ICarly

ICarly
File:ICarlylogo.PNG The iCarly logo
Created by	Dan Schneider
Starring	Miranda Cosgrove Jennette McCurdy Nathan Kress Jerry Trainor
Country of origin
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	17 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer	Jacob Kaplan
Running time	25 min.
Original release
Network	Nickelodeon
Release	September 8, 2007 – present

iCarly is an American children's television series and spin-off of Drake and Josh aimed at kids 6 and up which premiered on September 8, 2007 on Nickelodeon and it first aired on YTV a month later on October 8, 2007. The series focuses on a girl named Carly Shay who makes a webcast internet program with her best friends Sam and Freddie.

Plot

Miranda Cosgrove stars as Carligan Shay, a 13-year-old teenage girl who starts her own web show after going through talent show auditions for a teacher at her school, Ms. Briggs (Mindy Sterling) and realizing that young people rarely have control over entertainment. Samantha "Sam" Puckett (Jennette McCurdy) is Carly's rebellious best friend and web show co-host. Carly lives in a loft apartment in Seattle, Washington with her 26-year-old brother Spencer Shay (Jerry Trainor), an eccentric artist. An apartment neighbor Freddie Benson (Nathan Kress), is the web show's technical producer who has a huge crush on Carly and constantly fights with Sam. Carly battles many challenges on the show, for example, Carly's (and Spencer's) grandfather believes that Spencer is too imature to raise Carly, when in reality Spencer is the perfect person to upbring Carly while their father is stationed in Guam. *Carly and Spencer's mother is never mentioned in the show. Another challenge, is competing against other rival websites such as Nevilocity.com and The Valerie Show.com. Nevil Pepperman appears several times in the show, and is always trying to sabotage the iCarly show, after Carly refuses to be his girlfriend. Because he is a kid-genius, he can mess up Carly, Freddie, and Sam's website. Valerie was Freddie's girlfriend, but only used him so she could have a tech producer in the show. In the episode "i Will Date Freddie" a plasma screen T.V. falls on her from a circuit blowout and knocks her down.

Characters

Carligan "Carly" Shay

Carligan "Carly" Shay is a 13-year-old teenage girl with her own web show. She lives with her older brother, Spencer, in Seattle while her father serves in the Military. She is often acts as a mediator between Sam and Freddie, and is the main character of the series. After school, Carly and Sam listened to talent show auditions for Ms. Briggs, leading her to use "iCarly" to give kids a chance to show off talents that most adults might find disgusting or generally distasteful. She usually stays calm and collected, and rarely (if ever) will have an extreme reaction to an exciting event. It was revealed in "iWanna Stay With Spencer" that Carly has asthma, allergies, is having some trouble with science, takes vitamins everyday (but only the ones shaped like dinosaurs), and drinks decaf (Spencer gives her that while she thinks it's regular coffee.) Carly is played by Miranda Cosgrove.

Samantha "Sam" Puckett

Samantha Puckett is Carly's best friend. She is rebellious, comedic, lazy, and doesn't really like to do homework (or work at all). She enjoys playing leap frog, baking cookies, and making goop in her spare time. If she forgets to have breakfast at her house, she will eat in class (as seen in the "I Dream of Dance" episode. Sam is quite the skater girl and ambiguous tomboy with a punk-rock, skater taste in clothes. She often bickers with Carly's neighbor and schoolmate, Freddie Benson. She enjoys making fun of Freddie, even to the point of giving him a wedgie. She also tends to get herself in trouble, and blames Freddie for it, and at times makes Carly take the blame. She has also been shown to be somewhat violent. On one occasion she intimidated a classmate into telling her she was not aggressive. Sam is also usually shown to be lazy, and will often slack off work. She usually blames Carly and Freddie for what she's done. As seen in "iWanna Stay With Spencer" she borrows money without repaying it. It was said that Sam put squirrels in her teacher's car, the same stunt pulled by Drake Parker from Drake & Josh. Sam is played by Jennette McCurdy, who has also appeared as Trisha Kirby in the Nickelodeon show Zoey 101 and another girl in Last Day of Summer.

Frederick "Freddie" Benson

Frederick "Freddie" Benson is one of Carly's apartment neighbors and the web show's technical producer. He has a crush on her, but Carly only thinks of him as a friend. As such, he often acts as a pushover, constantly trying to impress Carly (although he does have his limits). He is stuck in an ongoing feud with Sam, who constantly insults him. He also gets mad at other boys if they try and flirt with Carly. For a short time, he had a girlfriend, but they broke up when he realized she was using him. Freddie has an over-protectivie, incredibly embarrassing mother, who also hates Spencer. She also has sudden outbursts. Freddie is played by Nathan Kress. "Freddie" Benson is also the name of the main character in the Broadway musical and movie. Freddie is also the victim of several events. In the episode "iDream of Dance" Sam dumps her cereal, orange juice, toast, and turkey bacon in his backpack after Miss Briggs tells Sam not to eat in class. Freddie's backpack is ruined and he has to buy a new backpack. In another episode "iLike Jake" Freddie finds out the antenna of his cell phone is being used by Sam to clean out her earwax. Sam also cleans her ear out with Freddie's straw and puts it back into his glass of ice tea that Carly poured for the three of them.

