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Dog with a Blog (Series)

A 2012 Disney Channel Kid Com about a blended family — the fashion enthusiast middle child Avery, the lady's man and eldest sibling Tyler, and the young, Cheerful Child Chloe — whose parents adopt a dog in an attempt to stop the older two siblings' arguing and help them get along. But the dog turns out to be not like any other; he's a dog that can blog. His name is Stan, and he can talk too! The children, being the only ones who know of Stan's abilities, promise to keep them a secret from their parents and others, in fear he might get taken away and experimented on if exposed. Once per Episode, Stan adds a new post to his blog summing up the events of the episode in a (usually) Happy Ending.

The show ran for three seasons, including a 1-hour special titled "Stan Has Puppies" that aired in May 2015. The series ended on September 25th, 2015. Dog with a Blog won a Young Artist Award in 2013.

• Adaptational Sympathy: Bennett puts on a showing of Othello where Iago never intends to hurt Othello and doesn't realize he's envious. Needless to say, this is nowhere close to how he's portrayed in the Shakespearean tragedy.
• Alpha Bitch: Princess's owner Heather is not a nice neighbor, representing what Avery could have been if she hadn't made amends with Tyler in the beginning.
• Affably Evil: Avery's arch-nemesis, Karl.
• Amplified Animal Aptitude: Not only can Stan talk and use a computer, he can operate a blowtorch, brush his own hair off the family couch, and (briefly) drive a car.
• And Starring: "with Regan Burns [Bennett] and Beth Littleford [Ellen]."
• Artistic License – Education: In one episode, Avery is recruited for potential membership on a high school cheerleading squad. Her "tryout", such as it is, involves two cheerleaders lifting her off the ground and immediately declaring her "in" (presumably on the basis that being small and easy to lift makes her an ideal flyer). Apparently, it isn't necessary for her to be approved by a coach or get the necessary forms signed by her parents. Rule of Funny probably applies here. `
• The B Grade: In "Avery Vs. Class", Avery gets a C for a Life Skills project that she followed to the letter. She's both confused and offended that she got a C for what she saw as a perfect assignment.
• Bedsheet Ghost: From Howloween 2:

  Dad: We have to conquer our fear of ghosts.
  (2 bedsheet ghosts appear)
  Parents: (running away) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

• Big "NO!":
  • One by Tyler at the end of "Too Short"'s teaser when his hair got cut.
  • Avery screams one in "Murder of the Ornamental Dress" when she finds her dress is ruined.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead:
  • Avery, Tyler and Chloe.
  • Also, Avery (blonde), Lindsay and Nikki (brunettes), and Chloe (redhead).
• Bookends: The final episode has Stan willingly blurt something out verbally which surprises Ellen and Bennett, just like what happens in the first episode with Avery and Tyler. Stan even has the same comment ("Um, no...I mean...woof") when trying to cover such.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: From the pilot:

  Avery: Dad'll write a book about it, Mom will freak, and Dad will write a book about Mom freaking. There will be freaking books everywhere!

