Series / Jonas

Jonas (2009 - 2010) is a Disney Channel series, starring The Jonas Brothers as fictionalized versions of themselves. They play the Lucas brothers, the three members of the fictional band "JONAS" who try to live a normal life in the face of stardom alongside their two friends: their stylist Stella, and their fan club president Macy.

When the show was picked up for a second season, the show was transported to Los Angeles, and the title was changed to Jonas LA. This season went for slightly over half the episodes of the first, and once it concluded the announcement was made that the show had been cancelled.

---

Contains examples of:

• Adam Westing: David Henrie. It was really funny.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Slightly inverted in that Macy wants a Jonas regardless of who or what he does, and also in that Stella obviously wants Joe (the closest thing to a 'bad boy' of the three - but they've known each other since they were babies, and Joe would never act like that around or to Stella.
• Alliterative Name: Macy Misa and real life Joe Jonas.
• Alter-Ego Acting: Inverted in that the brothers are basically playing themselves - but this could also be considered a Lighter and Softer version of Adam Westing.
• Appeal to Obscurity: In "Forgetting Stella's Birthday".
  Dad: The last band to cancel an interview with this guy was the Happy Teens.
  Joe, Nick, and Kevin: Who?
  Dad: Exactly.
• Ascended Fanboy: Macy, who goes from stumbling all over whenever a Jonas shows up, to helping them get rid of a Clingy Jealous Girl. and to top it off she's been Promoted to Love Interest for Nick
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Joe and Stella.
• Bad Liar: Kevin's voice goes high every time he lies.
• Bedtime Brainwashing: After developping an addiction to Nick's cookies, Kevin tries to brainwash him into baking him more cookies by talking to him in his sleep as "the voice inside your head". Subverted because Nick was secretly awake and baked the cookies on purpose to teach Kevin a lesson about his cookie addiction.
• Beta Couple: Nick and Macy
• Book Ends: The beginning of season two opens with the band singing "L.A. Baby", and the final scene is them playing it again, acoustic this time.
• Bottle Episode: The Tale Of The Haunted Firehouse. All of it was filmed inside the firehouse, effects and props were limited to a few skeletons, a handful of tech equipment, and lighting. And not only that, but the majority of it was filmed on the camera Kevin has. Behind the scenes photos showed that it was them holding the handheld camera.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Essentially one of the points of Season One.
• Butt-Monkey: The boys all get it in one way or another, but Kevin gets it the most.
  Nick: Brothers don't let brothers make fools of themselves. Kevin, I'm sorry I've let you down for so many years.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Joe and Stella have known each other since kindergarden and have had romantic feelings for each other since then.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Kevin. Macy has her moments too - but as of Jonas L.A., her head is on straight.
• Continuity Nod: Two of the games Macy has out to play with Frankie in Jonas L.A. are Word Hole and Dopey Doctor, both of which were played in the first season.
• Creepy Changing Painting: In "Home Not Alone" when Stella ends up usurping Macy as president of the Jonas fan club, Macy's picture is replaced with Stella's and thrown in the trash; the picture depicts Macy smiling and looking regal, but once it's thrown out, the picture shows Macy frowning.
• Cursed with Awesome: Also another drawing points of the show (as it is with Hannah Montana, where being a world-famous singing group just sometimes doesn't mesh well with normal life. Four words: 'Taking out the trash'.
• Cut Short: Lasted for only two seasons and 34 episodes, tied with Cory in the House for shortest-run Disney Channel Original Series (until So Random! was cancelled in 2012, after only one 26-episode season).
• Cute Bruiser: Macy OWNS this trope.
• Deadpan Snarker: Nick, Joe, and Stella. Even Kevin and Macy have their moments, too.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Kevin and Joe at the Miss Amazing Teen Competition in "Beauty And The Beat". Nick's the only one who's not.
• The Ditz: Van Dyke, Kevin... Joe has his moments.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The Jonas Brothers song Live To Party serves as its opening in both seasons.
• Drop-In Character: DZ, Stella's aunt.
• Dumb Blonde: Averted with Stella, but played straight with Van Dyke.
• Failed a Spot Check: Kevin and Nick, in "A Wasabi Story". The previous season, Macy was on pretty much every sports team or squad at school, and was seen carrying around golf clubs at one point. And yet, they seem to think she can't play golf to save her life.
• Fake Static: In the episode "Home Not Alone", Frankie throws a Wild Teen Party while the boys' parents are on vacation. When their father calls on video chat, Joe starts making static noises in an attempt to distract him from the party and Nick even pretends that they can't hear him. Yet their father can see them making fake static noises because they are on a ''video chat''.
• Family Business: Yes. Quite.
• Female Gaze: Oh, yeah.
  • With Slow Motion and Fanservice, as said below.
• First Girl Wins: Nobody is getting Joe if Stella can help it... and when a guy comes a little close to Stella, Joe seems to get more than a bit annoyed.
• Forgotten Birthday: The brother invoke this trope twice:
  • In "Groovy Movies", they forget their mother's birthday and try to make up for it by converting their childhood home videos into CDs. However, they accidentally destroy the videos by spilling cake batter on them and are forced to recreate them.
