Drake & Josh was an American television sitcom created by Dan Schneider for Nickelodeon. The series follows the lives of two teenage boys with opposing personalities, Drake Parker (Drake Bell) and Josh Nichols (Josh Peck), who become stepbrothers. Both actors had played previous roles in The Amanda Show along with Nancy Sullivan, who plays Audrey, Drake and Megan's mother of the series. Miranda Cosgrove plays Megan, Drake's mischievous younger sister and Jonathan Goldstein plays Walter, Josh's father. The series' opening theme song, "I Found a Way", is written by Drake Bell and Backhouse Mike and performed by Bell. The series ran for four seasons and 60 episodes from January 11, 2004 to December 5, 2008 and has received critical acclaim. There were also two TV films: Drake & Josh Go Hollywood premiered on Friday, January 6, 2006; and Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh premiered on Friday, December 5, 2008. Reruns of the series currently air on Nickelodeon and TeenNick.

Premise

The series is focused on a pair of stepbrothers of opposite personalities. Drake Parker is portrayed as being a popular but immature aspiring musician idolized by his schoolmates and able to court a countless array of beautiful girls with ease, whereas Josh Nichols is depicted as being a nerdy and eccentric boy with poor luck with dating and popularity. Drake and Josh live in San Diego, California, with their odd, unfortunate, geeky father; a weatherman named Walter, their loving mother Audrey, and their outrageously manipulative and conniving younger sister Megan. The boys are often in outrageous, typical situation comedy misadventures and obstacles that they are faced with the challenge of overcoming while also handling average teenage situations such as school, dating, and popularity. Over the course of the series, the character arcs of both boys, and their relationship, develop: Josh loses weight and becomes more popular, while Drake matures and becomes more caring of other people, especially his stepbrother.
A notable running joke on the series is the presence of parodies of various well-known brands, TV shows, or people, including Mocha Cola, a parody of Coca-Cola; Mountain Fizz, a parody of Mountain Dew; Mystic Mountain, a parody of the Six Flags theme park Magic Mountain; Galaxy Wars, a parody of Star Wars (mentioned later in iCarly multiple times); B.F. Wang's, a parody of P.F. Chang's (also mentioned later in iCarly and Victorious); GameSphere, a parody of the Nintendo GameCube video game system; Pear, Inc., a parody of Apple, Inc. (mentioned later in iCarly, Victorious, and Sam & Cat multiple times); Gary Coleman Grill, a parody of the George Foreman Grill; Pintendo GS, a parody of the Nintendo DS handheld system; iBot, a parody of iPod; Hee-Bay, a parody of eBay; Ghost Monsters, a parody of Ghost Busters; Chuck E. Cheddar's, a parody of Chuck E. Cheese's; Dr. Phyllis, a parody of Dr. Phil; Susana Louisiana, a parody of Hannah Montana; Dude, I'm 16, a parody of My Super Sweet 16; The Hailstones, a parody of The Rolling Stones; Henry Doheny, a parody of Harry Houdini; and Blaine Darvey, a parody of David Blaine.

Cast

Main article: List of Drake & Josh characters

Main cast

Actors/actresses	Characters	Appearances in other shows created by Dan Schneider
Drake Bell	Drake Parker	Drake makes a cameo appearance on iCarly as Drake Parker, was a guest star on Zoey 101 for "Spring Fling" and guest starred on Victorious, and All That. He was a character on The Amanda Show.
Josh Peck	Josh Nichols	Josh was on The Amanda Show and appears as himself on Zoey 101. He made a cameo appearance on Victorious as himself.
Miranda Cosgrove	Megan Parker	Miranda also appeared as Paige Howard on Zoey 101 and she was the star of iCarly.
Nancy Sullivan	Audrey Parker-Nichols	Nancy was a cast member of The Amanda Show along with Drake Bell and Josh Peck, also was Mr. Bender's wife on Zoey 101. Josh's step-mother
Jonathan Goldstein	Walter Nichols

Recurring cast

Actors/actresses	Characters	Appearances in other shows created by Dan Schneider
Alecks Aiedslockxz z	Craig Ramirez	Alec appears in iCarly at Webicon.
Scott Halberstadt	Eric Blonowitz	Scott appears in iCarly at Webicon.
Allison Scagliottic xcx c	Mindy Crenshaw	Allison appears in Zoey 101 as Stacy in the episode "Backpack".
Yvette Nicole Brown	Helen Dubois	Yvette appears in one episode of Victorious as Helen Dubios, the new principal of Hollywood Arts and during an un-credited cameo in iCarly as an art student.
Jerry Trainor	Crazy Steve	Jerry appears in iCarly as Spencer Shay, reuniting with Miranda as Carly Shay. Jerry now has had his own show on Nick called Wendell and Vinnie and now voices as Dudley Puppy in T.U.F.F. Puppy.
Jake Farrow	Gavin Mitchell	Jake appears in iCarly at Webicon and voices Rex in Victorious, as confirmed by co-star Ariana Grande.
Julia Duffy	Linda Hayfer
Cathy Shim	Leah