Sonny doesn't have a chance.
So Random! (2011-2012) is a Sketch Comedy series on the Disney Channel. Only lasted one season. Technically, the third season of what once was Sonny with a Chance. In that show, So Random was a Show Within a Show that the characters were stars on and snippets would be shown in between the off-set plots.
However, Demi Lovato, who played Sonny, refused to reprise their role after the second season in order to focus on their musical career and resolve some personal issues. The show was retooled and defictionalized into its own show, losing the backstage plots and becoming a full-fledged Sketch Comedy show complete with special and musical guests.
The entire series is now on Disney+.
So Random provides the following tropes:
- Action Girl: In the Wheel of Fortune Parody, the Vanna White equivalent got so annoyed by Fred, that she ripped off a piece of the board, and bashed it onto Fred's head.Vanna: You're welcome, America!
- Apparently, Strawberry Shortcake as well, in a parody segment called "Strawberry Shortbread Saves the Earth".
- Affectionate Parody: Similar to its role in Sonny with a Chance, it is a parody of All That, You Can't Do That on Television, The Amanda Show, MMC, etc. and its tone reflects that.
- Age-Inappropriate Dress: Your Daughter's Closet, the only store that sells cool clothes to moms who are too old to rock them!
- Baby Talk: There is a sketch where Coco Jones and Tawni play two women in the mall talking babyishly to their dogs.
- The Band Minus the Face: At least where the nucleus of the cast is concerned, it is basically Sonny with a Chance minus Sonny. The behind the scenes plotlines concerning Sonny have been abandoned as well, but are briefly brought back in the episode in which Tony Hawk guest-starred.
- Berserk Button/Beware the Nice Ones: Tantrum Girl, in the "Tantrum Girl" skits, EVERYTHING.
- Including the fact that people think she throws tantrums.
- Black Comedy: The "Zombie Man" skits. One of them involves Zombie Man eating his teacher and then
using her bones as a science project. - Breaking the Fourth Wall: In Miss Piggy's episode, we see her talking to Kermit on the phone. Her side of the conversation (we don't hear Kermit's) goes something like:Miss Piggy: Kermit, Kermit. Let me explain this again. So Random!, the Show Within a Show is now its own show. Yes, Chad's a Random now, deal with it!"
- Call-Back: In one of the Tantrum Girl skits, Allisyn Ashley Arm wears her Blossom Scout uniform from Sonny with a Chance.
- Glendovia, the imaginary country featured in a Sonny with a Chance episode, gets a fair mention in one sketch.
- Cannot Convey Sarcasm: The eponymous character of "Possibly Sarcastic Skip", was born with a terrible disease that makes everything he says sarcastic, whether he intends it that way or not.
- Captain Ersatz: One of the sketches has a cheery food-themed girl named Strawberry Shortbread. Of course, it's definitely not Strawberry Shortcake: This one avenges her friends and saves the world from extraterrestrials!
- Captain Obvious:
- Taylor Swift in the Wheel of Fortune sketch:
Taylor: (singing) I'll spin the wheel, it'll turn clockwise.
Pat: Okay thank you Princess Obvious, now will you spin the wheel?- Also, a literal incarnation of the trope (a captain who goes around pointing out obvious things) in one episode, followed by his theme song playing and him clarifying, "That's my theme song!"
- Character Catchphrase:
- Rufus always introduces his lies with "Oh, you're not going to believe this!"
- Angus's girlfriend always responds to his weird behaviors with "Angus, you know that pose drives me CRAAAAAZZYYY!" to which he replies "I knnnnnoooooorrrrrr!" Angus also likes to ask people "Have you seen my shins? They're like sticks."
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Demi Lovato, due to leaving the show for rehab. Chad took over their place at So Random! who now appear to have greeted him with open arms most likely meaning they have resolved their mostly sour relationship with him in the backstage story world of Sonny with a Chance.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Anything Rufus says turns out to be true, even though his stories are full of outlandish twists.
- Culture Justifies Anything: Olaf, the Fauxreigner from Glendovianote uses this to get away with his pranks by claiming that they're all Glendovian customs. It works.
- Cut Short: At one season and 26 episodes, this is the shortest-run live-action Disney Channel Original Series. That’s if you even count it as its own series; Disney+ doesn’t.
- A Dog Ate My Homework: Rufus tells his teacher that the dog ate his homework, then clarifies it was not actually a dog, but a monkey took it instead. (Actually, the monkey force-fed the dog the homework). The dog did, however, eat the plane tickets.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Sung by cast member Brandon Mychal Smith, titled "So Random (It's A Party In Here)".