Spencer Shay

Spencer Shay is Carly's 26-year-old brother and guardian. It is revealed in the episode "iWanna Stay With Spencer" that he dropped out of law school to become an artist. He is usually seen working on a new sculpture, and is played by Jerry Trainor, who is also known for playing the role of "Crazy" Steve in Drake & Josh. He is kind, goofy and caring. His nickname is Spence. He is single, as he is seen dating or hitting on women in various episodes, most of them have unusual talents. Spencer is also very forgetful as we learn in the Halloween themed iCarly episode when Spencer forgets to buy candy. Spencer's friend always hooks up Spencer with bizzare objects (The giant pumpkin and the light up socks).

Secondary characters

• Ms. Francine Briggs (Mindy Sterling) is a teacher at Carly's school who she and her friends like to make jokes about. She had also taught at the school when Spencer was a student. She loves Randy Jackson and has a bunch of pictures of him in her closet and a talking card board cut-out of him, plus "Randy Yos" and Randy Jackson cologne ("It smells tight, dawg."). Francine is also found exercising in "iSpy a Mean Teacher" in her spare time.

• Lewbert is the doorman of Carly and Freddie's apartment complex. He has a huge wart on his left cheek. He is also not the nicest guy, and freaks out when too many people are in his lobby (especially after he's just mopped.) He is a victim (without knowing) in the segment "Messin with Lewbert" on iCarly. He made his first appearance in "iWant More Viewers".

• Ms. Benson is Freddie's mother. She often embarrasses Freddie in front of his friends, and is overbearing and nosy. She is very worried about the growth of Freddie's leg hair. It was revealed in iRue the Day that Ms. Benson doesn't give Freddie much allowance because she's afraid that he will buy a bus ticket and leave her.

• Jeremy (Nathan Pearson) is a sickly kid at Carly's school. He's constantly sneezing and coughing. Sam, Freddie and Carly refer to him as "Germy" as he is the germiest kid in school. He has appeared in 3 episodes.

• Socko is Spencer's friend, who gets him glowing socks and generally does odd-jobs for him. He is an unseen character, but is mentioned on several occasions.

• Nevel Papperman (Reed Alexander) is the star of the popular website, Nevelocity. He was thought to be a man, but was revealed to be an 11 year old boy. He has a major crush on Carly and would do anything to have Carly as his girlfriend, until she refused to kiss him and smeared tapenade in his face. He first appeared in "iNevel" and showed up again in the sequel, "iRue the Day". His goal is to wreck iCarly and get revenge on Carly for that incident.

• Grandfather Shay is Carly and Spencer's grandfather from Yakima. He thinks Spencer is incompetent as a guardian. He first appears in "iWanna Stay With Spencer". He is shown to be able to walk on his hands in "iWant a World Record". Spencer and Carly call him "Granddad."

• Jake Crandle (Austin Butler) is a popular kid from Carly's school. Carly likes him, and Jake likes Carly, but Jake thinks that Carly is going out with Freddie and doesn't want to get between them.

• Gibby is a teacher's pet and is a target of Sam. In the episode "i Dream of Dance" Sam bangs her locker with frustration after her locker wont open. Opening the banged up door, the locker comes completely of its hinges. In the same episode Sam shouts to Gibby and says "Shut Up" or "Don't go there Gibby"

Episodes

Main article: List of iCarly episodes

Trivia

• Each episode title starts out with an "i", as in iCarly.

• Splashface.com, a fake domain owned by Nickelodeon that directs to iCarly official website, is a parody of YouTube.

• In "iWanna Stay With Spencer", Carly's grandfather says he will stay at the "Parker-Nichols Hotel". This is a reference to Drake and Josh, which Cosgrove previously starred in along side Drake Bell and Josh Peck, who played Drake "Parker" and Josh "Nichols".

• All the computers seen on the show, including Freddie's, have a pear image on the back, a spoof on Apple Inc.'s Apple logo. The pear logo has been featured in other series' by Dan Schneider, such as Zoey 101 and Drake & Josh.

• In the opening of each episode, when the Internet browser is displayed, one of the links shown is Toon Juice, another domain owned by Nickelodeon that has been featured on many of its series.

• In an episode of Zoey 101, Lola sets her ringtone to an instrumental version of the iCarly theme song.

• In various episodes, a picture of Drake Bell can be seen in Sam's locker.

• Three websites from the show, Splash Face, Nevelocity, and The Valerie Show will redirect you to the iCarly Website. All other domains mentioned in the series redirect to Nick.com

• In "iWanna Stay with Spencer", the song that Spencer is listening to is the song that Megan (a character in Drake and Josh played by Miranda Cosgrove) danced and sang along to in Drake & Josh Go Hollywood.

External links

• iCarly official site