Series / Everybody Hates Chris

If he wasn't picked on, he'd have no material.

"1982. That was the year I turned 13. Before I was a comedian, I thought the coolest thing that would happen to me was being a teenager. I was gonna have women, money, stay out late... I thought it was gonna be the bomb!

Boy, was I wrong!"

Everybody Hates Chris is an American sitcom that is loosely based on the life of Chris Rock, who also co-created the show. It ran for four seasons from September 22, 2005 to May 28, 2009, originally being developed for Fox but eventually being picked up by UPN for its first season before UPN's 2006 merge with The WB formed The CW, where its following seasons were aired.

Set in the 1980s^note specifically from 1982 to 1987, it revolves around the home and school life of Chris (Tyler James Williams), featuring his easygoing, although money-worrying, father Julius (Terry Crews); sassy, if somewhat overreacting, mother Rochelle (Tichina Arnold); younger brother Drew (Tequan Richmond), who gets all the girls Chris can't; and "daddy's girl" little sister Tonya (Imani Hakim). It also features Greg (Vincent Martella), Chris's best friend and confidant from school who is equally, if not more, hapless than him. The series is also humorously narrated by Rock looking back at his younger self, typically saying the opposite of what the younger Chris thinks.

Chris and his family live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, colloquially known as Bed-Stuy, a primarily black and Puerto Rican neighborhood in Brooklyn. It is home to many comedic recurring characters, including the aptly-named black market dealer Risky, Jerome (who always asks "the little dude from across the street" (Chris) to let him "hold a dollar"), "Doc", owner of the local grocery store, and Mr. Omar, a womanizing funeral director and later tenant to Julius and Rochelle.

Chris attends Corleone Junior High, and later Tattaglia High School, where he experiences racism from students and staff alike as the only black student in the school. His friend Greg is also a target of bullying, though to a far lesser degree. Joey Caruso is the racist school bully who is, ironically, obese and short like some of his victims. Ms. Morello, his naive teacher who's attracted to black men, unintentionally makes racist remarks to Chris, who forces himself to ignore them or accept them as innocuous, while Rock comments on them. Rock later makes a cameo as Chris's guidance counselor.

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Everybody Hates Tropes:

• The '80s: Averts the 1970s even though in real life, Chris Rock turned 13 in 1978; he has said that if he set the show in the '70s, everyone would have to wear afros and disco suits.
• Accidental Athlete: Chris is recruited by the basketball coach who sees Chris shooting a wad of a paper into a trash can. Alongside the fact that Chris must be able to play basketball, he has Chris join the team. This is subverted when Chris fails horribly at the sport.
• The Ace: Drew is a very odd example in that he is Chris' younger brother but is still the ace. He's a ladies man, learns martial arts by just watching TV, and otherwise all-around cool guy, something Chris just can't compete with.
• All for Nothing: In "Everybody Hates Basketball", Chris fails a test and is relieved that he won't be playing in the next basketball game (It Makes Sense in Context), but his coach arranges for him to take a retest, and Rochelle threatens Chris if he fails again. Torn between a punishment or being exposed as a bad basketball player, Chris decides he would rather face his mother than play lousy. But then while he purposely gets all the answers wrong, the teacher still gives him a passing grade just because he's on the basketball team. And after he loses, his grade is changed from a C to an F.
• Always Someone Better: This is how Chris views his younger brother Drew.
• Ambiguously Gay: Angel, an androgynous boy in Chris' home economics class. His sexuality is never stated outright, but it seems to be implied in his first episode:
  Angel: Oh Chris, hold me! I'm scared! (glomps Chris)
  Chris: (weirded out) So am I, Angel.
• And Starring: Tyler James Williams is credited last, despite being the lead actor.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Tonya. She likes messing with Chris and Drew and getting them into trouble.
• Anyone Remember Pogs?: Well, it is set in the '80s, so it's understandable that various fads, like Spin the Bottle and the Rubik's Cube, would make an appearance.
• Apron Matron: Rochelle, even though well-meaning, is a force you'd better not disrespect if you value your life.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Rochelle is remarked to be so incensed by and against the idea of Chris selling drugs that she'd overlook any other crimes committed:
  Police Officer: Ma'am, your son killed the governor, kidnapped his daughter, robbed the President, and ran a red light.
  Rochelle: He ain’t sell no drugs now, did he?
  Police Officer: No ma'am.
  Rochelle: (to Chris) Boy, get in here.
• Ass Shove: Chris inadvertently yells at his own mother, resulting in a very embarrassing incident with a shoe.
• Babysitter from Hell: Yvette in "Everybody Hates the Babysitter". She seems nice at first, until she leaves and comes back with her baby, which is the beginning of her constant problem of never being in the apartment.
• Beautiful All Along: Chris initially didn't want to go out with Kelly in "Everbody Hates Big Bird" because she's tall, gangly, and nerdy-looking, but does it anyway so he doesn't hurt her feelings. Because of the aforementioned attributes, everyone calls her Big Bird. At the end, she gets a total makeover. Needless to say, Chris feels like an idiot.
• Big Little Brother: Drew is taller than Chris, much to the latter's dismay. This is subverted in the latter half of the series where Chris caught up to and even slightly surpassed Drew's height due to Chris' actor getting a growth spurt.
• Big Man on Campus: Drew. He may be in junior high school, but he's good at damn near everything he (and other people) does, can "get girls at 12 that [Chris] couldn't get until [he] was 30," and even had his class melt down in a frenzied panic when he was absent due to skipping school.
• The Big Rotten Apple: As the setting is 1980s New York, crime, racial tension, and urban decay are a fact of life (and accurate for the time).
• Bland-Name Product:
  • Julius buys Gravy Ways, M&N's, and Butterthumbs as a way to save money on Halloween candy in the "Everybody Hates Halloween" episode. Rochelle objects and throws it out, prompting Julius to tell her that she's thrown away $2.78 worth of candy and wasted $23.98 on the name brand candy that she bought instead.
  • "Everybody Hates Food Stamps" includes the epitome of this: the generics are so generic that they are just black and white packaging with what's in it in block letters. As one scene puts it:
  Narrator: Instead of Oreos, Ginger Snaps, or Chips Ahoy, we got...
  Drew: "Cookie?"
  Narrator: That's right. Cookie. Not cookies. Cookie. A big bag with one cookie in it.
  • One episode featured Rochelle trying to get the kids into "Hansel and Gretel", an organization for upper-crust African-Americans, and a parody of the real life organization Jack and Jill.
• Bluff the Impostor: Sort of in "Everybody Hates Basketball". Rochelle tells their new tenant, who she is afraid is a serial killer, that she heard he's from Chicago. When he says no, he's from Philly, and just says it's okay, she is suspicious because according to her, people from Philly can't shut up about it. It turns out that he's wanted by the FBI.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Tonya in the later seasons.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A common formula for the Cutaway Gags of the show is to have three similar situations where the last one is shocking or just mad in comparison to the others. Example from "Everybody Hates Blackie", about times Rochelle wanted to call the insurance company:

