I’d like to start this year’s passion blogs by taking a trip down memory lane. If you’ve never seen Zoey 101, then you’re either lying or you were a very deprived young adult. I hope that most of you grew up with the show or at least have seen reruns. I may or may not have watched some this weekend. And by that I mean I definitely did. For those of you reside under rocks, basically the show is about the life of Zoey Brooks and her friends go about their life at Pacific Coast Academy (PCA). Here’s a list of 101 reasons reminding you why the show is awesome (or if you haven’t seen it before here’s all the reasons why you definitely should):
1. The characters
If you’re telling me that you never wanted to be friends with Zoey, Chase, Lola, Michael, Quinn and Logan (yes, even Logan) then I hate to tell you but we probably won’t get along very well. Yeah, there were all a little annoying and maybe even slightly strange (extremely strange in the case of Quinn), but they were the kind of goofs you’d want to spend your time with.
2. PCA more like pcYAY.
Okay, Pacific Coast Academy is basically the coolest place ever. The campus is breathtakingly beautiful (some of it was actually shot on the campus of Pepperdine University in Malibu, California). Their dorm rooms are spectacular (like they would probably give the PSU dorms an inferiority complex). They also basically have the best places to eat. Their cafeteria is essentially located outside so you can enjoy your food while you soak in the warm California sun. (Also Sushi Rox sounds so much cooler than Panda Express).
3. The dialogue
Okay, so it’s no Shakespeare, but how many teens do you know that actually speak eloquently? The characters on the show spoke like the people you’d know. The dialogue was very relatable, especially to people at that age. And now re-watching the episodes, you really get to realize how funny some of it really is. Also they are very very sassy. And that justs a whole new dimension to the show.
4. The friendships
I can’t help but smile when I think about the friendships on the show because they are all so adorable. When you think about their group of friends is really diverse. It has nerds, and jocks and popular people all co-existing and living happily together. I feel that way too many TV shows tend to polarize the high school dynamics a bit too much. I’m not saying that’s cliques don’t exist, but it’s not impossible to break past them. I think the show does a perfect job of smashing the whole “cliques” stereotypes.
5. Character Development
No jokes, but this show has some of the most dynamic characters in television history. I mean Quinn goes from being the nerdy/weird girl to dating the most popular guy on campus. That’s so (die)namic it might just kill you. Logan goes from being the campus douchebag to actually being a nice guy. Lola transforms being the theater freak to a perky and (mostly) normal person. Michael starts off as just a sidekick, but then goes on to becoming his own person and coming out of Chase’s shadow. Wake up and smell the change, people!
If you so choose you can stop reading the list here, but if you wish to continue a trove of treasure awaits you.
6. Stacey Dillsen (I’m Stacey Dillsen. You’re Stacey Dillsen. WE ARE all Stacey Dillsen. Or at least there has been some point in our lives where we’ve related to Stacey’s awkwardness.)
7. When they write their secrets and tie them on a balloon and release them
8. The fact that someone finds Zoey’s secret and blackmails her with it: zoeysballoon.com (the website redriects to iCarly.com. Well played, Nick. Well played.)
9. When Zoey walks around campus dressed as a banana because of said blackmailer.
10. Zoey’s friends revealing their secrets when blackmailer threatens to tell everyone Zoey’s secret. (THIS IS FRIENDSHIP, PEOPLE).
11. When Zoey finally reveals her secret and it’s the fact that she was the baby with a bare butt on a sunscreen bottle.
12. When Zoey does the Macarena and everyone joins in (Flash mob, anyone?).
13. The fact that Logan has $15,000 monthly allowance (anyone rich want to adopt me?).
14. When Quinn dances with Albert Einstein in her dream. (He’s got pretty sick moves for a dead guy.)
15. Miranda Corgrove (Carly from iCarly) guest starring as a super duper science geek, Paige Howard.
16. When Paige builds an energy converter for the school to save them money but it malfunctions.
17. When Quinn saves the day but using Zoey’s key.
18. Zoey putting her room key on a necklace because she keeps forgetting it. (ICONIC. But also seems kind of inconvenient?)
19. How Coco has raviolo with her no matter what time of the day it is.
20. When Lola first comes to the school and pretends to be a goth just to see if she can pull it off.
21. When Lola goes undercover as a guy to prove that guys can act the same whether or not girls are around.
22. When Zoey challenges the guys to prove that girls can be just as guys. (BOO YEAH.)
23. When Jennette McCurdy (Sam from iCarly) guest stars and is a “bad girl”.
24. When she and Zoey’s brother Dustin are briefly a couple.
25. Zoey, Nicole and Dana’s Jet-X commercial.
26. When the three of them win a Jet-X.
27. The fact that Logan loses the competition even when his father gives him all this professional film equipment. (You can’t buy talent and creativity. Important lessons to be learned here, people).
