That Girl Lay Lay is a series for Nickelodeon, which premiered on September 23, 2021.
Sadie Alexander (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green) is an ordinary freshman who gets nervous in front of others, which is why she relies on her positive affirmation app with an artificially intelligent avatar called Lay Lay (Alaya High aka "That Girl Lay Lay") for helpful advice. When Sadie wishes on a shooting star that Lay Lay was real, her wish comes true and causes Lay Lay to become human, and the two become an inseparable duo on a series of adventures as Sadie learns to stay true to herself, while trying to keep Lay Lay's identity hidden.
The series is the second spinoff from the 2019 All That revival to feature a cast member and 8th spinoff overall.
In March 2024, Gabrielle Nevaeh Green announced the series was cancelled
, ending That Girl Lay Lay at 2 seasons of 46 episodes.
Main cast:
- Gabrielle Nevaeh Green as Sadie Alexander
- Alaya High/"That Girl Lay Lay" as Lay Lay
- Thomas Hobson as Bryce Alexander, Sadie's father
- Tiffany Daniels as Trish Alexander, Sadie's mom
- Peyton R. Perrine III as Marky Alexander, Sadie's younger brother
- Andrea Barber as Principal Zelda Willingham
- Anna Grace Arnold as Gigi
- Kensington Tallman as Tiffany Highlander
- Elijah M. Cooper as Cobo
- Archer Vattano as Scoot
- Roz Ryan as Sister Velma
- Lony'e Perrine as Gladys
- Ishmel Sahid as Woody
- Caleb Brown as Jeremy Miller
Tropes:
- Alpha Bitch: Downplayed with Sadie and Lay Lay's nemesis at their school, Tiffany Highlander, who can sometimes be a Lovable Alpha Bitch. She is sometimes very competitive, manipulative, and arrogant, but she can also be nice and sweet as well sometimes when you get to know her and more often than not, she will not let anyone slight or disrespect her friends or her school. This often causes Sadie and Lay Lay to have a love-hate, frenemy relationship with her.
- Attention Whore: Lay Lay is very well known for being quite outgoing and extroverted, which means she often ends up being the center of attention, even when she doesn't deliberately try to be.
- Best Friend Manual: Sadie and Lay Lay tend to be this way toward each other as best friends, because they develop such a strong and almost sisterly bond and understanding for each other.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: When Lay Lay sets up a classic "Bucket Over a Door Frame" prank for Sadie, Marky asks her what's inside the bucket by saying, "If it's not confetti in it, what's in it? Glitter? Ping-pong balls? Scorpions?" He says "scorpions" specifically because he lost some actual live scorpions inside the house. It's a long story
- Black and Nerdy: Sadie is an example of this as she can be somewhat geeky and nerdy sometimes.
- Burger Fool: Other than the Alexanders' house, the other spot that Lay Lay, Sadie, and their friends hang out at a lot is a local 1990's hip-hop culture-themed fast food burger restaurant called The Boombox Burger, owned by the Alexanders' friend, Woody. Woody can also be considered an example of a stingy cheapskate sometimes with the way he jacks up the prices on the foods he sells, and with the way he runs things at the Boombox Burger.
- Crossover: A five way crossover with Danger Force, Side Hustle, Warped!, and Tyler Perry's Young Dylan. Munchy from Side Hustle later appears in the episode "The Packer Packer Bowl"
- Chatty Hairdresser: Gladys in the episode, "Lay Lay's Beauty Shop Day Day,"
- Character Development:
- A large part of the series' plot is Sadie's character starting off the show as quite shy and timid when it comes to how she interacts with others and when it comes to public speaking. However, as the show progresses on, due to Lay Lay encouraging her with positive reinforcement and helping her to stay true to her authentic self, Sadie becomes much more confident and self-assured.
- Lay Lay, when she first comes to life as a human being, starts off the series being kind of nervous and worried about fitting in as a human and hiding her true identity as an artificially intelligent avatar, but as the series progresses on, Lay Lay becomes much more sentient and emotionally aware and even develops strong, loving relationships with the other characters of the show along with Sadie.
- Christmas Episode: The episode "Fa-la-la-la-la-la-Lay-Lay" revolves around Lay Lay learning about what Christmas is all about with the Alexander Family and celebrating Christmas with them.
- Church Lady: The Positive Type but with a side of Sassy Black Woman: Sister Velma, the elderly woman and choir member from the church the Alexander Family and Lay Lay attends in the episode, "Ha-Lay-Lay-Lujah," can be considered a positive example of this trope, although she can also be quite snarky and sassy sometimes.
- Consistent Clothing Style: Unlike Lay Lay who seems to have an Unlimited Wardrobe on the show, Sadie can often be seen wearing mostly the same type of modest but trendy, and geeky graphic tee shirt outfits, or girly sweater and button down shirt outfits throughout most of the show all the time.
- Family of Choice / Parental Substitute: Given that Lay Lay has no real human parents since she is an artificially intelligent avatar, Sadie and Marky's parents, Trish and Bryce, often serve the role of being like the parents on the show that she never had, and Sadie and Marky often serve as being like the brother and sister she never had. This especially becomes more pronounced in the second season of the show, when Trish has an emotional moment with her and hugs her telling her she loves her almost like a second daughter, and Lay Lay thanks her and the Alexander Family for being like an honorary family and adoptive parents for her.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Happens between Lay Lay and Sadie due to an avatar glitch in the appropriately titled episode, "Freaky Fri Day-Day".