  • In "Forgetting Stella's Birthday", they forget Stella's birthday because a band executive came to interview them on the same day and try to apologize to her by throwing a Slumber Party (something they used to do when they were little), which is also ruined due to the executive coming back to interview them again at the same time.
• Funny Background Event: In "Karaoke Surprise", while Joe's asking Stella to hang out, Nick's in the background, trying to fix the locker door that Stella ripped off.
• Spice Up the Subtitles: In "On the Radio" the boys are arguing after a disastrous radio interview and Macey plays a whistle-tone on her phone, which the subtitles on Disney+ call a "rape whistle".
• Gilligan Cut: In the episode "Frantic Fan", the gang is discussing who to use as Joe's "mystery girl" to get rid of Viona Skye. They then decide to use Stella (who is Joe's {{Love Interest) and Stella immediately protests:"Oh no! No! No!" (Cut to Stella modeling as the mystery girl in Macy's photo shoot)
• Girl of the Week
• Groupie Brigade
• Halloween Episode: "The Tale of the Haunted Firehouse"
• Hammerspace: Their lockers, for one.
  • Joe has reached up, out of the frame, and grabbed a candle. Then put said candle back to grab a clock instead, which he then put back.
  • Nick's put an entire keyboard into his locker. Length-wise.
• Hey, Wait!: Kevin and Nick sneak into detention to rescue Joe to record the band's final demo, despite the fact that Joe would get suspended if they are caught. When Vice Principle Spencer, the teacher monitoring detention, comes back, Kevin and Nick poorly hide themselves behind a vase and a skeleton respectively. Spencer screams "Aha!" and walks over to Nick as if he spotted him. Fortunately, he was actually walking over to straighten up a science fair banner which happened to be next to Nick. Later, when the brothers are performing a small concert in the hallway, Spencer walks in on them. However, he only arrives to straighten up a bake sell banner and leaves completely ignorant of their illegal music playing.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Macy, in a plot seemingly recycled from an episode of Hannah Montana in which Kevin can't bring himself to tell her.
• Home-Early Surprise: In "Home Not Alone", the boys are left in charge of the firehouse when Tom and Sandy leave for an extended vacation; it soon gets hoarded by unwanted guests turning it into a Wild Teen Party against their orders. When the boys receive a video call from Sandy, she feels homesick at seeing her boys get older and can't spend another moment without them; she then orders the plane to turn around and take them home early, meaning the boys only have a few hours to clean the house before the parents come home.
• Hustling the Mark: Macy does this in grand style in Season 2, swindling Nick and Kevin in a game of golf.
• I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Joe and Stella are very dedicated as they fear that entering a romantic relationship would ruin Stella's association in the band. This does not everyone's Ship Tease.
• I'm Your Biggest Fan: In Jonas L.A., Nick writes a song with this title for Macy.
• Jerk Jock: Once the words 'the Van-man's arm-candy' came out when he was talking to Stella, Van Dyke earned this badge.
• Lampshade Hanging: One of the greatest parts of season one.
• Large Ham: Quite. Most noticeable during the "Tale Of The Haunted Firehouse".
• Laugh Track: Surprisingly for Disney, averted.
• Lethal Chef: The second episode of the series features the boys ordering pizza from a place that makes very disgusting pizzas simply because they have a crush on the delivery girl.
• Mundane Made Awesome: A rock song using Triangles
• New Season, New Name: The show was re-labeled Jonas L.A. as part of a massive re-tooling.
• Noodle Implements: In "Detention":
  Kevin: Hi, yes, I'd like to cancel that order I just emailed you about. Yeah, for the twenty goats and a wheelbarrow. But I still need the ducks for Saturday.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: In "Three Musketeers", when they're actually doing it. Stella's the only one who bothers. (And actually does pretty well with it.)
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In season 2, when Macy realizes that Nick and Kevin don't remember she plays sports and plays them well, she does this to hustle them.
• Once an Episode: They sing or play a song at least once an episode, and it's lampshaded in one episode where Kevin takes or picks up a guitar and the lights turn out, and Joe or Nick leans over and says "turn on the lights and put down the guitar, we don't have time for a song".
• Only Sane Man: Nick.
• Perpetual Frowner: Nick. It's even made fun of in 'Wrong Song'.
  Macy: Weird, that guy looks just like Nick, except he's smiling.
  • Even as a baby, Nick was this, and it's made fun of by Joe and Kevin when they're watching videos of them as little kids with their parents trying to get Nick to smile.
  Joe: Not gonna happen.
  Nick: I was waiting until I had all my teeth.
  Joe: What's your excuse now?
  Kevin: Only kid I know who didn't smile while eating birthday cake.
• Phoneaholic Teenager:Stella. Her attempt to give up texting results in Sanity Slippage (including ending her sentences with "send").
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: Happens both sides. After Joe and Stella share a Slap-Slap-Kiss in "Double Date", they get so distracted that Stella mistakenly grabs a watermellon instead of her purse, and Joe accidentally falls down trying to sit.
  • Again in the same episode when they kiss in the hallway resulting in Joe's guitar and Stella's purse ending up in each other's hands.
• Precocious Crush: Frankie falling for Macy in "Direct To Video", but only for awhile, because the moment Frankie tasted her baked cookies, it was over.