27. When they taunt Logan with their Jet-X because he totally deserves it.
28. Jet-Xs (I seriously still want one).
29. The theme song.
30. The fact that Jamie Lynn Spears sang the theme song. (She is still a singer!)
31. There are more verses to the song that just what’s played during the opening credits.
32. Coco is the best/worst dorm advisor ever.
33. When she puts a lion in Dean Rivers’ office because she wants to something nice for him before her evaluation.
34. When the lion attack Dean Rivers, but he makes it out completely unharmed. (Super Dean).
35. When Dean Rivers fires Coco and she ends up working as a restroom attendant at a restaurant.
36. “I love your ideas. If your ideas were boys, I’d marry them.” Nicole
37. “Here’s a tip: try to make words not come out of your mouth.” Zoey to Logan. (Bang Bang. Shots fired).
38. “Remember that saying we learned in Latin class? “Carpe Doom” Seize the day” Michael
39. Quinnventions.
40. When Quinn accidentally burns off Mark’s eyebrows and you truly realize the importance of eyebrows.
41. When the guys in the robot club won’t let Quinn join so she makes her own robot and destroys them in the battle. (Four for you, Quinn. You go, Quinn.)
42. When Quinn tricks Logan into wearing a dress and walking around campus in it by telling him that it will help with his free throws.
43. The fact that she tricks Logan into doing embarrassing stuff all to get revenge because he called her a spaz. (No one messes with Quinn Pensky.)
44. When Quinn and Logan start dating. (Talk about a plot twist, am I right?)
45. That episode when Logan’s dad cuts him off because he spends too much money.
46. When Logan lets people throw tomatoes at his face for a dollar because he’s that desperate for money.
47. When Zoey, Chase and Lola offer to help him out because they feel bad for him (even though he’s a total jerk and so had it coming).
48. All the moments when Logan acts like a sweetheart and in that moment we all love him.
49. Chase Matthews. (Need I even say more?)
50. The bushy-ness of Chase’s hair. (Remember when Chase and Michael have a fake fight about it to distract their teacher and make him late?)
51. How hopelessly Chase was in love with Zoey.
52. The fact that Zoey was completely clueless about how much Chase loved her.
53. When Zoey leaves PCA to go England and then Chase follows her, but she comes back and he’s stuck in England. (So much angst was cause by that episode).
54. The fact that Chase runs into a flagpole the first time he sees Zoey. (He literally fell for her.)
55. Sushi Rox. (Petition to start one on campus?)
56. Kazu. More like Kool-zu. What a guy.
57. When the girls and guys have a prank war.
58. When Zoey almost gets expelled because of this, but then she doesn’t because everyone says that they were part of the prank too and the Dean can’t expel the whole school. (That’s friendship, bro.)
59. When Chase and Logan make their psychology project about making Michael think that he’s crazy when he doesn’t show up to any of their group meetings.
60. When Logan and Michael install a hot tub in their room to make up for Chase being gone.
61. When they use a dummy to fool the housing people into thinking that Chase hasn’t left so they don’t have to get a new roommate.
62. 
63. 
64. All of Michael’s jokes, basically.
65. When the girls want Drake Bell to pay at Spring Fling but can’t afford it so they create lots of events to raise money.
66. When they lose the money they raised to pay for Drake Bell, but he says he’ll play for them if they give him Zoey’s rad shirt design. (I can make shirts, will Drake Bell come play for me?)
67. When Logan asks Stacey to prom and she basically combusts of happiness.
68. The fact that Dustin and Quinn get to prom on a bicycle.
69. How seeing their life at PCA made us all wish that we went to boarding school.
70. How boarding school is pretty much just like college.
71. When everyone gets tapped to be in the Silver hammer society besides Logan and he’s the one who wants to get in the most.
72. When as part of their initiation they’re told to turn on each other they refuse and decide that no secret society is worth their friendships.
73. Zoey Brooks.
74. Nicole Bristow
75. Dana Cruz
76. Dustin Brooks
77. Lola Martinez
78. Mark Del Figgalo (“It means of the fig.”)
79. The fact that Chase would have been the perfect boyfriend.
80. All of Quinn’s inventions that knocked people out.
81. The video of Quinn competing in beauty pageants as a little kid.
82. When Chase and Zoey both drop out of the election for class president and Mark ends up winning with only 6 votes.
83. Stacey’s obsession with cotton swabs.
84. The cotton swab house that she builds. (That’s was pretty darn impressive.)
85. When Logan buys Nicole, Zoey and Lola to be his cheerleaders at a people auction.
86. When the girls cheer on everything he does to annoy him when he becomes too demanding. (“Rejected. Rejected. Yeah, you just got rejected!”)