  Narrator: "One time, it flooded!"

  Rochelle: "Can we call the insurance company now?"

  Julius: "No! Now we have a swimming pool!"

  Narrator: "Another time, a plane dropped a load!"

  Rochelle: "Can we call the insurance company now?"

  Julius: "No way! Now we have new luggage."

  Narrator: "One time, aliens took over!"

  Rochelle: (muttering) "Now can I call the insurance company?"

  Julius: "No, I've always wanted to go to another planet..."

• Butt-Monkey:
  • Chris, obviously.
  • Greg is one to some extent.
• Captain Ersatz: The episode "Everybody Hates Homecoming," in which Chris hits it off with a girl named Jenise Hickstable. She even has a doctor and a lawyer as parents, a dance intro sequence upon entrance to her house, and a laughtrack inside her living room (which is filmed in Three Cameras instead of the regular single camera). Clint Huckstable happens to like gaudy sweaters, sweet potato popsicles, and has a very distinctive voice, as well.
• Captain Obvious:
  • In "Everybody Hates Doc's", after Chris tells Greg that Doc plays chess in the park on weekend, Greg suggests that Chris should get Doc's girlfriend, Stacy, to go with him as a means to get rid of her as Chris works only on the weekend at that point in time due to being the manager of the football team. Greg doesn't tell Chris how to get her to go to the park with Doc, however.
  • Rochelle, in "Everybody Hates Gambling":
    "That's why I hate gambling! 'Cause you can't win for losing!"
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Basic formula for every episode.
• Catchphrase:
  • Jerome's "Little dude (from across the street)! Lemme hold a dollar!"
  • Julius's "That's $X (and Y cents) worth of ______."
  • Rochelle will occasionally say "I ain't raisin' no babies!" and "I don't need this! My man has TWO jobs!"
  • Greg's "You are so in there."
  • Mr. Omar's "Tragic."
  • Michael's "BIG MAAAN!"
• Character Development: Chris is a bit of a "dork" at the beginning of the series and struggles socially, which in one episode he realizes is part of the cause of his bullying problems rather than just being the only black kid in school. By Season 4, he is much more normal and a straight example of a "cool loser" protagonist.
• Chekhov's Gag: Julius gives Drew a Wayne "Gritzky" jersey in the episode "Everybody Hates the Buddy System." Then in the episode "Everybody Hates Gretzky," a couple of white guys try to steal Drew's jersey, but back off when they realize it's misspelled.
• Chick Magnet: Drew. He's very popular with the ladies.
• Comic-Book Time: The series spans from 1982 to 1987, but Chris begins the series at the age of 13 in eighth grade and ends at the age of 15, dropping out of tenth grade. Everybody similarly only ages about two years. This could be probably be explained by the series attempting to cram in as much '80s nostalgia as they can, not that it's necessarily a bad thing.
• Comically Small Bribe: Julius actually tries to bribe someone with a penny.
• Condescending Compassion: Even when she's being nice to Chris, Ms. Morello can't resist throwing in a racist comment or saying something in a condescending tone.
• Content Warnings: Within the episode "Everybody Hates Fat Mike," for when Rochelle curses out Julius.
• Cosmic Plaything: Chris. It's the entire premise of the show.
• Crapsack World: Pretty much how everything around Chris, and solely Chris, works.
• Crazy Homeless People: Kill Moves.
• Daddy's Girl: Tonya, much to Chris and Drew's chagrin.
• Deadpan Snarker: Chris Rock as the narrator and when he guest starred as Chris's guidance counselor.
• Department of Redundancy Department: When Drew unwittingly takes $10 from Rochelle, Julius' response to her losing it is:
  "You lost ten dollars?! That's $10 worth of dollars!"
• Diabolus ex Machina: Most of the time things do not end well for Chris, to the point where even when everything does end well, it took a dream to pull this off. Though there are some exceptions:
  • "Everbody Hates the Babysitter" ends with Chris deciding to rat out the horrible babysitter to his parents, and his mom preparing to beat her up.
  • Another was the Christmas Episode, where even though Chris is in the hospital, his family visits him and the episode closes as they're opening their presents. Though Chris' Christmas present from Julius was getting the gifts out of layaway. And he has to pay him back.
  • There's also the new year's episode, Chris finally gets a kiss from Tasha, that ended pretty well aside from Rochelle getting upset at him over messing up her New Year good luck charm.
  • One episode ends with Rochelle screwing up. She still yells Chris' name, then sadly says, "I know" when he points out he didn't do anything.
  • He got a pretty good ending in "Everybody Hates Sausage" as he successfully tricked Caruso and his goons into attacking him in front of the principal, resulting in them all getting detention.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Everybody Hates Hall Monitors," Chris becomes a hall monitor and eventually becomes Drunk with Power. He then starts giving other kids citations for things like littering and snacks in the hallway, and even judo-flips a kid for wearing a hat.
• The Dog Bites Back: Chris plans a diabolic revenge against Caruso in "Everybody Hates the Last Day". It works as Caruso is punished for something he didn't do. Afterwards, Chris tells him "don't mess with me anymore". Of course, it backfires on Chris in the end of the episode.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Rochelle, who at one point manages to literally put her shoe up Chris' ass.
• Double Standard: How the parents treat Drew and Tonya in contrast with how they treat Chris, how Ms. Morello treats Greg (for being white) in contrast with how she treats Chris (for being black), how Keisha treated Chris in contrast with how she treated Drew, and how come James received a full salary from Mr. Fong while Chris had taxes subtracted from his.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Rochelle believes this to an incredible degree, even saying Drew can't defend himself when Tonya attacks him. However, she punishes Tonya when she outright lies about Drew hitting her.
• Downer Ending: If the situation starts off fine, something goes wrong. If the situation is already bad enough, Chris is subjected to more torment.
• The Dreaded: Malvo. In "Everybody Hates Ex-Cons", when word gets out that he's been released from prison, everyone discusses how they're locking up their doors big time so they can avoid him.
• Drives Like Crazy: Rochelle. Julius also does this to a lesser extent.
• Drunk with Power: Chris in "Everybody Hates Hall Monitors."
• Dude, Not Funny!: invoked Happens when Chris starts telling jokes to his schoolmates using curse words. The kids don't laugh, and condemn him for telling them curse words instead.
• The Dutiful Son: As the eldest child, Chris has to be responsible for both Drew and Tonya whenever Julius and Rochelle are away.
• Easter Episode: In "Everybody Hates Easter", Chris escorts Tasha to the Easter Pageant after her boyfriend breaks up with her but how to deal with having to be in two places at once without his mother finding out. Meanwhile, Julius pretends to be working on Easter so that he doesn't have to go to Church.
• Education Mama: Rochelle towards her three kids, at least initially.
• Egg Sitting: In "Everybody Hates Eggs," Chris has to do this.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • In the pilot episode, the theme music for the intro is different as the other music in the next episode. The narrator said the city and the year where and when the series was set in instead of showing the name and the year onscreen. It also lacks the title's chorus in the end.
  • Early episodes of the show have the title chorus during the episode climax and the same chorus with more harmonies in the episode ending. Later seasons don't include the chorus mid-episode anymore, and variations of the chorus (less or more harmonies) are now selective depending on the episode ending.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics:
  • The opening credits depict a textbook cover that reads "Everybody Hates Trigonometry."
  • "Everybody Hates Math" is the title of one episode.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • While Rochelle's parenting style is borderline abusive, she doesn't follow through on any of her more outlandish threats, nor does she strike her children on Christmas. Also, the one crime that she can't forgive of her children is selling drugs.
  • Apparently, the one thing Risky won't sell to kids is Playboy magazine.
• Evil Counterpart: Albert to Chris in "Everybody Hates the New Kid.".
• Evil Power Vacuum: In one episode, Caruso gets his ass handed to him. While Chris is temporarily overjoyed, this leads to a competition for dominance between the school's other bullies. Chris has even more bullies coming after him than ever.
• Evolving Credits: Subtle but in each new season, the opening slowly adds more movement. Compare Season 1 which just have still shots of the cast to Season 4 which have full on movement.
• Exact Words: In "Everybody Hates Bomb Threats," Chris's teacher tells him he has to memorize a speech or else he'd fail the 10th grade. He never said anything about reciting it.
• Exit, Pursued by a Bear: The endings of "Everybody Hates Blackie" and "Everybody Hates Fat Mike" involve Chris being chased by someone.
• Flanderization:
  • In the first season, Ms. Morello's racist comments were naive and light. However, in subsequent seasons, they became more and more mean-spirited. This makes her attraction to black men even more ironic.
  • Greg starts out as a typical social outcast whom Chris bonded with, but his dorkiness was flanderized to the point that he apparently couldn't sleep without dressing up as a superhero and praying to said hero for protection.
• Force Feeding: Rochelle keeps trying to get Tonya to eat the sausages they got in bulk to no avail. Eventually, rather than make her do it, the family have a heartwarming talk about it, which results in Tonya trying and liking it. Or at least, that's what Chris shows us what he would have preferred happen instead of what actually did happen. What really happened was Rochelle lost it and jumped the table to physically force her daughter to eat the sausage so that her husband and sons had to restrain her while Tonya screams.