- Extreme Doormat: Subverted. The Goth girl from the Garage Band sketches acts like one, but she goes berserk at the not raging people who try to join the band.Girl: GET OUTTA MY GARAGE! [screams several times]
- Fauxreigner: One sketch revolves around a kid named Oscar who got expelled due to pranking, but goes back as Olaf, a foreign transfer student from Glendovia.
- Funny Foreigner: Angus, the Australian Supermodel.
- Game Show Appearance: The first skit of the first episode had Chad as Fred, Tawni as Taylor Swift and Nico as Willow Smith on Wheel of Fortune.
- Grammar Nazi: MC Grammar interrupts raps to correct the rappers' grammar, to the point of getting beat up.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Tantrum Girl, as her name would suggest, throws tantrums at the drop of a hat from things as minor as getting ice cubes in her drink instead of crushed ice.
- Hitler Ate Sugar: Joked with in in skit:Announcer: You know who else said they looked good in hats? Attila the Hun.
- If I Can't Have You…: Audrey Vale's character, Julia Peters {aka the "I'm going to marry Zac Feldmin show" girl), shows this during her cheer.Julia: Zac! Zac! He's my man! If I can't have him, NO ONE CAN!!!
- Improbably Predictable: In a school news sketch, one of the anchors keeps handing the other letters responding to his response to the previous letter. At one point, the other anchor asks "when did you find the time to write all these letters and how did you know what I was going to say?", which is replied to with a letter saying "Because you're very predictable".
- Ironic Echo: In the "MC Grammar" sketch.Rapper: You say we rhymin' bad?
MC Grammar: No, you're rhyming badly.
(Later))
Rapper #1: You wanna beat him bad?
Rapper #2: Let's beat him badly. - Lethal Chef: Grady's character, Roadkill Mcguill, owns a foodtruck where he cooks dead animals that were ran over on the road. At one point, he even gives False Reassurance by denying hurting a living creature before he mentions that someone else already ran the animals over when he finds them.
- Lighter and Softer: The show is essentially a Disney-fied You Can't Do That on Television.
- Mad Libs Catchphrase: "Don't mean to brag, but Insert Failure Here. Hollah!"
- The Simple Country Boy has "Aint nothin' but a (Insert complicated metaphor here)" when someone thanks him for something.
- Tawni's character says this to Angus in every sketch: "Oh Angus, you know (insert whatever he's doing in the sketch) drives me CRAZY!!!"
- Mr. Goodman will occasionally shout out the name of a food and then smash into something.
- Muppet Cameo: Miss Piggy makes an appearance in one episode.
- New Transfer Student: In one sketch, after being expelled due to pranking, a boy named Oscar becomes the Fauxreigner Olaf, who came from Glendovia.
- Parental Bonus: A few, with shout-outs to The King's Speech (a R-rated film with a famous Cluster F-Bomb scene) and "The Most Interesting Man in the World" (an ad for beer).
- Parody/Homage: MC Grammar.
- Retool: How do you carry on without your main character? Why focus on the Show Within a Show of course.
- Sentai: Parodied with one sketch that was a Take That! to Nickelodeon's Supah Ninjas.
- Short-Runners
- Shout-Out: The Halloween episode has do's and don'ts done by a particular person who shall not be named... He's made a couple other appearances since then.
- Sketch Comedy: The show is composed of short sketches.
- Spin-Off: In fact, the show (and its promos) removed all mentioning of the original show and counts it as a "New season of So Random".
- Spiritual Successor: To Nickelodeon's All That in that it's also a children's sketch show with tween and teen actors.
- Stalker with a Crush: "I'm Gonna Marry Zac Feldman Show!" revolves around one. The name of the sketch is a dead ringer for it.
- Take That!
- One sketch has Fred, Taylor Swift and Willow Smith participate in a game show, but no one can actually play because Taylor keeps singing all her answers to the tune of the pre-chorus of her song "You Belong With Me", Willow keeps flipping her weave and saying repeating everything she says at least twice, and Fred is too busy being... Well, Fred.
- The show itself seems like a parody of SNL Celebrity Jeopardy.
- Another sketch has Harry Potter struggling to understand "the real world". Even though he spent 11 years there and then some.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Sonny's disappearance. In the premiere episode, none of the cast mention Sonny nor ever said of what happened to her. Chad immediately took her place as the new Random without explanation and he doesn't mention Sonny, either. Even Chad and Sonny's yet-to-be rekindled relationship hasn't been spoken about again after the Retool.
- It was never made clear if the Randoms and the Falls have made peace with each other since Chad is now the new cast member. The Tony Hawk episode sees Chad plug Mackenzie Falls in the opening, so he's clearly still on that show.
- Marshall doesn't appear in the spin-off and his whereabouts were never commented on, either.
- You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: Rufus, who always spins outlandish (but somehow true) tales to justify his behavior, uses this as his catch-phrase, "Oh, you're not going to believe this!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCHMtmpYpAo
