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YMMV / Jessie

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  • Accidental Innuendo: "Who broke into my room and touched my badger?"
    • "Would you like to see a picture of my lizard?"
    • "I'm on you like stripes on a tiger!"
    • "That date ended with me all wet."
    • "Judging by his hand gesture, I do not think he considers you a buddy."
    • The episode title "Pain in the Rear Window".
  • Adorkable:
    • Jessie can be clumsy or even silly at times, but is still a likable Nice Girl.
    • In contrast to Luke who acts more like a cool guy, Ravi is a nerdy boy who often spends time with his monitor lizard, Mrs. Kipling.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Are the Ross parents extremely successful celebrities who are simply too busy maintaining their financial empire so that their children can afford keeping Bertram, Jessie and all of their material possessions around and legitimately love their children, or are they irresponsible self-absorbed attention freaks who have clearly adopted far too many children just for the sake of appearances and have left them to be raised by money, resulting in four spoiled brats?
    • Is Jessie really a Magical Nanny or dangerously incompetent and ill-suited for the job? Even the show itself has a hard time deciding (sometimes within the same episode), with her own kids making fun of her skills.
      • Also, Jessie is engaging in Obfuscating Stupidity. She can fly a helicopter and was a straight-A student in high school, after all. The fact that she genuinely can do right and give good advice is also telling.
    • One joke suggests Ravi cares for Kipling's children out of fear of her.
  • Award Snub: In good company with Nickelodeon's own The Haunted Hathaways and even The Big Bang Theory who all lost Favorite TV Show at the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards to Sam & Cat (and Debby Ryan and Sam & Cat's Jennette McCurdy losing Favorite TV actress to Ariana Grande, who herself said it should've gone to Jennette).
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Is Ravi cute or annoying?
    • Is his "relationship" with Mrs. Kipling (and the way he treated her young) cute or annoying? At least Ravi has some of the funniest scenes, but at the cost of also being one of the most annoying characters on Disney Channel.
    • The Ross parents. A rare case of potential Base Breaking characters existing through their absence.
  • Best Known for the Fanservice: A lot of people who are only vaguely aware of the show know it as "that Disney Channel show with the really pretty redhead in it." It's also really telling that in the following examples the fandom specifically refers to them by the actors as opposed to the characters they play:
    • "Evil Times Two" is "that episode where Debby gets in a mudwrestling catfight."
    • "Make New Friends But Hide the Old" is "that episode where Peyton dresses like a Barbie Doll" (complete with giant boobs).
    • "Throw Momma From the Terrace" is "that episode where Debby and Peyton dress like Rockettes."
    • "Lizard Scales and Wrestling Tales" is "that episode where Debby dresses as a WWE Diva" (or a Disneyfied version of one).
    • "Creepy Connie 3: The Creepening" is "that episode where Sierra McCormick ties up Debby and G. Hannelius."
    • "Someone Has Toupay" is "that episode where Debby dresses like a Film Noir Femme Fatale."
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Adam Sandler in "Punch-Dumped Love," from Breaking the Fourth Wall with Cameron Boyce to admitting that the punch was made in Kevin James' bathtub (with Kevin James in it) to insisting being called Thunder to his very unexplained appearance in the episode to begin with.
    • It was meant to be a cross-promotion for Grown Ups 2, which starred Sandler and Boyce. There was even a pun on the film's title. Of course, that doesn't mean it would be apparent to kids watching after 2013.
  • Bizarro Episode: "To Be Me Or Not To Be Me".
  • Cargo Ship: Bertram and any of his kitchen tools. Taken up to eleven in "Coffee Talk", where he falls in love with a coffee maker with a sentient AI, to the point of accusing her of cheating on him with Luke (who just wanted to use the AI as a Spanish tutor, since Ravi gave up on him).
  • Creator's Pet: Zuri, hands down.
    • Kipling. Do we really need that many episodes about a reptile?
    • To a lesser extent, Ravi himself.
    • Brooks, the man Jessie would be engaged to at the end of Season 3. Most viewers found him to be absolutely charmless and even a stalker. The fact that he was also rich also made people think Jessie was mostly attracted to the money.
  • Critic-Proof: There is hardly a review of this show published that didn't claim anything other than it being horrible. It's gotten so bad, in fact, that websites that don't even normally review TV shows at all (like humor site Cracked, or Deadspin which is a sports news site though often branching into humor) would review it specifically just to point out how awful it is and/or how awful the state of tween-centric entertainment is. That hasn't stopped the show from getting high ratings (yet inconsistent at times) and being among the most renewed shows on the network when it aired.
  • Crossover Ship: Jessie with Cody Martin (you should've seen this coming). Or even Jessie and Bailey.
    • Since the crossover with Austin & Ally shipping Jessie with Austin has become popular.
      • Likewise for Emma and Austin (bonus points for canon shipping!)
    • Jessie and Teddy. The upcoming crossover between the two shows wasn't necessary to make this happen; this pairing had been popular since SLOD (when Debby was still Bailey).
    • Jessie and Sam Puckett is pretty popular too.
    • Jessie and PJ Duncan or Jessie and Adam Davenport. What makes these two pairings popular is that they've both appeared on the series (during the Jessie/Good Luck Charlie crossover and when Spencer Boldman guest starred in "Break-Up and Shape-Up") and rumors of Debby actually dating one of them in real life.
  • Estrogen Brigade: Tony, Luke and even Ravi (the show has greatly underestimated his appeal to the fanbase in this regard).
  • Ethnic Scrappy: You'd be hard-pressed finding an Indian fan that likes Ravi, when even his actor admitted his dislike for him. One of the main reasons he was hated was his Indian accent, as Karan Brar actually has a natural American accent and he needed a tutor to teach him how to fake it.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: One of the most popular characters in the whole show so far is Creepy Connie - a character who not only was meant to be as close to walking Nightmare Fuel as a series of this nature would allow, but also a character who has appeared in a whopping three episodes.
    • Officer Petey, who has now appeared in two episodes each season so far.
    • Nanny Agatha, who's appeared in as many episodes as Officer Petey has so far (including one with Officer Petey)
    • Maybelle, who has appeared in a whole single episode and mentioned in passing in another one. She's one of the most frequently requested characters to make a return in future episodes or in the Bunk'd spin-off.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Jessie is with Tony, but fans like to pair her with Luke or Officer Petey, or for those into Les Yay, with Emma.
    • The canon Jessie-Tony pairing started gaining real traction with the fans once, ironically enough, Jessie and Tony split and especially after the show started pairing Jessie with random-love-interest-of-the-week. Brooks and his relative unpopularity with the fans also helped the Jessie-Tony pairing gain popularity in comparison.
    • Emma and Maybelle as a Heterosexual Life-Partners variation of this trope (or not).
  • Fandom Rivalry:
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Even though Ravi is an Ethnic Scrappy, apparently India liked it enough to have a remake.
  • Girl-Show Ghetto: Averted by using an equal cast of three guys and three girls, giving both the male and female characters important (if not entirely equal) roles and attracting both male and female viewers with eye candy. You can take the viewpoint that the show is slightly shifted more towards girls because Jessie herself is the title character, Peyton List is the second actor billed & Zuri is the first regular character the audience is introduced to after Jessie.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: After "The Whining" aired, a nanny in New York did kill two of her kids like the Ross children thought Jessie wanted to do. Disney has since removed the episode from iTunes pulled all reruns.
    • Averted with the episode "Quitting Cold Koala," as it was pulled before being aired due to jokes made about Gluten-free dieters. It was to air in May of 2013 and May is National Celiac Disease Awareness Month. People with Celiac Disease cannot eat gluten.
    • In-universe example: In "Gotcha Day," Bertram warns Mr. Kipling that if he ever has kids, Bertram will make omelets out of them. In "The Secret Life of Mr. Kipling" (which happened to be the very next episode), Mr(s). Kipling's unhatched kids are in danger by being trapped inside a restaurant - that specializes in making omelets!