• Freak Out: Chris, who had trouble memorizing a speech in "Everybody Hates Bomb Threats" and would fail 10th grade if he didn't. However, it's temporary and played for laughs.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Eventually, the opening credits starts showing the sky for a half second with the clouds spelling, "Even the clouds hate Chris."
• From the Mouths of Babes: In "Everybody Hates the Babysitter", the babysitter is a teenage mother. Tonya tells the babysitter's mother:
  "My mom told me she would kick me out if I had a baby 'cause she ain't raisin' no babies. Why didn't you kick her out?"
• Funny Fan Voice: Chris' father is so cheap that he even complains about how much electricity the game of distorting one's voice with a fan uses.
• Gilligan Cut: Like in "Everybody Hates the First Kiss," when Greg suggests that Chris do "lip ups" to help him kiss better.
• Gossip Evolution:
  • In the first episode, Caruso beat the hell out of Chris, then he and his friends chased Chris down to beat him up some more, until he caught a bus. In "Everybody Hates Sausage," somehow that story gets turned into various, escalating ones, ranging from Chris knocking out Caruso's teeth to Chris beating up his family and taking his house.
  • In the Season 2 episode "Everybody Hates a Liar", Chris helps remove a mouse from Tasha's room, and after the task is completed, a grateful Tasha gives him a peck on the cheek while they are outside after the event. Jerome sees them, and when Chris denies attempts to dissuade anything more with a "Yeah, you know", word spreads through the neighborhood and their schools, and ranges from him kissing her to being her boyfriend. It gets to the point where Chris, whom has since been confronted by Tasha's grandmother, who had previously confronted his parents, had to declare to the whole neighborhood that nothing actually happened. He even apologized to her grandmother personally, though it did little to convince her that he wasn't a hooligan, but at least Tasha finally forgave him.
• Hanging Judge: One episode involves Rochelle in court for supposedly speeding. Before her case is called, the judge in question is seen sparing women just because they're beautiful and giving Disproportionate Retribution to everyone else. Once Rochelle's case is called, she proves the judge had been wrong the whole time with everyone who attended court. She gets fined anyway, for doing a victory dance.
• Heel–Face Turn: Malvo in "Everybody Hates Ex-Cons." Until the end of the episode. And then until he meets Peaches.
• Hidden Depths: Kill Moves. In the beginning, the audience knows him as a borderline-psychotic homeless man who knows deadly martial arts. Later in the series, it's revealed that he was always savant-like, as he has a talent for math, was an air traffic controller, and came from a wealthy family. However, when Ronald Reagan started downsizing and he lost his job, Kill Moves spiraled downward on a path of paranoia and schizophrenia and wandered the streets until Gazoo told him that he'd only find true happiness by living in a box.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Rochelle is not a patient person and it shows. In turn, Rochelle's mother is heavily critical of her daughter. It is notable that most of the abuse is taken out on Chris in keeping with the "Chris can't catch a break" theme of the series.
• Historical Villain Downgrade: The show actually downplays a lot of the bullying Chris Rock endured, which is what led him to drop out of school in the first place.
• Hypocritical Humor: When the über-racist teacher/principal Ms. Morello calls Chris a racist for not wanting to stay in an all-white class at Tattaglia.
• Hustler: Jerome and Risky.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title starts with "Everybody Hates."
• Imagine Spot: A main gimmick of the show. Most of them are from Chris's point of view, but every character has one occasionally.
• Innocent Bigot: Ms. Morello is seemingly incapable of speaking to Chris without providing a cringeworthy example of this. Examples include assuming his mother is a single parent, suggesting that he deliver a speech in front of the class as a rap, or giving Chris a brown egg when the class is doing a project that requires them to carry eggs around pretending that they are babies.
• It Will Never Catch On:
  • This applies to Chris himself. Everyone in the moment seems to think of him as a loser and a failure.
    Malvo: (sarcastically) You should be a comedian when you grow up, man!
  • Tonya often downplays Michael Jackson's impact and thinks that he is just copying Billy Ocean.
  • This is why Doc refused to invest in sushi in "Everybody Hates Homecoming."
  • In "Everybody Hates Graduation," Julius declines to invest in the George Foreman Grill.
  • In one episode, Chris' uncle, who is always trying some get rich quick scheme, is selling tapes from his car, and nobody wants to buy them. The tapes are of Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Public Enemy and a few big '90s rappers.
• Jerkass: Caruso. He always bullies Chris.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When Tonya calls out their horrible babysitter for not taking care of them and leaving them.
• Karma Houdini: Caruso gets away with bullying Chris most of the time.
