Clarissa Explains It All - Television Tropes & Idioms

This may be the greatest show ever filmed.

"If you're so smart explain THIS, Clarissa!"

Clarissa, Mindless Self Indulgence

♪ Na na na na-na! ♪

One of the earliest original sitcoms on Nickelodeon, about a teenage girl named Clarissa Darling, her geeky, conniving, conservative brother Ferguson, and her wacky hippie parents. Usually featured Clarissa commenting on the plot directly to the camera, imitating a newscaster.

Despite its seemingly innocent reputation, in retrospect, Clarissa probably pushed a few boundaries at the time, as the show had a habit of making subtle references to sex and teen partying, albeit in a light-hearted, contemporary fashion. Also one of the few shows on the channel that could skate by with using and at times spelling out words like "hell" and "sex" onscreen.

Also noteworthy for being one of the first shows to feature a female lead and be gender-neutral. Before this show, the only shows with a female lead (as few as they were) were intended for girls only. It also helped to tear down a long standing belief that shows with female leads wouldn't be able to gain a significant male audience.

The show ran from 1991 to 1994, ending just before the introduction of cartoon programming that would come to dominate the channel in The Nineties. Is also notable for being one of the roles Melissa Joan Hart is known for.

In July 2011, it became one of the four inaugural shows of TeenNick's "The '90s Are All That" lineup.

Provides Examples Of:

Amazingly Embarrassing Parents
Annoying Younger Sibling: You have to ask?
Aside Comment: How she Explains It All.
Balloonacy: Clarissa attempts to do away with Ferguson by hooking him up to a straitjacket attached to balloons(!). Hapless Sam falls victim to the trap instead.
Better as Friends: Sam develops a crush on Clarissa at one point, and she reluctantly agrees to go on a date with him. It turns out that, as close as they are, they have absolutely zero chemistry and agree that they are... well, this trope.
Big Eater: Clifford. Eating an entire pizza just makes him hungrier.
Black Best Friend: Olivia, though she doesn't appear as frequently as Sam.
Butt Monkey: Sam.
Cannot Tell a Joke: Ferguson was generally a straight-laced, snobby know it all. Later in the series, he spent an entire episode practicing the delivery of a cliche joke (A homeless man walks up to me on the street and says he hasn't had a bite in...) for some event that he was participating in. The humor came not from the joke itself, but from the ludicrous attempts at telling it, which eventually started including ridiculous stresses on random words of the punchline, a la "I bit him. I bit him. I bit him."
- Oddly enough he could qualify as a competent Deadpan Snarker most of the time.
Chain Letter: Marshall got one.
Cigarette of Anxiety: Clarissa has a dream sequence where she finds her mother smoking like a chimney. The mother explains that she used to smoke and had quit, but that recent stress had caused her to pick up the habit again.
Conflict Ball: The source of some of the drama being the unjustified parental veto.
Consolation World Record: In one episode.
A Day in the Limelight: "Ferguson Explains it All".
Dogged Nice Guy: Well, closer to Dogged Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but the Clarissa/Clifford dynamic starts off by following this to the letter, with Clarissa being irritated by his relentless serenading (you read that right) her until he stops, at which point she realizes she misses him.
Drop-In Character: Hi Sam! *dissonant guitar chord*
Enter Stage Window: It's debatable whether Sam's even aware the Darlings' house has a door. At one point he was downstairs in the kitchen, and instead of leaving through the back door he climbed out through that window!
Evil Redhead: Ferguson.
First Gray Hair: In one episode, Clarissa's mother panics about getting older after discovering that she has a gray hair. Clarissa's dad, however, is quick to point out to her that she only had a gray hair, having just plucked it out before both characters entered the scene.
Full Name Ultimatum
Game Show Appearance
Getting Crap Past the Radar: A surprising amount of it.
- For starters, one episode had Clarissa go lingerie shopping at the mall, and accidentally bring one of the bras home with her.
Granola Girl: Clarissa's mom.
Guy Next Door: Sam
Homage: One episode has Clarissa befriending Eve, the new girl in school; she practically worships Clarissa, begins copying her style, and later steals her ideas for the school newspaper column.
Hostile Show Takeover: "Ferguson Explains It All".
I Just Want to Be You: Eve in the episode "Hero Worship".
Imagine Spot: At least Once an Episode, often more.
Insufferable Genius: Ferguson
Intrepid Reporter: The one featured on the show has an odd tendency to sleep standing up.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Season one got a DVD release and is even popular enough that 7 episodes of it are on PlayStation Network. The other 4 seasons? Not so much.
Laugh Track
Leitmotif: Now full-on Memetic Mutation.
Lethal Chef: Janet, as she both is a health food nut and likes to experiment in the kitchen.
Love at First Punch: Clifford falls for Clarissa because she's the first girl to ever try and stand up to him. However, they don't actually fight, which is definitely a good thing as it's made abundantly clear the results would not have been pretty.
Loves My Alter Ego: Clarissa once attended a costume party while dressing and acting like a punk named, "Jade", and caught the attention of an older boy.
No Fourth Wall
No Sparks: The reason Clarissa and Sam decide they're Better as Friends.
Of Corsets Sexy: Clarissa tries on a bustier and accidentally leaves the store wearing it under her clothes. May count as She Is All Grown Up.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Sometimes we see Clarissa come up with a solution and only hear what happened after she carried it out.
Phrase Catcher: "Hi, Sam." twang
Platonic Life Partners: Clarissa and Sam.
Precocious Crush: Clarissa develops a temporary one on the local television weatherman.
Rear Window Investigation: The episode where Clarissa and Sam try dating features a B-plot with Ferguson investigating a possible murder the neighbor appeared to commit.
Shaped Like What It Sells: Marshall Darling is an architect who seems to specialize in these.
There Was a Door: Sam. Repeatedly.
- Lampshaded often by Clarissa's dad.
Thirty Minutes or It's Free: Since their mom is a health-food nut, Clarissa and Ferguson once took advantage of being allowed to order pizza by timing the delivery boy down to seconds, and then re-ordering more when he was inevitably late.
Time To Move
Title Sequence Replacement: The first season episodes originally opened with Clarissa trying on different costumes her family and Sam handed her.
Trapped in TV Land
Unintentional Period Piece
What Could Have Been: In 1995, a spin-off called Clarissa Now was pitched to CBS. It would have shown Clarissa as a college student in New York, working as an intern for a newspaper.
- Interestingly, that was almost the exact same career path that Melissa Joan Hart's next character, Sabrina, did follow after high school. This has led to more than a few people joking that they didn't know it was two separate shows, and just assumed that Clarissa woke up and discovered she was a witch.