    • A particularly uncomfortable moment: The final episodes of Season 3 consist of a multi-part story arc where Jessie suddenly gets engaged to a guy she randomly meets through the help of acquaintances (Emma, Zuri and Mrs. Chesterfield - all who ironically later try to split her up with him). It's been widely assumed (and rather transparent) that the story arc is an Author Avatar / Actor Allusion moment to Debby's real-life relationship to Twenty One Pilots drummer Josh Dunn, a person she randomly met through the help of acquaintances (friendships with other members of Twenty One Pilots as well as her own band, The Never Ending) to the point where many fans speculated she would announce her own real life engagement to Josh at the conclusion of the story arc. As it turned out, Debby and Josh broke up right during the middle of the story arc's airing - which could make development of future plotlines of the show's marriage a bit awkward, to say the least. The fact that this comes on the heels of the break-up of Debby's real-life friend Sarah Hyland's breakup with long-time boyfriend Matt Prokop (due to what turned out to be a very abusive relationship) manages to make it just that much more uncomfortable. It got better after the show ended, when Josh and Debby made up and got engaged for real.
      • The end of the plotline (they don't get married and the guy moves to Africa to run an animal shelter) makes this either better or worse, depending on how you look at it.
      • Then Debby revealed that she had been victimized by stalking and physical abuse by an unnamed assailant (which many people initially wrongly thought was Josh Dun), making this even worse, especially since many of Jessie's love interests and friends (including Brooks and Luke) often engage in what can be interpreted as stalking behavior.
      • Likewise the subtle rape and prostitution jokes that tend to make their way into episodes.
    • The end of an episode when Ravi suggests he and Luke should be permanent roommates was Heartwarming in Hindsight when Karan Brar and Cameron Boyce became roommates years after the show ended...until a few months later, when Karan apparently woke up to find Cameron dead.
    • In "Used Karma" Jessie says she doesn't want to date Tony because she's afraid of a nasty break-up and being forced to climb up 30 flights of stairs just to avoid him - both of which, respectively, happen in "Break-Up and Shape-Up" and "The Blind Date, The Cheapskate and The Primate".
    • At the end of "Creepy Connie 3: The Creepening" and the fake wedding between Connie and Luke Jessie grabs the tossed bouquet proclaiming that she's going to be the next to get married - which almost happens at the end of that season in "There Goes the Bride."
    • In multiple episodes, Bertram and Jessie joke that Luke will never go to college. Luke's actor, Cameron Boyce, died at only 20 years old when he hadn't enrolled into college yet. And now he never will.
    • After she gets knocked down by Luke's RC car, Jessie says she's confiscating it until 2020. Boyce wouldn't make it to that year.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: In one episode, Jessie delivers a speech on how precious childhood toys are and how meaningful their memories are. In another episode, it turns out that Luke is attached to Kenny the Koala because he was the only family he had at the orphanage. Although, it seems a bit Harsher in Hindsight and hypocritical considering that Jessie and co. spent much of the episode trying to separate Luke from him.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: It was already reasonably funny, but the joke where Zuri calls Ravi "Mowgli" gets even funnier when you remember who Ravi's pet is named for.
    • The plot point of the episode guest starring NBA All-Star Chris Bosh, who plays for the Miami Heat, has Luke trying to and seemingly suceeding at washing Chris's lucky socks, rendering them useless and causing Bosh to lose all of his skills, so the Knicks can beat the Heat. Considering that television episodes are typically shot at least 2-3 months before their air date, the episode was more than likely shot before the 2012-13 NBA season had started. New York and Miami have played each other twice between filming and the air date, and the Knicks won both games.
    • Add to that Lebron not scoring 20 or more points in a game for the first time all season right around the time of the promo started running and that the Knicks got off to one of their hottest starts to the season in franchise history makes its even funnier.
    • In "Where's Zuri?" Jessie called Hudson (played by Matt Shively) "her with man hands" after learning their backstories were the same. In and of itself funny, even funnier when you learn Ryan (Matt Shively's character from True Jackson, VP) was teased a lot for his girly physique.
    • In "The Princess and the Pea Brain"note , "Princess" Jessie mentions that the halftime act at a jousting competition will be "M'Lady Gaga". This becomes funnier now that Lady Gaga's actually headlined the halftime show during Super Bowl LI.
