Series / Zoey 101

♪ If you wanna play, come and play today
Let's just get away, yeah ♪

Largely famous as Britney's sister's show. It premiered on January 9, 2005 and ended on May 2, 2008.

Pacific Coast Academy was previously an all boys school, but has just begun admitting girls. Among that first class of girls is one Zoey Brooks (Jamie Lynn Spears), who has to contend with the boys when it comes to any privilege among the school. But of course, having a gender-integrated school proves to be appealing for both sides and it basically becomes a college-type atmosphere but with teenagers.

The show began with Zoey and her roommates Nicole Bristow (Alexa Nikolas) and Dana Cruz (Kristin Herrera), with Zoey making friends with Chase Matthews (Sean Flynn) and his roomates, Michael Barrett (Christopher Massey) and Logan Reese (Matthew Underwood). Zoey was also called upon to look after her younger brother Dustin (Paul Butcher), with the slightly crazy geek Quinn Pensky (Erin Sanders) always ensuring that Hilarity Ensues at PCA.

As time went on multiple characters were replaced. Dana left, and was replaced by Lola Martinez (Victoria Justice). Later, Nicole left, which allowed Quinn to move in with Lola and Zoey. Finally, Chase ended up leaving for a semester and was briefly replaced by James Garrett (Austin Butler).

Created by Dan Schneider, the show is the origin of the Nick Verse, created when Drake Bell showed up As Himself. Victoria Justice would later take part in another Schneider comedy, Victorious.

Nowadays, the show tends to be seen in a positive light—the only major criticism detractors have is that Zoey herself is too perfect, and even then, many episodes don't focus on her. It's also unique as the only major show in the Nick Verse to not have a Laugh Track or be shot on a stage; it was shot on location at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

On September 18th 2015, Dan Schneider released a video featuring Michael finding Chase and giving him Zoey's DVD (from the episode Time Capsule) and allowing him (and the fans) to know just what exactly Zoey had said about him on her DVD ten years ago. Given how the episode had premiered on September 18th 2005, this would make it exactly ten years from when Zoey told Chase he would be allowed to find out.

On January 12th 2023, a sequel film entitled ''Zoey 102'' was announced. It was released in July on Paramount Plus.

Please put characterization tropes on the Character Sheet.

