Series / Unfabulous

Day after day is unfabulous,
And everyone around me is unbearable!
I'm gonna be the one unflappable,
It's better unfabulous.
It's better unfabulous.
I'm gonna be the one unstoppable,
It's better unfabulous.
I'm gonna be the one unforgettable!
It's better unfabulous.
It's better unfabulous.
I'm better unfabulous...

— Theme song

Unfabulous is a Nickelodeon original teen sitcom created by Sue Rose (Pepper Ann) that premiered in September 2004 and ran for three seasons until December 2007 (although reruns continued into 2008).

The show revolves around the life of Addie Singer (Emma Roberts), a teenage girl^note starting out as 13 and turning 14 in the third season with braces and a guitar, as she grows up alongside her best friends Geena (Malese Jow) and Zack (Jordan Calloway) and attends Rocky Road Middle School (located somewhere on the East Coast). The first season is mostly about Addie's awkward struggles just getting used to middle school, but her obsessive crush on Jake Behari takes most of her arcs in the second and third season.

Unfabulous is notable for being the only show in the Nick Verse to not have had Dan Schneider involved in writing. As a result, the show tends to be overlooked by Nick Verse fans.

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Tropes used by the series:

• Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "The Rep," everyone is assigned to a different clique for a week for a history project. Addie is assigned to the "Popular" clique, and, as she spends more time with Maris, she starts acting snottier and more narcissistic. However, she does start feeling guilty about ditching her friends. She finally decides to put her foot down when Maris takes an unflattering picture of Geena from Addie's house and decides to make a billboard-sized copy to display in the hallway at lunch for everyone to see.
• Animated Credits Opening: The show's theme song is an animated sequence of the main characters with black-and-white photorealistic heads superimposed over animated bodies, similar in vein with Angela Anaconda.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: At the end of the Heffer House episode:
  Like Ben telling dad that no-one pranks better,
  Or supporting someone's nudist dreams since they don't wear sweaters
• British Brevity: Only ran for 13 episodes per season.
• Brutal Honesty: Reconstructed in The Secret. Addie learns that her friends have been lying to spare her feels so she makes them sign a contract to be 100% honest all the time which includes a Truth-Telling Session in which Addie learns things she wished she hadn't known causing a temporary rift in the friendship. Addie realizes that she took it a little too far, but does agree to just put all the past lies behind them and agree to be honest from here on out.
• Character Development: Addie changing from The Everyman into a girl who speaks her mind and goes for whatever she wants. Zack changing from a granola boy into an intelligent young man. Geena upgrading from an easily angered fashionista into the down-to-earth member of the group. Jake growing into an actual character from generic boy. Even Maris and Cranberry somehow get in on the Character Development, thought it has to happen again after their Snap Back in season 2.
• Character Narrator: All of the episodes are narrated by Addie.
• Circling Birdies: In "The Toot," during a daydream sequence, Addie imagines herself passing gas with enough force to send her boyfriend Jake flying. He crashes into a soda machine and looks dazed as bird sounds play and soda cans clonk him on the head. In "The Two Timer" Addie fantasizes about striking her doppelganger, Abbie, with a guitar which results in a cross-eyed birds chirping moment.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: It happens to Addie twice in series.
  • When she tried to sneak out of the house after being grounded by her mother through the dog door and her skirt rips.
    • Later in the episode, when she and Geena arrive at a hangout spot for high school kids, Addie accidentally flashes her Tuesday underwear.
  • Then when she arrived at school not wearing pants after she overslept.
• Continuity Nod:
  • One episode has Addie singing about her dead goldfish, the Science Fair episode reveals that she's the one who killed it.
  • Two of the Cute Girls (Jolene and Molly ) also show up as Science Regional Champions who continuously beat Zack.
• Crossover: Addie appears to be a close friend of the prankster Megan Parker and even gets a chance to help her torment a sleeping Josh in Megan's webshow.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: One episode had Addie attempt to babysit a little girl. The girl's favorite pastime was to apparently run around the house screaming at the top of her lungs.
• Derailing Love Interests: Patti Perez was always part of Maris and Cranberry's Girl Posse, but a few episodes after she starts dating Jake Behari she becomes both insufferable and Too Dumb to Live.
• Doppelgänger Dating: "The Two Timer" has Addie being told she was in places she was never in. She finds out that the person they saw was a girl named Abbie who looks exactly like her. She finds out Abbie is dating her ex-boyfriend Randy Klein and becomes paranoid she's trying to steal her life. Randy doesn't see it, however, and Addie calms down when she talks with Abbie and realizes they have nothing in common and strangely enough has friends who look like Zack and Geena.
• Ending Theme: An instrumental version of whatever song Addie sang in that episode, usually with an entirely different arrangement.
• Evolving Credits: The title sequence is updated slightly in Season 2 to reflect Maris and Cranberry’s promotion to main characters.
• First Kiss: Invoked in The List Of Kissed, though it doesn't actually happen until a season later in The Balancing Act.
• Genius Ditz:
  • Geena Fabiano, who alternates between fashion obsessed teen and somebody with an encyclopedic knowledge of sociology.
• Homage: The The Last Day of Seventh Grade is shown in the style of 24, from Addie's opening narration, showing a timer while she recounts the events, right down to the Twist Ending as the school day's timer fully expires.
• How We Got Here: The show uses this a lot. Typically the show begins with Addie in trouble, in plaster, or covered in food, water, or other liquids. She then explains (in voiceover) that to understand how she got into this mess, we'll have to go back a few days.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All episodes begin with “The”, and relate to whatever situation Addie is dealing with.
• Injured Limb Episode: In "The Guilt Trip", Addie was supposed to spot Maris in gym class on the balance beam, but gets distracted and Maris falls, spraining her wrist and leaving her in a cast for the episode.
• "Last Day of School" Plot: Two of them. "The Last Day of Seventh Grade" focused on Addie trying to tell how she feels to Jake before the end of seventh grade. The Grand Finale "The Best Trip Ever" focused on Addie's final day at middle school and planning a cruise, and discovering her two best friends are in love with each other.
• Last-Second Word Swap: The Principal Jazz trio sing:
  Go to class
  Don't give us no sass
  If you don't we'll go Medieval on your...
  Assistants...
• Pop-Star Composer: Jill Sobule, who also wrote and performed the opening theme and all of Addie's songs (Including the guitar riffs/instrumentals played as the Ending Themes.)
• Relationship Revolving Door: Geena goes through this with Gianni in a manner of episodes. She does like him but keeps dumping him after she learns he was lying about something else only to fall for another false promise. Once Zack expresses interest, she dumps him for good.
• Shipper on Deck: Jake actively supports Geena/Zach and he tries multiple times to get them together in season 3.
• Shoot the Television: One episode has Addie and Geena learn that Zack was in a series of diaper commercials while Zack went up to get a soda. When comes back, he throws his bottle through the TV set and finds it humiliating. Addie is sympathetic, but points out she'll still need to tell her parents he broke their TV.
• Stalker with a Crush: The 66th Day reveals a lot about how Addie stalks Jake, not to mention producing a CD with 65 songs about him on it.
• Stripping Snag: In the “Book Club” episode, Addie tries sneaking out of her home through the front door while her mom is meditating in the living room. Addie makes it, but her skirt doesn’t.