    • In "Girls Don't Wanna Get Shunned" Jessie warns Bertram about how nasty and backstabbing teenagers are - then Bertram points out that Jessie is a teenager. This episode aired just a few weeks before Debby Ryan's 20th birthday (and was thus no longer a teenager).
      • Likewise, in "Punch-Dumped Love" Bertram notes Jessie's hypocrisy in complaining about teenagers by pointing out she's still a teenager, even though Debby had already turned 20 when the episode aired (although she was still a teenager when the episode was actually filmed).note 
      • Also in "Punch-Dumped Love" Jessie looks at Balloon Jessie and says that she looks good as a blonde. Debby had started dying her hair blonde during the hiatus between that season and the next, and since production of the show wrapped has mostly been a blonde (and of course, she was blonde in Suite Life on Deck).
  • Ho Yay: In "Somebunny's In Trouble", Brett is Mistaken for Cheating on Emma, leading to a fight when she finds out he's been hanging out with Luke behind her back, her brother being referred to as "the other woman" up until the reveal. Their behavior and Brett's conversations with Emma and Luke that follow are similar to that of a soap opera when one is caught cheating, background music and all.
    Luke: There's only one thing to do. Brett, I don't think we should see each other anymore. Have I cherished our time together? Yes, but... it's over.
    Brett: Luke, no!
    Luke: We'll always have the Jets game.
    Brett: Luke, don't be rash.
    Luke: I said it's over!
    • This is prefaced by a scene in which Emma discovers Luke wearing Brett's football jersey.
    Emma: Luke, are you wearing Brett's jersey?
    Luke: I got cold.
    • Also, this dialogue during the credits scene:
    Luke: Bertram, throw out everything Brett touched.
    Bertram: Great, so that includes you and Emma.
  • Hollywood Homely: Jessie, played by Debby Ryan, is occasionally made fun of for apparent physical imperfections. Though that might be the joke.
  • Jerkass Woobie: All of the main characters get at least one turn at this, typically by being selfish but repentant brats (yes, including Jessie).
  • Just Here for Godzilla: As with most Disney KidComs, a fair amount of males are only watching to look at females (in this case, Debby Ryan and Peyton List).
    • Apparently, a good chunk of the show's actual intended fanbase are watching mainly for Ravi and especially Luke.
  • Les Yay: Emma, with Jasmine. And again with Rosie.
    • And with Jessie. Especially with Jessie.
    • Jessie and Angela. Their catfight practically made this canon.
  • Like You Would Really Do It: Sure, it's one thing if Jessie's dad gets married, but Jessie getting married? It wasn't much of a surprise to fans that Jessie doesn't go through with the marriage.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Agatha crosses the line by oppressing nannies and trying to blackmail Jessie with out-of-context photos to get her fired.
    • Darla especially crossed it in the past, by throwing Jessie down a well!
    • Connie, either when she kidnapped Kenny or when she tried to roast Luke with a flamethrower. If neither of those count for you, then her kidnapping three people and trying to force Luke into marrying her. But seriously, if the second one doesn't count for you, get your head checked out.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • The B plot in "Take the A-Train… I Think?" involves Bertram and Luke trying to kill a spider. The worst part comes after they kill it and decide to watch a movie, only to discover that the spider had babies and the cinema room is stock full of them and their webs. This is not a pretty sight and can scare even the less arachnophobic people.
    • The episode "The Jessie-nator: Grudgement Day" is one of the darker episodes (although the whole thing was made up by Ravi) but the real nightmare factor comes from Bertram, who lost his whole body except the head because of one of Luke's pranks. He uses a robotic body for most of the episode, which is not that bad, but he really looks unnerving after his disfigured head is attached to a vacuum cleaner.
  • Replacement Scrappy Series: Some people had this attitude when Jessie first premiered regarding Suite Life on Deck. Note that people also thought the same when On Deck replaced Suite Life of Zack and Cody and people are already making the same comparisons between Bunk'd and this show.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
  • The Scrappy:
    • Zuri to some, for her annoying, bratty attitude. She Took a Level in Jerkass in later seasons, with few heartwarming moments in between. For example, she blatantly mismanaged and neglected Ravi's baby lizards when he asked her to babysit them and still demanding that she be paid for it. Also, in "Caught Purple Handed" she lied to partygoers, saying a really famous celebrity would be there, but once Emma and Luke opposed the fact she lied, she immediately insulted them and made them fix her problem.
