School of Rock is a
Nickelodeon Kid Com based on the
movie of the same name. Mr Finn, a failed musician, acts as a long-term substitute private middle school teacher but teaches his class about playing rock instead of history as they practice for
Battle of the Bands.
Tropes found in this series include:
- Accidental Kiss: The second type happens to Tomika and Zach in "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" as they were trying to write a love song and talking about kissing.
- Acquired Error at the Printer: After Summer and Tomika have a falling out in "Don't Know What You Got ('Til It's Gone)", Tomika attempts to patch things up with a grand gesture, including a banner reading 'Tomika and Summer'. Unfortunately, when she unfurls it, it actually reads 'Tomika and Bummer'.
- Adaptational Heroism: Dewey Finn in this adaptation is less of a Jerkass, at most being Innocently Insensitive and being clueless.
- Adaptation Name Change: Any character who underwent Race Lift is subject to this trope by having their last names changed to match their actors' ethnicities.
- Adaptation Personality Change: In contrast to her film counterpart, Summer is a Nice Girl who gets wrapped up in romance.
- Adapted Out: Katie is nowhere to be seen as Tomika is now the bass player and lead singer. Ned and Patty are also nowhere to be found as Dewey lives with his parents.
- Ascended Extra: While Tomika was an emotionally-charged character in the movie, she was one of the backup singers and didn't have much screentime. Here, she's one of the main characters and the bassist.
- Asian and Nerdy: Zach, but downplayed. He gets good grades and has very strict parents who dislike their son's interest in rock, preferring him to study classical music.
- Batman Gambit: A minor version in "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" when Summer is trying to get Zach back in the band. She asks his current band for use of their amp. She knew that Zach would have no problem but the others would belittle her and the School of Rock, making Zach come to their defense.
- The B Grade: In "The Other Side of Summer", Summer has an identity crisis after getting her first B,and the band must prevent the changes she goes through from becoming permanent.
- Big "NO!": Lampshaded in "We Are the Champions ... Maybe", Tomika has a raspy voice and tries to give a big no. Summer, noticing her inability, continues it for her.
- Bring the Anchor Along: In "Come Together", Lawrence chains the kids' bikes together with a titanium chain and then forgets the lock combination, forcing them to ride their bikes chained together in a row. They are also dragging the bike rack behind them.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Subverted at first. Mr. Finn is actually terrible at teaching anything but rock. However, Season 2 indicates that he is able to teach in a manner that's not only fun, but also effective (like using a rock concert as an analogy in teaching about atoms and molecules, and also giving extreme demonstrations such as dropping a bowling ball in a fish tank). In other words, it's so terrible that it works. Additionally, he ends up being a lot wiser in a lot of situations, and he is committed to pass his teaching mastery exam.
- Burger Fool: Mr. Finn's day-time job was working at his uncle's frozen yogurt cart...complete with an utterly ridiculous outfit.
- The Cover Changes the Gender: When the band performed "Shut Up And Dance" by Walk The Moon in "We Are The Champions...Maybe", the female love interest mentioned in the lyrics was changed to a male because Tomika (the lead singer) is female.
- Demoted to Extra: All of the kids who aren't in the band and Summer are presumably the rest of the students in the class.
- Deuteragonist: Summer serves as this to the protagonist Tomika.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Sung primarily by Breanna Yde (Tomika) with the other stars on their instruments.
- The Door Slams You: In "Total Eclipse of the Heart", Mr. Finn is attempting to open a door while he is covered in sheets of paper when he gets slammed by Tomika opening the door from the other side.
- Evolving Credits: The opening credits were refilmed for the final season.
- Exact Words: In "We're Not Gonna Take It", Freddie gets in trouble for dying his hair green. When the other students do the same to support him, Summer points out to the principal that there are no rules regarding hair color and points out that the principal colors her hair, too.
- Fanboy: Mr. Finn is one towards Jack Black, fittingly the person whose character his is based off of.
- Foreshadowing: The first episode has a scene of Principal Mullins dancing, this is used to solve the problem in the third episode.
