That's so Raven

For Who
The characters in this show are primarily teens so you could say this show is best suited for high school students. Raven deals with many everyday situations as well as many crazy out there situations making it lesson filled as well as entertaining for teens and adults alike.

The silliness of the show is good for pre-teens and older kids as well. They might not be able to fully relate to Raven as a high school student, but they can still get a few lessons out of it and I think they will laugh a lot. The show should be equally entertaining for girls and boys.

Basic Plot
Raven is a high school girl who is unique...she can see the future! She will randomly have visions of the future BUT the problem is she has no control over these visions. The event she sees is usually something that is going to happen within the next day. Another problem is that Raven doesn't see everything. In fact, she general sees a short 3 seconds vision and she doesn't know exactly where she was or what was going to happen. This leads to her majorly misinterpretting her visions and causing lots of trouble - fun and silly trouble mostly! You'll understand more as you read the characters and sample storylines below.

Characters
It should be noted that Raven's family is black. I'm not saying this for any reason other than that it makes the show even better for kids. There are a few episodes (one example below) where they show how some people can be prejudice and how the family deals with it in a very classy way.

Raven is the name of the character and the actress. You should remember her as the cute little girl, Olivia, in the Cosby show. She's an outspoken kind of girl, but still a very nice person. At school, she's picked on by some of the popular kids, but that doesn't discourage her most of the time. Her true passion is fashion! This was an awesome idea on behalf of the writers because it takes a girl's dream and shows how she can make it a reality. Although the "visions" thing is not something any of us can truly relate to, it makes her character very interesting! She will do anything to make sure her good visions come true and her bad visions not - this means she's going to get into a lot of crazy costumes and create a lot of fun characters! She's quickly following in the footsteps of Eddie Murphy.

Raven: I was designing since I was in diapers. I used to design my own diapers. In fact, I used to put glitter and sayings and, y'know, little flowers. Trying to add a little beauty to the duty.

Orlando Brown plays Eddie and is one of Raven's two close friends. He's a typical teen and uses a lot of the teenage slang. He is also in an on again off again relationship with one girl, but when it's off he's finding other girls to like. I guess there's not much to say about him!

Victor: Okay, so Eddie, what kind of pancakes do you want? We got blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry.
Eddie: How about Hallieberry?

Anneliese van der Pol plays Chelsea and is Raven's other close friend. She's kind of ..... slow. But one thing she is always on top of is environmental causes. This sometimes clashes with Eddie and Raven's idea of fun, but over all their friendship outranks everything. Every episode her "slow-ness" is a hoot! And she's not even blond ;)

Eddie: Guys! Guys! I have the funniest thing.
Chelsea: [laughs real hard]
Raven: Chels, he hasn't said the funny thing yet.
Chelsea: Or maybe you just don't get it Rae.

Kyle Massey is Corey who is Raven's younger brother. He is awesome at earning money on his own and practically in charge of his own finances! However he is still a little brother so him and Raven still have their share of fights. Sibling love always wins out, but that doesn't mean we won't see some interesting fights every so often.

Corey: [looking at Raven] Did it make you mad?
Raven: Ya darn right!
Corey: Then it's done its job.

T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh (Tonya) and Rondell Sheridan (Victor) are her parents. They are also very unique in that Tonya is going back to school and Victor is a chef that eventually owns his own restaurant. You can see from this that families are being portrayed differently on TV now showing that the woman can go to school and work outside of the house and that the man does not have to be in "business" or a doctor or something of the sort. They are fun parents also, which seems to happen a lot with these new Disney shows!

Victor: Raven, I thought we agreed that everyone was going to take on extra responsibility since your mother is going back to school.
Raven: I know.
Tonya: What was your job?
Raven: Wake up Cory and bring him down for breakfast!... Oh snap! [runs up stairs to wake Corey]

Sample Storylines
This show has gone through 4 seasons from 2003-2006 and it seems to just keep on going! Here are a few examples of what you will see on this show.

1. A Fish Called Raven
Raven gets a newspaper job where she has to report on sports. She has a vision of Eddie scoring the winning basket so she decides to write her article ahead of time because she's being lazy... however a fellow classmate sees this article and is now convinced that Raven is psychic. If Eddie does score the winning basket, Raven's in a lot of trouble - but what if Eddie doesn't? Will Eddie give up his time to shine for the sake of his friend? Raven learns that she shouldn't be lazy and should take her responsibilities seriously.

2. Saturday Afternoon Fever
Raven makes plans to spend quality time with her mother, but forgets all about it when a cute boy asks her to the movies! She cons Eddie into taking her place and helping her switch between the two theaters so she can have the date and her mom will still be happy... she learns from this that by skipping the movie with her mother she missed out on the quality time that was supposed to happen. She further learns that she should stick to what she agrees to because otherwise people's feelings may be hurt.

3. Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind
Raven's boyfriend asks her to go to a sci-fi convention to which she does not want to go to...until she has a vision of him getting close with another girl! Her and her friends crash the convention only to find out that the "nuzzling" was only an innocent thing and the sci-fi people's way of saying hello. As you can guess, she learns first to trust those she loves and second that she should do things with her boyfriend even if they aren't her idea of fun, because that is what you do as a couple!

4. That's So Not Raven
Raven's dress design gets into a magazine contest but when she gets the magazine she sees herself "thinned" out and basically her head on a different body. When she goes to complain she finds out that in order to be in the show she has to have a thin girl model her design, which she had planned to model herself. She breaks the rules and manages to get onto the stage herself - this is of course an episode about body image and not listening to anyone else's idea of what is perfect. She stands up for herself and shows that every body can be a beautiful body.

5. True Colors
Raven and Chelsea both apply for a job at a local store, but Raven isn't hired. Raven suddenly has a vision that of the boss saying she didn't pick her because she was black. Now Raven is determined to prove this person is racist, but she can't just say she has a "vision". So her and Chelsea call on a local news team and do a setup to get this woman to admit she is racist on hidden camera. In the end, Raven is happy to expose this person but of course is still upset that there are even people like that in the first place. Once again she went the extra mile to stand up for herself and did it in a well thought out and classy way.

Raven: Even if they did believe me, it wouldn't matter. I'm only one person, I can't change the world.
Victor: Rae, if Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. had that attitude, we'd still be sitting in the back of buses.

Conclusion
Although Raven gets herself into lots of crazy trouble, she is a smart girl who is teaching your kids to stand up for themselves! She also works hard at her fashion career showing that if you try hard enough you can accomplish your dreams. The entire cast, including Raven's tormentors at school and the random characters I haven't mentioned, make it for a fun show that really entertains. I had a vision that you would be checking your TV guide to see when this is on next! Enjoy!