This was written for kids.
Andy Griffiths' Just...! series is a collection of stories revolving around the antics of a pre-teen protagonist.
Andy is an imaginative boy who thinks outside the box any chance he can. He's also a notorious mischief-maker whose schemes blow up in his face due to his lack of foresight. Among the recurring cast are Andy's sidekick Danny, his love interest Lisa, his bewildered parents, his sister Jen and her hot-tempered boyfriend Craig, his dad's boss Mr Bainbridge and his wife, dog Sooty and teacher Ms. Livingstone.
This Australian series has been running from 1997 to 2012 and includes the following books:
- Just Tricking! (1997)
- Just Annoying! (1998)
- Just Stupid! (1999)
- Just Crazy! (2000)
- Just Disgusting! (2002)
- Just Shocking! (2007)
- Just Macbeth! (2009)
- Just Doomed! (2012)
The Just...! series also spawned a Animated Adaptation in 2001 called What's with Andy? that was made by the Canadian animation studio CinéGroupe.
Keep in mind that this is about Andy Griffiths, not Andy Griffith as it is based on his early life.
Tropes:
- Accidental Good Outcome: In the story "Kittens, Puppies, and Ponies" from "Just Shocking", Andy writes a story about the eponymous animals being killed by a bad man named Mr. White. He intended to write this as catharsis for losing a writing contest, but accidentally impresses Lisa, his crush.
- Accidental Pervert: In "The Last Jaffa", Andy crawls around the floor of a cinema trying to find a chocolate ball, which leads to him accidentally sticking his head up a dress.
- All Just a Dream: The majority of the story "Busting" from "Just Stupid" turns out to be a dream of Andy's.
- All-Natural Fire Extinguisher: Subverted in "Busting" from "Just Stupid", in which Andy apparently pees on a fire at the mall, but it turns out the story was All Just a Dream... and Andy wet the bed in his sleep.
- Angrish: In "Band-Aid", when Andy tries to pull a bandage off from under his eye, he describes the pain in three pages' worth of Symbol Swearing Angrish.
- Anti-Hero: Andy is a trickster, annoying, stupid, crazy, disgusting and outright shocking. Really, the only reason he's considered any kind of hero is because the stories are told from his point of view.
- Annoyingly Repetitive Child: In "Shut Up" from "Just Disgusting", Andy, a preteen boy, takes every opportunity to tell his father, "Don't get your knickers in a knot!". At one point, the father yells at him, "And stop telling me not to get my knickers in a knot!", so Andy says, "Don't get your trousers in a twist."
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Andy to Jen, including copying everything she does for two straight days and dressing up as a gorilla at her birthday party.
- Are We There Yet?: The title of one chapter. Andy pesters his dad while they're driving through the middle of nowhere. His dad decides to punish him by dumping Andy by the road.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: Andy once trolled Jen by cross-dressing and imitating her up until the school dance. His disguise was so good Craig fell for him.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Andy usually goes out of his way to annoy his sister Jen. However in "Have a Terrible Christmas and a Crappy New Year" he's horrified when he thinks a Christmas-card joke might have caused her friends to turn against her and eventually owns up to Jen about it. He's also happy to let her take the credit for the joke, just on the condition that she "doesn't tell Santa."
- Baffled by Own Biology:
- In the story "Two Brown Blobs" from "Just Disgusting", a three-year-old Andy poops in the bath. He was just as stupid then as he is now, so he doesn't realise it and thinks there are Blob Monsters attacking him.
- In the story "Playing Dead" from "Just Tricking", Andy, who is Faking the Dead, thinks he can will his heart to stop beating, and doesn't seem to realise that this would kill him if he could actually do it.
- Balloonacy: In "The Crazy, Bad, Dumb, Bad, Dumb Idea", Andy flies with some balloons, but regrets it.
- Bathroom Search Excuse: In "Brussel Sprouts", Andy tries to get out of eating the eponymous vegetables by pretending he has to go to the bathroom. His family doesn't buy it.
