Being Ian

Meet Ian Kelley. He's a 12-year-old boy from Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada with a big imagination, big ideas, and big dreams. Ian aspires to become a great filmmaker one day and win an Academy Award of his own.

• Abhorrent Admirer:Grace is often this to Ian, of course they often help each other.
• All Just a Dream:In "Being Principal Bill", when some home renovators come to fix up the house, Ian finds a cave in his room that leads into his school principal's brain, à la Being John Malkovich, and makes him do embarrassing stuff during the school assembly. It's revealed that Ian was dreaming after a ceiling title fell on him and knocked him out.
• Alpha Bitch:Tiffany.
  • Kyle is a male example.
• Author Avatar:Ian Kelley is basically meant to be series creator Ian James Corlett when he was a kid.
• Bratty Half-Pint:Roberto, a rude entitled kid Ian takes care of in "Planet of the Imps".
  • Also the other kids from that episode, making Ian's life impossible.
  • Averted with the kids from the episode "There is a Ian in house?"
• Balloon Belly:
  • In "Once a Pawn Time" episode, Happens to Sandi and Tyrone when they both eat a stockpile of chocolate that Tyrone had hidden in Sandi's locker to try to sabotage her efforts of beating him in fitness test.
  • In "Bad Day in White Rock" Kyle and Korey eats some food and they get stuffed.
• Beach Episode: The Kelley family go to the beach in "Bad Day at White Rock". While the rest of the clan engage in typical beachside shenanigans, Ian gets stranded on a sandbar in a Cast Away parody.
• Big Brother Bully:Kyle, the oldest son of the family.
  • Korey, who is the middle child, used to be this to Ian, but thanks to Character Development he is now the one who gives Kyle a punishment.
• Black Best Friend:
  • Tyrone to Ian and Sandi.
  • Nash to Kyle and Craig.
• Blessed with Suck:Shown in "The Fifth and a Half Sense" when Ian gains the ability to smell the future, at first he's treated as a hero, but then everybody starts trying to take advantage of him.
• Book Ends:"Cyrano de Mille" begins and ends with a shot of a bird family and Ian waking up to his brothers pranks.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead:
  • Ian(blonde),Tyrone(brunette) and Sandi(redhead).
  • Also he and his brothers, Korey (brunette) and ignore redhead because Kyle has purple or blue hair.
  • Also Kyle with Craig(blonde) and Nash(brunette).
• Canada, Eh?
• Chekhov's Gun:In "Little Camp of Horrors" Ian gets a "swiss gadget hatchet" from Ken before he went to film camp. Later on in the episode Ian uses it to break out of film camp, to which he finds out the camp was a scam.
• Clear My Name:The plot of "School Unfair" involves Ian getting blamed for a prank he didn't do and him trying to figure out who really did it.
• Companion Cube:In "Bad Day at White Rock", Ian gets stranded on a sandbar in a parody of Cast Away, and ends up talking to an old styrofoam coffee cup.
• Cool Big Sis:Ariel, Korey in latter seaspons and Sandi.
• Cool Old People:The Royal Oak retirement Home elder people, "how can be this possible"?
• The Cutie:Korey, also Grace.
• Dark Is Not Evil:The weirds kids, with Ariel being the prime example.
• Dreadful Musician:OH MY GOD!, even thought the show is cute is not excuse that some of the characters are so bad singers
  • In "Miss Pre Teenage Burnaby" Sandi tries to being good singer with help of Ken, but she sounds like if she get hurt!
  • In "Ian Kelley's Day Off" Vicky water the flowers and starts to sing, but they wither, because she sounds if she was screaming!
  • In "Hurry for Hollywood" Kyle write a song for his girlfriend, but his family hates that!
• Earn Your Happy Ending At the end of the Series Fauxnale "Hurry for Hollywood" two parter, Ian participates in the filmmaker contest and he actually wins with his entry with him even receiving standing ovation from the audience.
• Fake Crossover:With Yvon of the Yukon during YTV's "Big BBQ Blowout", though they only interact during the bumpers rather than than either series.
• Fan Boy:
  • Ian, who is a huge fan of movies.
  • Korey, a Otaku who likes mangas and anime.
• Fiery Redhead:
  • Sandi, a Cute Bruiser with an Hot-Blooded Temper.
  • Downplayed with Vicky, while a sweet mom and wife, she has some of Berserk Buttons.
  • Averted with the sweet, doting, good-hearted Grandma Menske, the fiery one is Grandma Kelley (who maybe can be blond)
• Funny Foreigner:
  • Odbald, the Dutch guy who works at Ken's store.
  • There's also Ian's Polish and Scottish grandmothers.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar:
  • "Hockey Night in Burnaby" has former hockey star and motivational speaker Ryan Walter telling two female hot dog vendors that if they want to sell hot dogs, they first need to "sell themselves". He subsequently reassures the horrified vendors that this shouldn't be taken literally. Immediately after, Ian and Odbald arrive at the hockey stadium where they are stopped by a security guard, who Odbald scares off by telling him he came to "inspect your organ".
  • In "Being Principal Bill", Ian has a daydream where he and Sandi are literally in deep doo doo.
