The Amanda Show was an American live-action sketch comedy and variety show that aired on Nickelodeon from November 6, 1999 to September 21, 2002. It starred Amanda Bynes, Drake Bell, and Nancy Sullivan, along with several performing artists who came and left at different points, such as John Kassir, Raquel Lee, and Josh Peck. The show was a spin-off from All That, in which Bynes co-starred years earlier.

Recurring sketches

• Commercials - At the beginning of each show (after the title sequence), an advertisement for an unusual product plays. Products include machines that make ice cream out of trash, popcorn popping pants, sumo soda, pass the skunk, lunchbay.com, super spitball machine, and a machine which multiplies pocket money. A disclaimer at the end of each sketch states that the product is "available nowhere. You can buy this and other phony products on the Amanda Show."
• Judge Trudy - This sketch is a parody of the real life courtroom show, Judge Judy. The sketch features a child plaintiff "suing" an adult defendant for petty incidents or even deserved punishments, such as a grounding or an after-school detention. The defendant typically complains that Trudy is too young to be a judge, which angers Trudy even more. Trudy always finds in favour of the children and delivers ridiculous sentences to the adults, such as trapping parents in a rocket and sending them to space. The sketch almost always involves two cases and at the end of each sketch, the Judge calls for the Dancing Lobsters to come out. The lobsters then proceed to dance with Trudy. The sketch is similar to Judge Judy: both judges wear dainty lace collars, and both have African American baliffs; the only difference being that Trudy treats defendants like criminals, while Judy, like most TV court judges, deals with small claims cases.
• Blockblister - A parody of video rental store chain Blockbuster. Blockblister is owned and operated by a family of foreigners (Gnocchi, the father; Blini, the daughter; Biscotti, the son) who often find themselves facing dissatisfied customers due to the poor quality of the videos rented - which are in fact homemade spoofs of the actual movie requested. The customer who attempts to rent Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, George of the Jungle, The Nutty Professor, The Wizard of Oz, Austin Powers, Scream, Star Trek, The Brady Bunch, Titanic, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, X-Men, Stuart Little, Snow Day or Tom Sawyer, usually receives Face Ventura: Pet Detective, George from the Jungle, The Nubby Professor, Tidanic, The Wizard of Voz, Austin Powders, Screamings, Star Drek, The Brady Brunch, The Vantom Menace, F-Men, Stuart Lipple, Snowy Day or Tom Zawyer. Each spoof features the family in poorly made costumes, attempting to act out the movie over a few minutes, usually producing a poor imitation of the original. After arguing over the quality of the movie, the family either offers the customer an egg or inquires about payment, generating an adverse reaction from the customer. After the customer leaves - still dissatisfied - (two customers per sketch) the family dances to polka music while holding eggs, concluding the sketch. In one sketch, the family demonstrates the use of a DVP, their country's version of a DVD which is an LP-sized round block of wood played in a loud wooden machine powered by pulling a cord; the machine plays the video of the movie Mission: Impossible with visual interference and a rattling noise so loud no one can hear the movie.
• When... Attack - "When... Attack", hosted by Amanda Bynes, parodies dramas such as When Animals Attack!. Bynes introduces herself as some ridiculous but possibly famous character, then explains how a group of entities (such as cheerleaders, elderly women, The Brady Bunch, Alfred E. Neuman, school mascots, and female Hula dancers) have been attacking people. She then shows the viewers two incidents of attacks, first played at normal speed, then in slow motion. The victims then appear in interviews, injured, distraught and sometimes repeating exactly what the host says. At the end, the host tells the viewers to call a number, usually something like "1-500-I-Just-Saw-The-Brady-Bunch-Attack-Some-Person-And-Now-I'm-Calling-This-Number-To-Report-What-I-Saw". The attackers then arrive in the studio, either assaulting the host or causing her to run away screaming. The attackers will then either proceed to attack the cameraman or dance, concluding the sketch. Amanda also shows little sympathy for the victims of the attack.
• The Girls' Room - A TV show that takes place in the girls' bathroom of a high school, but for one episode, took place in the boys' bathroom of the same school. The hosts are Amber, an egotistical girl who always makes sure to remind the audience that she is popular, Sheila, an aggressive girl who disposes of unwelcome guests by giving them swirlies, Tammy, an exchange student from Tennessee, and Debbie, an unintelligent girl who constantly states that she likes eggs, and constantly annoys the others, especially Sheila.
• Moody's Point - An over-the-top parody of teen dramas/soap operas, mainly Dawson's Creek. The sketch focuses on Moody (Amanda Bynes), an emotionally exaggerated teen whose mother is lost in a hot air balloon and whose father is missing a toe. It featured her friends, such as Bree (Lauren Petty), who Moody is closest to the most, Misty (Molly Orr), a girl who is easily offended, Spalding (Taran Killam), a boy who has a huge crush on her but criticizes her in a ridiculous way and constantly has objects flung at him from beyond the screen, and Sternum, a brooding "bad boy" who responds to every question by asking the opposite of said question. Each episode had its own plot, and ends with a cliffhanger. An episode ends with Moody finding out that her real parents are circus trapeze artists named "The Flying Worthsbergs." At the end of the episode, the screen shows the words "To Be Continued," but The Amanda Show was cancelled shortly thereafter.
• Cynthia Worthington - Cynthia is an aristocrat who was brought up by a very wealthy and civilized family. She appears to look nice, but engages in revolting behavior such as burping loudly without excusing herself, eating without using her hands, displaying that she has neglected to shave her underarms, and publicly shaving her legs. At the end of the sketch when she does something even more disgusting, the people watching her get away from her and she responds with "How rude!", and she continues doing the disgusting thing.