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This show contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc: Judging by their interactions in Season 1, it's clear that Dana and Logan were supposed to be building a relationship over the course of the series, but Dana leaving the show after said season put this plot to rest.
• Advertised Extra: Dustin. He appears in only 24 of the show's 65 episodes, yet is credited as a regular in every season. To put that into perspective, Mark and Stacey (the latter introduced in season 3) appear in more episodes than Dustin does, and they were recurring characters.
• After Action Patch Up: The girls do this for the guys after they get beat up by the football team. Poor Mark, though, is forgotten in the basketball hoop...
• Agent Scully: Logan is an interesting case, as he is this purely out of fear and panicked denial instead of any type of rational.
• All-Cheering All the Time: Zoey and her two friends are trying to make money to rebuild Sushi Rox so Logan hires them as cheerleaders for a week or so. At first he makes them cheer him on for nearly everything, but then they actually cheer at everything (getting rejected, taking a bath, sleeping) so he gets tired of it and pays them to shut up.
• Almighty Janitor: Herb, a skilled Shakespearian actor and impressive improviser.
• Amateur Film-Making Plot: In "Jet X", the characters are given the task of creating their own commercials for the Jet X bike to be shown off in class, with the best group winning their own bikes. Chase, Logan and Michael end up with professional equipment and actors thanks to Logan's wealth, while Zoey, Nicole and Dana keep fighting over their ideas and eventually split up. They later reconcile, and review their footage which includes their argument, as they couldn't figure out how to turn off the camera. Zoey stays up all night editing whatever footage they were able to get into a unique commercial as during their argument each girl mentioned a positive theme of the Jet-X, which impressed their teacher, and won the contest for her and the other girls.
• Anchored Ship: Zoey and Chase in the final Season, when due to some miscommunication, Zoey is at PCA, while Chase is in the school she was supposed to be going to in England. The end result is a Type 1.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Logan and Quinn in Chasing Zoey...though not just to each other. They end up declaring their feelings to the entire school at prom mostly by accident.
• Apple of Discord: The Tek-Mates in "Spring Break-Up". Chase accidentally sends Zoey a message proclaiming his love for her, thus he steals her Tek-Mate to delete the message which also results in her losing one of the challenges. Thus, Zoey and the girls are furious with him and it becomes a real battle.
• The Artifact: As the series went on, the focus shifted from an average girl at a new school surrounded by colorful students, to standard relationship drama. As a result, Dustin became this by season 3.
• Artistic License – Biology: In Little Beach Party, while stranded on a deserted beach, the gang digs for worms to fish for food. Earthworms would not be found in sand, as they cannot survive in it.
• Artistic License – Physics: In Jet-X, Zoey puts balloons on the eponymous scooter. There were far too few balloons to lift the scooter off the ground, plus it only lifted off after Zoey attached one last balloon on it.
• Artistic License – Sports: Zoey would not have been allowed to fight Chuck Javers, as she would have to be in his weight class, which she clearly is not. Additionally, Javers wouldn't be allowed to compete in the sport period due to attacking a referee and cameraman.
• Ax-Crazy: Chuck Javers, the undefeated California State High School Wrestling champion. His Establishing Character Moment is him brutalizing his opponent in a wrestling match, then doing the same to the ref when he tries to stop him and then attacking the camera man simply for looking at him.
• Bait-and-Switch: In the beginning of "Paige at PCA" Lola remarking on how "her left one is bigger" one and it sounds like she's talking about her breasts but she reveals she's actually talking about her feet.
• Beach Episode: Remarkably there is only one real example: Little Beach Party. Which, being a first season episode, is quite tame on the fanservice.
  • But there are a few sunbathing scenes in later seasons to make up for that.
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: Subverted. Quinn dresses up in a kid-adapted version of this, in order to recover the interest of Mark, who left her for a girl who dresses like this. Mark tells her that he is not attracted to his new love's hotness but her personality and rejects her. Thanks to Logan's words and actions, she switches back to her usual clothes.
• Beautiful All Along: Quinn. She gives herself a makeover to try and win back Mark, only to fail and have Logan fall in love with her. He puts her glasses back on her and says "There's Quinn.", right before their first kiss. Of course, Quinn is played by Erin Sanders, however, this does put a nice spin on the cliche of a geeky girl taking off her glasses, getting a makeover, and having a guy fall in love with her.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Since Zoey fits all three roles, she can be each one of them depending on who are her current roommates:
  • Season 1:
    • Beauty - Nicole, the most boy-crazy and the most sensitive.
    • Brains - Zoey, a Go-Getter Girl who always gets perfect grades.
    • Brawn - Dana, an athletic, intimidating tomboy.
  • Season 3 and 4:
    • Beauty - Lola, a fashionable Dude Magnet.
    • Brains - Quinn, a science-loving Teen Genius.
    • Brawn - Zoey, who is good at every sport.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite Chuck "getting rough on her", Zoey doesn't have a single mark on her that suggests she was in a fight, much less one against someone as vicious as Chuck. This trope is averted with Logan who confronts Chuck and ends up looking like he tried to mug Mike Tyson.
• Beauty Pageant: Zoey and Lola compete for the title of “Miss PCA” in an episode of the third season.
• Beleaguered Assistant: Chase is this to Logan while working as Sushi delivery boys
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Arguably, Logan and Dana in season 1. This would have been more than arguably, as Logan and Dana were supposed to start dating later on, but this was switched to Logan and Quinn after Kristen Herrera left the show.
  • To many, Logan also has this with Zoey and, to a lesser extent, Lola.
• The Bet: This is the plot, or sub-plot, of several episodes (commonly, girls vs. boys, but also guys vs. guys, everyone vs. Logan)
• Beta Couple: Mark and Quinn, for most of the series; later also Michael and Lisa, then Lola and Vince.
• Betty and Veronica: An interesting case, as Logan could be considered the Veronica to Mark’s Betty for Quinn’s affection. Another case of canon comparison is Rebecca being the Veronica to Zoey’s Betty in terms of Chase. In Fandom strictly, Dana is often considered the Veronica to Quinn’s Betty for Logan.
  • Brooke is the Veronica to Quinn's Betty for Mark.
• Big Brother Mentor: YMMV, but Chase can be seen as this for Dustin most of the time. Logan once tried to be this to Dustin with unsuccessful results.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Chase and Zoey in the finale.
• Big "NO!": Michael does this when he sees that Vince is back in, well, Vince is Back.
  • Logan also did this after his dad cuts him off.
• Birthday Episode: “Chase’s Grandma” in season 3 is centered on Zoey wanting to bring Chase’s grandmother to his birthday party.
• Blackmail: Rebecca finds out a secret of Zoey in Zoey's Balloon and makes her do all sorts of humiliating things on campus.
• Bland-Name Product: It's a Dan Schneider show, so of course.
• Blowing a Raspberry: Lola does this to Quinn in Anger Management when Quinn begs her to say something, anything to her so that she doesn't have to endure Lola's silent treatment anymore.
  Quinn: Lola! (grabs Lola by the shoulders) You are not moving from this spot until you say something to me! A sentence, a phrase, a word, a sound, something!
  Lola: (blows a raspberry at Quinn)
• Boarding School: Duh.
• Book Ends: In the first episode, when Zoey sees Chase for the first time after he falls off his bike, she asks him if he's okay and notices that his arm is bleeding. In Chasing Zoey, when he falls down the stairs she does the same thing.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Downplayed in "The Great Vince Blake". Chase is torn between ratting out a star athlete for cheating and getting beat up by the football team and letting him off the hook so his school can win the championship. Michael thinks Chase should let him off the hook pointing out only he cares about Vince cheating while the championship is important to the entire school. Chase acknowledges Michael has a point but realizes that what Vince did trumps that.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: "Hands On A Blix Van" has Quinn laughing nonstop as a side-effect from a breath spray she invented. As a last resort, Lola kisses Quinn's boyfriend Mark in front of her. Quinn tackles Lola in a fit of rage, but quickly forgives her when Lola points out that she did it to get her to stop laughing, and it worked. After they leave, Mark remarks how much he enjoyed that.
