meal containing fish, to which Buddy is allergic, resulting in a draw.
42	* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: During the "Capture the Flag" episode, the boys threaten to torture Melody with a Yanni {{Expy}} unless she tells them where the girls have hidden their flag.
43	* CopyProtection: In the beauty contest episode, Melody plans to sing [[Music/WhitneyHouston "Greatest Love of All"]] for the talent portion, but discovers too late that it's under copyright. As a result, she serenades the judges with "Home on the Range."
44	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Mr. Ernst is totally out of his element with the cowboy life. However, he ''is'' an effective administrator and financially savvy; it's suggested that his buying the ranch saved it from complete ruin.
45	* DemotedToExtra: There wasn't much for Kyle to do after Ted came back. As a result, he only appeared in a handful of episodes before the show ended.
46	* DrunkWithPower: In the tie-in novel ''Showdown at the Bar None'', the normally easygoing Ted is put in charge of the ranch while Mr. Ernst and Lucy are in a buying trip and is such an unreasonable micromanager and issuer of demerits that Brad and Danny quickly get fed up enough to dunk him in the lake.
47	* EmbarrassingMiddleName: One episode revealed Ted's middle name to be Aloysius, a fact he was trying to keep hidden.
48	* EnfantTerrible: One episode gives us a tween girl who commits some random acts of cruelty and theft around the ranch, pinning it all on Buddy. When he finally confronts her, she briefly gives a FreudianExcuse before sneering that she does it because she enjoys it.
49	* FailedAttemptAtScaring: Played with in the episode "Ghost Stories", Brad declares she never gets scared by ghost stories, until Ted tells one that actually does scare her. She spends much of the episode trying to scare him back, but all her attempts fall flat, Ted dismissing them as gags. Then Lucy a story of an unsolved murder that occurred there on the ranch, though she doesn't make any attempt to up the fright factor. But that night, as a storm rolls in, Ted finds himself awake and thinking about the murders as strange noises fill his cabin (which it turns out were caused by yard tools he failed to put away himself, and Lucy and Mr. Ernst putting them away). His imagination runs wild and when Mr. Ernst appears at his door with a pair of pruning shears, he scares himself silly. It turns out the only one who could scare Ted was Ted himself. At the end, Ted makes one more scare attempt on the others... which falls flat.
50	%%* FishOutOfWater: Mr. Ernst, despite massive denial on his part. Brad is a milder case.
51	* FrozenInTime: During a 2014 reunion panel at ATX, writer Lisa Melamed confirmed that the entire series did, in fact, take place over the course of one single summer.
52	%%* GameShowAppearance: Newly emergent genius Jake does one.
53	* GenderBlenderName: Brad is a girl.
54	%%* HateSink: The Bar None's neighbors, the Vlecks.
55	* IdiotBall: When Brad and Kyle babysit kids on an overnight camping trip, Brad somehow thinks spitting contests are not a good idea but letting the kids play hide-and-seek in the pitch black desert while she and Kyle are tied up is a great idea.
56	* HypnoTrinket: Buddy orders one from a comic book, and tries it on Jake while he's eating a bowl of cereal. Jake pretends that it works, interpreting Buddy's command to pour the cereal "over your head" to mean "over ''your'' (Buddy's) head". Later, Buddy demands that he pour it "over ''my'' head" and again gets it dumped on him.
57	* IGotBigger: Buddy's actor got progressively bigger between seasons (justified as he was a kid when he was cast and was a teenager when the show ended).
58	* KidsAreCruel: In one episode, a tiny terror named Angie manipulates most of the staff and threatens to use the WoundedGazelleGambit if she doesn't get exactly what she wants.
59	* LikeBrotherAndSister: Ted and Melody tend to treat each other like this; they've been friends for a long time and she has a little more tolerance for his shenanigans than some of the others. Notably, when Ted has to leave for a while, it's mentioned that he writes to her frequently.
60	%%* LockedInAFreezer: In two different episodes, if not more... darn that abandoned mine shaft.
61	* LongLostUncleAesop: Melody's visiting brother and his drinking problem.
62	* MagicalNativeAmerican: Danny is actually an aversion (most of the time); while he ''is'' {{closer to Earth}}, it's because he's more laid-back than the rest of the staff at the ranch. He even becomes exasperated when Mr. Enrst tries to invoke this for a promotional video.
63	* {{Malaproper}}: Kyle thinks he is being "chil-lay-vrous" when he is polite to women.
64	* MistakenForDying: Happens to Mr. Ernst, when the gang thinks he has a fatal disease. In actuality, he's fine; the staffers overheard Lucy talking about a disease contracted by a horse, but all sorts of hysterics go down before the misunderstanding is cleared up.
65	* MistakenForSpecialGuest: One episode has the staff on the lookout for a guidebook writer who is expected to be coming to review the ranch... only to have them realize that the person in question had just checked out.
66	* MostWritersAreWriters: Jake wants to be a writer and can frequently be seen narrating into a hand-held tape recorder.
67	** In one episode, Danny gets a comic strip but cancels it by the end of the episode because it causes too much friction between his friends.