• Karmic Death: Every Halloween, Mr. Harris, the local butcher, dresses as "Sweet Tooth the Candy Pimp" and steals children's candy. Adult Chris mentions that he died in 1984 from a bad case of gingivitis.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • A good one happens to Caruso. In "Everybody Hates Sausage," Chris attempts to get revenge on Caruso for bullying him by attempting to throw a D sized battery at him, but he fails horribly when the battery misses Caruso and it breaks the school door, causing Chris to get put in detention for three days.On the third day, Chris gets his revenge and succeeds by luring Caruso and two other boys near the principal's office. Chris kicks the principal's door and then Caruso and the other boys throw batteries at him. The principal walks out of his office and sees the bullies attacking Chris and Caruso and the other two boys ends up in detention while Chris walks off scot free.
  • It happens to Mr. Omar, who was dying or, so he thought but it was revealed the diagnosis was reversed with a dying patient's during "Everybody Hates Backtalk". It's because of that, he decided to say whatever was on his mind, consequences be damned... he even called his own landlord a "bald-headed, penny-pinching skinflint", which is unquestionably true. Later, when he found out the truth, Mr. Omar came to beg for his apartment back, as well as Julius's forgiveness and naturally, those words did come back to bite him in the ass. Julius did give Omar back his apartment, but not before letting Mr. Omar know that the next time he decided to be Brutal Honesty and insult other people, using impending death as an excuse for that action, to be sure that he was dying.
• Laugh Track: Averted, except for a parody scene in "Everybody Hates Homecoming." It's lampshaded in the same episode, to boot. It's averted in "Everybody Hates the Ninth Grade Dance."
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: "Slava Slav". However, the character isn't based that much on Flava Flav and is more of a parody of rappers in general.
• Lazy Bum: "My Uncle Michael was almost 40 and never had a job. He put the 'um' in 'bum'."
• Literal Ass-Kicking: Who knew that you could send your children through time and rewrite their DNA, with just the back of your hand? Or literally slap the black off your brother? Or, even closer to the trope name, literally put your shoe up your son's ass?
• Logical Fallacies: Pretty much all of Rochelle's justifications for anything. A particularly egregious example was when Rochelle was supposed to mail an envelope for Tonya so she could get a Billy Ocean poster. However, Rochelle forgets to mail the envelope and leaves it in her purse, opting instead to buy a poster from Risky. When that fails, Tonya kindly asks her mother for the envelope so she can mail it herself:
  Narrator: My mother always did the best for us she could, even if it didn't make a bit of sense.
• Lovable Coward: "There are 'got your back' guys, and 'I'll be back' guys. Greg was a 'I'm running like a bitch' guy."
• Manipulative Bitch: Tonya, and a particularly skilled one at that.
• Mistaken for Racist: Caruso, by everyone, until the series finale. It is revealed that he only acted racist because he was jealous of Chris' intelligence. One episode does imply his family at home is in fact racist, however. It's possible Caruso could be slightly racist but plays it up to hide his aforementioned jealousy.
• Mouthy Kid: Tonya.
• Mr. Exposition:
  • The doctor who occasionally pops up on the show. However, he doesn't so much explain the plot as he does concepts related to the plot that the audience may not be familiar with, such as what gout is or the causes of hypertension.
  • Sometimes Chris Rock himself does this while he's narrating.
• N-Word Privileges: Early on, Caruso uses the word on Chris, but it being Brooklyn Beach in the '80s, gets away with it. However, according to the narration, he did it at a DMX concert twenty years later and got stomped.
• Narration Echo: Used all the time, often in the form of adult Chris pointing out what the worst thing would be for his younger self to say/do in a particular situation, only for his younger self to immediately say/do that exact thing. Occasionally, it's more of a Narration Ironic Echo when young Chris says/does the exact opposite.
• Never My Fault: The bomb squad officers blame Chris for the bombing at another school because they thought it was a fake call. Yes, Chris called in a fake threat at Tattaglia, but it's their job to take every threat seriously and respond to them.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Pretty much the entire last season had promos with things that just never happened in the episodes.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "Everybody Hates Bomb Threats", it's revealed at the end that Chris' fake bomb threat led the bomb squad to ignore another bomb threat, which resulted in a school being blown up.
• The Nicknamer:
  • Jerome. All the neighborhood kids are some variation of "little dude" to him, Chris being "little dude from across the street."
  • Mike, to some extent. He always addresses Rochelle and Julius as "'Shelle" and "BIG MAN!!!"
  • Caruso, who always refers to Chris as a different black person, real or fictional.