87. The fact that Quinn has a pet alpaca at home.
88. Also, that her alpaca’s name is Otis.
89. When Zoey needs a chemistry tutor and it ends up being Logan.
90. When Zoey joins the boys wrestling teams because she is a BA.
91. Chase stays up all night to learn the dance so he and Zoey can enter the dance competition.
92. When Chase falls asleep and they miss the competition, but they still end up doing a cute little dance on the stairs and you know they’re meant to be.
93. When Zoey and Lola play “Good Cop, Bad Cop” to find out who smashed Dean Rivers’ golfing trophy.
94. When the gang gets cursed and all these strange things start happening to them.
95. When Michael tries to introduce a new slang word. (Drippin’)
96. When Lola briefly has a crush on Chase. (At least someone appreciates Chase.)
97. When Zoey pretends to be Chase’s girlfriend to get this other girl to stop liking him. (And we all wished that was the moment they would finally start going out.)
98. When Chase’s overbearing girlfriend makes him pick between her and Zoey and he picks Zoey. (<3)
99. The fact that the show ended when and how it did. Yes, I could have done with a few more seasons, but it’s a good that it ended before people started getting tired of it. (But I will always secretly resent Jamie-Lynn Spears for making the show end. Like, shows before bros, Jamie.)
100. The fact that the final episode was called “Chasing Zoey”. CHASE-ing Zoey.
101. When Case and Zoey finally kiss in the last episode. (And in that moment we were all Judd Nelson during the last scene of The Breakfast Club.
I enjoy the efforts you have put in this, regards for all the great content.
You surely did a great thing with this list. But that not means that many points aren’t a little bit laughable.
I mean, great characters? Zoey has no character, she’s annoyingly perfect; and they are always nasty to each other(they abused Quinn, the only real smart girl on the show; Logan, even when he didn’t do bad things; and Stacy, just because she’s weird, because, you know, it’s funny to abuse weird kids).
The things you tried to make sound as “character development” are just randomness: any writer could tell you “Zoey101”, along with “ICarly”, is the worst written show ever on tv. And no, it’s not about the quality of the dialogues, it’s their credibility. Sadly, every single dialogue in this show is annoyingly fake. Nobody talk like that except compulsive 7years old children who had too much sugar. Which are the target of this show, probably. But whoever is the target, nothing excuses bad writing: that’s the first rule of every show and movie.
Anyway, even if it’s annoyng, and even if it seems written by a bunch of 5 years old children, the show has a nice atmosphere, and some episode are funny enough to make it infinitely better than “ICarly”.
god i used to love that show
I think chance and sort should go to gather there cute together
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Ciao zoiy sono manu lo sai che mi piace cei
this email is for jamy lynn. i love your show and I love california. I know everything about you and is lovely know that im a relative of alexa nikolas………:):):)xD im kidding……………..im italian and i helped write with google translator. bye
I love Erin sanders I think she’s the best girl on Zoey101. If you don’t I do
You are absolutely my favorite person ever.
First of all, I admire you for posting 101 reasons why the show is awesome. I would have never even attempted such a feat, let alone had the diligence to think of all those reasons. Also, I have to agree that Zoey 101 was a good show. I don’t think I loved it as much as you did, but it was still an entertaining show and I watched it a decent amount, as embarrassing as that may be. However, I think I watched it for different reasons than the average girl, so I can still salvage a bit of pride. Zoey and Victoria Justice’s character (whose name slips my mind at the moment) were among the most attractive characters on television, making PCA an irresistible place.
I completely forgot about this show! Why was it ever cancelled? I remember hearing that it was because Jamie Lynn got pregnant, but that could have just been a stupid elementary school rumor. Speaking of Nick shows, did you ever watch that Cousin Skeeter show? It was probably my favorite show growing up!
I can’t believe you actually wrote 101 reasons for it. I told you I was going to stop reading after your top 10 reasons but I kept scrolling it down (magical). I think this was my first show that I watched when I first came to the United States. It was good time to think about the past and I better watch some of the episodes again!
Had I not been “deprived” as a young adult, I probably would’ve thought this was really cool. The format was creative and interesting!
This is the best blog post of all time. I had forgotten about how much I absolutely loved that show and used to watch it all the time! I loved remembering everything as you talked about it and now my number one priority for this weekend is watching as many episodes as possible.
This was wonderful for sooo many reasons!! I watched this show as a kid and remember a lot of these episodes. SASSAFRAS comes to mind when I think of this show because of Quinn’s odd obsession with it. I thought this was really cool and appreciate all 101 comments!