68	* NeverWinTheLottery: Ted wins a substantial amount of money via a scratch-off ticket and starts using his newfound wealth to arrange drastic changes at the ranch, such as adding a water park. It all comes to nothing when the lottery people discover he's not a legal adult and is therefore ineligible for the payout.
69	* NiceToTheWaiter: Subverted in an episode where Melody falls for a rich guest. She thinks they have a connection, until she turns out to be "the help" and not another well-off guest.
70	* NoSocialSkills: Lucy the ranch hand is tough and competent but also blunt as a post, with a tendency toward BrutalHonesty.
71	* NotSoForgottenBirthday: Danny spends a good bit of time in "Battle of the Sexes" dropping hints about his upcoming birthday. Ted convinces the others to feign ignorance, as he's planning a small surprise party for him.
72	* OneBookAuthor: The actors who played Brad, Danny, Lucy, Kyle, and Buddy never had any acting jobs outside of this series. They all debuted on the show and never acted again after it ended.
73	* ParentWithNewParamour: In "Teacher's Pet," one of Ted's teachers visits and shows interest in Mr. Ernst, who is receptive. Both he and Buddy are confused by the idea of teachers and parents dating and resort to hilarious sabotage to break up the couple.
74	* PieInTheFace: Happens to Mr. Ernst in the episode "Murder, He Wrote." Melody and Ted overhear Brad and Kyle scheming to kill Mr. Ernst by having him eat a coconut cream pie laced with arsenic, unaware that the whole thing is staged for a murder mystery weekend. When Brad walks up to Mr. Ernst holding the pie, Ted (hiding under a table) grabs her leg and she trips, sending the pie flying into Mr. Ernst's face.
75	* ProWrestlingEpisode: "Killer Ernst", with guest star Wrestling/CaptainLouAlbano AsHimself
76	* PutOnABus: In Season 3, it's discovered that Ted didn't pass all his classes the previous school year, so he has to leave the ranch for summer school. He makes a later guest appearance in Season 4 (in which he sneaks back to the ranch because he missed everyone). He returns for good a little while later during the same season, assuring his friends that he passed summer school with flying colors.
77	* RealAfterAll: "The Legend of Jed"
78	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Mr. Ernst is usually patient and friendly with his staff.
79	* ShoutOut: In the episode, "Baby", when dealing with a crying baby that was accidentally left behind, Mr. Ernst briefly tries to entertain him with what is clearly a [[WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures Buster Bunny doll.]]
80	* SlapSlapKiss: Brad and Ted.
81	* SmallNameBigEgo: They even called him [[TropeNamer Ted]]!
82	* SpoilerOpening: David Lascher is re-added to the opening titles (specifically Kyle's first episode, season 3's "Stick Around") long before his character Ted actually returns to the show. Most likely because the show didn't want to go to the trouble of creating two sets of credits, one when Geoffrey Coy joined the show and another for Lascher's official return.
83	* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: A subversion. Jake joins the cast to fill the temporary vacancy left by Ted, but even after Ted's return, Jake stayed on the show.
84	** Not to mention Kyle, who joins even later in the series. Since Jake and Brad don't have the same will-they-or-won't-they relationship that Ted and Brad did, Kyle was brought in to fill the void.
85	* TakeOurWordForIt: Due to budget constraints, if there was a giant mural painted on a barn wall or a big rock display that depicted a man on a pig... er, horse, the show couldn't actually show it.
86	* TokenMinority: Danny. Played a bit more respectfully than a lot of other examples, though.
87	* {{Tomboy}}: Brad.
88	* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Brad and Melody.
89	* VitriolicBestBuds: Ted with, well, everyone but Mr. Ernst. In the episode where he and Brad are handcuffed, Lucy notes that Ted has a habit of provoking others and is a good sport about receiving insults since it's never personal.
90	* WholesomeCrossdresser: Ted during [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEe3rhAWfCw his one scene as the birthday fairy.]]
91	* WillTheyOrWontThey: Between Brad and Ted. Although she usually thinks he's childish, there are lots of hints that she really likes him. Ted succeeds in getting her to date him once, or maybe twice, during the series, and when he leaves for his school-related hiatus, she's in tears and kisses him on the cheek. Kyle fills in when Ted leaves the show.
92	* WomenAreWiser: Played with a bit most of the time. While the girls are generally closer to Earth than most of the guys, Brad is only slightly closer, and Danny is typically closer than either girl [[NobleSavage (probably because he's a Native American)]]. Played straight in the BattleOfTheSexes episode, where the guys are [[IdiotBall suddenly incompetent]]. It's also played straight with the adults: Lucy the ranch hand has more common sense and knows a lot more about ranch life than [[BunnyEarsLawyer Mr. Ernst]] who, to be fair, is ''very'' good at keeping the ranch financially stable as a former accountant.
93	* WriteWhoYouKnow: In-universe: Danny starts a comic called "The Dud Ranch," using thinly-veiled [[{{Expy}} expies]] of his friends, and plays up the worst of their personalities for humor. It's a hit with the readers, but Danny eventually realizes the friction in his personal relationships isn't worth it.

Context Series / HeyDude