• No Ending: The series finale. Just as Chris asks for his GED scores, the screen goes black.
• No Full Name Given: Chris's family's name is intentionally not given. Although it could be Rock, it is not wholly accurate in its interpretation of Chris Rock's childhood. Mr. Omar even calls Chris's parents Mr. Julius and Ms. Rochelle to avoid saying their surnames.
• No-Sell: Malvo when robbing Doc's store in "Everybody Hates Malvo".
  Chris: *attempts to strike Malvo with a bamboo stick*
  Malvo: "Boy, you don't even wanna do that."
• Nostalgic Narrator: Chris Rock serves this role.
• Nothing but Hits: The show thrives on this, especially its soundtrack.
• Oh, Crap!: Chris in "Everybody Hates Bad Boys," after (inadvertently) yelling at his mother.
• Only-Child Syndrome: Chris is envious of Greg when he comes to stay with them because he's an only child and he expects all of the attention and does everything by himself, whereas Chris usually has to take care of his younger siblings. Near the end of the episode, Chris confronts Greg, and Greg says that the reason why he does everything by himself is not that he wants to, but because he has to, being an only child.
• Only Sane Man: Chris fits this most of the time.
• Pædo Hunt:
  • Drew getting so much female attention that extends to adult women is a Running Gag in the series. Rochelle is understandably not okay with this (partially because she refuses to raise any more babies, especially ones from teenaged parents) and even threatens to call the police on a woman who shows up with Valentine's Day gifts late at night.
  • Another more minor recurring joke coming from Narrator Chris is his disgust with the rising cases of teachers trying to have sexual relationships with their students.
    Ms. Morello: (completely innocently) Hi, Chris!
    Greg: (to Chris) Dude, you are so in there!
    Narrator!Chris: Had I known what I know now about teachers, I'd say that was the one time he was probably right.
  • Corleone's previous principal was arrested for molesting a female student.
• Painting the Medium: Frequently, especially in "Everybody Hates Mother's Day" when Chris Rock and adult Tonya have an argument in the voiceover booth, while the camera pans between young Chris and Tonya, respectively.
• Papa Wolf: Julius handled his business when Malvo threatened Chris in "Everybody Hates Chain Snatching".
• Parents as People: Both of Chris' parents are just flawed as the other characters. Julius knows he has financial problems and is trying his best to save as much money as he can by being a cheapskate. Whereas Rochelle has anger issues due to the relatable stress of trying to raise 3 kids. Both of them will defend their children in a heartbeat but will show no mercy if any of those kids step out of line.
• Pet the Dog: Well, cat, in Caruso's case.
• Police Are Useless: At least for black people. Even in the first episode, one cop walks by while Caruso is beating the crap out of Chris, looks at them and keeps on walking.
• Politically Correct History: Averted. The show does not mince words about the racial tensions present in 1980s New York. A lot of the shit Chris gets is from being a black kid going to school in a working class Italian neighborhood.
• Plot Hole: There is a huge timeline plot hole: the entire series is stated to cover five years of Chris's life (series premiere is in 1982 and series finale is in 1987). However, Chris passes four years at school (three in Corleone and one in Tattaglia). The mistake can be traced back to the Season 2 premiere, in which Chris apparently starts the new school year in 1984 despite Season 1 taking place during the 1982-1983 school year. This mistake continues throughout the rest of the series: Season 2 takes place from 1984-1985, Season 3 from 1985-1986, and Season 4 from 1986-1987. A possible explanation for this could be compensating for the young actors growing up by utilizing Comic-Book Time, and matching up with Chris dropping out in the 10th grade in real life.
• Produce Pelting: In "Everybody Hates Elections", Chris is running for class president and finds himself in a debate against his opponent (the biggest bully on campus). Chris is really liking how his opponent is winning over the crowd, so he starts emulating him. One line Chris likes is "_____ now, _____ tomorrow and _____ forever." Problem is, he fouls up and ends up saying "Detention now, detention tomorrow and detention forever.". Cue about 200 pounds of mainly lettuce and tomatoes, with lots of other fruit and veggies mixed in, being tossed right at him.
• Put on a Bus to Hell: Keisha moves away to Compton, California.
• Race Fetish: Despite making cringeworthy racist comments about black people, Ms. Morello has a noticeably potent fetish for black men and the trappings of unspecified African cultures. It's implied to be the reason why she is so amicable towards Chris while being blatantly racist at the same time.
• Recurring Riff: "Everybody haa-aates Chriiis!"
• Repetitive Audio Glitch: The very end of "Everybody Hates DJs."
• Rooting for the Empire: invoked Julius thinks the movie Rocky should’ve been called "Apollo".
• Running Gag: Several, some occurring more than others. For example, the family uses Robitussin as a cure-all for every type of ailment:

  Tonya: Mom! Chris got hit by a car!

  Rochelle: Oh my God! I'll go get the Robitussin!

  • The Robitussin ends up being a Brick Joke in one episode where the family finally decides to go to the ER. Having drunk tobasco sauce on a dare Tonya is taken to the ER with a severe stomachache, you get one guess as to figure out what the doctor prescribes. No fussin with the 'tussin indeed.
• Sadist Show: This show is based around this.
• Sassy Black Woman: Rochelle and Tonya.
• Scary Black Man: Averted with Julius most of the time. Rochelle is the real power in the household. The one time in the series Julius does invoke this is when he threatens to beat the crap out of Malvo if he doesn't leave Chris alone.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Greg employs this frequently, or in Chris's own words, "running like a bitch" when a situation flies south.
  • Chris adopts this in "Everybody Hates Being Cool". It's here that Chris is faced with two options: either he can be known as being cool for being a lookout for the "cool kids", i.e. the juvenile delinquents that loiter around the arcade, and risk being named and imprisoned as an accessory to them before/during/after the fact, or he can forever be known as the nerdy kid, make like a banana and split. Chris chooses to save his own hide and flee the scene of the crime when the cops show up; a wise option, indeed.
• Self-Deprecation: The series serves as this concerning Chris Rock's life.
• Seven Dirty Words:
  • Alluded to: "That look means all seven of the words you can't say on television, but because this is a family show, she can only say this."
  • Chris actually listens to a George Carlin record with the seven dirty words in "Everybody Hates Dirty Jokes." Each word is rendered as its place on the list—for instance, the episode's final line is "Number three!"
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • "Everybody Hates the Buddy System." The principal tells Chris to hang out with Caruso in the hopes that Chris will understand why Caruso beats him up everyday. He pairs the two students together on a field trip, and purposely leaves them behind at a museum so they'd have to work together to find their way back to school. When Chris (predictably) learns nothing and reports back to the principal, the latter reassures the former that he did learn something after all: "You learned that I was wrong."
  • "Everybody Hates Math". Chris has to get a good grade on an algebra test so his class can have a pizza party. So he gets his grandmother, a former algebra teacher, to tutor him and studies his butt off. When he finally takes the test, he technically answers every question correctly. However, Ms. Morello gives him a zero because he put every answer in the wrong spot, thus screwing the class out of their pizza party.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Monk as The Vietnam Vet. He's so paranoid that he keeps a secret stash of army guns.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title is a pun on Everybody Loves Raymond.
  • The names of the schools in the series are Dolemite Elementary, Corleone Junior High, Lamont Sanford Junior High, and Tattaglia High.
  • The "Everybody Hates Homecoming" episode is one to The Cosby Show.
  • The final scene of the show is a near-perfect homage to the final scene of The Sopranos.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: Chris is often bullied and physically assaulted by Caruso. Chris says he can't simply fight back because Caruso will just beat him up, and he can't report Caruso to the school's staff because Caruso will just try frame him as the aggressor. Besides, the rules against bullying are completely useless, and the wholly-white staff are pretty racist, so they'll almost always side with Caruso (who is white) rather than Chris (who is black). He can't move to another school either; the other ones are even worse.
• Smoking Is Cool: "Everybody Hates Being Cool".
• Snowball Lie: In "Everybody Hates Bed-Stuy", Chris takes Doc's story about his romantic adventures and turns it into a story about a Serial Killer (the "Scissors Killer") loose in Bedford-Stuyvesant, in order to turn in a good story for the school newspaper. Unfortunately, that story got relayed to local news outlets, all of his neighbors in Bed-Stuy hid in their homes out of fear, and Chris was finally forced to kill the lie when a cop had a gun to Julius's head.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Caruso beating the crap out of Chris in the first episode while "Ebony and Ivory" plays in the background.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Everybody Loves Raymond.
• Spoiled Brat: Tonya. This is especially true since she's a Daddy's Girl.