• Broke Episode: In Logan Gets Cut Off Logan's rich father cuts off his allowance and credit after Logan not only way overspends, but does so on a car without asking his father's permission first. He has a very hard time doing things for himself.
• Broken Aesop:
  • One episode involved Zoey and Logan starting a web segment that quickly became popular in school. However, the dean bans them from doing it, so they fight back and win, the moral being "censorship is bad". Which would be fine, except for the fact that the show was causing full-scale riots in the halls during school hours. That kind of response is a valid reason to ban something.
  • In another episode, Zoey is recruited to the wrestling team, becoming the only girl there. She stays on the team to prove girls can wrestle too, but it turns out specifically because the coach knew the boys on the opposing team will refuse to fight her and forfeit, before he can let their own star wrestler fight the opposing team’s top fighter without getting tired, and Zoey is fairly offended by their attitude. When things go awry and Zoey has to wrestle the opposing team’s star wrestler, he tells her he will fight her just as seriously as he would fight a male wrestler. He takes her down so bad she has to be hospitalized, and when she wakes up she finds Logan was injured even worse when he confronted said wrestler, insisting he should have pulled some punches while fighting a girl. Zoey has apparently completely forgotten the point she was going to make by joining the team, because she finds the ‘gesture’ touching.
• The Bully: Keith Finch from the season 1 episode Defending Dustin.
  • Vince Blake, before he reformed.
• Bully Hunter: Zoey in the above listed bully in "Defending Dustin". A bit deconstructed as her confrontation of Keith only made things worse for Dustin while Chase and Michael tried to convince her that Dustin had to learn how to handle the situation on his own without his big sister coming to his defense.
• Butt-Monkey: The series had a few, although not all at the same time:
  • Stacey (oh so much).
  • Quinn can be considered this as well.
  • Let's not forget Mark Del Figgalo. The aardvark costume alone should be enough for him to make the list.
  • Coco, more often than not.
  • Chase also qualifies.
  • Logan, but he often deserves it.
  • Alyssa, Chase's girlfriend in the 2015 video. He is about to propose to her, when Michael interrupts to say he found Zoey's DVD. They spend the rest of the video pushing her aside, Chase tells her he still loves Zoey, and he takes the ring he was about to propose to Alyssa with so he can go find Zoey. Just before Michael enters, Chase starts off his proposal by calling her "Zoe" before correcting himself. Even worse, it's shown that Chase still carries a photo of Zoey from her teenage years. Alyssa rightfully demands to know why he has that, and Michael is rightfully creeped out by it.
• Captain Obvious: In "Spring Fling"
  Michael: (seeing the Dean's wrecked car) It's wrecked.
  Zoey: Thank you, Michael.
• Catchphrase: Michael tried to make “Dripping” into one and later he tried to make “Flump” after he heard someone using “Dripping” but could not take credit for its invention
• Celebrity Paradox
• Celebrity Star
• Chain of Deals: The episode The Favor Chain centers around this.
  • Zoey wants a ride to the book store to meet her favorite author, and when she asks her dorm advisor, Coco, to do it, Coco agrees if Zoey can get Michael to cook his grandmother's ravioli recipe. Michael will do it if Stacey will finish their school project by herself while he cooks. Zoey convinces Stacey to finish the project if Zoey can get her a date with Logan. Logan (reluctantly) agrees to go on a date with Stacey if Zoey gets his class ring back from Dustin which he lost in a bet. Dustin will give the ring back if Zoey convinces Lola to be his assistant in his magic show. Lola, who's looking after a teacher's baby, agrees to do it if Zoey can find someone else to look after the baby. Zoey gets Chase to do it if Zoey can get a group of comic book nerds to stop trying to befriend him. The nerds agree to leave Chase alone if they can have a computer software that Quinn invented. But when Quinn can't hold her end of the deal, the whole chain of favors falls apart.
• Character Check: Lola was a originally a snarky Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Similar to her predecessor Dana. In season 3 Lola Took a Level in Kindness and became more cheerful. However, she would still show signs of her original character from time to time by being a bit snarky with people.
• Chekhov's Gun: The maintenance golf cart in Dance Contest.
• Chick Magnet: James is the biggest one in-series, but apparently both Logan and Vince do very well for themselves in this department.
  • Chase himself isn't so bad either.
  • If we take in consideration who is the character with more steady relationships in the entire show Mark seems to be this too, in a weird way.
• Clip Show: The episode "PCA Confidential" is one, complete with a couple of fourth wall breaks: the dry erase board has "Clip Shows Rock" written behind Zoey, and Chase says "I can think of a whole montage of fun stuff we've done"...cue said montage.
• Clueless Aesop: The episode "Anger Management," seems to be trying to teach the moral that being angry isn't a positive thing, which is normally a positive message. The problem is that the episode also showcases real examples of when it WOULD be justifiable to get angry at someone, namely having people destroy your property, on purpose, in a deliberate attempt to make you mad.
• Cold Opening: One of the few Dan Schneider shows without them (Kenan & Kel didn't either).
• Company Cross References: In "Curse of PCA", Lafe asks Lola if she thinks he's silly, and Lola says back "No, SpongeBob's friend Patrick is silly."
• Continuity Nod: In “Webcam” it’s mentioned for the first time that Quinn still likes eating baby food. This is brought up again in “Quarantine”, when Quinn reveals that she keeps a secret stock of baby food in her room.
• Contrasting Replacement Character: Lola, Dana's replacement in season 2, is very different from her. Dana was a grumpy, sporty tomboy who doesn't get along with Nicole, Lola is a carefree, girly fashionista who gets along with everyone. Ironically in season 3, Lola becomes a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to Nicole, after the latter is Put on a Bus (in season 2 Lola was just a confident fashionista with her own original style, but in season 3, she becomes perky, boy-crazy, and conventionally girly like Nicole was, losing her colorful hair and original style).
• Cool Bike: The Jet X.
• Cool Teacher: Mr. Bender
• Crash-Into Hello: Chase first meets Zoey when he crashed into a flagpole on his bike while waving to her.
• Crazy Cultural Comparison: In the episode School Dance Michael ends up taking care of a foreign exchange student Ollie Biallo whose strange mannerisms irritate him to no end.
  Ollie: It is so pleasant to meet you! (kisses Michael twice on the cheek)
  Michael: What are you doing?!
  Ollie: I am sorry! In my country, that is how a person greets a new friend!
  Michael: Yeah well, in this country that's how you get punched in the head!
  Ollie: (thinking it's a joke) (laughs) "Good one!" Oh, you make me laugh!
• Dance Party Ending: "Zoey's Balloon" ends with Zoey and the gang dancing the Macalana on the campus.
• Deadpan Snarker: Among the males Chase surely is the biggest one in the series, followed more subtly by James and among the females Dana wins the snarking trophy with Zoey in second place.
• Defying the Censors:
  • What the guys did to the statue at the end of Prank Week
  • Zoey and Lola's brawl in mud in Miss PCA - in low cut prom dresses none the less
  • Quinn's "Air Bra;" a woman's personal car air bags attached to her chest. Enough said.
• Demographically Inappropriate Humor: When Zoey, Nicole, and Dana are asked by Chase and Michael to take care of a dog they took in, Dana tells Zoey and Nicole to keep the dog out of her stuff, or "He is going to become a she". Nicole even says "Ouch" in response.
  • After Chase and Michael receive a letter saying they're being sued for stealing an idea (which Logan gave them) for their online cartoon, Logan comes in the dorm only to be threatened.
  Logan: What's up, girly girls?
  Michael: (pins Logan to the wall) We're about to make you a girly girl!
  Logan: Why the hostility?
• Died on Their Birthday: In "Chase's Grandma", Zoey learns that Chase and his grandmother share a birthday, and she decides to invite her over to PCA as a surprise. However, Zooey later finds out that she died the day of the party.
