Before the Season 5 'inversion' of the trope Nickelodeon aired this show multiple times a day, gave it and star Miranda Cosgrove extremely good treatment, more than any other Nickelodeon show that isn't Spongebob. Along with the many merchandise and magazine attention the show gets it was Nick's flagship show. The show was given an open cheque for renewal as long as the main trio wanted to continue doing it. They even got a fifth season, which is very rare for Nick or Disney shows.
The inversion happened after that 5th season. The Sam/Freddie story arc tanked badly, and Nick decided to push Victorious as the best show on the network, dumping Miranda Cosgrove as the network star in favor of Victoria Justice and ceasing to promote episodes well, with some not getting any promotion at all.
Every time the show is removed from the Italian feed's schedule, it always finds a way back in. Also, it and Avatar: The Last Airbender are the only old shows that still get promoted on the Italian Nickelodeon Youtube channel.
"iRue the Day" was temporarily banned from Nickelodeon and TeenNick when Sony was hacked in 2014. The reason for the temporary ban was because a hacking heist was depicted. The episode started rerunning again the following year.
"iLost My Mind" was removed from Paramount+ and banned from future reruns on TeenNick in October 2021, due to its plot being too eerily similar to the controversial "Free Britney" movement. However, the episode is still available to purchase via The Complete 4th Season DVD set. Strangely, though, "iFix a Pop Star", which featured a direct and unflattering parody of Britney Spears and her mental issues, wasn't pulled from circulation...at least not yet.
"iToe Fat Cakes" is also unavailable on Paramount+ for reasons unknown.
The Cast Showoff: Carly (Miranda) shows off her singing ability for a few lines of Amazing Freaking Grace in "iPie", and performs an entire song in Season 4's "iDo". She also showcases her singing talent in the Victorious crossover, which aired in June 2011. Interestingly, this is the first time she actually sings onscreen even if her more famous role on the show is taken into account.
Jennette McCurdy does not have fond memories of her experience on the show, and has detailed this in multiple interviews as well as her 2022 memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died. She has said that in-part she resented her past acting career in general due to suffering from depression, eating disorders, insecurities and embarrassment over her kiddie roles, and associates acting with a lot of her mental health triggers. She hated playing Sam, as she felt that the character was a bad role model for children and found it difficult to portray a character so different from her real self, and just found the character flat-out unlikeable and the show in general terrible. It was never her intention to pursue a full-time acting career, but her mother had made her become a child actress to financially support the family and to live vicariously through her; her mother was extremely abusive, and while working on the show she alleges she suffered significant emotional abuse from a higher-up she only refers to as "The Creator"note who is near-universally speculated by readers and commenters to be Dan Schneider, enough that Nickelodeon would eventually offer her hush money. Shortly after her mom died, Jennette left Nickelodeon when Sam & Cat got canned and was happy to leave, and would retire from on-camera acting in 2017, refusing to return for the show's revival on Paramount+. Despite her opinions of the show and her character, she has said that in a recent podcast with Anna Faris that she remains good friends with her fellow castmates.
Noah Munck was not a fan of his character Gibby being the punching bag and the expense of the joke on the series, which followed him whenever he had interactions with fans, stating it as the reason why he also refused to return for the show's revival on Paramount+.
Creator's Pest: Jennette McCurdy admitted in her 2022 memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died that she hated playing Sam, regarding her as a bad role model and generally unlikable.
Griffin, Carly's temporary ex-boyfriend as seen in "iDate A Bad Boy", was played by Drew Roy, who was 22 and looked like it. And when he guest-starred in the 2021 revival, he was 35 and definitely looked it. The original episode featured him kissing the star of the show Miranda Cosgrove, who was 15 when they filmed it in the fall of 2008. Miranda apparently got to choose which guy they cast.
Nora Dershlit looks more like she's in her twenties than her teens, but Danielle Morrow's age is more or less unknown, as most online sources don't list her date of birth. This site claims Danielle was born on August 15, 1993, which, if true, would mean that she'd have been 16 in "iPsycho" and 18 in "iStill Psycho", making her roughly the same age as Nora and a case of Younger Than They Look.
Played somewhat straight in the latter seasons. In the original series finale "iGoodbye", Jennette McCurdy was 20, Miranda Cosgrove and Nathan Kress were both 19 at the time of filming "iGoodbye" in June 2012.
Also downplayed with Spencer. Spencer was 26 in the first season while Jerry Trainor himself was 30.
Enforced Method Acting: In "iTwins", Jerry/Spencer messes with Miranda/Carly's hair and her cries for him to stop was just Miranda doing it on her own, as the entire piece was unscripted.
Played straight for the 44-minute long 2-part special episode "iDate a Bad Boy". It was originally intended to air as two standalone episodes, until Nick made them air it as a "TV Movie" in May 2009.