• Springtime for Hitler: In "Everybody Hates Basketball", Chris gets on the basketball team and, due to his poor athletic ability, hopes to not get picked to actually play, but then learns he will be playing in the next game, which he dreads due to all the respect he had been getting for being on the team. After failing a test, he is relieved that it means he won't be able to play in the game, until his coach arranged for him to take a retest. He gets every answer wrong on purpose, but his teacher still gives him a C, just because he's on the basketball team. But after he loses the game, his grade is changed to an F.
• Stepford Smiler: Rochelle, of all people, become this, when her father dies right at the dinner table from a heart attack.
• Sub-Par Supremacist: While their racism is nothing to sneer at, the racists in the show are portrayed as complete morons. The teacher is very condescending towards Chris, Caruso admitted that he only bullied Chris because he felt inferior to him, and the shop security staff were so bigotted that they followed babies, elderly people, and their own staff.
• Sucky School: The schools Chris has to attend fit this. However, they are first-class compared to the ones in his neighborhood (Lamont Sanford Jr. High and Marla Gibbs High), which Rochelle notes are full of "juvenile delinquents and future convicts", hence why he doesn't go to those schools.
• The Stool Pigeon: Tonya to her brothers.
• Teen Pregnancy: Defied. Rochelle has zero tolerance for teenage mothers. Cue her catchphrase "I ain't takin' care of no babies!!"
• Tempting Fate: Usually before everyone's schemes (especially Chris's) go wrong.
• This Loser Is You: Chris due to his childhood.
• Timeshifted Actor: In a similar vein to The Wonder Years, this show follows Chris Rock's childhood.
• Two-Teacher School: Only a handful of teachers are shown repeatedly, with Ms. Morello being the most shown.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Keisha does this in her second appearance. In her first appearance, she was polite to Chris, despite her preferring his younger brother Drew and breaking Chris' heart. In the second appearance, "Everybody Hates Halloween," when Chris asks Keisha if she wanted to dance with him at the party, she rudely refuses his offer and said that she preferred to have met Drew(though the narration does clarify that in reality all she said to Chris was "no" so it's likely he imagined her being rude when she actually wasn't). Even a woman named Lisa who witnessed the whole thing sympathized with Chris and allowed Chris to dance with her out of pity. She goes back to being neutral in all her subsequent appearances.
• Token White: Greg due to him being a main character.
• Tranquil Fury: When Julius finds Malvo manhandling Chris. Julius calmly, yet furiously, threatens him with a bat and tells Malvo that he'll be going to jail if Malvo lays his hands on Chris again.
• Troperiffic: With Race Tropes.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Doc's girlfriend takes over in "Everybody Hates Doc's."
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Although said to be based on Chris Rock's early life, there are major differences between the sitcom and what really happened.
• We Sell Everything: Risky, usually out of the trunk of his car or the inside of his jacket. The exception is that he won't sell Playboy to the underage.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!:
  • Downplayed in the episode "Everybody Hates Funerals". It's not like the family enjoyed Rochelle when she was always screaming at everybody, but Chris acts concerned when Rochelle acts a lot nicer than usual after her father's death. The family also enjoys the benefits of her calm personality. It is only at the end of the episode when Rochelle goes back to her old ways.
  • Downplayed again in the episode "Everybody Hates Caruso". A Chinese kid that Caruso bullied fights back, and then the students now see the Chinese kid as the bully. Caruso also stops bullying everyone else which upsets the balance at school, namely turning many other students into bullies themselves. This prompts Chris to toughen Caruso up to what he was before.
• The Worst Seat in the House: Julius winds up with these whenever he buys tickets from Risky.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Rochelle won't tolerate her sons hitting girls, going to the extreme of not allowing them to defend themselves even if a girl tries to rip off their arm. Tonya learns about this and uses it against Drew in one episode, though Rochelle later finds out she's been lying and gives her a belt spanking off-screen.
• You Would Do the Same for Me: Not that the character did...

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Everybody haa-aaates Chriiiiis!