• Brick Joke: During the pilot, Stan notes he'll be eating Ellen's slippers first in his intro blurb of her. Come "The Parrot Trap", we see he honored that blurb.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Tyler is a math genius. Actually, he is a very capable student but doesn't apply himself enough.
• Call-Back:
  • In the pilot episode, upon discovering Stan can talk, the camera zooms in on a clock on the wall to show Avery and Tyler spending an hour just staring at Stan with mouths open. When Bennett and Ellen discover it in the series finale, they react the exact same way, complete with the clock shot.
  • Also, the parents reflect on all the odd things that have happened in the series and realizing it was Stan behind it all. When they confront the kids on the secret, they mention some of the crazy antics they've done to keep it quiet from past episodes.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: It's hard for Avery to keep a secret without hyperventilating and eventually blurting it out.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Ellen's "Good one, Ellen." when she makes a joke.
  • Stan's "There's the sugar!" in his asides.
• Character Development: While subtle, it is acknowledged in "Cat With A Blog". Tyler becomes a lot more ambitious throughout the series, culminating in him taking on an accelerated program to get recruited for BMX. Avery becomes a lot more relaxed while retaining her academic prowess.
• Christmas Episode:
  • Episode six focuses on Stan's first Christmas with his family.
  • The 7th episode in season 2 is also a Christmas Episode, although Ii's about the Ellen's sister coming over and Stan inviting a stray dog.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: While Bennett James is an accomplished child psychologist and author, his methods in dealing with his own family have varied results to say the least. Stan even pokes at this by saying, "they say that psychologists' kids are messed up, but [Chloe] seems okay." Then seconds later says, "I said okay, not great." Bennett also hints that he was somewhat mentally unstable as a child and had a messy family life.
• The Cutie: Avery and Chloe tend to be this.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Tyler getting Avery to break rules.
• Couch Gag: The opening sequence features Stan photobombing the family photos; the second and third change every episode. This gets lampshaded in one episode when Stan says he'll start photobombing the family photos which immediately cuts to the intro.
• Crazy Cat Lady: Ellen, sometimes.
• Creator's Show Within a Show: The cartoon Chloe briefly watches in "The Puppies Talk" is a scene from I'm in the Band, which was also co-created by Michael B Kaplan.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: Eight of the episodes begin with "Guess Who...".
• Cutaway Gag: Featured in nearly every episode. The pilot include some scenes from Stan's past. Other scenes have include Ellen trying to explain she doesn't know who she is getting flowers from (Karl), Avery rapping at a talent show, etc.
• Deconstructive Parody: Of the Talking Animal. Stan talking means that he’s at risk of being experimented on, so he has to keep it a secret from everyone else. He can’t connect with humans or other dogs, and being treated like a pet when he has human sentience makes him feel like a second class citizen.
• Deadpan Snarker: To be expected from Disney Channel. Avery and Stan are both great at this.
• Destination Ruse: When Stan doesn't want to go the vet, Avery tells him they are going to the park instead.
• Disappeared Dad: It's unknown as to what happened to Avery's father and how long between his departure and Ellen and Bennett getting married as well as never being mentioned.
• Dogs Hate Squirrels: Discussed in "The Parrot Trap". In the episode, Ellen has been getting sick of Stan destroying all her stuff. In his defense, Avery brings up the idea that he might do it because he senses her general dislike for dogs which Stan then feels is as crazy as a dog not wanting to chase an arthritic squirrel.

  Avery: Did you ever think that Stan doesn't like you because he senses that you don't like dogs?

  Stan (thoughts): Seriously? That's like saying you don't like joy or smiles or arthritic squirrels— so easy to catch.

• Double-Meaning Title: The Season 2 premiere is titled "Too Short", which refers to both Avery upset her friends have had a growth spurt and she's now the shortest of them, and Tyler has a haircut and is nervous to show his new short hair.
