First series cast.note
Dani's House is a children's sitcom produced by The BBC, which started on 26 September 2008. The show ended with 5 series.
The show follows Dani, based on the actor who plays her, and her various friends. Her brother is Max, who is enemies with his sister and wants to rule the world and/or become a millionare. Max's best friend is Ben, who is not very intelligent, but ends up making up most of the plans anyway. Jack replaced Toby in series 2, who's a DJ. Midway through series 4, Ruby (Dani's personal fitness trainer) and her younger sister Maisy are introduced, later replacing Sam and Max, respectively.
There are also two aliens who watch the show, called Coordinator Zang and Zark. They have interacted with the cast three times.
A spinoff called Dani's Castle began airing in 2013, involving Dani moving to an Irish castle.
This show contains examples of:
- Aesop Amnesia: Snowed In, where Max and Dani become friends, is followed by the series finale House For Sale, which proves to be a subversion, as it doesn't take much for the gang to convince Max to help them. In Series 2, however, he's back to being the Sitcom Arch-Nemesis.
- Amnesia Episode: "Amnesia", where Dani loses her memories after taking a nasty fall.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The baby vanished after series 1. The Cat from Hell vanished after series 2.
- Clip Show: One in series 4 and another in series 5.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dani does this a lot.
- Easy Amnesia: Dani gets amnesia after hitting her head during a fall.
- '80s Hair: Nurse Emily Woodmagnet (Dani's character in the Show Within a Show). In B System, there's an entire episode all about this.
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: Several episodes are built around the characters trying to maintain some horrible web of lies.
- Five-Man Band: Dani's friends, built up over the course of the series from one in the final episode.
- Not to mention that every episode has five people in it.
- Foreshadowing: In "Pen Pal", Jack's pen pal talks in a very fake Japanese accent. He's faking it - he's Cornish.
- Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Max's lofty ambitions to become a millionaire lead to him and Ben devising one of these every other episode.
- Gift of the Magi Plot: Missing Present Mystery: Alex sells his football shirt for a season ticket sometime before the episode. Dani, knowing that the shirt was a family heirloom, decides to buy it back for him for their anniversary, but she is forced to sell her favourite earrings. While this happens, Alex sells his season ticket to get Dani a necklace that matches her earrings.
- Grand Finale: The Birthday Trap.
- Identical Stranger: Dani meets one named Maggie just as her schedule prevents her from hanging out with Jack and Sam.
- Left the Background Music On: In one episode, after someone says something shocking a "dun-dun-dunnn" is heard, which turns out to be Toby's ringtone.
- Only One Name: Everyone except Zerena and most of the guest characters.
- Poster-Gallery Bedroom: Max's room in illustrates that he's a young boy and thus has loads of posters of stuff boys his age would be interested in, such as Duel Masters and Doctor Who.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: Ruby and Maisy midway through series 4.
- Inverted with Harry Culverhouse - only characters who are in the opening credits get to stay out of the closing credits, unless their actor plays somebody who was in the opening credits. So, when Harry Culverhouse's regular character Toby left the show, his other character Coordinator Zang was in the end credits.
- Put on a Bus:
- Toby leaves after the first series, and in the series 2 opener it's stated he has left for medical school (after he managed to pass the test after answering every question with the word "bum"). He does show up again in the Christmas Episode and the Grand Finale, though. It's a mystery why - Harry Culverhouse, his actor, stays on the show and appears in every episode, albeit with a Demotion To Closing Titles.
- Sam midway through series 4 after getting a job with NASA.
- Max at the start of season 5.
- They're all Back for the Finale though, and Max occasionally makes video calls.
- Show Within a Show: McHurties Hospital, where Dani plays Nurse Woodmagnet.
- Take Over the World: This is supposedly Max's ultimate goal in life.
- This Is My Human: Coordinator Zark tries to keep a postman as a pet in one episode, with the justification that she is a more intelligent lifeform than a human. It all comes apart when she lets him out of the spaceship.
- Very Special Episode: In one episode of series 3, after becoming frustrated at having to rely on public transport and finding she can't afford to have proper driving lessons, Dani becomes addicted to a driving video game. This is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but the cast play it straight throughout the episode, aside from allowing some moments of humour.
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: Max goes through this story in the Christmas Episode, with the twist that instead of changing his ways, that turns out to be another Catapult Nightmare.
- Wicked Cultured: Max styles himself as something of a young Bond-villain-in-training and has a very sophisticated vocabulary for a boy his age.
