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5[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/neighborhood01.jpg]]
6 [[caption-width-right:350:''"Hey, Calvin!" "Hey, Dave."'']]
7
8-> ''Welcome to the block,''\
9''Welcome to The Neighborhood,''\
10''Welcome to the hoo-ood...''
11
12''The Neighborhood'' is a comedy series about a white guy named Dave Johnson (Creator/MaxGreenfield), who moves along with his wife Gemma (Creator/BethBehrs) and elementary-school aged son Grover (Hank Greenspan) from Kalamazoo, Michigan to a Southern California neighborhood populated with mostly black people. Calvin Butler (Creator/CedricTheEntertainer), his next door neighbor, finds him annoying, and tries to avoid him at all costs. Calvin's wife Tina (Creator/TichinaArnold) on the other hand wants to get along with and is nice to them. A majority of episodes revolve around Dave trying to be friendly with Calvin.
13
14The show premiered on October 1, 2018, on CBS.
15
16Not to be confused with the American AlternativeRock band Music/TheNeighbourhood.
17----
18!!Welcome to the Tropes:
19
20* ActorAllusion: Marty's full name is "Martin Lawrence Butler", in reference to Creator/MartinLawrence, with whom Tichina Arnold starred with in ''Series/{{Martin}}'' and is good friends with.
21* ActuallyPrettyFunny: When Dave is providing his lame puns and jokes to compare himself to Creator/DwayneJohnson, Tina sincerely laughs, much to Calvin's chagrin.
22* AshesToCrashes: In “Welcome to the Surprise“, Calvin gets his father’s ashes from his mother. Dave decides that he and Calvin should go fishing at Monica Pier with the ashes, just like Calvin’s dad used to do. While casting a line, Dave accidentally hooks the urn and sends it flying into the ocean.
23* BadassPacifist: According to Logan, Dave's friend from Michigan, Dave is such an effective mediator that he was once able to get feuding warlords to make peace and become friends just by talking to them.
24* BerserkButton: Gemma has hers pressed when a wealthy donor to her school indirectly referred to her as a so-called educator in “Welcome to the Mama Drama“.
25* BadBadActing: Tina and Dave in the commercial for Calvin's auto shop. Tina overplays her part while Dave adds ridiculous motivations for his character.
26* BasementDweller: At the beginning of the series, Malcolm was unemployed and still living with Calvin and Tina. As time went on, he got a job as a security guard and finally moved out of his parents' home... and into the house next door with Marty, which they are renting from their parents after Calvin and Tina bought it from their grumpy former neighbor Walter.
27* BecauseISaidSo: Calvin says this to Grover every time he refuses to do something in "Welcome to the Anniversary."
28* BewareTheNiceOnes: Dave is annoyingly nice, but when pushed over the edge or attacked, can put the fear of God into someone. Justified, due to his military training, where he'd have learned hand-to-hand combat.
29* BillBillJunkBill: Calvin looking through his mail in "Welcome to the Standoff".
30-->'''Calvin:''' Junk. Junk. Save the Children.... Junk!
31* BlackAndNerdy: Marty is an engineer who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Near the end of season five, he quits NASA to start an electric vehicle restoration business with Calvin.
32* BlackSitcom: ZigZagged. The Butlers are of African-American heritage, the setting is predominantly black, and many stories tackle social issues from a black perspective, but the Johnsons, a white family, get equal exposure and the growing friendship between the two families is explored.
33* BlandNameProduct:
34** One of the magazines in the barbershop is [=NewsProfile=], presented as a stand-in for the high profile publication Newsweek.
35** The arcade game Dance Floor Party in "Welcome to Bowling" is a stand-in for VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution.
36* TheBroCode: Calvin and Dave each have a code, but the differences between the two codes cause conflict despite the two men having the best of intentions.
37* CareerEndingInjury: Malcolm used to be a professional baseball player, but a knee injury put an end to his career before he made it to the major leagues.
38* CerebusSyndrome:
39** The season 3 premiere "Welcome to the Movement" is a more bleak and depressing outing set around police brutality.
40** From Gemma's miscarriage up to the funeral, the series takes a darker, much more somber tone in "Welcome to the Porch Pirate".
41* ConstructionCatcalls: Subverted in "Welcome to the Foos Box". Gemma sees construction workers working on the sidewalk next to the house and worries that they'll catcall her. When one of them comments on her "cans", she confronts him, but it turns out he meant that Gemma had dropped a pair of cans from her grocery bag. Gemma then gets depressed when they call her "Ma'am", and Dave goes out to confront them. They tell him that they had just gone through sensitivity training and do think Gemma is hot... too hot to have married him, in fact, which depresses Dave.
42* DeadpanSnarker: Grover.
43* DumbJock: Malcolm is very good at baseball, but not very book smart.
44* DirtyOldWoman: Old Miss Kim is an elderly neighbor that is portrayed as lustful and wanting to grope a gentleman.
45* EveryoneIsRelated: [[spoiler:In "Welcome to the Family", Dave discovers that he and Calvin are sixth cousins.]]
46* ExtremeOmniGoat: In "Welcome to the Ring", the Butlers have to get items for Marty's traditional Nigerian proposal, one of which is a live she-goat. They get them all with hours to spare, so Calvin decides to rest his eyes for a while. When he wakes up, the goat has eaten all the other items.
