YMMV / As Told by Ginger

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Dodie's status as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing to Ginger that she nevertheless forgives and sticks with until late on in the show can be interpreted as, "When you're a kid you'll make terrible friends out of proximity and/or convenience because you don't know any better, but eventually you're likely to outgrow them and move on." Though this is somewhat averted by the fact that the final scene of the show shows a grown up Dodie in the book reading audience, meaning that unless she was only there for that event, she still stayed friends with Ginger.
  • One episode has Macie's parents forget her birthday — and while Macie schedules an appointment with them to talk to them it will end up in July. Ginger, upon hearing this, gets angry and walks right on into a private session to call Macie's parents out on their misdeed. This can easily be interpreted both as "You sometimes have to break the rules/make a scene to do what's right" but also "Sometimes people need a little help to stand up for themselves", as Macie's parents would have presumably gone weeks or even months without realising their mistake had Ginger not busted in on them with a patient.
  • Lois's forbidding Ginger to shave her legs and use make-up shows that some parents have incredibly arbitrary rules. Lois actually can't give a single reason why Ginger can't shave her legs or use make-up.
  • "Never Can Say Goodbye" can be interpreted as having aesops about not jumping to conclusions (Ginger assuming Darren is shunning her based on misunderstandings) and how useless the "silent treatment" actually is.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • It's possible that Mrs Gordon just despises Carl and Hoodsey, but it's also possible that she could have a fondness for them in a Tsundere way. Notably she allows Carl to call her 'Gordo' and addresses Hoodsey by his nickname a few times. Her final episode has her deciding to return to teaching after Carl begs her to — and she would have if not for her voice actress's untimely death.
  • There's a lot of fans who feel that Courtney is actually secretly in love with Ginger and that her constant attempts to reach out to her are her ways of expressing this. Alternately she could be a Lonely Rich Kid who is just fascinated by Ginger, Macie and Dodie's long running friendship and desires to have close friends. Her large Girl Posse could be interpreted as her overcompensating since she and Miranda are hardly that close.
  • Dodie appears to be very insecure and have massive abandonment issues. Her attempts at becoming popular could stem from wanting to have as many friends as possible — so she's not left alone. Whenever something changes in their dynamic, Dodie's first thought is to how it'll affect her. Big examples are Ginger discovering she's Jewish, the party that she can't go to and Darren being brought along to their summer fair tradition.
  • It's unclear if Miranda actually likes Courtney as a friend or just uses her for social status. When she and Courtney fall out in "Trouble In Gal Pal Land" she does seem miserable without her, but in "No Hope For Courtney" she easily abandons her to join Hope's clique. And for that matter, does Courtney even like her either? She seems to have her around solely so she can be a Beta Bitch (as Mipsy for example is "too pushy") but she rarely seems to think of Miranda as a friend, and more as an assistant. That said, they were thrilled to have more time to spend with each other after Miranda broke up with Darren, so they do seem to have some regard for each other.
  • Some fans interpret Brandon Higsby as being Ambiguously Gay. Others think he's mainly just childish as a result of being smothered by his parents.
  • The poem "And Then She Was Gone" is vague. Was the girl depressed and Driven to Suicide? Is it about a girl who escapes reality through escapism?
  • In "Heat Lightning", maybe Sasha actually was hoping to hook up with Ginger and back-tracked when she said she had a boyfriend. His note to her is very misleading if he just wanted to say hello, and maybe he made up still being with Clover to make Ginger feel bad. Or if he was still with her, he might have liked the idea of cheating on her with Ginger.
• Ass Pull: In the episode "Wicked Game", Ginger learns that her two best friends Dodie and Macie betrayed her with Mipsy and Miranda to try to break her up with Darren. The episode ended with Dodie on Ginger's answering machine apologizing to her. The next episode Dodie and Macie are friends with Ginger as if the betrayal never happened. What's worse is that Courtney mentions the betrayal when she tells Ginger how Dodie was not a good friend to her.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Macie, who is loved by some fans for her Little Miss Snarker tendencies and all, whilst others find her annoying.