• Double Standard: The first season had a bit of a problem with this. "Stan-ing Guard" had several female characters using a self defense move on guys who weren't even attacking them and being Played for Laughs. "The Truck Stops Here" had Chloe doing what her mom does (homemaker) and learning it was harder than she thought, which was fine until she tried doing what her father does (child psychologist) and performs it with ease. Thankfully, they removed this problem in the second season.
• Ear-Piercing Plot: One episode has a B-plot revolving around Chloe trying to convince Bennett and Ellen to take her to get her ears pierced. When they refuse multiple times on the belief that she's too young, she instead decides to trick Tyler into giving her a ride by lying about being given permission to go there. Their parents eventually find out and punish the both of them for it.
• Engineered Heroics: "A Stan-ing Guard" has both parties mistakenly believe they were broken into while Stan was blogging. Scared that a security system will expose Stan's secret, Avery and Tyler stage a fake break-in to make Stan look like a good guard dog. Beth and Bennett seem to buy the whole thing, afterwards though they go in separately and say the same thing: they did not buy it for one second, but they'll to pretend they did since both parties benefit if the other believes it (Bennett wanted Beth to stop with her self-defense classes and Beth didn't want the security system).
• Everybody Did It: Avery suspects all her suspects in "Murder of the Ornamental Dress" ruined her dress as revenge for previous grievances. She's half right; they did all do it, but it was one accident after another. To clarify: Avery inadvertently tempted Chloe to wear her dress, by telling her not to, and she hastily takes it off out of guilt, only to smear Ellen's makeup on it in the process. Tyler offers to wash it, but the dye runs off since it was with his whites. Tyler convinces Carl to paint over it to fix it, but it fails to match the original. Stan decides to tell Avery the truth, but accidentally rips it in half, so they all bury the dress in hopes she never finds it.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Tyler's hair becomes shorter as of Season 2. In-Universe it was cut as a punishment because he got Cs on his report card (Bennett makes the C stand for "cut").
• Expy:
  • Karl seems to be one of Eddie Haskell, minus the friendship aspects. He also does more than a little channeling of Nevell, though much less evil and vindictive.
  • Chloe also has a few vibes of Zuri. Although she's a lot more tolerable.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Tyler and Chloe are foolish stepsiblings to Avery's responsible stepsibling.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Bennett and Ellen first met when Tyler and Avery were toddlers, and did not take to each other. Neither one associates the other with that experience, mainly because Bennett had a beard and Ellen had dyed her hair red at the time.
• Framing Device: A handful of episodes are narrated in flashback by Stan as he is updating his blog.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: In “Stan Steals Christmas”, Stan hides the kids’ presents in an attempt to be together more often, only to send them off on a mad search finding them when he forgets where the gifts were buried. They finally find the presents in a cart at the park, only to realize the cart is full of donations for a group of foster children without any toys to play with; in the end, they willingly give up all their presents to the children, realizing the True Meaning of Christmas.
• Gamer Chick: Avery poses as one in "World of Woofcraft" then becomes one with the help of Stan.
• Gender-Blender Name: The older girl is named Avery. While it is occasionally used for girls, it is more often seen as a boy's name, especially in fiction, though it isn't a particularly popular name for either gender.
• A Girl and Her X: Although Stan is a family pet, and all three kids know he can talk, you can definitely notice a stronger bond between Avery and Stan than with any other person. Tyler did have Stan act as his wingman and later returned the favor. So we're clear, Stan a talking dog puts up with the annoying pet of his master's date and in return Tyler goes on a date with an equally annoying girl who has a poodle that Stan likes.
• Good with Numbers: Tyler, of all people, is a math prodigy. This is the only skill he ever uses, even in his new job.
• Grand Finale: "Stan's Secret is Out", in which Stan's secret is exposed to the parents and eventually the entire world, and ends with him becoming a celebrity.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": In one episode, Chloe brings Bennett to her class for show-and-tell but mistakes his job as a psychologist for a "sock-cologist" (a specialist who studies socks). Later, Bennett tries to explain to Chloe that he is a psychologist.