- Black Comedy: "Just Doomed" has many jokes about being doomed, such as being handed a bomb instead of a baby and the sun going nova.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: After Sooty literally eats Andy and Danny's homework, they put him through all sorts of hell to make him throw it up. This includes making the dog smoke cigarettes.
- Black Comedy Pet Death: Andy hears some noises at night and is afraid, but then wonders if it's just the cat. Then, he realises they don't have a cat... or rather, they used to have one but it went to the vet and never came back. His dad says it was put to sleep, so Andy wonders if it woke up.
- Bolivian Army Ending: In "Swinging on the Clothesline" Andy uses a mad dog to spin the clothesline with him on it. The momentum builds up to the point where Andy is flung towards a window. The book ends with him thinking about how if the impact doesn't kill him, then his parents certainly will. Subverted since this only happened in the second of eight books.
- Bratty Half-Pint: As annoying as Andy can be to anyone older than him, children manage to be a pain in his neck. "Dum-Dum" (where a boy named Bradley keeps bugging him and insisting the alphabet song goes "ennel-mennel-bee") and "Um-ah!" (where two young children are very disobedient to him) being the two prime examples.
- Christmas Episode: In "A Terrible Christmas and a Crappy New Year", Andy vandalises some of Jen's Christmas cards to read, "Have a terrible Christmas and a crappy New Year" and depict grotesque Santas.
- Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: When Andy has to pee in a mall in "Busting" from "Just Stupid", he sees a fountain, squirt guns, an ad for "great rivers of the world", and firehoses.
- Companion Cube: Andy is very attached to a rubber ducky. Said rubber ducky becomes the mascot for "Just Disgusting!".
- The Ditz: Andy is very dumb. For instance, he once sealed himself in the shower without thinking of how to get out.
- Does Not Like Spam: In "Emergency Spew Relish", Andy reveals that he hates corn relish, thinking it tastes like spew, and "Brussels Sprouts" reveals that he hates Brussels sprouts and custard as well.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Andy has the worst luck when it comes to impressing Lisa. She always gives him another chance, which he blows the very next time she appears.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The stories in Just Tricking! are written in different fonts.
- Embarrassing Damp Sheets: At the end of "Busting", Andy wets the bed after the whole story is revealed to be All Just a Dream.
- "Eureka!" Moment: In "Band Aid" from "Just Crazy", Andy thinks about how peeling a band aid off "sucks", then this gives him the idea to suck it off with a vacuum cleaner.
- Failure Is the Only Option: In "Cake of Doom", a pick-your-own adventure story, Andy tries making a cake for Mother's Day. Each outcome ends with him getting killed in the most outlandish way possible. The last ending lists every way he could have died before he accidentally poisons his family and is given the death penalty for murder (although there isn't one in Australia in real life, the book states they brought it back just for him).
- Fake Rabies: Lisa assumes that Andy has rabies in "Chubby Bubbies" from "Just Stupid" when he sneezes out a bunch of chewed-up marshmallows.
- Faking the Dead: In "Playing Dead" from "Just Tricking", Andy pretends he's dead to get out of going to school.
- Food Fight: Andy and Danny start one in a restaurant by accident where Andy throws beer at a woman to put a fire out, she gets angry and throws food at the boys, and then everyone begins throwing food.
- Gamebooks: "Cake of Doom" from Just Disgusting! is structured like this, with Andy trying to bake a cake for Mother's Day. However, every even chapter ends with you being dead by the end of it, while it's the odd chapters that continue the story. Doesn't matter though, as the final chapter ends with you dead anyway.
- Getting Sick Deliberately: Andy doesn't want to be in the school play of Romeo and Juliet since he's being cast as Romeo and his best (male) friend Danny is being cast as Juliet. At one point, he deliberately gives himself a stomach bug to get out of acting in the play, but he recovers in time.
- Goo Goo Getup: In "Just Stupid", the story "Runaway Pram", when Andy and Danny find an old pram, Andy takes a ride in it wearing nothing but a cloth diaper over his undies.