  • Miranda is loved by some for her sassy attitude, but others hate her for always trying to ruin Ginger.
  • Joann Bishop. Although she's meant to be disliked, some find her Love to Hate but others think she is far too unlikeable. She does at least get several Take That, Scrappy! moments.
  • Ginger, herself, is either seen as a relatable and likable teenager, or an uninteresting, overdramatic and mousy Vanilla Protagonist with no backbone who complains too much about her life.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The episode "About Face" ends with a truly bizarre closing credits sequence featuring Lois and Dr. Dave doing a disco-fied "Diamonds Are Forever" parody in silhouette, with Noelle karate-chopping across the screen at one point.
• Bizarro Episode: The infamous "Wicked Game" — which both Dodie and Macie rather inexplicably decide to team with Miranda and Mipsy to split up Ginger and Darren. Not only is it completely out of character for Macie to do such a thing, it's arguably so for Dodie as well; while often being portrayed as quick to do anything for popularity, Dodie had always stopped short of actually hurting her friends (and if she did, she soon realised the error of her ways). Notably the show seems to act as if this episode never happened.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • In "The Easter Ham" Darren chews Dodie out for her It's All About Me attitude. She's acted so horrible throughout the episode that seeing her yelled at by someone normally as soft-spoken as Darren is very satisfying.
  • Ginger standing up to Joann in "Lunatic Lake" after the latter spent the entire episode being shrill bitch definitely counts — especially since she finally loses her temper with Joann when she starts badmouthing Carl in front of her. Macie throwing a bunch of maple syrup all over her also felt quite cathartic.
• Crossover Ship: Some people enjoy pairing Dodie and Dijonay with one another.
• Designated Hero: Dodie. You can count this girl's good qualities on one hand. She is incredibly selfish and thinks only of herself, wanting to become popular. There's many times where she sells her own friends out for a chance to become popular. She plans to publicly humiliate Courtney when she finds out she has lice, she plots to break up Ginger and Darren, and when she can't go to one of Ginger's parties she wants Ginger to cancel it. And when Carl and Hoodsey go missing on the camping trip, she runs Carl down left and right in front of his sister.
• Designated Villain: Two cases.
  • In the first half of the series, Courtney is meant to represent vapid, empty social life in opposition to the 'bond' between Ginger and her friends. This is while Dodie constantly stabs Ginger in the back and Courtney's attempts to get closer to Ginger are usually genuine. The result is that Courtney winds up looking like a very lonely girl who in some way understands that her social life is unsatisfying, but pride and insecurity keep her from making honest connections. This is lampshaded in 'And She Was Gone' in which a therapist notes that Courtney's 'depressed' facade is clearly exaggerated, but her need for constant attention is concerning.
  • In the latter half of the series, Simone. For going after Darren, even though she didn't know he was spoken for, because Dodie didn't just come out and tell her. Notably Simone still tries to buy Ginger gifts when she's hospitalized for appendicitis.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Courtney is a Spoiled Sweet character and Lovable Alpha Bitch, but she has several low moments that her fans often ignore, such as being mean to Hoodsey when he wets the bed, the Running Gag of her not knowing Dodie and Macie's names, some of her Condescending Compassion towards Lois when she's hired as their house cleaner, and her bullying of Hope.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Lois rarely gets plots that don't revolve around her children, but she's a great example of a good parent who can still be lots of fun at the same time. Half the funny moments are provided by her. What's more is that she's fully accepting of Carl's eccentricities as long as he's not hurting anyone.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: In "Of Lice And Men", Ginger manages to cut off the school announcement before Dodie outs Courtney for having lice... but several other students weren't so lucky, but because they are random background characters, it's not treated as important.