  • In the episode "What's Comb Over You", Vicky (who gets tripped up by Ian) falls flat on her face into a magazine titled "Organ Grinder". Not only that, but in the back is a picture of piano keys as well as a few kiss marks and "1-900 Hot Keys". To top it all off she reads an article in the magazine called "How to change your G-String" (while also holding the magazine side ways in mid-air), then giving it a questionable look, gasping, and backing away nervously whilst looking at the screen.
  • The very beginning of the episode "Scream Because I Know What You Did to That Psycho Last Summer", the word "hello", in "It's Prom Night! Hello Graduating Students!" on the school board outside, gets changed to "hell".
• Groin Attack:Happens sometimes to male characters in the show.
• Grumpy Old Lady:Grandma Kelley. As opposed to Grandma Menske, who's more of doting.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X":Occasionally, this is Korey's response to something another character said.
• Humiliation Conga:Kyle gets this in "Bad Day at White Rock", where he gets babied by the parents and grandmas throughout the whole time at the beach.
• Imagine Spot:Ian has one of these in nearly every episode, and it always doubles as a reference to a movie.
• Intelligible Unintelligible:Despite the fact that Dennis mumbles, other characters can understand him
• Laxative Prank:Kyle and Korey does this to Ian with a chocolate bunny in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?".
• Left the Background Music On:In one episode, a piano piece plays when Ken worries about Ian finding his baby photos. Ken turns around and tells Korey to stop playing the piano.
• Made Myself Sad:The opening of the B-plot of "The Kelleys" has Grandma Kelley attempting to brag about how much she enjoys her carefree reclining years, only to depress herself when she realizes she only has her impending death to look forward to.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy:
  • Sandi's Passionate Sports Girl masculine girl and Ian's sweet and akward feminine boy.
  • Also Andrea's adventurous masculine girl and Korey's sweet and sensitive feminine boy, the different is Ian and Sandi are best friends while Andrea and Korey are more of Ship Tease.
• Medium Shift Gag;
  • In "Hockey Night in Burnaby", there's a brief moment of a live-action actor playing the piano when Ryan Walter talks about selling the organ to "an interested party overseas".
  • In "The Good Egg", Ian's nightmare about what would happen to his and Sandi's egg is portrayed as live-action footage of a egg getting cooked in various ways.
• Meganekko:Grace and Vicky.
• Mr. Imagination: Ian is intelligent, if somewhat naïve, and he has a very large imagination, and often gets lost in daydreams (many of which are parodies of famous films).
• Narrative Profanity Filter:In the episode "The Curse", Odbald admitted that he used profanity from his book of Dutch curse words.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Royal Stilton from the episode "Piano Man" is a clear parody of Elton John. The song seen in the episode is also based on Elton's "Your Song".
  • "Everykid 13" has a imagination spot where Ian's on a talk show with a expy of Jerry Springer called "Jerry Stinger".
• No, You Hang Up First:Kyle does this with his girlfriend in "Hurry for Hollywood".
• Noodle People:Thin or fat, they have very thin extremities.
• Only Sane People:Tyrone, Sandi and Vicky.
• Periphery Demographic:In-universe example, despite being way out of the target demographic, Ian's shown to be a fan of Happy Unicorns. This is shown especially in "Home Alone", where he gets his family out of the house just to watch a marathon of the series in secret.
• Perky Goth:The weird kids, especially Ariel.
• Quirky Household:The Kelley family.
• Risky Business Dance:Ian does this in the beginning of "Home Alone"
• Rubber Hose Limbs:Everybody has this thanks to the art style.
• Sand Bridge At Low Tide: A sand bridge at low tide causes Ian to get stranded on a sand spit in "Bad Day at White Rock", which causes him to start living a Cast Away parody.
• Shaggy Dog Story:In "Crime-Corder", Ian and Tyrone start a detective agency and spend the episode competing for the love of their first (and only) client. Long story short, they solve the case, but it turns out their client already has a boyfriend.
• Shout-Out:Mainly to movies in Ian's fantasy sequences.
• Sticky Situation:the beginning of "Cyrano de Mille" Korey super-glues all of Ian's shoes to the floor.
• Sweet Polly Oliver:In "Million Dollar Sandi", the principal tasks Ian with finding someone to compete in a boxing match with a rival school. The school's only good boxer turns out to be Sandi, but the principal won't let a girl compete. Cue this.
• Teens Are Monsters:Averted, the teenagers are very Nice People.
• Those Two People:
  • Sandi and Tyrone are often this.
  • Also Grandma Kelley and Grandma Menske
  • Kyle and Korey used to be this in early episodes.
  • Also Craig and Nash, Kyle's "friends".
• ¡Three Amigos!:Ian, Tyrone and Sandi, also Kyle, Craig and Nash.
• Token Trio:Ian (white boy), Tyrone (black boy) and Sandi (white girl).
• Tomboy:Sandi. She prefers to play sports.
• The Unintelligible:Dennis, who mumbles instead of speaking in full sentences.
• We Used to Be Friends:Korey used to be Kyle's buddy for bullying ian, but now he is a who do anything to stop Kyle.
• World of Snark:Even the cucko ones are not the exception.
• Your Tomcat Is Pregnant:In "Show Me the Bunny", Ian has to take care of a bunny named Mr. Fuzzy. Later on, the bunny runs away and Ian (with the help of Odbald) finds "him" in the forest. A month later, the bunny's revealed to be a female after giving birth to a litter of bunnies.
• Zany Scheme:Ian has one Once Per Episode. They usually backfire.