- Grossout Fakeout:
- In "Just Stupid", the story "Busting" has some kids spray Andy in the crotch with squirt guns. When he asks a hippie for directions to the toilets, the hippie says, "Looks like it's a bit late."Andy: "That's not what you think it is."
- In "Emergency Spew Relish", Andy tries pranking an old woman by pretending he's eating his vomit and using it as shampoo when it's actually corn relish. As it turns out, though, she's blind, so the prank doesn't work.
- In "Just Stupid", the story "Busting" has some kids spray Andy in the crotch with squirt guns. When he asks a hippie for directions to the toilets, the hippie says, "Looks like it's a bit late."
- Have a Nice Death: Every time you die in "Cake of Doom" from Just Disgusting, in which they can get quite graphic.
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": An in-universe example is "The Story of the Very Stupid Boy and the Very Big Slug", where (fictional) Andy writes himself into a Mary Sue who is superior to the antagonist (Danny) and ultimately gets the girl (Lisa).
- Hippie Teacher: Ms Livingstone. She's traveled the world and isn't the least bit fazed by Andy's weirdness.
- Identity Amnesia: Andy's attempt at making his own Jack-in-the-box leads to him getting bashed in the head and losing his entire memory.
- Imaginary Friend: In "Imaginary Friend", Andy creates two imaginary friends: Fred (a sick boy) and Damien (a rude boy). This backfires when Andy's mother treats them like real boys.
- Incompatible Orientation: In one story, Andy baulks at being cast as Romeo in a school play when his friend Danny (another boy, and Andy is straight) is being cast as Juliet.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Andy may be obnoxious to his family and Danny, but in "Snail Aid", he does his darnedest to help an injured snail. When he’s not deliberately being a prankster, Andy is a genuinely good kid at heart.
- Laser-Guided Karma: While he manages to get on everyone's nerves, it turns out Andy can be completely outdone by children younger than himself, with his reputation preventing any adult from taking his side (and that's assuming they aren't just getting back at him).
- The Many Deaths of You: The many deaths in "Cake of Doom" from Just Disgusting! Including but not limited to...:
- Electrocuted to death due to touching a live electric alarm clock after some water went into the back it because you accidentally knock over a glass of water.
- Bitten by a rat and subsequently dying of rabies.
- Had a bowling ball fall on your head.
- You fail to heed a blender's instructions and wind up grating all of your fingers in you right head and you drown in your own blood.
- Got run over by an old lady in a motorized wheelchair.
- Blown yourself up because you forgot to light the gas oven and strike a match.
- Burnt to death because of Sooty rubbing against you with his tail on fire.
- Accidentally swallowed toilet water and subsequently got poisoned to death.
- Murdered by your mother for apparently trying to flush Sooty down the toilet.
- Ignored by a whale... then bitten in half by a shark.
- You suffer a No-Holds-Barred Beatdownnote from Jen for entering her room without permission.
- ...and finally, executed by hanging for accidentally killing your family. The book even states that even though Australia no longer has a death penalty... they bring it back, especially for you!
- Mascot with Attitude: The original cover art of each book has an animal (or something resembling an animal) drawn in the most gnarly way possible. Said mascot appears on each page number and references an incident in each book (e.g. the fly in "Are we There Yet?", the snail in "Snail-Aid" etc.)
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
- In "Wish You Weren't Here", Andy takes his neighbour's garden gnome on holiday to make them believe it came to life and ran away. Then strange things start happening to Andy.
- Did Danny really end up inviisble at the end of "Invisipills"?
- Mistaken for Undead: Subverted in "Just Tricking" in the story "Playing Dead". Andy pretends he's dead, and then when he gets up, his mother starts yelling about him being a zombie, but it turned out she was tricking him back.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In "Beat the Bomb!", Andy pranks some poor kid into believing he'd just won $500. The boy says his family could really use the money since his dad died. Out of guilt, Andy decides to give him the $500 prize money he'd just won.