• Fanon: Fans have a tendency to portray the Gripling siblings as being gay. Specifically with Courtney falling for Ginger and Blake falling for Carl. It helps both Griplings seem to have a bit of a fixation on the Foutleys.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: As the years go by, more and more fans like Ginger/Courtney, even with the final episode hinting that Ginger marries Darren in the future. Blake and Carl have a considerable fan-following as well, though their relationship comes off as a lot more one-sided on Blake's end and Carl's main love interest is Noelle in the show.
• Fans Prefer the New Her:
  • The Aesop of "Deja Who" is Ginger realising she needs to be true to herself, and stop pretending to be Courtney. But it's hard to deny that she looks very nice with her hair done and in Courtney's clothes.
  • Courtney gives herself a Goth makeover in "And She Was Gone" to sell how much of an Attention Whore she is. The look is actually quite appealing.
  • Lois has to play Hoodsey's role as the singing bunny when Carl can't see him anymore in "The Easter Ham". Lois ends up looking quite cute in the outfit.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Exhibited between Carl and Blake with the fact that the latter keeps a framed photograph of Carl on his dresser among other events, one involving Blake getting straddled on a hospital bed.
• Friendly Fandoms: With The Proud Family. It helps that both Ginger and Penny have a friend who is really mean to them (Dodie / Dijonay) as well as another sympathetic and homely friend who gets dragged along (Mavie / Zoey). Some people have even jokingly called them answers to each other!
• Girl-Show Ghetto: Zig-zagged. It's a popular, successful work, but many boys avoided it due to the fact it's aimed at girls. Granted, this has seemed to change, with more and more guys coming out in recent years to admit that they did like the show back when it aired, but were too afraid to admit it.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • A gag in "Nurse's Strike" is Courtney lamenting that she and her mother have never had a chance to bond through hard times, except for merely losing the platinum card in Jamaica for three hours. In the series finale, the Griplings lose their fortune.
  • Courtney states in "The Right Stuff" before she and Macie head into the high school to attend their French class that "Standing your ground is everything in high school", cut to about two years later and Courtney is mercilessly bullied by older girls while the meek Macie and her friends have an easier time in their first year.
  • Courtney's reputation is nearly ruined when she gets headlice, but she's saved at the last minute. We see in "No Hope For Courtney" just what that could have been like — and even Miranda abandoned her for the new clique.
  • In "The Easter Ham" it's Darren who's on the moral high ground, chewing Dodie out for how selfish she's been. Fast forward to high school where Dodie now has to tell Darren to do the same.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Macie mentioned that Ginger accidentally elbowed Mipsy in the stomach in a conga line; that and Mipsy getting hit with a rock in the eye several times along with falling over at her graduation is seen as hilarious Laser-Guided Karma for how she tried to sabotage Ginger in the past.
  • The episode "Of Lice And Friends" has Dodie finding scandalous information about her peers and broadcasting it regularly. The popular girls are easy targets too. The episode predates the first Gossip Girl book by two years and the series by six years. You half expect her to sign off her announcements by saying "xoxo".
  • The show also predates Mean Girls by about four years. Given Dodie's pathetic grasps for popularity, it's easy to see her as a proto-Gretchen — and it suggests that her insecurities would not go away by being in the clique. And in both, the protagonist is a red-haired girl singled out by a popular blonde.
  • Miranda initially tried to set Ginger up with Darren so she could have Ian all to herself — then later on, Darren gets his braces removed and all the girls suddenly notice how attractive he's become and Miranda ends up dating Darren. They break up, but do on fairly amicable terms, all things considered.
  • In the sleepover episode, Miranda reacts with disgust when Courtney prints off a guide for planning "my fifth birthday party" as reference for the sleepover. Fast forward to Macie's thirteenth birthday bash, which is thrown in the same way (at a petting zoo no less!) and Courtney of course is enjoying it immensely.