• Penelope Taynt - Penelope Taynt, also played by Amanda Bynes, is Amanda's intelligent and mischievous self-proclaimed number one fan. She normally wears a vest, a plaid shirt and gray shorts, as well as large framed black glasses. She has a tattoo of Amanda's face on her belly, which is never seen again on the show. On the show she runs a fansite, AmandaPlease.com, which is actually an official site created for the series. Penelope also has the odd habit of interjecting the word "please" into almost all of her sentences (though in her website she puts this down to the fact that she has always been told to say "please" when she wants something, and she wants to meet Amanda). Between segments in every show, she uses some harebrained scheme to try and meet Amanda, often with the help of Drake, Josh, or her brother Preston, but never succeeds, though she is at times exceedingly close to doing so. Schemes include cloning Amanda from her toenail (but it turns out to be Drake's), having a bloodhound lead her to Amanda by following her scent, and often breaking into Amanda's dressing room. She frequently interviews people who know Amanda in an attempt to be pointed in the right direction. On rare occasions, Penelope invades skits already in progress (Most Notably 'Cooking with me' where she is chased by Security, and steals the cooking pot to try and carry Amanda with her, but Amanda comes up from the hole in the cooker). Her brother Preston has met Amanda and sometimes asks if she could meet Penelope; Amanda always says she cannot. She once shared some romance with Trevor, Barney's son, for a while. However, just as she was about to meet Amanda, she willingly gave up the opportunity and kissed Trevor just before being thrown off the stage yet again.
• The Extremes - This sketch is about the Extreme family, a family of three who always take every little thing to an extreme. Whatever they feel, they seem to always overreact to it. For example, when eating pizza, the daughter begins crying hysterically, claiming she is sad that when they finish eating it, it will be gone. This exasperates everyone around the family.
• Hillbilly Moment - Amanda and Drake dress as stereotypical hillbillies named Lula Mae and Eenis (respectively), and tell knock-knock jokes which always end with Lula Mae hitting Eenis over the head with the subject of the knock-knock joke.
  • The conversation between the two would always go as follows (with [object] representing the item Lula Mae is holding behind her back with her right hand):
    • Announcer: "It's time for a Hillbilly Moment!" (goofy laugh)
    • Lula Mae: "Knock, knock."
    • Eenis: "Who's there?"
    • Lula Mae: "[object]."
    • Eenis: "[object] who?"
    • Lula Mae: "I'm gonna hit you in the head with a/an [object]."
    • Eenis: (laughs) "Huh?"
    • Lula Mae hits him in the head with the [object]. Eenis stumbles and sometimes falls over.
    • Eenis: (laughs) "That's a good'un!"
    • Lula Mae: "Yup."
• Mr. Gullible - A substitute teacher, with bucked teeth, who often did what the students claimed their regular teacher did: "Our regular teacher usually... (insert wacky task here)." The wacky tasks included eating chalk, drinking out of a fish tank, giving $100 to each student at the end of class, banging his head into a locker during a fire drill, and dancing like a buffoon during history class. He usually questions these ridiculous tasks by asking "..Really?" and the children confirm, leading to Mr. Gullible saying, "Well if that's what your regular teacher does, then I guess I should too." His personality is derived from Jerry Lewis' character Julius Kelp from The Nutty Professor.
• Game show parodies with contestants that are characters from other sketches:
  • So You Wanna Win Five Dollars? - A game show parody of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The contestant, who wasn't very bright, was asked three questions, with the final question being worth five U.S. dollars. The questions were fairly easy, with four choices as answers. Half of the answers usually did not have anything to do with the question. For example, when shown the answers for the question, "How many inches are in a foot?", two possible answers were "Pink" and "Meat". Whenever the player needed help he wanted to call his parents, but instead the host called Mr. Oldman (see below).