• Disproportionate Retribution: While Logan would usually get rightly punished for his actions, sometimes the punishment didn't fit the crime.
  • In the Halloween special, they set up an elaborate prank into making Logan think his haunted house really was haunted and was gonna kill him when all he did was just scare Dustin and his friend with monster mask.
  • In "Zoey's Tutor", Logan makes Chase believe that he and Zoey are dating, even if it isn't true. As a punishment, his friends put a rat in Logan's pants while he's asleep. For context, Chase put him on the spot asking why he and Zoey were hanging out. Not wanting people to know he was secretly a chemistry whiz and was tutoring her he just said the first thing he could think of.
  • In "Miss PCA", Logan hosts a new beauty pageant. Both Zoey and Lola want to win and become competitive, so they end in a mud fight. When Logan protests because he disqualifies them from his beauty pageant for unruly behavior, Zoey and Lola team up against him and start pushing him down in the mud repeatedly while laughing.
  • In "Rumor of Love" he starts a false rumor about Zoey and James dating. Zoey, James, and the others force him to confess the truth (that Zoey and James are not dating) in front of a camera while he is naked and taking a shower. After Logan confesses, they even flush the toilet so that Logan's shower would get boiling hot. This also make Zoey and James hypocrites because they start kissing right after that and in the next episode they are actually dating!
  • In "Drippin' Episode!", it was discovered that Logan's cell phone was accidentally setting off the school fire alarm at night, and he got beaten up because of it. Though it should be noted that it was Logan who suggested beating up the person who pulled the alarm.
  • In "Anger Management" Logan yells at Dustin, Zoey's little brother. Everyone acts like "yelling at a little kid" is the worst crime ever. Later, his punishment for weaseling out of anger management classes is for Zoey to intentionally force him to lose his art project, soil his motorcycle seat with a gallon of honey, and deface his dorm and the clothes he's wearing by throwing in a paint bomb.
• Distracted by the Sexy: In the pilot Chase crashes into a flagpole on his bike due to staring at Zoey. In the fourth season, the girls all forget what they wanted to ask after they are introduced to James.
• Dope Slap: Zoey, Lola and Quinn each give one to Chase, Michael and Logan for letting Dustin watch a scary movie they knew he wouldn't be able to handle.
• Dork Horse Candidate: Between Zoey, Chase, and nerdball Mark, guess who wins?
• Downer Ending:
  • The ending of "Wrestling", a rare instance where Zoey doesn't come out on top. Can also be considered a Bittersweet Ending due to Logan's Pet the Dog moment.
  • "Chase's Grandma", as the ending is about Zoey comforting a depressed Chase after his grandma's death.
• Dramatic Drop: Michael drops his popsicle when he sees that Vince Blake is back.
• Dumb Jock: Vince Blake. Like any scumbag athlete, he resorted to cheating by taking pictures of an upcoming test on his phone but unlike any clever cheater, he forgot to remove the evidence from his phone. When being told on in front on the class by Chase, who lampshaded how Vince is an example of the trope.
  Chase: And I bet he wasn't smart enough to delete 'em
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Quinn, in the early seasons, is more or less a Mad Scientist willing to perform human experiments even if the person doesn't consent and threatens to remove the kidneys of the prankster who simply TP'd their dorm. Later seasons have her take an oath to never use her talent to ever hurt a living creature, and the one time she breaks that oath, it is treated in-universe as out of character. In the case of the Moon Bars incident, it's more of a case of Skewed Priorities thinking the health benefits are worth the addictive side effects.
• Elaborate University High: Pepperdine University, to be specific. That's where exterior locations were filmed.
• Election Day Episode: Season 2 had one where Zoey and Chase ran against each other for student body president. They both end up dropping out of the race, since it was ruining their friendship, and Mark Delfigalo (Quinn's boyfriend) ends up winning by default.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: Michael tries to convince Chase that reindeer aren't real.
• Every One Can See It: Chase's love for Zoey is the school's worst kept secret, and Zoey's obliviousness is almost painful. Even a random girl pulled from the hallway by Lola can tell that Chase is into Zoey:
  Lola: Ginny, could you come here a minute?
  Ginny: What's up?
  Lola: 'Blank' is in love with Zoey. Fill in the blank.
  Ginny: (as though it were the most obvious answer in the world) Chase.
  Lola: Thanks for playing.
• Fake Guest Star: Stacey Dillsen appears in the majority of season 3 and 4 yet is always credited as a guest star.
• Fanservice: see Beach Episode, Shirtless Scene, Shower Scene, Mud Wrestling, ... and above all No Dress Code.
• Fake Relationship: Used twice. In the second season Zoey helps Chase to get rid of the titular Bad Girl. In the series finale Logan and Quinn set each other up with terrible dates for the prom, because they want to keep their relationship a secret.
• Feud Episode: The latter half of "Spring Break-Up" becomes this when Zoey catches Chase using her Tekmate and assumes he used it to cheat, leaving herself and the girls furious at him until the end.
• For the Lulz: In "Roller Coaster", Lola chucks an oblivious Logan's hamburger across the cafeteria for no reason. A girl finds it in the fountain later, now wet, and Logan eats it anyway.
• Forced Meme: Michael in the episode Drippin' Episode tried to make "drippin'" catch on as a synonym for "cool." Other characters repeatedly told him it would never catch on...until the last minute of the episode, when it apparently has. Problem is, nobody believes that he started it, which prompts him to try making another Forced Meme... "flump" as a synonym for "not cool."
• Four-Girl Ensemble:
  • In season 1, Nicole is the naive one and The Ditz, Dana is the snarky tomboy, fashionable Dude Magnet Zoey is the pretty one, and Quinn is the smart one. Alternatively, Quinn is the naive/quirky one, Nicole is the boy-crazy glamour-obsessed pretty one, and Zoey is the wise, admirable Team Mom (Dana is definitely the snarky tomboy though).
  • In season 2, Nicole is the ditzy/naive one, Zoey is the Deadpan Snarker, Lola is the glamour-obsessed pretty one, and Quinn is the smart one. In season 3 and 4, Stacey replaces Nicole as the naive one.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The four main boys:
  • Sanguine: Michael; an eccentric, fun Large Ham
  • Choleric: Logan; mean, self-obsessed and overconfident
  • Melancholic: Dustin; mature for his age and a bit shy
  • Phlegmatic: Chase; an easygoing, loyal Nice Guy
• Free-Range Children: Zoey and her friends are in middle school/high school. But they seem to be able to go out whenever they want, go where ever they want, with no adult supervision or consult.
  • Only on campus, it's mentioned a few times that going off campus without permission is a serious offense.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Logan, very much so and lampshaded on several occasions. More so in the first seasons though.
• Friendship-Straining Competition:
  • The made-for-TV special "Spring Break-Up" involves the cast being put in a gender-battle game created by Logan's father. It starts out friendly. However, when Chase accidentally sends Zoey a text that reveals his feelings for her, he tries to steal her PDA to delete the text. This ends up costing the girls a scavenger hunt as Zoey could not be contacted; when they realized Chase stole it, it was assumed he did it as sabotage, and the conflict got much uglier. It didn't calm down until he was willing to throw the final game for the girls, and could tell Zoey what really happened.
  • "Election", being the Election Day Episode, features Zoey and Chase competing for the title of class president. They make a pact to not let things affect their friendship. However, Logan starts to use various dirty tactics to help Chase win, against Chase's wishes or knowledge. When Chase tries to set things right by slandering himself in an ad made for Zoey, Zoey gets the blame and their friendship gets strained further. In the end, both of them ended up dropping out to keep their friendship in tact, allowing Mark Del Figgalo to win as the only remaining candidate.
  • "Miss PCA" has Zoey and Lola compete in a school beauty contest for the chance to be on the cover of Buzz Magazine. Things between them quickly get competitive as they begin to resort to sabotage in order to win. A wrestling match between them in a pit of mud releases their anger, and they end up laughing and making up.
• Friend Versus Lover: Zoey vs. Rebecca during the early part of season 3. It was really Rebecca who made a big deal out of it, and eventually demands that Chase choose between her or Zoey. He chooses Zoey, of course.