- Halloween Episode: "Welcome to My Nightmare". Mr Finn encourages the class to have an unauthorized Halloween party after the principal goes home sick.
- Haplessly Hiding: In "Heroes & Villains", Clark hides in a trash can in the corridor so he can eavesdrop on the kids from Mr. Finn's class and take notes. Then the bell rings and the kids move away, and three girls who are passing dump their half-finished juices into the bin on top of him.
- Holding the Floor: In "Video Killed the Speed Debate Star" the gang needed to erase a video in the principal's office while she was coaching the Speed Debate team tryouts. They needed more time so Summer slowed her speech way down, then sped up.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: In "Cover Me", Summer sings terribly, but the actress is a good singer. Mr. Finn tried to fix that one episode, but he forgot to tell Summer the Trigger Phrase.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title is named after a song, sometimes with a small adaptation to fit the theme.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Summer in episode 4 wants to be songwriter so she has some way to contribute to the band.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One episode had the camera quickly panning between Summer and Tomika as they were talking with each other. After panning back to Tomika one time, it showed nothing...so Tomika says, "Down here", showing she was tying her shoes.
- Like a Surgeon: In "Minimum Wage", Tomika gets a job at Sumner's favourite store 'Totally Cute'. The other sales clerks hold her down while the head sales clerk Cricket conducts a makeover on her: calling out "crimper", "Glitter spray", etc, like surgeon.
- Line-of-Sight Name: Mr. Finn claims the bands lead singer is Signy because of a sign his old band mate is holding. He doesn't buy it.
- Manchild: Mr Finn lives with his father and is a failed musician who was kicked out of his former band. The students can associate with him more as he is more on their level. Kindergarteners, on the other hand, are too much for even Finn to handle.
- Mythology Gag: As mentioned above , Mr. Finn is a big fan of Jack Black, whose character is played by Black in the movie.
- Oblivious to Love: Freddy to Summer. As of "Total Eclipse of the Heart", the roles are reversed.
- Orbital Kiss: Between Freddy and Summer in part 2 of the Grand Finale.
- Promoted to Love Interest: In this adaptation, Freddy is Summer's main source of romantic affection, even if one-sided on Summer's part.
- Race Lift:
- Zack has gone from Caucasian to Asian.
- Lawrence has gone from Asian to Caucasian.
- Tomika has gone from African American to Caucasian.
- Secret-Keeper: The whole class has to keep the band a secret since it is non-official. This becomes problematic when Kale, who has trouble keeping secrets, transfers into their class in "Do You Want to Know a Secret?". Later in the episode, they end up telling her about the band and she promises to keep their secret, which she does in this and all future episodes.
- Shaped Like Itself: Freddie says school without Dewey would stink and just be like school.
- Shout-Out: To the film on which it is based, School of Rock: In the episode "Welcome to My Nightmare", Mr Finn dresses as Jack Black who played Mr Finn in the movie (well, actually he just wears a T-shirt with "Jack Black" written on it, but whatever works). He also borrowed the catchphrase "Skadoosh", which was from Jack Black's other role role as Po in Kung Fu Panda. In that same episode, Ms Mullins is singing Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen", like she was at the bar with Finn in the movie.
- Title Drop: In "A Band with No Name", the bandmates argue about what to call the band. After nearly breaking up at their first gig, a girl's birthday party, Lawrence announces their name is "School of Rock" which everyone else likes.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomika's Tomboy to Summer's Girly girl.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Summer FINALLY gets over Freddy in the episode, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" after she hangs out with him and Kale, even tearing down the poster of him in her locker. However, Freddy breaks up with Kale due to differences of likes and she urges him to find someone who he has things in common with. Freddy goes up to hang out with Summer, only to see her with another guy, which really saddens him.
- You Must Be Cold: Marks a Relationship Upgrade between Summer and Asher in "Total Eclipse of the Heart" They are on the roof in their pyjamas the during the school sleepover: watching the stars and bonding over their love of astronomy. Summer shivers and Asher takes off his coat and drapes it over Summer's shoulders. Freddy arrives just in time to see this, and turns and works away slowly.