  • Stranded - A parody of the hit reality TV series Survivor, this time contestants were stranded in a strange location in a certain state (such as a bathtub in North Dakota or a parked car in a parking lot in Oklahoma). The contestants were forced to stay in the place. Whoever stayed the longest would win USD $1,000,000. Whoever left the wacky location would summon two guards to take them out of the location, and ultimately out of the game. When it came down to three or four contestants, the final three or four must vote one player out of the game. Many characters often annoy each other into leaving the game. Mr. Gullible appears in both versions and is tricked into being the first one out.
• The Klutzes - A family whose members constantly trip and fall down shouting "HUPDEEDOO!", sometimes destroying things. After each incident, members would say "Not a problem!," even if it was, indeed, a problem. At the end of the sketch, the family normally ends up doing something to destroy the building or fall out of a window.
• Courtney - Courtney is a girl with large teeth and a hat who spoke in incomplete sentences. When mad, she would shout "MAH-HA!". She drove people insane by putting on ridiculous schemes such as spraying shaving cream into people's faces or cutting people's hair, in order to get the person to leave for her own reasons.
• Tony Pajamas - An Italian mobster played by Drake. He was known for situations involving Candy Tulips (played by Amanda), his girlfriend, and always hitting his lackey, Paulie (played by Josh). When Paulie asks, "What was that for?", Tony would reply, "For being an idiot!", to which the lackey responded, "Oh-kay!", as if it were fair. When anyone mispronounced Tony's last name as /pəˈdʒæməz/ pə-JAM-əz, he corrects the character by saying [pəˈdʒɑːməz] pə-JAH-məz. Later on in the scene, Paulie would look out the window and see their enemies, the "Al Dente Brothers," who would dangerously throw food like eggs, donuts, and meatballs at Tony and his lackey; this scene would always be taken as a dramatic attack. At one point, Josh imagined his and Drake's roles being reversed in the sketch.
• Crime Fighting Cheerleaders - The Crime Fighting Cheerleaders were a band of three high school cheerleaders (Katie, Stephanie and Megan) who arrested various criminals (e.g. bullies). Often, before assaulting and arresting the criminal, this peppy squad would recite a "Give me a [letter]" cheer, ultimately spelling something completely irrelevant to the situation (such as milk, in one episode), apparently to distract and confuse the criminal into vulnerability. After the criminal's arrest, one of the victims would gratefully ask, "How can we ever thank you?" to which the head cheerleader would energetically respond, "By keeping up your school spirit!" Usually, a boy played by Josh would ask Katie out on a date. She would say no and knock him to the ground. At the end of the sketch, the crew would announce their exit with a last "Gimme a [letter]" cheer, spelling something like "bye" or "see-ya."
• ... Dooper - A restaurant that served different items every sketch. Whatever was offered, (i.e. ice cream, soup, sushi, cookie), was usually gross. Examples included spider crunch ice cream (with actual spiders), and underwear chowder soup. On occasion, a customer would ask "Hey, didn't this used to be a (sushi, cookie, soup, etc) restaurant?" The employees would respond that it "wasn't their thing" and say that they're now (weenie, cookie, sushi, etc.) people. In later episodes, they would say things like "I'll thank you never to mention that again." At the end of the skit, the customer tries a special sample that actually tastes good — but had a surprise. After hearing the name of the sample, they will ask why it was named that, upon which the customer would have some calamity related to the name of the dish happen to him, such as being attacked by a samurai upon trying a "Samurai roll". A recurring gag is that the family's grandfather comes in from the back and the father responds "NOT NOW, GRANDPA". Grandpa usually responds with "FAILURE", which goes with their usually unsuccessful business.
• Mr. Oldman - An elderly widower (played by Dan Schneider) who was a victim of constant prank phone calls from a red curly-haired character played by Amanda Bynes. The character often told Mr. Oldman to do unusual tasks, like spraying whipped cream in his mouth or confirming his order of zebras or putting a shoe down his pants or to press his nose and say "Beep!". Mr. Oldman would then say "But I don't wanna (thing that the pranker says)! then does it anyways. He would then scream "YOU HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER!!!" and talk nonsense while the girl made silly faces mocking him. Mr. Oldman always appeared saying, using some strange phrase, that he hates children.