    • Brooks to most of the fanbase, for being a love interest that appeared out of nowhere and usurped the Official Couple between Tony and Jessie. How his character came off as having all the personality of well-worn cardboard didn't help matters either.
  • Special Effect Failure: The tiger in "Jessie's Big Break" is clearly not there.
    • "The Jessie-nator: Grudgment Day" attempted to have two Jessies on-screen (one is Jessie, one is her futuristic Sarah Connor-esque self) at once.
  • Spiritual Licensee: A lot feel that this is The Bailey Pickett Show with the Serial Numbers Filed Off.
    • That almost was the case but very early in development it was felt that making it a formal Suite Life spin-off would be too much of a distraction and take away from the Suite Life on Deck finale.
  • Squick: The Ross kids' reaction to Bertram and Jessie when they mistakenly believed Bertram was proposing to Jessie. Quite possibly many in the audience, too.
  • Testosterone Brigade: Jessie, Emma and Christina Ross when she appears. Maybelle too, for those who find country girls sexy.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Crossing over with Liv and Maddie and not have Liv or Maddie anywhere in sight (Jessie's Aloha Holidays with Parker and Joey)? Especially since Emma and Liv would get on like a house on fire, and Jessie would likely bond with Maddie? Not to mention a special with Debby Ryan, Peyton List, Dove Cameron and Maia Mitchell would definitely appeal to the show's Testosterone Brigade.
    • For that matter, the Good Luck JESSIE crossover. In the first half, only three characters from both shows (Jessie, Zuri and Teddy) actually interacted with each other, all while being stuck on a subway car. The rest of the half played out like any normal Good Luck Charlie episode. In the second half, the only Good Luck Charlie characters that got to be featured at all were Teddy and P.J.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: It's hard to act sympathetic for the kids at times, considering that they're selfish half of the time (especially Zuri).
    • Christina Ross in the series finale "Jessie Goes to Hollywood". While it's completely understandable that Christina only wants to be closer and spend time with her kids (in fact what parent doesn't want that?), the way she gets Jessie out of the way is completely uncalled for. She gets jealous of the kids overreliance of Jessie, despite the fact Jessie has been with them 4 years of their life to know everything about them as people, what does she expect? She doesn't even ask Jessie anything about the kids or try relating to them. Then she books Jessie an acting gig as an excuse to get her out of the way simply so the kids will spend time with her. This is made even worse when she reveals she knows Bertram's true nature and how they all love and care for him, but appearantly this doesn't apply to Jessie even when the kids need her. While Christina does get a heartwarming moment with her in the end, it doesn't change the fact Jessie only got the job simply as a "get out" ticket.
    • Stuart makes it hard to relate to him and his crush on Zuri, as his behavior frequently crosses the line into creepy stalker territory, including a time where he locked Zuri and himself in the Ross' panic room! No wonder Zuri wants to avoid him.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Ravi is considered an Ethnic Scrappy by many Indian-American individuals, mainly because he's a checklist of a lot of negative stereotypes (like being skilled at yoga and a nerd). Even his actor Karan Brar called him a walking stereotype. Many Indians were also angry that his pet was named after Rudyard Kipling, as Kipling in real life was racist to Indians.
  • The Woobie: Jessie - Debby's acting and facial expressions really sell it. Bertram also gets more than a few moments of Woobie-ness.
    • Ravi gets a lot of Woobie moments too, especially in Are You Cooler Than a Fifth Grader? and Gotcha Day and pretty much whenever Mr. Kipling is in trouble. Like Debby, the actor really sells it. Additionally, if anyone's going to get hurt in a scene, it's usually Ravi.
    • Stuart gets hit with this pretty hard. He really likes Zuri, but is unintentionally stalking her. Zuri doesn't even give him a chance and openly degrades him in public even though he's done a lot for her. She made him do a lot of this stuff; she's actually using him.

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