  • Courtney also gets embarrassed on Macie's behalf when she hears she's going to perform the Little Seal Girl routine because of how childish it seems. The same episode as the birthday party also features a repeat performance of the "It's Courtney" song from the talent show.
  • "I Spy A Witch" accurately predicted teens and young people being busted for crimes after posting them on social media. Miranda defaces a school statue and gets caught out when a picture of her doing it gets emailed around.
  • Melissa Disney would voice a villainous character named Courtney in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, who is also an Idol Singer.
  • The final scene depicts Ginger apparently telling stories from her childhood and teenage years in the form of a book — called As Told By Ginger. This predated the rise of "Animated storytime" channels on YouTube, books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the rise of middle-grade fiction about Middle School, but Arthur also ended in a similar way.
• Hollywood Homely: Ginger, due to the combination of Klasky-Csupo's art style and Emily Kapnek stating that there were many designs rejected for Ginger because they were "too pretty" or "too ugly", can count as this.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • In the final episode, Blake of all people becomes this. For most of the series, he was an arrogant Smug Snake, but then when his dad is forced to liquidate all the resources he has to fight his court battles he and his family lose everything and he's reduced to begging Carl for help finding a home. What clinches it is when Blake actually starts crying when Carl accuses him of faking. Hell, Carl even actually feels sorry for the poor bastard.
  • Carl himself can be considered this. He's a compulsive troublemaker who causes his mother and teachers no end of frustration, and he repels almost everyone with his bizarre hobbies—but many of his issues clearly stem from his father abandoning him, which left him desperate for a decent male role model in his life.
  • Miranda, surprisingly, but she's implied to have a difficult relationships with her parents (her dad in particular), and she seems very insecure Courtney will replace her as her best friend, leading her to take her jealousy out on Ginger. In "Summer of Camp Caprice", she shows her Hidden Depths massively.
  • Dodie Bishop. She's often a self-centered, social climbing drama queen, but one has to consider that she feels badly about how badly her Mother treats others, from her Stepford Smiler act at Lunatic Lake and when she receives the news of her mother teaching at her school, she gets panicked and states she knows first hand why her Mother shouldn't be around children. Her grasps for popularity appear even more sadder.
  • Joanne Bishop, to a lesser extent, she's implied to be very anxious and to have a lot of emotional problems. Then it turns out that she was grasping for popularity as much as Dodie was and then voted "Missed Popularity" in Junior High and in the beginning of the series she had a book club that took her years to organize, only for it to be dismantled after Carl opens a jar of rotten eggs.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Dodie is the most hated character in the series due to being an Attention Whore who frequently backstabs Ginger for personal gain despite being her best friend. She's even more hated than Miranda, the Alpha Bitch who regularly bullies and blackmails Ginger. Although Miranda is intended to be despised by viewers, being mistreated by a friend comes off as worse to them since Dodie is one of the quote-on-quote protagonists. Plus, Miranda is actually quite funny for being a Deadpan Snarker and surprisingly quotable so that has earned her some favor. While Dodie doesn't anything to earn her favor.
• Love to Hate:
  • Joann Bishop might be an abusive Jerkass but she also gets some hilarious lines and the sheer amount of Take That, Scrappy! moments she gets helps balance it out.
  • Miranda as well, played by Cree Summer at her deadpan best. Then there's that memorable scene where her Evil Laugh literally terrifies nearby children.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • This particular line in "Cry Wolf":
    Miranda: Let me pretend I care.
    (she makes a sympathetic face for a second)
    Miranda: Okay, I'm done.
  • Essentially the entire episode "Come Back, Little Seal Girl", but perhaps most notably this line:
    Macie: (to Ginger and Dodie while wearing the Little Seal Girl costume) Do I look like a girl who's concerned with what's cool?
  • The Staggered Zoom of Dodie's evil smile and Death Glare in "Fair to Cloudy" after Ginger finds out that she invited Courtney on their county fair trip as revenge for Ginger dragging Darren along has become a popular GIF.