• The Dare Show - A show hosted by a sister, Sharon, and her younger brother, Toby, played by Amanda and Drake, respectively. They claimed they would accept any dare, but whenever a caller suggested a dare (especially a rude dare), they would refuse. The caller would call them "Chicken", "Coward", "Liar", or something of that sort, and the hosts would give in. Dares included Sharon brushing her teeth with her brother's foot and Toby beating himself up.. After they would do it, they would say, "Man, I can't believe I just did that." At the end of the show, the hosts' mother would find them doing The Dare Show after she told them not to. Then the caller would dare the mother to do something, such as eating an entire jar of mayonnaise, and the mother would refuse until being called a name. She then would perform the act. The callers are said to come from a city in the wrong location, such as Los Angeles, North Dakota and Barcelona, Alabama.
• Melody & Thad - A duo parody of Chad and Jeremy who usually performed songs that were inappropriate to the occasion. For example, in a restaurant, they sang a song about an unpleasant experience in a restaurant that included vomiting and snot. Every time, the hostess interrupts their song and tells them that it isn't the right one and they do not understand what they mean.
• Totally Kyle - A stereotypical laid back hippie surfer played by Drake Bell who told nonsense stories, such as describing the time he lost a cordless phone, or about how finding a dead bird made him change his normal route to school. He is depicted with long, messy, shaggy blonde hair, a baggy, tie-dye shirt, and a pale yellow electric guitar. He used the word "like" a lot, and always had an electric guitar hanging from his neck. His stories usually started with the line 'One time...'. This was the only recurring sketch without Amanda's appearance (she introduces Kyle off-screen), and the only character from any skit to appear on All That.
• Amanda's Jacuzzi - A talk-show where Amanda Bynes is in a jacuzzi with a guest, who is either fictional (such as Santa Claus), famous, a deceased historical character (such as Elvis Presley), or a random character such as the "Swiss Guy". She asked them two normal questions about themselves, and then a ridiculous one. The puzzled guest would reply, "No", and then Amanda asks, "How about a plate of spaghetti?" Dwarf waiters then served Amanda and the guest spaghetti, and the guest usually say something silly but appropriate, such as King Henry VIII saying "Long live the me."
• The Procrastinator - A superhero spoof where Amanda played a heroine called The Procrastinator, who would respond to people's cries for help by saying, very triumphantly, that she would get to solving the problems "Eventually"!, and do nothing, despite the helpless citizens' pleas.
• Stop Motion Amanda - A stop motion Amanda does wacky things, often with a pet dog named Scooter.
• The Literals - A family that takes expressions literally. For example, when they visit another family, the girl asks for a punch and Leslie (Bynes) punches her. When the dad asks Mrs. Literal to hold a glass for a second, after 1 second, she drops it. When the father says "You Literals kill me!", they grab something to kill him, but the camera cuts it off.
• The Lucklesses - A family that always experiences horrible luck, including being struck by lightning or getting money stolen. Usually when something bad happens to them, someone in the family will say 'What are the odds of that', and the father will say 'I don't know'.
• The Wrestlebergs - A family of professional wrestlers, whose home represent a ring. (The father and son are representations of WWE wrestlers The Blue Blazer and Goldust.
• Marcy Stimple - An absent minded girl (played by Nancy Sullivan) who always gets crazy.
• The People Place - The store run by Amanda where different kinds of people are sold.
• Becky Swanson "Professional Babysitter" - She appeared in a sketch in the 6th episode and acted really immature. The kids have to "take care" of her but at the end of the sketch they lock her in the house and drive to the movies while she had a fit.
• Miss DeBoat - A teacher with short black hair and horn-rimmed glasses (played by Nancy) who becomes the target of numerous sketches, such as Judge Trudy, Tony Pajamas, and even was the teacher for students who have gifted powers for which she does not approve of.