47* FastForwardGag:
48** Used at the end of one episode when Calvin sees a snake in the hood of his car and runs away really fast, complete with dust cloud effect.
49** Used in "Welcome to the Challenge" to show how much faster Calvin can work on the engine while Dave is talking to him. To illustrate, Calvin's rapid pace is juxtaposed to Dave's standard speaking speed.
50* FishingForSole: Calvin remembers catching an old tire while fishing with his dad in “Welcome to the Surprise “. Later he catches a tire and thinks it’s a sign from his father. He then decides to sell the tire at his shop.
51* {{Flanderization}}: Dave gets more and more naive and intrusive with each passing season. And he was plenty naive and intrusive to begin with.
52* FullNameUltimatum: Tina addresses Marty as "Martin Lawrence Butler" when she's annoyed with him.
53* GeniusDitz: ''Dave.''
54* GutPunch: After Gemma's miscarriage, the show turned dark and grimly somber with season four's "Welcome to the Porch Pirate".
55* HalloweenEpisode: "Welcome to the Haunting", in which Calvin's house seems to be haunted by the ghost of a little girl. [[spoiler:It turns out to be a prank planned on him after all the times he's pranked everyone else.]]
56* HiddenDepths: Dave is revealed to be an Army reservist who's served in the Middle East.
57* ICallItVera: Tina names her wigs, based on the persona she takes on when she wears them.
58* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every episode after "Pilot" is named "Welcome to (the) [X]" with [X] being something related to the episode's plot.
59* IncrediblyLameFun: Dave enjoys house painting and takes great pride in his abilities. Gemma, meanwhile, finds watching Dave paint to be a turn-on (and credits it with Grover's conception).
60* InnocentInnuendo: Dave ''really'' doesn't think about how he phrases certain things.
61--> '''Calvin''': Look man...sorry if I hurt your feelings but...I just felt like your Dave-ness was rubbing off on me too much.
62--> '''Dave''': Well, what's wrong with that? Why can't friends rub off on each other? Rubbing off on people is completely natural; I ''welcome'' people rubbing off on me.
63--> '''Calvin''': *turns to the neighborhood* If anybody's listening, we're just neighbors!
64* InsultBackfire: In "Welcome to the Feud", Terrence repeats Calvin's remark that Terence's brother Jordan spends money like a third world dictator without the fun hats. Jordan angrily responds that he has plenty of fun hats.
65* IntergenerationalFriendship:
66** Calvin and Tina are roughly 15-20 years older than Dave and Gemma. Calvin and Tina's sons Malcolm and Marty are only several years younger than Dave and Gemma.
67** Grover forms good friendships with Malcolm and Marty, both of whom are old enough to be his father, as well as Tina and, eventually, Calvin.
68* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Calvin tends to be selfish and snarky, but in the end, he always pulls through as a person and does the right thing for himself and his family.
69* MaamShock: In "Welcome to the Foos Box", Gemma gets depressed after construction workers, rather than catcall her, call her "ma'am". When Dave confronts them, they tell him that they had just had an HR seminar about being respectful and that they think Gemma is hot... and wonder how [[UglyGuyHotWife she got married to a guy like him]].
70* {{Manchild}}: '''Dave.'''
71* MartialPacifist: [[spoiler:Dave, when he tries to have Grover apologize for beating up a bully, gets attacked by the bully's father. Dave subsequently kicks his ass.]]
72* NakedPeopleAreFunny: In "Welcome to the Big One", Dave is scared by an earthquake and runs out naked holding a bag of emergency supplies [[HandOrObjectUnderwear that covers his privates]]. Gemma then covers him up with the doormat.
73* ThePollyanna: Dave refuses to let anything, least of all Calvin's constant putdowns, drag down his mood.
74* OnlySaneMan: Subverted, Calvin usually thinks he is this, but comes to realize that he is overreacting in the end.
75* PoliceBrutality: The idea of your loved ones being victims of cop violence is a ''very'' real fear, as demonstrated through Calvin almost losing Malcolm and Trey.
76* PowerOutagePlot: In "Welcome Back to the Neighborhood", Dave installs solar panels on his home and asks to be taken off the electric grid. That night, the power goes out in the neighborhood, implied to have happened accidentally when Dave was disconnected. With Dave's house the only one with power, soon the entire block gathers around, leading to a spontaneous nighttime block party.
77* UnexpectedlyDarkEpisode: The very first episode of Season 3, "Welcome to the Movement", wasn't released too long since the death of George Floyd and covers a situation involving Trey being a victim of police brutality and racial inequities. ''Even the motif of the transitions'' in this episode has a more downbeat tone than usual.
78* UnnecessaryRoughness: When Grover signs up for Calvin's basketball team, he doesn't do very well playing, so instead Calvin has him knock down the other players. When he does it during the actual game he gets disqualified for personal fouls, and subsequently suspended for the remainder of the season.
79* VerySpecialEpisode: Gemma suffers a miscarriage in season 4's "Welcome to the Porch Pirate". The show takes a more dramatic turn throughout the episode all the way to the funeral.
80* VocalEvolution: Grover's voice matured as the series progressed before finally dropping '''''real''' deep'' between seasons five and six.

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