• Funny Afro: Chase has a bushy "Jewish afro" constantly referenced by the other characters. He tends to shrug it off, but lampshades it himself after Zoey throws a pillow at him that knocks him off his chair. He gets up, pats his head and exclaims "You dented my 'fro!" in good humor
• Funny Foreigner: Ollie Biallo
• Gift of the Magi Plot
• Gilligan Cut: From New Roomies:
  Chase: You can't just look a girl in the face and say, "I don't want to live with you anymore."
  (cut to Quinn's room where she is looking at Zoey)
  Quinn: Zoey, I don't want to live with you anymore.
• Girls vs. Boys Plot:
  • The Pilot episode involves Zoey trying to prove that the girls belong at PCA just as much as the boys do, by having a Girls Vs Boys basketball game. The girls, however, suck at sports, and get crushed. Even when the athletic Dana steps in to help, she and Zoey can only carry their team so far. They lose by a single point...but the coach offers them both spots on the male's basketball team in response.
  • The "Spring Break-Up" special involves the students starring in a special reality-show produced by Logan's father. The show, "Gender Defenders", is entirely about this sort of plot, meaning that they're put into this conflict intentionally. It starts out fun, until Chase sends Zoey a text message proclaiming his feelings for her, thus he accidentally steals Zoey's Tek-Mate to delete it, which simultaneously cost her team a game they would've otherwise have won due to a communication failure, and suddenly, it becomes a lot more serious, and the fighting becomes real.
  • The episode "Coffee Cart Ban" starts with the Dean banning coffee at the school after a coffee cart hits his wife. The boys then start an underground coffee shop, that overcharges the customers. The girls start their own business that charges less. The two then try to sabotage each other. Eventually, the competition is rendered moot when it's discovered that the Dean has been drinking coffee, despite his ban. Once this comes to light, he lifts the ban on coffee on campus.
  • The episode "Jet-X" has the team of the girls working against the team of the boys to produce a Jet-X commercial, to get a chance to have free Jet-X scooters. The boys seem to have better chances because they use Logan's money to have a glamorous commercial with famous actors, while the girls keep arguing because they don't know what to do, with Quinn trying to shoot their commercial. However their arguments about the Jet-X turn out to be useful when Zoey does the editing to make her team's commercial, which ends up appreciated for being realistic, making the girls win.
  • In "Broadcast Views", Chase and Michael have their own broadcast where they are simply doing dumb stuff. But during a broadcast Logan and Zoey start arguing in the background about gender preferences. This causes the broadcast to get more views and leads to their own segment "He Says, She Says", but also creates disruption among the students by gender lines.
  • During "Prank Week," the returning students play pranks on the new students - which, since this is the first year girls are allowed at PCA, amounts to the boys playing pranks on the girls. Although the new students traditionally aren't supposed to retaliate, the girls do so anyway after getting drenched with water balloons. The prank war grinds to a halt, however, when the girls get caught defacing a statue and threatened with expulsion. In the end, the boys deliberately play another prank and openly take responsibility for it, forcing the school to either expel all of the students (which is obviously impossible) or let the girls stay.
• Glasses Curiosity: Early in the episode "Trading Places," Lola looks over at the street from the basketball court she and Quinn were playing at and thinks she sees Zoey. Instead of saying something, Lola pulls Quinn's glasses off her face and puts them on. When Quinn starts to ask Lola why she took her glasses, the latter merely says "Look over there!" while still wearing Quinn's glasses. Quinn has to snatch them back.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: Subverted with Quinn, who after giving herself a makeover, actually gets her glasses put back on her by Logan, and he says, "There's Quinn." before their first kiss.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: On Lola’s instance, both her and Zoey invoke this in one episode on season 4 with Lola taking the place of the Bad Cop and Zoey taking the place of the Good Cop.
  Zoey: Let's go interview that lunch lady.
  Lola: Okay. Hey, let's do the "Good Cop, Bad Cop" routine. You be nice, I'll be mean.
  Zoey: Why?
  Lola: It makes people confess to crimes.
  Zoey: How?
  Lola: No one knows. Just do it!
  • Lola goes a bit overboard with her Bad Cop role though, so rather than intimidating the culprit into confessing, she annoys him so much that he threatens Lola and Zoey with a leaf blower.
• Go-to-Sleep Ending: After finally getting help from Mr. Bender at the end of the episode, "Little Beach Party," Zoey and the gang fall asleep in the back of Mr. Bender's pick-up truck.
• Grand Romantic Gesture: Chase goes to England to be with Zoey after she transfers boarding schools.
• Halloween Episode: Haunted House in the second season; without supernatural happenings however.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X":
  Chase: We wouldn't have this problem if the lunch ladies could learn to make a decent chicken breast.
  (Logan starts snickering)
  Lola: Why are you giggling?
  Zoey: 'cause Chase said "breast".
  Logan: Breast... (snickers)
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Chase and Michael, full stop. Logan also shares this with both Chase and Michael; especially notable with Michael in season 4. Zoey and Nicole from season 1-2 and Zoey, Lola and Quinn from season 2-3-4 also qualify
• Hippie Teacher: The psychology teacher in Zoey's Balloon.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Logan suffers from this constantly
• Homework Slave: In one episode, Dustin is being bullied by a much bigger and older student as a result of being moved up into a more advanced class. The bully forces Dustin to do his homework, and when Zoey tries to stand up for him, he just decides to make him do assignments for other classes as well.
• Hot Teacher: The girls all seemed to think Dean Taylor, the temporary replacement for Dean Rivers is this trope, hence the name of the episode, "Hot Dean". In fact, they got in trouble just to be able to see him.
  • One of the nurses in the episode "Girls Will be Boys" is very good looking. Dustin is happy to have the chicken pox with her and her picture convinces Michael to pretend to be sick so he can stay in the infirmary. Unfortunately, he get the regular nurse.
• Humiliation Conga: Rebecca gets one at the end of Zoey's Balloon when Zoey and the rest of the students at the lunch area do the Macalana and Rebecca flees in disgust.
• I Am Spartacus: the boys set this up in Prank Week.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: Scene transitions are often accompanied by the screen filling up with two-tone purple and blue streaks of light.
• Idiot Ball: Robot Wars, Walk-A-Thon, Chase should have just told the nerds to babysit the baby, finish Michael's project, or just ask Zoey to find someone else to babysit a baby, like a babysitter that could be called on short notice...
• I'll Kill You!: In Anger Management, Lola screams this after she finds out from Zoey that the peanuts that she was eating were actually in Quinn's mouth and Quinn never told her.
  Lola: I. Am going. To KILL her! ...But first I have to puke!
• Informed Ability: In universe example: In Lola Likes Chase, Dustin points out Logan's woman-getting ways.
  Logan: Do I get a lot of girls?
  Dustin: You TALK about getting a lot of girls.
• Informed Attractiveness: The new dean in Hot Dean.
  • Also James who is shown to be stupefyingly beautiful.
• Informed Attribute: PCA in the first episode was stated to have some of the best teachers in the country. While some teachers are definitely good such as Mr. Bender and the chemistry teacher from "Zoey's Tutor", there were several ones clearly unfit to be teachers. Examples include the gym teacher who is a complete Jerkass and makes Logan look like a genius by comparison, the psychology teacher who has no teaching license and had Lola admit an embarrassing secret about herself in front of the class despite the lesson plan telling, and a government teacher who is so sadistic that one of his students fled the campus during one of his tests and was never found again.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Chase is friends with Almighty Janitor Herb, Cool Teacher Mr. Bender and Only Sane Employee Kasu