Eventually happened to the actual show. After the writers spent an entire double length episode telling people not to watch the show for the shipping that had taken over the fandom, Nick pushed to have the exact same shipping fandom stoked into a shipping war by hooking up one of the two main couples on the show. With the official network Twitter accounts, the writers and creator of the show all expecting mega ratings over the 11.2 million of the previous highest rated episode (ironically featuring the opposite couple getting together), it could only pull 5.0, which on the surface was good. The problem manifested itself as the arc went on, with the final episode of the arc getting some of the lowest ratings in the history of the show. Once the arc was over the viewers were already gone, and the show tanked severely.
Flip-Flop of God: Nathan Kress bluntly stated in an online 2017 interview that he doesn't support either romantic pairing (Creddie or Seddie), since Sam was an abusive girlfriend while Carly, although cordial and like-minded, only reciprocated his affections for her when he shoved her out of harm's way of an oncoming food truck. In a 2021 interview regarding the Paramount+ revival, however, Nathan referred to Creddie favorably (his only issue was that Carly had to reciprocate his one-sided love for her in a way that didn't involve him rescuing her), claiming that the idea of Carly and Freddie getting back together in the revival and getting hitched in canon was in the cards.
Friday Night Death Slot: Despite most of the second half of Season 3 airing on Fridays (mostly while they still had more episodes to air and when Big Time Rush needed more publicity), it managed to avert this and still did pretty well in its slot most of the time, getting solid audiences there often. The "iSpace Out" special had over 5 million viewers even in the presence of a new episode of The Suite Life on Deck airing at the same time. And when "iGot a Hot Room" aired in the summer, it aired against another new episode of the same show and absolutely obliterated its ratings. However, "iStart a Fan War" didn't exactly stand out as well as one would have expected, scoring only 5.02 million viewers. Guess what screwed it over?
Friendship on the Set: Miranda Cosgrove and Jennette McCurdy became best friends on the set of the show and are still extremely close to this day.
Harpo Does Something Funny: Most of the dialogue was retroscripted, with Dan Schneider sometimes feeding the actors new lines right before they did a take.
Subway sold a set of four toys in 2008. These included cell phone charms, a photo holder, a mousepad, and a sculptor kit.
McDonald's sold a set of eight toys for girls in their Happy Meals in 2010, including the Magic Meatball, a mini laptop, and a customizable dachshund. These were sold opposite Star Wars toys for boys.
McDonald's sold a second set of toys in 2011 including a gumball machine sticker dispenser, customizable gummy bear, a photo frame and a bobble head of Baby Spencer. These were sold opposite Franchise/Bakugan toys for boys.
One week before the episode "iSaved Your Life" aired, a promo debuted showing Carly and Freddie kissing. Dan Schneider, in an effort to calm the fans down, implied it might not be what it appeared. Cue the actual episode, where they ended up kissing at least 8 times, and it was as it appeared.
He posted a picture of Carly and Freddie kissing as a tease for "iSpeed Date" then cut the kiss out later because of a kiss would have impacted on the story of "iSaved Your Life". The kiss was likely to have been removed from the script before filming because they would have done the 2nd script already, so he basically created a blatant piece of lying Ship Tease for no reason.
Not Screened for Critics: Like every teen and children's show, iCarly was not shown to critics. In combination with closed set filming and tight control on information being passed around, Dan managed to keep the Sam/Freddie plot in "iOMG" and every episode in the subsequent story arc a secret.
The Other Darrin: When Gibby's mother first appeared in "iGo Nuclear", she was portrayed by Laura Benz-Phillips; in all later appearances, she was replaced with Deena Dill.
Out of Holiday Episode: "iApril Fools" is set on the titular holiday, but aired eight days earlier on March 24, 2012. It would have been closer, but the Kid's Choice Awards that year fell on March 31, pre-empting its normal timeslot. The same thing happened to Victorious's April Fools day episode that year.
The reason that Status Quo Is God on the show is because Nick constantly shifts episodes on their own whims. The broadcast order is practically random compared to production order.
The Season 4 finale "iOMG" and its cliffhanger ending had a completely unrelated Crossover with Victorious sandwiched in between it and the first episode of the next season.
Playing Their Own Twin: In the episode "iTwins", Jennette McCurdy plays the roles of both Sam and Melanie Puckett, identical twins who are polar opposites. This is actually lampshaded throughout when Freddie is convinced Melanie is just Sam in disguise.
The sidewalk where Josh ran around in "Dinner With Bobo" is the same sidewalk Carly rode her electric-powered scooter in "iGo Nuclear".
The pathway in "The Wedding" where Drake and Josh got stranded in their car is also the spot "Somewhere Outside Tokyo" where Carly, Sam, and Freddie were ditched by Kyoko and Yuki in iGo To Japan.