Cast members

• Amanda Bynes (1999–2002)
• Drake Bell (1999–2002)
• Nancy Sullivan (1999–2002)
• Raquel Lee (1999–2000)
• Johnny Kassir (1999–2000)
• Jenna Morrison (1999–2002)
• Jamie Snow (1999–2002)
• Ashley Edner (1999–2002)
• Andrew Hill Newman (1999–2002)
• Josh Peck (2000–2002)
• Reagan Gomez-Preston (2000–2002)
• Radley Watkins (2000–2002)
• Molly Orr (2000–2002)
• Taran Killam (2000–2002)
• Dan Schneider (1999–2002)
• Brian Ahearn (1999–2002)

Episodes

Reruns

Reruns of The Amanda Show originally started airing on The N (now TeenNick) on October 31, 2007 and was dropped from the channel in March 2008, but then returned on April 4, 2009^[2]. All of the show's episodes aired, but not episode 17 of season two. The Best of The Amanda Show also didn't air. The original TV rating was TV-Y7, but now the rating is TV-G, like all of the other shows that aired on the former TEENick block on Nickelodeon. On August 3, 2009, The Amanda Show was dropped from The N once again, and it was said that it would make a comeback on September 28, 2009 when the The N was rebranded as TeenNick, but that did not occur.

Home video releases / iTunes

Paramount Home Entertainment and Nickelodeon released The Amanda Show on DVD and VHS in three volumes. Around late 2004 Paramount Home Entertainment announced they were going to release "Penelope's Picks" Volume 4 and "Trudy's Duties" Volume 5 on 2005, but they were never released on DVD or VHS.

• Volume 1 - Amanda, Please! (VHS and DVD)
• Volume 2 - The Girls' Room (VHS and DVD)
• Volume 3 - Totally Amanda (VHS and DVD)

• The Best of Volumes 1 & 2 (iTunes only)

Trivia

The theme song is a remix of the Spyro the Dragon level, Wizard Peak.^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• AmandaPlease.com
• The Amanda Show area on nick.com
• Official Music Video for Moody's Point Theme Song
• The Amanda Show at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com

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