• Interrogation by Vandalism: How Lola and Quinn force persuade Firewire to tell them who is blackmailing Zoey in season 3.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: This becomes somewhat of a Running Gag for Chase, who has been in love with his best friend Zoey since the day he met her. He tries valiantly several times to tell her how he feels, only to be interrupted—usually by the friends who keep telling him to reveal his feelings. Ironically, for all the times he tried to tell her on purpose, he ends up telling her completely by accident.
• It Runs on Nonsensoleum: All of Quinn's inventions
• Jerkass: Coach Keller. Oh so much.
  • Logan, too.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Logan is in a slump in basketball and Quinn offers to help. Logan laughs at her, pointing out how she humiliated herself the last time. Quinn even agrees she was terrible, and did some research because she was so embarrassed and learned how to apply her physics knowledge to basketball.
  • Colin was insensitive towards Chase in "Trading Places", but Chase was keeping him up all night due to the time zone difference.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Logan, Logan, Logan. Although most of the time you have so squint to see it, he does have a Hidden Heart of Gold in him and it becomes obvious in the 4th and final season of the series. Even then, he's still quite jerky.
• The Jeeves / Servile Snarker: Chauncey, the butler for the Reese family is both The Jeeves for Logan’s father and an intense Servile Snarker for Logan himself
• Just Friends: Zoey and Chase, in season 3.
• Just the Way You Are: With a nice twist. Quinn goes through a makeover after Mark dumps her for Brooke, trying to win him back. She fails, and is Logan who implies to prefer her "just the way she was", telling her not to change and putting her glasses back on her, before their first kiss.
• Karma Houdini: The football team for beating up Logan, Michael, Chase, and Mark. While Vince got trampled by a crowd (thanks to the episode's subplot) at the end, and was later expelled (off-screen) for leading the attack, the rest of the football teams' fate is unknown.
• Kid Has a Point: The season 3 premiere has Michael and Logan doing painful challenges such as eating peppers and boxing to see who gets the single bed. Dustin puts an end to it by pointing out they could just flip a coin.
• Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Subverted in Drippin' Episode with Dustin, who is scared at first but later fakes it to spend more time with Zoey which consists of him sleeping in the same dorm room as Zoey, Quinn, and Lola. But he genuinely missed Zoey, wasn't being creepy towards any of them although Lola suspected him of it.
• Ladykiller in Love: Logan, after he starts dating Quinn, seems to be this, more if we have in mind his past as a serial dater.
• Last Minute Hook Up: Zoey and Chase. After three seasons of shipteasing they finally confess their love to each other, only to not be able to do anything about since they're now 6000 miles apart. Chase returns in the final episode, and he and Zoey kiss and become a couple in the last five minutes.
• Laugh Track: Averted. Feels like a breath of fresh air as opposed to Dan's other shows that abuse the living hell out of it.
• Local Hangout: Sushi Rox.
• Long-Distance Relationship: Chase and Zoey attempt this via webcam after she overhears Chase tell his roommates he's in love with her and they switch places in an attempt to be together, but after their video date fails, the come to the conclusion that it wont' work and resolve to try it for real when they're together again.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Chase, numerous times throughout the series. Michael in Michael Likes Lisa.
• Love at First Sight: Chase with Zoey.
• Love Confessor: Chase confesses that he loves Zoey to Michael and Logan after she leaves to attend school in England; he had admitted that he had feelings for her, but not that he loved her. This actually ends up becoming a Love Confession, because little does Chase know that Zoey is watching via a webcam feed that was accidentally left on.
• Love Triangle: Not stated in the final season, but you can tell Zoey is in middle of one with James, the hot guy rooming with Michael and Logan, and Chase, the first guy she met on her first day on campus.
• Makeover Montage: Done in "Girls Will Be Boys" as the gang is disguising Lola to look like a boy.
• Man Hug: Michael and Chase have no trouble indulging in this.
• Market-Based Title: The series is sometimes just called Zoey outside of the USA, since the "Subject 101" format for class names isn't used a whole lot in other countries.
• The Minnesota Fats
• Miracle Rally: In the 1st episode, Dana leads one of these in the game against the boys. Although the girls in the end don’t win the game, Dana’s participation makes the game extremely close, and the girls do win the respect of the coach and the boys.
• Mistaken for Thief: In "Fake Roommate", the girls notice some items missing and each thinks the other stole them. Really it was their dorm adviser, who was a kleptomaniac.
• Meet Cute: Chase and Zoey meet when Chase crashes his bike into the school's flagpole
• Moment Killer: Chase and Zoey, constantly.
  • Nearly all of the other ensemble characters (and even a few inanimate objects) have served as cockblockers to this relationship at some point in the series.
• Mood Whiplash: The episode Chase's Grandma starts as your average sitcom episode about one of the main character's birthday and the other characters wanting to put together a great birthday behind his back - then during the very last scene of the episode, Chase's grandma (who was coming to the party) passes away ending the light-hearted episode on a really depressing note.
  • Quinn Misses the Mark is mostly about Quinn struggling to deal with her breakup with Mark. The B-plot is Michael accidentally adopting a stray horse. Needless to say, it makes the segues between storylines a bit strange. Logan at least lampshades this.
  Logan: (sees Michael and Zoey riding on a horse right after he kissed Quinn) This has been a weird day.
• Mud Wrestling: Lola and Zoey in Miss PCA.
• Must Make Her Laugh: In one episode, Michael tries desperately to make Quinn laugh at his jokes. She finally laughs at one of his puns, but she only did that to make him stop bothering her with his jokes.
• Narcissist: Logan. Notably it causes him to lose a contest in Hands On a Blix Van, since his arrogance prevents him from believing that Zoey is lying to him. (Or more accurately, he's so arrogant that he doesn't believe she could lie to him.)
  • Also, the contest had been going on for almost a full day, so he probably couldn't think straight.
• New Transfer Student: Technically all the girls at PCA are this in the first season, but the most obvious case is Zoey. Lola in the second season. James in the fourth season.
  • James Garret in season 4
• Nice Guy: Chase and Michael both tie for possibly the biggest one in the series and in season four both the reformed Jerk Jock Vince Blake and Romantic False Lead James fall into this.
• Nice Jewish Boy: Chase
• No Dress Code: PCA apparently doesn't have one, judging by how the females dress about 90% of the time. On occasion they even wear strapless tops and dresses, despite that being a big no-no in real life, even on California campuses. Quinn was the exception at first, until the show started down-playing her lack of social skills and had her become a regular member of the gang; after that she started showing as much skin as the other girls.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Chase exposes Vince as a cheater, causing the latter to be put on academic probation and unable to participate in an important football game. This results in most of the school students hating Chase and the entire school football team, led by Vince, beating him up. Logan, Michael and Mark are also beaten up when they try to defend Chase. Slightly inverted later on though, as it's eventually revealed that Vince was expelled for leading the attack on Chase and his friends.
  • In ''Wrestling'', Zoey enters a wrestling tournament and takes on the reigning champ, Chuck Javers. She gets curb stomped and is knocked out for a while. Logan confronts Chuck in the parking lot for his bloodlust and is beaten brutally for it.
• No Indoor Voice: At least once an episode, there will most likely be a sequence where the characters are obnoxiously shouting at each other, usually in the form of an argument.
• Non-Specifically Foreign: Ollie Biallo
• Not Helping Your Case: Chase isn't wrong that Zoey was being too overbearing in "Defending Dustin", he just doesn't sell it well here.
  Zoey: Because I don't let him eat garbage like this?
  Chase: Garbage? You're talking about the Bing Bong which is the perfect combination of chemicals and sugar.
• Oblivious to Love: Zoey is oblivious to Chase's feelings for her. This gets painful when it drags on for three years, despite multiple attempts by Chase to tell her his feelings. She's oblivious even after she is told flat-out by her friends that Chase is in love with her, and had been since he met her. Lola even goes so far as to pull a random student from the hallway. And Zoey still doesn't believe it!