Any big room needed ends up being a redress of the main iCarly studio set. Examples include Freddie's room from "iSaved Your Life". And Carly's bedroom in "iGot A Hot Room".
The school hallway/locker area is a redress of the school set from That's So Raven, with the main difference being the addition of a central wide door entrance, and iCarly not using an extra part of the hallway on the right side of the entrance. The entire set itself began its life as the school hallway set on Saved by the Bell.
If you paint the lockers, it becomes the set for Victorious.
Running the Asylum: "iOMG" and "iLost My Mind" Sam/Freddie romance arc episodes utterly match several of the biggest Fandom-Specific Plot lines and the most common fanfic tropes. Sam and Freddie end up Locked in a Room together at the school. Sam giving Freddie a Forceful Kiss to clear up that Sam actually likes him. Carly becoming a Shipper on Deck and Freddie returning Sam's feelings without any explanation or closure for his feelings for Carly.
Schedule Slip: As described in Screwed By The Network right below.
After season three, Nick took a decidedly inconsistent approach to the show. The poor scheduling is one the biggest reasons for the abysmal ratings for Season 5 compared to seasons 2, 3 and 4.
For Seasons 4 and 5, Nick only ordered 13 episodes at at time compared to the 26 or so that they were doing in the first three. Said episodes aired on random dates. When new episodes of the show were announced to air each week, that suddenly stopped after four episodes.
Other new episodes aired with little to no advertising and on awkward dates, such as December 28 for the second blooper episode, and December 31 for the "iPsycho" sequel. Admittedly, Dan Schneider had to take some of the blame, as he seemed to have poor time management; this meant Nick was only ordering 13 episodes of both iCarly and Victorious when they could have fit full seasons in, even with the studio split taken into account.
Freddie/Nathan had to use the shoe version in Season 1 due to not having gone through puberty yet. He has massive platform shoes. By Season 2 this was unnecessary and he was about the same height as Carly/Miranda, by Season 3 he's grown even more, so much that during "iSpeed Date" Carly/Miranda can place her head in the crook of his neck and it fits perfectly.
Jennette/Sam starts wearing platform shoes during Season 4 for the same reason that Freddie/Nathan did in Season 1.
Shoe Slap: Purposely averted. If you watch "iGo to Japan", you'll notice Miranda and Jeanette are barefoot for the entirety of the first scene. They were in swing sets temporary mounted on the ceiling and constantly swinging toward the camera. To avoid any mishaps with the camera and loose sneakers launching into them, they slipped off their shoes, sat them down mostly out of view on set, and shot the scene with bare feet. Jeanette can be seen scooping up her sneakers as she pads down the hallway after high-fiving Miranda.
Shrug of God: Just ask Dan Schneider a question about Seddie or Creddie. It will be a miracle if you get a straight answer back. The more 'intelligent' the question, the less likely he will even respond at all. The dumbest, or least focused questions might get the question thrown back at them in a different way.
May have been the reason for Jane Lynch's appearance as Pam Puckett, Sam's mom. Jane Lynch's reason was sweeter and more awesome at the same time. In her wedding vows, she promised her partner to try and get tickets for the show for their kids. The show doesn't have a studio audience, so tickets were an impossibility. However, when the producer heard that, he was so flattered he decided to find a role for her so she could bring them. Up until that point, he had never planned to show Sam's mom on-screen, because he could never find an actress good enough. But when he thought about it, he realized Jane Lynch would be perfect for the role, and wrote the episode for her
Suppressed Mammaries: In between Season 1 and 2, Nathan Kress (Freddie) grew up... and Jennette McCurdy (Sam) grew outward. Since then, the show began to take to wrapping Sam up in layers of 3 or 4 t-shirts, but she kept on growing. In a few episodes in season 3 they forgot about this, such as the rabbi scene in iSaved Your Life, and it's pretty obvious what they were doing. By season 4, Jennette continued growing, to the point that the multiple layers of t-shirts don't really hide her chest anymore, and they could just about get away with looser clothing, but even then... All pretense of covering her up was gone now, about 1/3 of the way through Season 4.
"Take That!" Tit-for-Tat: Disney Channel and Nickelodeon had a minor feud going during The Noughties, mainly playing out through stories and devices in iCarly and Sonny with a Chance. iCarly has an episode where it takes shots at the Disney Channel (a.k.a. "Dingo" Channel), for In-Universe stealing the ideas of iCarly.com. They also claim that the original ideas of the channel are bland and unentertaining, and they make all their adult characters stupid. Sonny with a Chance got to have its own go with So Random! going to hell with new producers in a storyline that is mocking Nick's All That. iCarly then counters again with an entire episode dedicated to completely (and unsubtly) criticizing a certain network's new interpretation of kids' TV and their programming overhaul that ditches all of the 'good' children's TV shows in favor of lesser and more demeaning ones.