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Sadie and Lay Lay offer good examples of this trope, as they are both girly girls in their mannerisms and styles of clothing most of the time, but they sometimes have a tendency to display interests in things that can be stereotypically considered tomboyish and masculine.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Almost every episode (with only the exception of a few) features a pun on Lay Lay's name in the title.
- Invisible Parents: Justified with Lay Lay since Lay Lay is an artificially intelligent avatar who was wished to life as a human, but she has no real human parents. And how does she and Sadie explain this absence of parents to the Alexander family: that she's an exchange student from Houston who doesn't have any local relatives to stay with, so she has to live with the Alexander Family, thus enforcing the plot to keep Lay Lay around.
- Jive Turkey / Soul Sista: Being a rapper, Lay Lay is very much in touch with modern trends and frequently uses Generation Z internet slang in her vocabulary, such as "Yassss", "Drip", and "Lit".
- The Matchmaker: Lay Lay and Sadie try to play matchmaker for their high school principal, Principal Zelda Willingham, in the episode "How Zelda Got Her Groove Back Back", however, this unfortunately goes awry when the two of them end up setting up Principal Willingham on a blind date with two different guys at the same time.
- Nobody Touches the Hair: In "Lay Lay & Sadie's Big Hair Adventure" Sadie's hair gets messed up after Lay Lay's prank, and they have to go through many crazy, convoluted antics to get it fixed.
- No Indoor Voice: Lay Lay tends to shout nearly everything she says.
- Running Gag:
- Lay Lay threatening to beat up everyone who wrongs Sadie. She gets very close in "Granny Fae Fae & Lay Lay" before being carried away by Sadie.
- Jeremy’s feud with squirrels in particular and rodents in general
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: "That Dude Dylan" has a subplot of Marky becoming depressed after selling his Snapper toy.
- The Prankster: Downplayed with Lay Lay. Lay Lay is not an incurable prankster as she does not do it very often, but she does sometimes like to play practical jokes on Marky and Sadie on occasion. And they, in turn, will sometimes play pranks on her to get back at her.
- Perky Goth Girl: Sadie and Lay Lay's friend from their school, Gigi, can be considered a good example of this trope as she often expresses herself in a emo/goth-type of style, but she is also very cheery and perky at the same time, and often loves indulging in hobbies that most people wouldn't think she would have any interest in because of her emo/goth style of expression.
- Sassy Black Woman: Lay Lay has quite a tomboyish, cheeky attitude with the occasional snark.
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie: An overarching part of the show is Sadie pretending Lay Lay is an exchange student from Houston, to hide her identity as an artificially intelligent avatar.
- Secret Identity: Sadie tries to keep Lay Lay's original identity as an app a secret from most others, especially her family.
- Secret-Keeper: As of the S2 premiere, Marky is the only person other than Sadie who knows of Lay Lay's avatar identity.
- Slapstick: Although it doesn't happen often, sometimes, all the characters can be subjected to a little bit of slapstick comedy and antics sometimes. Especially with Lay Lay and the Alexander Family.
- Special Guest: Young Dylan, who is also a child rapper like Alaya High/That Girl Lay Lay, has guest starred on numerous episodes of the show alongside High.
- Jack Griffo, who played as Max Thunderman from the Nickelodeon series The Thundermans, guest stars on the episode, "Beastie Pie" as a popular internet influencer who Marky looks up to and is exposed for being sleazy towards the end of the episode.
- The Good Newz Girls, a teen female Pop/R&B musical group, guest stars on the episode "Lay Lay's Par-Tay-Tay".
- Superpowers: Lay Lay is NOT a literal superhero, but because she is an artificially intelligent avatar, she has a few cybernetic sci-fi superpowers that can bend the laws of physics to her will, and she calls them "Avatar Powers". Only a select few characters know about her Avatar Powers as of Season 2, including Sadie and Marky. Some examples of them that she occasionally uses throughout the show, include:
- Time Master: Lay Lay can freeze time at will, and she can even choose who and what to freeze and not to freeze at any given time. This also happens to be the power she uses most often throughout the show.
- Teleportation with Drawbacks: Lay Lay can instantly teleport anywhere, but she doesn't know how to control it too precisely and accurately, because it only works when she sneezes. So she tries to quickly think of a good place she wants to teleport to before she sneezes just in case her sneezes teleport her somewhere she doesn't want to be.
- Invisibility with Drawbacks: Lay Lay can turn herself invisible but only for a limited time because she has to hold a deep breath in order for it to work. So the biggest drawback is that it usually never lasts long before she's gasping for air.
- Emotional Powers: Sometimes her Avatar Powers can be affected by when she has intense emotional episodes, which also causes her to have to learn how to control her emotions in a healthy way.
- Totally Radical: Lay Lay is extremely Internet savvy and it shows in her dialogue with her frequent use of Generation Z slang. This is a given, considering she's from a phone app.
- Unusual Pets for Unusual People: In the episode, "Lay Lay Gets A Pet-Pet," the Alexander Family allow Lay Lay to adopt a pig as a pet, and she very fittingly, (or maybe quite ironically depending on how you look at it) names him "Bacon".
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Lay Lay is always seen wearing a very wide range of often flamboyant and opulent, chic, teen-style outfits that are always, as she would say, "blinged out" and "sparkled" for her personal pleasure. This is because Lay Lay's character is loosely based on Alaya High's real-life hip hop rapper persona and brand, "That Girl Lay Lay," who is often seen wearing very flashy and opulent chic, teen-style outfits for her performances and music videos.
- Wish Upon a Shooting Star: What brings Lay Lay to life in the first episode.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Jeremy (Sadie and Lay Lay's friend) vanishes after Season 1. His roles are replaced by Cobo and Scoot.