  Lola: Ginny, could you come here a minute?

  Ginny: What's up?

  Lola: 'Blank' is in love with Zoey. Fill in the blank.

  Ginny: (as though it were the most obvious answer in the world) Chase.

  Lola: Thanks for playing.

  • Probably not. Can't Spit It Out probably, but as of Sep. 2015 it is clear that Zoey is aware of Chase's affection to her and inside she is reciprocating.
• Odd Friendship: If one takes times to think about, Chase and Logan’s friendship seems to fall into this, as they are so incredibly different and normally seem to be the kind of friendship that would not work thanks to their personalities but more than once is showed that they are acutely dear and close friends.
  • This trope can be applied to Logan’s relationship with everyone in the gang. There isn’t a single person in that group who never clashed with him at some point and they often team up against him, but no matter how far things go, Logan will still have lunch with them in the next episode.
• Official Couple: Zoey and Chase.
• Off the Table
• Old Shame (in-universe): Quinn participating in pageants when she was a little girl; Zoey being the model for baby suntan lotion, with her naked butt on the bottle; Chase being cast as the female lead in a play of an all-male school...
• Once an Episode: After the Season 1 episode "Jet X", every episode has a character riding a "Jet X" at least once (and honking its signature horn), usually in transitional scenes of the campus.
• Only Sane Employee: Kazu, the owner of PCA's Sushi Rox, seems to be one of this in comparison to the other adults on campus. Mr. Bender also seem to be this.
• Only Sane Man: Zoey, as part of her Team Mom status. Chase constantly falls into this, something that is obviously not very difficult when your competition is Logan and Michael. Throughout the first season 1st season, Dana proved to have elements of this as well.
  • James also, in season 4.
• On the Rebound: Zoey begins dating Chase's Suspiciously Similar Substitute James more or less right after she and Chase have to put their Relationship Upgrade on hold because of distance.The finale dealt with the fact she was never in love with James, and that Chase was always her first choice.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Jamie Lynn's Southern accent could reappear at a moment's notice. Some may say it was a case of Not Even Bothering with the Accent.
  • Justified as it's stated in the episode "Robot Wars'' that Zoey was born in Louisiana.
• Operator from India: The episode Switching Places had Chase and Zoey trying to communicate by webcam across the Atlantic, the picture fizzing out, and calling tech support. The guy on the line is clearly an Indian by his accent, and he has no tolerance for fools — which Chase most definitely is.
• Opinion-Changing Dream: Chase has one, leading him to return Zoey's DVD he has taken from the time capsule.
• Opposites Attract: Logan and Quinn. This was supposed to be Logan and Dana, but Quinn moved into her role after Kristin Herrara left the show.
• Pair the Spares: Stacey and Mark
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Logan trying to pass for Chase by putting on an Afro wig in The Silver Hammer Society.
• Parody: Instead of the Macarena, the show has the "Macalana".
• Performance Anxiety: Michael gets a bad case on Open Mic Night, to the point of vomiting on the first row of spectators.
• Popular Is Dumb: More Book Dumb that anything, but Logan could fall into this. However it's later revealed that he's good at chemistry because his grandfather taught him Chemistry against his will when he was a kid, but Logan tries to keep it a secret.
• Put on a Bus: Dana after the first season. Nicole after the second season. Chase for most of the fourth season. Basically no character was too important enough on the show that their actor couldn't afford to be fired.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: Nicole was an intensely boy-crazy, insecure kid who hated unfamiliar situations — and Zoey says in the third season premiere that Nicole has been shipped to an all-girls boarding school. In a previous episode, Nicole had broken down sobbing when she thought she'd have to transfer to another school.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: For all his moments throughout the series, the Dean seems to be this.
• Replacement Flat Character: Stacey seems to exist so there's still a freaky nerd to pick on after Quinn becomes more normal.
• Replacement Goldfish:
  • Deconstructed in Goodbye Zoey? with Gretchen. While the replacement looks like Zoey, she's not very pleasant in the personality department. And the fact that Chase is trying to replace Zoey with someone else kind of freaks out his friends.
    Logan: So you're saying it's just a coincidence that Gretchen looks exactly like Zoey?
    Chase: I don't even see a resemblance.
    Michael: Everybody thinks they look alike!
    Logan: And that's why you're hanging out with her! She's your little Zoey replacement, and that's a little bit sick.
  • Implied with James. While the two care about each other, when it's time to take the next step in their relationship, James is all in because he loves her, but Zoey can't bring herself to do it because she realizes he was just her second choice because Chase left. James realizes that Zoey doesn't feel as strongly about him as he does about her, and they mutually break up. Zoey is scared to say yes to the numerous guys asking her to prom, knowing they'll meet the same fate.
• Retcon: Dustin was written as a Child Prodigy in the first season taking 8th grade math; by the finale he's still taking 8th grade math because he's an 8th grader now and is treated of average intelligence.
• Romantic False Lead:
  • James Garrett with Zoey
  • Rebecca with Chase
• Roommate Drama: Drama is created with each new roommate people get:
  • In the first two episodes, Nicole and Dana fight so much that Zoey leaves and moves in with the weird science girl, Quinn. However, Quinn's science experiments drive Zoey up the wall, so she's forced to go back to her original room. Luckily, she finds the issues with those two far easier to work out.
  • In the second season, Dana leaves, while Zoey and Nicole get a new roommate, Lola. Lola is a freaky goth who heavily implies she killed someone at her old school, but things get much better when they discover she's just an actress playing a character.
  • After Chase leaves, Logan and Michael are so intent on not getting a new roommate that once James moves in with them, they treat him horribly, unwilling to accept that Chase is gone. But, by the end of the episode, they manage to make friends.
• Running Gag: The show had a few.
  • Chase always falling down the first time he sees Zoey every season. In Chasing Zoey this included falling off a wall and then down a flight of stairs.
  • Jokes about Chase's bushy hair.
  • Every time Chase attempts to tell Zoey he loves her or make a date with her, something gets in the way.
  • Quinn's "Quinnventions" going horribly wrong.
  • Logan being a creep to girls
  • Lola going to extreme lengths to demonstrate her acting ability
• Scam Religion: The Silver Hammer Society
• School Nurse: two polar opposites man the infirmary: Nurse Krutcher and Shannon, the new pretty nurse.
• School Play: Chase writes a play about a beautiful alien named Zorka. Yeah...
• Secret Pet Plot: Chase and Michael attempt to care for a dog named Elvis in the first season, and in one episode, they leave him with the girls because their dorm advisor is becoming suspicious. He's accidentally let out, which results in Coco finding him and sending him to the pound. Once they get him back, the girls train him to hide in their stuffed animal pile in order to not get caught again.
• Secret Relationship: Quinn and Logan
  • Inverted in Zoey's Tutor: everyone thinks Zoey and Logan are having one, while Logan is only tutoring Zoey chemistry. He milks the misunderstanding for all it's worth.
• She Is All Grown Up: Zoey, Lola, and Quinn in the third season.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Quinn often indulges in this
• Sherlock Scan: One-off character Miles Brody does one when Zoey comes to ask him for help in the episode Robot Wars. It's used to establish his cred as "the guy who knows everything".
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: One episode involves the fire alarm in the boys dorm being set off on consecutive nightly occasions and none of the boys know who's been doing it. At the end it turns out it was Logan's J-Phone from Japan that was setting off the fire alarm.
• Shirtless Scene: All the boys get one, but Logan is the main perpetrator.
• Shower Scene: Both Logan and Michael get one. And both are interrupted, the first one by a TV crew, the second by a horse.
• Shout-Out: There are a few references to iCarly, including one episode where Zoey has a ringtone that is the show's opening theme song and another where Lola is visiting the iCarly website. Both of them were before iCarly began.
  • Logan's father's name is Malcolm Reese.
  • In The Curse of PCA, Lola references SpongeBob SquarePants when she tells Leif, after Leif concludes sadly that she must think he's silly, "No, Leif, Spongebob's friend Patrick is silly. You are a weirdo!"
  • Later in that scene, after Lola calls him crazy, Leif quotes a line from Hamlet (which happens to be Lola's second favorite play) "I am but mad north north west, but when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw."
  • School Newspaper News Hound Jeremy Trottmann ends every news report by saying, "Courage" — a reference to former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, who closed his final newscast with the word and tried unsuccessfully to turn it into a regular catchphrase in 1986.
  • Zoey goes on the real-life Hungry Girl website (owned by Dan Schneider's wife) in "Quinn's Alpaca" in order to prove to Lola and Nicole a regular bagel is 300 calories.
• Sleep Deprivation:
  • In one episode, Dustin has agreed to help Quinn with an experiment by wearing a bracelet that shocks him when he starts to fall asleep. He quickly starts to hate it, becoming irritable and delirious in addition to being constantly tired.
  • In an episode, none of the people in the boys' dorm can get a full night sleep for at least three days, as they keep being woken up in the middle of the night for a fire alarm. When it turns out to be Logan's expensive new phone causing it, he gets beaten up.
• Slippery Swimsuit: Dustin lost his trunks while swimming in the ocean in Little Beach Party and refused to get out.
• Smart People Build Robots: Zoey and her friends construct a robot to battle against a group of Insufferable Geniuses' robots.
• Snub by Omission: A behind-the-scenes example. During production of Spring Break-Up, Alexa Nikolas was lured into Jamie Lynn Spears' trailer and was berated by Britney Spears over "messing with her sister". After discussing the incident in a meeting with Dan Schneider and Viacom executives, who all took Britney's side, Nikolas tearfully quit the show. Likely as a result of this incident, Nicole was excluded from the opening credits of the in-universe TV show Gender Defenders at the end of the episode.
• Sonic Stunner: Quinn's sonic stun bomb in Prank Week.
• Spy Cam: In "Webcam", Logan and Michael give the girls a giant teddy bear with a camera inside to learn their secrets and reveal them to the school. The girls soon discover the camera and get back at them by staging an incident where they violently knock out Kazu to scare them into telling Dean Rivers about it while subsequently revealing their ploy.
• Stereo Fibbing: In one episode, Trisha is dating Chase against his will. To get out of it, he puts on an act for her that depicts Zoey as his girlfriend. When questioned about it, they usually agree on everything. Until...
  Trisha: How long have you two been going out?
  Chase/Zoey: A year./Six months.
  Chase: A year and six months. Eighteen months, really.
• Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: Quinn is very concerned about her pet alpaca, Otis, whom she left back home. Zoey arranges for Otis to come to school. Quinn makes alpaca noises at Otis, and Otis makes the noises back.
  Nicole: "Quinn speaks alpaca?"
  Zoey: "Are you surprised?"
• Staircase Tumble: Chase takes a tumble down a flight of stairs after falling off a wall in Chasing Zoey.
  • It also happens to him in People Auction while trying to deliver six boxes of sushi at once, despite Kazu's suggestion of making two trips. His friends and Kazu hear him fall and go to check on him. Kazu leaves his fryer running which causes Sushi Rox to burn on the entire inside.
• Start My Own: Logan after being rejected of the Silver Hammer Society.
• Stock Scream: The same female scream is used for both Zoey and Nicole in various Season 1 episodes.
• Stock Sound Effect: The Jet X horn can be heard in nearly every episode.
• Students Playing Matchmaker: In one episode, the gang tries to set up their dorm advisor Coco with the attractive new dean, because she couldn’t stop moping about her recent break up with a guy named Carl. It didn’t end well for the dean...
• Sudden Downer Ending: Infamously, in the episode "Chase's Grandma", the 12th episode of Season 3. Chase is too busy with an essay to feel excited about his birthday. Zoey sees Chase mailing a card to his grandmother. She invites Chase's grandmother, with whom he shares a birthday, to his birthday party. She accepts. She then withdraws her invitation, saying she has the flu. The party goes ahead. When Chase leaves the party, Zoey assumes he has abandoned his friends to write his essay, only for Michael to pull her aside and tell her the Awful Truth - Chase's grandmother has died suddenly from "more than the flu". It turns out his actions throughout the episode were out of concern for his grandmother's declining health. She finds Chase sitting by the fountain, inconsolable, and sits beside him in the rain. Roll credits. Also, this is never brought up again.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: One episode has Michael and Logan boxing over who gets the single bed. Since neither of them have experience in this, they only land a few hits on each other and end just tiring themselves out very quickly.
  • "Wrestling" is an example of this for Zoey, as while her being good at sports like Basketball makes sense, wrestling is something that takes a lot of training. While she might've been able to handle other guys her own size(we don't know since they opt to forfeit rather then fight her and ask being humiliated by losing to a girl or risk getting booed for fighting a girl) the Jerk Jock champion is Chuck Javers, someone who is shown regularly wiping the floor with guys bigger then Zoey and with a lot more training, so the outcome beating Zoey within seconds is hardly a surprise as even if she'd had more experience wrestling, the odds were heavily stacked against her, as the whole reason Coach Peters put Zoey on the team was so the other opponents would forfeit against her and then his best wrestler could go up against Javers without being tired out, as Chuck is implied to be so strong that outright cheating was his only shot at defeating him, so nobody especially not Zoey stood a chance at defeating him in a straight up match. It's incredibly lucky that Zoey only got a minor head-injury from the match and didn't end up with broken bones like Logan did after he confronted Javers afterwards.
  • In "The Great Vince Blake" Chase is threatened by the football team to not tell Vince cheated, Chase does the right thing and outs him causing Vince to be benched in the championship game. He retaliates by having him and the football team jump Chase and Michael, Logan, and Mark for defending him. While Vince gets a comedic dose a Laser-Guided Karma by getting mobbed by students after the Moon Bar he was holding, it's later revealed that he was expelled from the school for assaulting the four and forced to seek rehabilitative therapy before he's even considered to be allowed back. Even when he is, no one trusts him and it's only after he graciously accepts Logan and Michael's attempts for revenge saying they deserve it and they're not wrong to be mad is he truly forgiven.
  • In "Dance Contest", Chase offers to be Zoey's dance partner in the titular contest since Logan and Michael are on extra-curricular suspension for a brank they pulled. He blackmails them into teaching him to dance. The ensuing montage is played both for laughs and realistically. They point out he can't learn to dance like them without knowing the basics. So after a montage of him learning the basics, they admit he's actually gotten a lot better, but when he leaves they agree he still has no chance against students who know well beyond the basics. It ends up not mattering anyway, as Chase is so tired from learning so much dancing in one day he sleeps through the contest before he can even offer to be Zoey's partner. Thankfully it avoids being a Downer Ending as Michael tells Zoey what Chase did and she appreciates Chase would go to so much trouble for her.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Lola pulls this by disguising herself as a boy named Steve to prove to the guys that having a girl around doesn't affect the way they behave, since the boys cited this as a reason for the girls to not be able to hang out at their dorm anymore.
• Take a Third Option: Averted in "The Great Vince Blake" Chase decides to let Vince off for cheating under the condition he never does it again. Vince tells him it's not going to happen, so Chase rats him out, getting him suspended from the team and put on academic probation.
• Taking the Heat: Zoey at the end of the episode Prank Week, so she could save the school's co-ed status. Due to an oversight during her subsequent apology (the statue acting up and the students rioting), her expulsion is revoked AND the school remains co-ed.
• Themed Party: The boys are discussing a theme for Chase's surprise party, trying to decide between a pajama party or a beach party. They decide for the beach party, since it will be an excuse for the girls to wear bikinis, until Zoey mentions that she plans to bring Chase's grandma as a gift, and decide to go with the pajama party instead.
  • In the second season, the girls throw an alpaca themed party for Quinn.
• This Means War!: Zoey in Prank Week after getting soaked with a giant water balloon. She had previously been saying that they shouldn't sink down to the level of the boys.
• Tickle Torture: When Dustin got sick, one of the ways Quinn tried to cure him was by immobilizing his bare feet in a pair of stocks. She flashed proton impulses to his soles, making him laugh and squirm around.
• Time Capsule: in the titular episode.
• Toilet Paper Prank: the boys pull this on the girls' dorm in Prank Week.
• Town Girls: Dana is the obvious butch to femme Nicole in season 1. Zoey rotates between being a tomboy or a girly girl based on whatever the episode calls for.
• Toy Disguise: In one episode, the girls are trying to hide Chase and Michael's dog, Elvis. They teach him to hide in the girls' pile of stuffed animals, where he lays limp and gets mistaken for one of the toys by the Dorm Advisor.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Or in this case opening credits spoil. The trailer for the first episode of Season 2 depicts Lola as a goth chick. She wasn't. This may have been a surprise...if they didn't show her as normal in the opening credits.
  • Same thing happens in Season 4: Michael and Logan think their new roommate, 'Jimmy' Garrett, will be some nerdy geek. Except Austin Butler was already in opening credits of that episode.
• True Companions: The main characters form a tightly knit group. Since they’re teenagers living away from their families, they often need to rely on each other.
• Turn of the Millennium
• Uncool Undies: In the episode "Webcam," the boys sneak a webcam in the girls' common area in order to spy and learn their embarrassing secrets; one of which is that Nicole wears panties with a "Hello Bunny" print on them. She angrily says that they were on sale. In "Miss PCA," Chase is teased by Zoey and Lola when they wall in on him folding laundry and discover he wears white briefs.
• Unnecessary Makeover: In-universe, in Quinn Misses The Mark, Quinn gives herself a makeover to try and win back Mark. She ends up ditching it when Logan falls in love with her and puts her glasses back on her and says, "There's Quinn" right before their first kiss. (Of course, she's played by Erin Sanders, so she's extremely hot either way).
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Zoey and Chase, at least until their Last-Minute Hookup in the series finale.
• Unusual Euphemism:
  • Zoey uses "skunkbag" as an insult. Chase once responded to this with, "Zoey Brooks, such language."
  • Characters have used "Cheese and rice" and "Cheese and crackers" as euphemisms for "Jesus Christ!"
  • "Freakish" is often used in place of "freaking" or "f**king".
  • Nickelodeon does not allow its shows to say "sucks", so they defy this by saying "suckish" instead. Nicole says it most often. In Disc Golf, for example...
  Nicole: Am I really that suckish?
  Zoey: You're not suckish. You're just...the least good player on the team.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: In Anger Management, Lola runs out of the room to puke. Unfortunately, she pukes on Stacey.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Logan with EVERYONE.
• Water Guns and Balloons: one of the pranks during Prank Week.
• Wax On, Wax Off: Michael gets a Karate Kid-like training session with Mr. Takato when learning how to drive his stick-shift.
• Will They or Won't They?: Done to death with Zoey and Chase. They do, but not until the last few minutes of the final episode.
• Wham Shot: The very end of "Spring Break-Up". Chase finally texts the message to Zoey that he loves her, but he suddenly sees her belt bag is empty; turns out, she left her Tekmate on the fountain, and it's vibrating sends it falling into the fountain and getting shorted out.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The subplot of "Son Of A Dean" is this to The Dick Van Dyke Show episode "When a Bowling Pin Talks, Listen", even using the exact same sketch. Interestingly enough, this episode actually resolves the plot: when Chase and Michael try to apologize to the Friday Night Live producer for stealing their idea, to no avail, an actor from another sketch saves them by telling the producer that the show, among others, did their bowling pin sketch decades prior and therefore, they don't own the rights to it.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In season 4, Michael is revealed to be afraid of roller coasters.
• Would Hit a Girl: Chuck Javers. Though it takes him working himself up to do it.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: With the exception of Chuck, none of the high school state wrestlers wanted to fight Zoey since she was a girl. Turns out the coach was actually counting on this so PCA could win.
• You Go, Girl!: Played straight once and actually Subverted on the second occasion. The very first episode feature a girls vs boys Basketball game in which the girls lose by only one basket. By the end of the game however, the entire school was cheering the girls on. In another episode, in one of the rare instances where Zoey didn't come out on top, she joins the male's wrestling team. The coach uses takes advantage of this trope because no guy on the opposing would wrestler her because they'd either be seen as a jerk for beating up a girl or look like a wimp for losing to one. Everyone except a Jerk Jock, who proceeds to wipe the floor with Zoey.
• Zeerust: In "Time Capsule", Chase imagines his future self in 2015 ordering a computer by voice to play Zoey's DVD message in hologram form. While the computer part is surprisingly spot on given the likes of Alexa and other virtual assistants, Chase's imagination went too ahead of itself with the hologram thing...

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