Listen to how Gibby delivers his line: 'Uh-oh! Looks like trouble off the stern... port... bow.' You'll notice how he seems confused and slows down at the end of that line. The reason? Noah ("Gibby") forgot the line as he was saying it! He couldn't remember how it ended. Later, when I watched it in editing, I felt it played really funny, so I used the take where he forgot the line.
Wag the Director: According to T-Bo's actor, BooG!e, T-Bo was not originally scripted to appear in "iMeet The First Lady", but he insisted to Dan Schneider that he be there since he felt, as the only recurring black cast member, he should be able to work with the first black First Lady. Schneider agreed and wrote him into the script.
The original name of the Carly character was going to be Sam. The female sidekick was going to be called Kira. But they couldn't get the iSam domain name. So Sam became Carly, and Kira became Sam. This has the curious effect of swapping around the Portmanteau Couple Name of both major ships. The Just Friends Creddie ship would have been known as Seddie, while the Jerkass Seddie ship would have been known as Kreddie. It would have a minor impact on the Les Yay Cam ship by changing the name from Cam (Carly/Sam) to Kam (Kira/Sam).
Dan Schneider originally explored a straight Drake & Josh spin-off as a Miranda Cosgrove vehicle, with Miranda naturally reprising her role as Megan Parker, but ultimately he felt dissatisfied with every idea centered around that concept he could think of. He then explored the idea of a fresh concept and character that was getting closer to iCarly, but centered around a girl who suddenly found herself being cast as a star on her favorite variety TV show Starstruck. He got as far as writing the script for the pilot - and then threw it in the trash, once again being dissatisfied. He then rewrote the idea as a girl hosting her own web show and things finally started to click.
A second iCarly spin-off centered around Gibby (and titled as such) had a pilot filmed but was not picked up. As originally envisioned by Dan, it would have ran alongside Sam & Cat and Victorious.
Another spinoff idea, as revealed in Jennette McCurdy's memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died, was Just Puckett, where Sam would be a school counselor. It was scrapped in favor of Sam and Cat.
Sam's sock full of butter that she uses as a weapon in "iTake on Dingo" was originally going to be a sock full of quarters, but the powers that be decided that'd be too violent, since if a viewer decided to try it, it could actually do some damage. Probably for the best, as a sock full of butter is funnier anyway.
Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: Before Season 3 had started airing, Dan posted a script fragment from a future episode◊. He took it down quickly, but it was reposted on various sites. Naturally, shippers from both sides went nuts, especially on LiveJournal. After heavy criticism about Dan ruining the fandom and the LJ communities with his interaction he quit and deleted his LiveJournal, without warning or notice (meaning the fandom lost a lot of interesting interaction with him), and eventually setup his own blog site, which he claimed was for better control, but his first post was about being pissed off with reponses to his script.
Dan Schneider revealed in a blog post that they shot two different versions of the ending to "iOMG"; one where Carly never witnesses Sam and Freddie kiss near the end, and one where she does witness it. The second version is what made the final cut.
Schneider very carefully avoided Lying Creator by using ambiguous meanings, hypothetical, counter-questions in response to questions and shrouding common shipping viewpoints in terms of what "his friends" might think about what's happening. Was very active in the fandom up to the start of Season 3, although not as much now that he's dealing with Victorious as well as the 4th season of iCarly.
Taken to the extreme with his post about the finale "iGoodbye". After seeing backlash about his failure to make the Seddie pairing canon while he made Creddie canon via a typical Last-Minute Hookup, he wrote a blog that could be described in short as "completely inverting the meaning of what just took place on screen" by attempting to claim the Last-Minute Hookup, the romantic moment Carly comes up to the studio, takes Freddie by the hand then kisses him just moments before leaving for Italy may have actually been a platonic 'friendship' kiss. This did not go down well in the fandom, with people calling him out for the Blatant Lies, many female viewers were especially upset about the idea that they just go around passionately kissing their male friends to show their friendship. This is a good example of Word of God actually making the understanding of what took place on their show less clear. Then again, it was likely deliberate as Dan had the new Spin-OffSam & Cat, and he wanted to dangle the potential of the Seddie relationship picking up on that show to get more viewers. Most people in the fandom have simply ignored him and have gone by what took place on screen.
You Look Familiar: In "iParty With Victorious", it's remarked upon how much Tori Vega looks like Shelby Marx (both are played by Victoria Justice). Leon Thomas III and Daniella Monet also had guest spots on iCarly before being cast as Andre Harris and Trina Vega on Victorious.
claims Danielle was born on August 15, 1993, which, if true, would mean that she'd have been 16 in "iPsycho" and 18 in "iStill Psycho", making her roughly the same age as Nora and a case of Younger Than They Look.