• Retool: Disney Channel has announced that the struggling series will be retooled for season 2 by turning the show into an on-location series renamed JONAS L.A.
  • The Retool ended up resulting in it focusing even more heavily on Joe and less on Nick and Kevin, for the most part. It's even lampshaded by Nick.
  • Also, unlike the first season which was Slice of Life, the Retool is more of a drama, and lasted for a serialized Myth Arc.

• Secret Relationship: Nick keeps his relationship with Macy a secret from his friends, despite Macy feeling guilty about hiding it. This benefits Big Man's Kiara when she finds out about Nick and Macy and blackmails Nick into working with her. It wasn't until Kiara gives up on the blackmail and gives Nick "The Reason You Suck" Speech that Nick finally reveals the secret to everyone through the song he wrote for Macy.
• She's Not My Girlfriend: Joe gets detention to prove to his friend that he really is a normal guy who doesn't take advantage of being a rock star. Everyone just assumes she's a Girl of the Week which is why he's doing this leading to the trope. It's a subversion in that Joe does this to a guest character who he genuinely isn't interested in.
• Shorter Means Smarter: The shorter/younger the brother, the smarter. From Kevin being a Cloud Cuckoo Lander and Joe being so self-confident he's prone to stupidity to Nick being the most sensible brother and Frankie being incredibly cunning.
• Shout-Out: A whole sub-plot of an episode makes fun of the whole CSI: Miami meme of "witty comment, glasses, YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!! angles.
  • Joe's movie Forever April is basically Twilight but with a supernatural ghost girl rather than a vampire.
  • To Corey Hart in season one: "Let's not be those guys who wear their sunglasses at night."
• Shown Their Work: One Running Gag in season one was Macy always having sports equipment, and even though it rarely got anything more than a quick gag about her nearly killing one of the guys, the equipment she has is always accurate and appropriate for whatever sport she was doing at the time.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Joe and Stella have this attitude regarding their Relationship Revolving Door, but the biggest example was in "Double Date".
  Joe: What up?
  Stella: Don't give me all "what up" so innocent like you don't know what up! I can't believe how somebody can be irresponsible so senseless and just thoughtless!!!
  Joe: Well you are stuck up pretentious and totally gorgeous!!!
  Stella: Gorgeous?! You said I was gorgeous!!!
  Joe: I ment adorable!!! So adorable you make me sick!!!
  Stella: I'm sorry. But if I'm so sickenly adorable, then why did you come to the restaurant tonight?!
  Joe: Why did you go out with Van Dike?!
  Stella: Because he asked me!!! Isn't that how it works, Joe?! A guy asks out a girl because he likes her!!!!
  Joe: What about a guy not asking out a girl because he likes her?! Have you ever thought of that???!!!
  Stella: What?!
  Joe: I don't wanna wreck everything you and I don't have together!!!!
  Stella: That makes absolutely no sense!!!
  Joe: Well sometimes things do make sense!!!
  Stella: Okay, well... (Joe pulls Stella in and they kiss)
• Slow Motion: Without counting the Female Gaze mentioned above, pretty much anytime the bros walk down one of the corridors in the school this trope shows up. I wonder if the series is targeted towards a female audience.
• Sorkin Relationship Moment: Inverted; in 'Karaoke Surprise', Stella shows up at the guys' place to confront Joe and Macy - and then, finds out mot only that they've planned a 'fifteen-year friend-iversary party' for Stella, but that Macy would never do that to her, because she (Macy) has already realized that Joe and Stella have feelings for each other.
• Stalker with a Crush: Macy in the early episodes. She gets better.
  Stella: "What do you do, just follow them around all day?"
  Macy: "No! Of course not. Why, do they see me?"
• Take That!: A very blatant one at Lady Gaga's music videos, in "Direct To Video".
• Teen Drama: The 2nd season, JONAS L.A., which is also Disney Channel's attempt to do a Teen Drama for the channel.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Macy and Stella, although Macy is pretty girly herself.
• Why Are You Lookingat Me Like That: Stella has this reaction when the brother and Macy stare at her with the intention of using her as Joe's "mystery girl" in "Frantic Fan".
• Will They or Won't They?: Joe and Stella
• Wish-Fulfillment: Stella and Macy for the female audience. Stella is a beautiful, fashionable girl who is childhood friends with the brothers and grows up to be a Victorious Childhood Friend to Joe. Macy is an Asian Demi Lovato looking Expy who is great at every sport and, despite her clumsiness around the boys, quickly becomes an Ascended Fanboy and is now one of their close friends plus Nick's new Love Interest.
  • In the case of Macy/Nick, that's one part Character Development in action (for Macy), and one part What You Are in the Dark (for Nick). Once she got to know them as actual people instead of just stars, she could relate to them a lot better, and vice versa. That's why it was Nick who started chasing after Macy, and Macy who was about to walk away and not look back when Nick momentarily Took a Level in Jerkass.

---