  Bennett: I'm not a sock-cologist, I'm a psychologist. What I do do is help patients with their problems.
  Chloe: You just said do-do!

• One Dialogue, Two Conversations:
  • In "A New Baby?", the kids have a conversation with their parents when the kids think they're talking about having a baby but the parents are talking about buying a boat and building a new addition on the house.
  • In "The Green-Eyed Monster," when Chloe is talking to Bennett about Tyler coming to the play he's in, Chloe is talking about Tyler being in a full-body cast, but Bennett thinks she's talking about Tyler wanting to drop out of the play (leave the "cast" of the play).
• Dream Reality Check: Avery and Karl pinch each other to check if they aren't in one of Avery's kissing dreams.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Avery can juggle and is a contortionist.
  • Tyler is a math genius and knows French. Also, he has experience in web and app design as well as photoshop.
• Hypocritical Humor: C'mon, its a Disney show, so it's expected.
• I Am Spartacus: Lampshaded and parodied in the second episode where Avery tries to explain "the truth" about what happened to their mother's car. It doesn't help that their talking dog is the one who crashed it, but the kids try to do this to protect Stan, until Chloe says "I am...Asparagus" and the parents immediately figure it out.
• It's a Wonderful Plot: "Cat With a Blog". Strangely, this is a rare case where it's not a Christmas episode.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Stan and Avery apply. As can Tyler.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The Grand Finale has the kids celebrate the anniversary of the day Stan was adopted three years ago.
  • In "Karl Finds Out Stan's Secret", Karl's operation has the same title as the episode and he says "It's not a clever title but it really draws you in by telling you exactly what it's about".
• Leeroy Jenkins: Avery is this in "World of Woofcraft", when she and Stan attempt to get revenge on Stan's former in-game friend, Killgore. Avery, being pretty new to game, has zero patience for Stan's plan and attacks before Stan is ready. They still defeat Killgore, who is still pretty savvy, but no match for the surprise attack.
  • While playing, Avery runs into the battlefield shouting, "Averryyyyyy Jeeennnniiinnnggsss!!" Of course, Stan replies with, "Oh my gosh, you just ran in!"
• Lethal Chef: Ellen is such a bad cook that Stan's always waiting under the table for food scraps.
• Logging onto the Fourth Wall: You can go to "SeeStanBlog.com" which will merely redirect you to the Disney Channel site for the show. However (and unlike the other official show webpages hosted on the Disney Channel site) the site itself is modeled closely after the way Stan's blog appears on the show, down to having the same logo and banner. All of the blogs Stan writes on the show are there (such as this one) along with many that can only be found on the site.
• Logo Joke: In "Too Short", Stan eats a spring by accident and worries about what will happen when he poops it out. At the end, when the spring sound effect from the "It's a Laugh Productions" logo is heard, Stan proclaims "Oh no, the spring! I was afraid of that".
• Masquerade:
  • A talking dog named Stan has to be left a secret from anyone by three children. Until "Stan Talks to Gran" and the Grand Finale, anyway...
  • Said dog's blog is a secret to any of the family members, until the kids find out in...well, "The Kids Find Out Stan Blogs".
    • Since he reveals to the parents that he can talk in the Grand Finale, his blog also being a secret to them is now unlikely.
• Meaningful Gift: In "Bark! The Herald Angels Sing", it's revealed that Avery hated most of the Christmas presents she received from her mother and she worries it will happen again this year. She is relieved after she sees that Tyler, Chloe, and even Stan got what they wanted, only to realize she's the only one with a bad gift. After Ellen finds out her daughter disliked all the Christmas gifts from her, while hurt, she makes an effort to buy something to show that she does know Avery. She succeeds when she gives Avery a gift card.
• Me's a Crowd: A variant, Chloe picks a "Chloe Party" for her birthday theme where the guests wear red-headed curly wigs. Chloe admits later that it wasn't a good idea as she feels everyone's making fun of her.
• Motor Mouth: Lindsay which rubs off on Avery at times.
• Negative Continuity: Downplayed. The writers seem to go back and forth on if the family is a blended family or not. Case in point, one recent episode has Bennett remind Avery how he always told her to believe in herself...despite only having known her for a few months.
• Never Bareheaded: Avery's friend Lindsay is always wearing a hat, even in inappropriate situations. The one time she wasn't wearing one, she freaked out and hid her head in her locker.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between:
  • The Jennings-James siblings come off as this: Chloe (nice), Tyler (mean) and Avery (in-between).
  • Avery and her main group of friends: Lindsay (nice), Max (mean), and Avery herself (in-between).
• Noodle Incident: "How I Met Your Sister and Brother" deals with how the parents introduced the kids to each other. As it turns out, Avery and Tyler actually knew each before that day, as Tyler once ran over Avery with his bike and made him got detention for it.
• Not Blood Siblings: Avery to Tyler and Chloe. Tyler and Chloe have the same father and possibly the same mother.
• Not So Above It All: In "Stan Talks to Gran", the siblings try to win a radio contest and Tyler accidentally calls a pizza place and decides to place an order anyways. This exchange occurs in the process while they're still trying to win the contest.

