Ricky Stanicky is an American buddy comedy film directed by Peter Farrelly. It was released on Prime Video on March 7, 2024.
Three longtime friends, Dean (Zac Efron), JT (Andrew Santino), and Wes (Jermaine Fowler), have used an imaginary friend, "Ricky Stanicky", as a coverup for misadventures for several years. But when their latest lie is on the verge of being found out, they hire a wannabe actor, Rod (John Cena), to pretend to be Ricky. Unfortunately, "Ricky" ingrains himself into their lives a little too well.
Tropes:
- Becoming the Mask: The trailer shows that Rod really grows to like his Ricky Stanicky persona and wants to become him permanently.
- Character Title: As seen in the poster, the film's title is Ricky Stanicky after the pivotal imaginary friend.
- Invented Individual: The guys invented Ricky as a cover for a prank gone wrong. They kept using him and their friends and family all came to believe he was real. Eventually, it gets to the point where they expect him at the Whitaker's Bris and they hire unknown actor Rock Hard Ron to play him. He gets into character and greatly impresses their friends and family to the point where Dean and JT's boss offers "Ricky" a job.
- Potty Failure: The trailer shows that Ricky has peed his pants at their airport.
- Snowball Lie: The guys made up Ricky to get out of an accidental fire when they were kids...and kept using him as their excuse for bad behavior and no-showing family events.JT: You know, all we did was tell one lie.Dean: Hundreds and hundreds of times over many, many years.
- Rhyming Names: Invoked, the trailer shows that the rhyming "Ricky Stanicky" is a made-up name.
- Spotting the Thread: Erin realizes Ricky is fake at the Bris when they use an Ebola outbreak as an excuse for him needing to catch a plane, something that has stopped happening thanks to the widespread use of the vaccine.
- The Topic of Cancer: To cover for their debauched boys' trip in the trailer, the guys claim their longtime madeup friend Ricky has cancer. On the plane going there, Wes lampshades that cancer is a terrible lie to tell because everyone will worry.
- Yiddish as a Second Language: "Ricky" introduces himself with a bombastic "Ayyy, mishpochanote !" in the trailer.