  • A meme made out of a still from "Carl and Maude" went viral in 2016. The still shows the part where Maude is holding out her brisket to an uncomfortable Courtney, begging her to pre-chew it, with added text of "me" (above Courtney), "y'all" (above Maude's arm) and "Game of Thrones" (under the brisket).
• Narm Charm:
  • The way Lois says Carl's name (her accent essentially drops the "R" sound), especially when she's yelling at him for something he did. A funny example is in "Losing Nana Bishop", where one scene has Ginger writing in her journal while Lois can be heard ranting about Carl's latest shenanigans through the air vent in her room.
    Lois: Caaaahl... CAHL!
  • To a lesser extent, the way she says Ginger's name as well, most notably in "Kiss and Make-Up" when she sees Ginger covered with homemade makeup ("fakeup") in her school picture.
    Lois: GINJAAAAAH! (slams the photos on the table demanding an explanation)
  • Also, this line of hers in "Summer of Camp Caprice"...
    Lois: You feel like baa-becue for dinna?
  • Ginger's Copper-Colored Ponies song. It's without a doubt corny, and should have been completely cringe-worthy. And yet, the context of singing in front of a camp with dozens of kids you know watching and her obvious embarrassment makes the whole scene very endearing. And just sort of... works. Courtney later refers to it as "nauseating".
  • This actually gets mentioned In-Universe when Macy performs "Little Seal Girl" during the school talent contest. Courtney even calls it "terribly endearing", despite the fact the song and character is for little kids.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Subsequently for Carl for several of his pranks.
  • Dodie has been forgiven for a lot of things but her behavior in "Wicked Game" — trying to split Ginger and Darren up — makes her irredeemable to most viewers. Closely followed by her attempts to humiliate her fellow students in "Of Lice and Friends", and demanding Ginger cancel a party just because she can't go in "The Easter Ham". Those three incidents are notable because, while she does get called out on her behaviour, she never actually acknowledges that she was wrong.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Orion qualifies as one after Darren and Ginger's breakup. He starts hanging out with Ginger and friends and sitting with them at lunch in the same fashion Darren would.
  • In that note, Simone, for what happened with Ginger and Darren when she fell for him.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Some fans go overboard with the Dodie hate. It's worth noting that the show usually does call her out for her worse actions ("Wicked Game" being the exception, but Macie was just as much to blame in that situation). Usually if she does something overboard, she learns a lesson and she often does apologise — and in "Lunatic Lake" she tries to apologise for her mother's treatment of Carl. She does apologise at the end of "Wicked Game" too but the subsequent fallout is never explored. This also ignores many times that Ginger has done bad things to Dodie — such as her rather mean-spirited April Fool's Day pranks — but since Ginger is the POV character, the audience can usually see when she regrets it.
  • Simone gets a lot of hate for Darren falling for her in the high school episodes. It however ignores the fact that Simone didn't know he had a girlfriend. Dodie in fact hid that information from her. So Simone just pursued a guy who she believed was single, which Darren led her to believe. And when Ginger is in the hospital after the break-up, Simone is in the gift shop trying to help Darren buy something for her.
• The Scrappy:
  • Dodie, thanks to her selfish and hypocritical personality and willingness to betray Ginger for a selfish need. Odds are if any episode on YouTube has Dodie doing something unsavory or being a bad friend, the top comments would be how much hate they have for her.
  • Sasha is the most disliked of Ginger's love interests, and not just for his callous treatment of her in later episodes; even at Camp Caprice, he acts extremely judgmental and doesn't seem to have many redeeming qualities beyond being attractive. Even worse, when his ex-girlfriend Clover returns, she's shown to act the same way Sasha accused Ginger of being making him come off as a massive Hypocrite.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Courtney/Ginger vs Darren/Ginger. Also Orion/Ginger with those who dislike Darren.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Dodie is widely disliked by fans but she does get her comeuppance numerous times — getting hit with a football, Macie accidentally punching her in the face, and usually getting called out for her worse deeds.