  Tyler: Do you guys want cheesy bread?
  Avery: This is no time for stupid questions, Tyler. Of course we want cheesy bread.

• Obfuscating Stupidity: Tyler is secretly a math genius although he is embarrassed about it.
• Odd Friendship: Avery and Stan. First, Stan is a talking dog, second he not only is voiced by a grown man, but seems to have the mindset of a grown man.
• Once per Episode: Stan blogging away on the computer while everyone else is asleep. Most of the time at the end of the episode.
• Once More, with Clarity: In "Murder of the Ornamental Dress", Avery realizes it was Stan, Tyler and Chloe who destroyed the dress she made. After an odd fantasy sequence of the three destroying it on purpose, it is then repeated as the culprits explain what really happened.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: In the episode "A New Baby?", Stan and the kids overhear Bennett and Ellen discussing Bennett's new promotion about getting a boat for the family. From what they heard, they are convinced that their parents are having another baby and go out of their way to stop it nearly jeopardizing Bennett's promotion in the promotion.
• Overly Long Gag: In "The Kids Find Out Stan Blogs" after Stan's blog is exposed, he starts a long winded "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh...", which continues even after the opening theme.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Happens to Stan twice in the episode "Dog with a Hog", first in a flashback he loses a movie role to a dog riding a skateboard. Then as the School Mascot, at the Homecoming Game, to Chloe on a the Rival School's Pig on a skateboard.
• Pair the Spares: Max and Karl. Even the show itself commented on how odd a pairing this is.
• Playing Cyrano: Tyler and Nikki both play Cyrano to help Avery pretend to know Spanish to spend time with her crush. It ends in disaster when the two get into a massive argument about Tyler's girlfriend (due to Nikki's newfound romantic feelings for Tyler) and bail on Avery.
• Remember the New Guy?: Avery and Chloe each got an additional long-time best friend in season 2.
• Riddle for the Ages: How exactly can Stan talk? The show never gives a proper answer (although Stan’s ex-owner is obsessed with finding it). Since Stan’s puppies can talk, it’s possibly hereditary. But we don’t know much about Stan’s parents to know that.
• Right Behind Me:
  • Stan mentions how Bennett helped a little girl who's afraid of dogs ^note Stan himself is a talking dog, but the treatment went horribly right and the girl became obsessed with him...and then he realizes the girl is actually watching him outside the window.
  • Played for Drama in a Christmas Episode. Avery is disappointed on how Ellen got great gifts for the entire family except her, and vents that her own mother must hate her because she does it every year. Chloe reminds her to turn around and she realizes Ellen was standing behind her the whole time.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In-universe. Chloe said that they would call her Rockstar Rabbit because of her lunchbox. Because last year she had a red lunchbox and everybody called her the little red girl.
• Rhyming Title: Dog with a Blog.
• Running Gag: Stan seemingly revealing an explanation for his ability to talk, like being an alien or a man under a witch's curse, and then saying, "Nah, I'm just a regular talking dog."
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Avery feels this way in the episode "Dog With a Hog" when she steals the rival school's mascot after thinking they kidnapped Stan so she can trade it for Stan. In reality, Tyler took Stan in order to get the other school in trouble. In order to not get expelled, Avery proposes that sneaking the pig back in is "the right thing to do". When her mom elects to call the school, tell the truth about their pig, Avery explodes:
• Secret-Keeper:
  • The kids' paternal grandmother joins in later on.
  • Karl has been this since that same episode.
• Secret Identity: Stan has to remain silent in the company of most adults (except the children), otherwise he'll be taken away and be experimented on.
• Self-Serving Memory: In "Karl Finds Out Stan's Secret", Bennett and Ellen flash back to embarrassing events from past episodes, but mentally dub over their lines with ones that paint them in a better light.
• Sentimental Music Cue: Shows up from time to time, mostly during Avery's sentimental moments, but sometimes for Stan too.
• Shaped Like Itself: The main character is a canine who maintains a blog about his day to day life. Not much to say beyond that.
  • Most episode titles. "Tyler Gets a Girlfriend", "Stan Stops Talking", "Avery's First Crush", among others.
• Ship Tease: “Avery Dreams of Kissing Karl” is an episode-long ship tease for… well, you can guess.
• Shorter Means Smarter: Avery is this, but the only subject that is hard for her is math.
• Shout-Out:
  • In "A New Baby", Stan was all set to be spying, and he wore an outfit that makes him look like an agent from the OWCA.
  • In "Bark! the Herald Angels Sing", Chloe asks Phil Trummer, the James-Jennings family's cranky old neighbor, if he's going to attach balloons to his house and fly away.
  • In "Stan-ing Guard", Tyler tells him to get off the coffee table. Stan responds by saying, "You want me on this coffee table, you need me on this coffee table!" He even says it exactly like Jack Nicholson during his Motive Rant about being perfect for a job that nobody wants.
  • In "Stan Stops Talking", the Chole party feels suspiciously like one for Brave, which had came out the following year.
  • In "Stan Gets Schooled", Teen Wolf is mentioned when Avery's friends, Max and Lindsay, talk about being disappointed that Stan wasn't one.
  • Avery's "Bad Girl" look in the Alternate Timeline of "Cat With A Blog" makes her look a bit like Ramona Flowers.
• Strictly Formula: Other than the Blog mentioned in the title, Blake Michael's long hair and the fact that it's in color are the only hints you have that this show wasn't made in 1962.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Tyler inadvertently pulls a Red Sock Ruins the Laundry on Avery's dress when he tries to get a makeup stain off it and mixes it with his whites. Unlike most examples, not only are his whites dyed pink, but the red dye exchanged from the dress also ruins the dress, leaving it severely faded.
• Take That!: Stan describing what it would be like to be a celebrity:

  Stan: I'm gonna need an agent, sunglasses, and a political cause I don't really understand.

• Talking Animal: Stan has the ability to communicate orally like a human. He’s shown to be the only one until he has puppies, which gain this ability.
• Talking in Your Sleep: Stan has this issue in "Stan Sleep Talks", which threatens his secret that other people hear him and the children have to cover for him. Stan reveals in the end the reason behind the words he mumbled ("groom", "doghouse", and "Princess" in that order) is because he wants to propose to Princess and marry her.
• Token Evil Teammate: Avery's friend Max is the closest to this.
• Wham Episode:
  • The season one finale episode "Stan's Old Owner". Stan's former owner arrives and offers to take Stan back to meet his real canine family. He's lying, he was a scientist that was studying Stan to find out how he can talk and wanted to use him for fame and fortune. The kids find this out when they realize there's a contradiction in his story just as they're about to hand Stan over and confront him on it till he eventually reveals his true colors.
  • The Halloween episode, where Stan takes advantage of a costume to talk directly to Ellen, and she confides in him that the reason she doesn't bond well with dogs is that her beloved dog ran away one day when she was little and never came back.
• You Are the New Trend: In one episode, a group of cheerleaders come to a math competition to make fun of the "math geeks." Tyler announces that he's competing and they instantly decide that math is cool.

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