- Naked People Are Funny: Andy has a habit of getting naked at the worst possible moment. Mr and Mrs Bainbridge are usually on the receiving end of it. In "Just Nude!", the inverse occurs: Andy is the only clothed person at a nudist (or naturist) resort.
- Nightmare Fetishist:
- Andy likes writing gory stories, and once called it cool when he compared the soap on his body to a fungus that was "eating" him.
- In one story, Lisa enjoys a story in which animals get brutally killed.
- Nightmare Sequence:
- In "Pinch", Andy has a series of nightmares revolving around Danny trying to eat Andy's goldfish, before moving onto Andy.
- In "A Terrible Christmas and a Crappy New Year", Andy has a nightmare about Santa punishing him.
- Oh, Crap!: In "Born to Die", Andy believes he can intimidate some school bullies with a hardcore tattoo. This initially seems to work...until both bullies reveal they've got the exact same tattoo and force Andy to drink a milkshake (apparently) made from pureed slugs.
- Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: In "Band Aid" from "Just Crazy", Andy imagines bleeding so much that the bathroom fills up with blood and sends him down the street in a tidal wave.
- Poke the Poodle: In "Imaginary Friend", Danny tries to invent an evil imaginary friend named Damien, but the only "evil" things Damien does are things like not wiping his feat or saying please.
- Potty Emergency:
- The plot of "Busting" is Andy desperately searching for a toilet in a mall. It turns out to all be a dream, which ends in Andy wetting the bed when he dreams about putting out a fire.
- In "In the Shower with Andy", Andy seals himself in the shower and fills it up. When trying to get out, he tries drinking it, but gives up when he's forced to pee in it.
- Purely Aesthetic Glasses: In "Band Aid", Andy puts on some glasses in hopes he'd be seen as smarter, but they just lead to him not seeing well and injuring himself.
- Sadistic Choice: Andy asks his family if they'd rather be eaten by ants or lions. His mother takes a third option and decides to be eaten by lion cubs.
- Santa Claus: In "A Terrible Christmas and a Crappy New Year", Andy worries that he will be put on Santa's "naughty" list after vandalising some Christmas cards.
- Self-Insert Fic: The protagonist is named after the author. In a departure from most versions of this trope, he's also an unruly brat that nobody in their right mind could warm up to.
- Severely Specialized Store: In the "Just Stupid" story "Busting", Andy wonders why there's a store in the mall that sells nothing but cat-shaped ornaments.
- Skewed Priorities: In "Band Aid" from "Just Crazy", Andy imagines his mother seeing him bleeding enough to fill the bathroom after peeling his band-aid off... and being more concerned about how expensive band aids are.
- Slippery Slope Fallacy: In "Busting" from "Just Stupid", Andy wants to use the handicapped toilet, but then fears that he'll make a habit of using things meant for disabled people.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Discussed in "Band Aid" from "Just Crazy", in which Andy puts on glasses to look smart.
- Sweet Tooth: In "Brussels Sprouts", Andy states that (with the exception of custard) he "really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY love[s] dessert".
- Toilet Humour:
- The list of ways to be doomed involves being handed a baby who's just soiled themselves.
- The list of gross things in "Just Disgusting" involves farting the alphabet and soiling oneself trying to fart the alphabet.
- "Two Brown Blobs" is about a younger Andy pooping in the bath.
- Too Dumb to Live: Danny. At one point Andy was able to convince him that some jellybeans were "invisi-pills".
- Unconventional Food Usage: In the story "Emergency Spew Relish" (which would later inspire the What's with Andy? episode of the same name), Andy uses corn relish to pretend to vomit, claiming it looks, smells, and tastes like spew.
- Unstoppable Rage: An already annoyed Mr Broadbent goes completely over the edge after Andy and Danny's attempts to get him to de-stress wind up doing the complete opposite, so that Andy blasting him with a hose has no effect whatsoever.
- With Friends Like These...: Andy and Danny are far from the best of friends. Andy only hangs out with Danny because he doesn't have any other friends. Danny only hangs out with Andy because he's too stupid to see that Andy's a bad influence.