  • Mipsy getting hit in the eye with a pebble twice in "About Face".
  • Joann getting food poisoning from rancid shellfish. The episode also climaxes with Macie throwing a torrent of maple syrup in her face.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Macie in the high school episodes is often Out of Focus, with the most attention she gets being a gag about breaking up with Andrew and being cut from music when the budget is slashed. While Dodie got a couple of episodes to show that she was going through Character Development, Macie never gets this.
  • Miranda too is Demoted to Extra in the high school years, only appearing in one scene to wonder about Courtney's whereabouts. Given Courtney's Fallen Princess status in high school, no attempt is made to explore how their relationship has changed with the differing social hierarchy. Her Hidden Depths had been touched on in "Summer of Camp Caprice", but never get explored further. She at least comes Back for the Finale in one scene.
  • Within the popular girls, Mipsy never gets A Day in the Limelight. As someone possibly even nastier than Miranda, no effort is made to explore her home life or relationship to the other girls. The closest she gets is an episode where her birthday comes before Macie's.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: At the end of "Wicked Game" Ginger discovers that Dodie and Macie took part in a scheme by Miranda and Mipsy to sabotage her relationship with Darren. It looks like it'll be a two-part episode, or even a Story Arc, with plots examining Ginger's estrangement from her friends, Dodie and Macie's reasons for taking part, Courtney's disillusionment with Miranda and Mipsy. But no other episodes continue on and it is never followed up on, with things back to normal by the next episode.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Simone is this big time. She gets caught in the crossfires of a very confusing situation, despite being a Nice Girl. She's attracted to Darren, who is leading her on, unaware he's dating Ginger, and her own protege is Ginger's friend Dodie. Dodie herself can't bring herself to tell her out of fear she'll hurt any of the people involved. Darren decides to rip off the bandage, and in a tragic case of Contrived Coincidence, Ginger's appendix burst after he broke up with her. Simone tries to help Darren through his guilt, but he is so guilt-stricken that it causes an irreparable rift in their relationship.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Dodie in "Deja Who" unfortunately comes across as very hypocritical during her speech calling out Ginger on behaving like someone else; since in every other episode, Dodie shamelessly tries to be popular, and even in this one she first gets excited about Ginger pretending to be Courtney meaning her and Macie will be popular by association.
  • Lois in "Kiss and Make-Up" and "Cry Wolf". Both times she forbids Ginger from either wearing makeup or shaving her legs. The former is a harsh move, since Ginger and the girls don't want to start doing it full time and only want to wear it for their school pictures — and Lois's reasoning of not wanting her to grow up too fast falls rather flat. Then for the latter, she has no good reason to prevent Ginger from shaving.
  • During the episode with the camping trip, Ginger and Macie are just about the only sympathetic people. Yes, Carl actually tried to be nice to Jojo even though his attempts made her sick, but he still snuck out with Hoodsey at night. Dodie tries to teach Ginger all about accepting the quirks of her parents, but if anything, she and her father come off as enablers to Jojo's veritably toxic behavior.
  • Brandon in "The Easter Ham". He's working for Carl and Hoodsey in the beginning, and doesn't listen to their feedback or direction — making him come across as The Primadonna for not being willing to tone his act down.
  • Darren big time in the latter half of the series. When they get to high school, it's intended as Both Sides Have a Point when he and Ginger split up - showing them simply drifting apart. Except for all his insistence that Ginger isn't supportive of his football, she does still go to games and the one she misses is because of Saturday detention (and she's reluctant to tell Darren because she fears he'll jump down her throat about it). It's also easy to forgive Ginger not being 100% attentive, since there was also an episode having her developing a caffeine addiction thanks to her Sadist Teacher. Darren also happily flirts with Simone, and it's obvious in "Kiss Today Goodbye" that she doesn't know he has a girlfriend (Orion by contrast knows Ginger has a boyfriend). And once he splits up with Ginger, he's a Jerkass to her in "Battle of the Bands", and in "The Wedding Frame" is already losing interest in Simone ^note  This one he might get some sympathy for as it's implied he lost interest in her due to severe guilt about Ginger getting appendicitis. One can only hope they got together after he Took a Level in Kindness in the future.
• Unintentional Period Piece: After about 15 years, the fact that the show's run was in the early to mid-2000s becomes more and more eapparent, with mentions of stuff like VHS-tapes and players, scrunchies, pagers, Carl and Hoodseys' few attempts to achieve pre-YouTube fame along with the hairstyles and clothing worn by many of the characters, especially Courtney's hair and wardrobe along with Ginger wearing boho-style girly clothing, cargo pants, and baggy jeans (pre-skinny jeans and jeggings). The episode "The Right Stuff" featured a banner for a science fair proclaiming its then-current year: 2000. There is also the Gripling's ostentatious lifestyle (pre-Great Recession) and Mipsy's 13th birthday bash (again pre-recession and more or less similar to My Super Sweet Sixteen) and the rich, popular girls all having cell phones (as a sign of their parents' affluence and of being spoiled). Ginger, Dodie, and Macie are often seen having three-way phone conversations through their homes' landlines as this was before online chat services became mainstream. The same can apply to Carl, Hoodsey, and Blake communicating through walkie-talkies. YMMV on Ginger's clothes, though. Given her financial status compared to characters like Courtney and Miranda, she doesn't dress to be stylish—the more boho pieces could be some of her mother's old clothing.
• Unnecessary Makeover:
  • Many fans prefer Lois as a Big Beautiful Woman rather than her after she lost weight for her wedding with Dr. Dave.
  • Hope Rogers giving herself a makeover to become popular does help get everyone's attention, but her old look with the beret and side part was still quite cute — and the haircut she gives herself would later become identified with snobby middle-aged women.
• Values Dissonance: The big twist in "The Wedding Frame" is that Nikki is a crossdresser, which is depicted as even worse than the fact that she was hired to sabotage Lois and Dave. This plays on a number of tropes that have not aged well regarding trans women — such as Creepy Crossdresser, Unsettling Gender-Reveal and that all trans women are deceptive and disgusting.
• Values Resonance: Over two decades later, the series is still praised for dealing with issues that cartoons typically avoid like death or depression. It concerning Slut-Shaming, having strong Ambiguously Gay characters, and other such things make it especially popular in today's time. The episode where Dodie becomes the morning speaker and reveals the list of kids who have lice, is especially resonant with issues like doxxing and hacking into private accounts and revealing information like nude photos. It also was set in middle school — rather than High School, long before many works about Middle School became popular during The New '10s.
• Wangst: Justified in that they're teenagers and teenagers do like to make mountains out of molehills when it comes to social issues. Courtney often indulges in this but others do as well.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Especially compared to other Klasky-Csupo works, this cartoon delves into considerably more mature and deep topics. It's aimed at the middle school audience. The show deals with preteen and teenage issues in a frank and understanding way.
• The Woobie:
  • Ginger is constantly this. Especially bad late in the series, when her boyfriend breaks up with her... and she gets appendicitis the same night.
  • Hoodsey. He's one of the most good-natured characters on the show, but he's painfully shy, and he has no friends other than Carl—who his mother constantly decries as a bad influence, even though he's one of the only kids in Hoodsey's life who actually treats him like a human being. Even his family doesn't seem to pay him much attention, since he's constantly overshadowed by his much more outgoing sister, Dodie.
  • Courtney, especially in her first year of high school. She went from being the most popular girl in middle school to being mercilessly bullied by older girls and then having her family lose their money. It's also sad that Courtney really doesn't seem close to anyone, not in her family who are all polite but distant, or in her circle of friends, as they are friendships of convenience.

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