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"New Neighbors" Plot - TV Tropes

  • ️Wed Feb 19 2025

"New Neighbors" Plot (trope)

If writers want to introduce a new character to a series, and actually acknowledge this character being new rather than pretend they were always there, just off-screen, there are multiple strategies they can use. And one of the easiest is by having the new character(s) move into the neighborhood where one or more of the already established characters live.

A new neighbor can lead to all sorts of stories, like the neighbors become friends and the story could mostly be about their friendship being tested, they hate each other and the various hijinks that ensue result in the neighbors acting like jerks to each other until maybe something comes along that prompts them to finally put their differences aside, or it could be about the new neighbor entirely and the main character is either side-lined or doesn't appear at all. There are also some outcomes in television shows when it comes to this, like the new neighbor is forgotten about or becomes a more integral character in future aspects of the given TV show.

This trope may overlap with New Neighbors As The Plot Demands, which is simply about a new neighbor showing up for plot convenience, while this trope is about the new neighbors plot in and of itself.

This trope won't involve people that the recipients of the new neighbors already know if they become housemates with the neighbor (or in some instances, the housemate of a neighbor that's already well-known).

Examples:

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Anime & Manga 

  • Crayon Shin-chan: In the Matazuresou Apartments arc, the Nohara family needs to move out of their house (after Shin-Chan accidentally caused a gas explosion that blew up the place) and move into the titular apartment. Most of the arc's first half revolves around the Nohara's attempts at familiarizing themselves with the neighbors — the Hikikomori Yonroh, budding actress Yū Yakutsukuri, foreigner Omata and ex-Green-Beret-turned-transvestite nightclub hostess Susan Koyuki — and predictably each ends with hilarious results.
  • Kotaro Lives Alone: After Mizuki, one of Kotaro's neighbors in Shimizu apartments, is forced to leave because her abusive ex-boyfriend found out where she lives, her apartment is rented by new neighbor Takei. This leads to trouble because she can't handle children but tries to hide it since she knows women get harshly judged by society for it. She feels obliged to help take care of Kotaro alongside her neighbours nevertheless (even though she clearly stresses out when doing so), and he hangs out with her to help her overcome her discomfort.

Comic Books 

Comic Strips 

  • Crabgrass started with this trope, as the first comic (both in the original online run and the newspaper published reboot) shows Miles and his family moving into the house next to the Beecham family, with Kevin quickly making Miles his best friend.

Films — Live-Action 

  • Deck the Halls has Matthew Broderick's character deal with his new neighbor, played by Danny DeVito, who has a strong ambition of covering his house with enough Christmas lights to be seen from outer space.
  • The film Neighbors (2014) has a fraternity party move into a house next door to a couple and annoy them with their antics.

Literature 

  • Adrian Mole: In Secret Diary, Adrian's mother walks out with the neighbour Lucas, and the dark-skinned Singh family moves in next door, taking in massive cooking pots, so it looks as if they are a big family. At first, Adrian's conservative father mutters racist things about them under his breath. However, the family becomes friendly with the Moles.
  • The Berenstain Bears: In New Neighbors, a family of pandas moves into the neighborhood. The Bear family members welcome them with open arms, besides Papa, who has Fantastic Racism towards them for being too different. He even accuses them of putting up a "spite fence" when there are bamboo stalks on their lawn, but as it turns out, they were planning on eating that bamboo later. He learns he was wrong by the end.
  • Madeline: Pepito makes his debut in the second book, being shown moving in at the start with his parents (the Spanish Ambassador and Spanish Ambassadress), after which he becomes the main villain. This was also incorporated into the animated adaptation.
  • Winnie-the-Pooh: In the second book The House at Pooh Corner, Tigger moves into the Forest in the second chapter, and after having sampled the favorite meals of Pooh and his friends decides to move in with Kanga and Roo after discovering he loves malt.

Live-Action TV 

  • The Big Bang Theory:
    • The pilot has Leonard and Sheldon meet Penny, who has just moved into an apartment in the same building as theirs. She becomes one of the show's central characters.
    • The episode "The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition" has the apartment above Sheldon and Leonard's be rented out by a woman who is transparently a more unscrupulous version of Penny...and only appears for that episode.
  • Charmed (1998): In the Season 2 premiere "Witch Trial", new neighbor Jenny Gordon barges in to the Halliwell manor to use their phone, with her uncle Dan close behind her, trying to get her to talk to him. Phoebe manages to get Jenny to let her guard down, admitting she needs to call her mom because she doesn't feel comfortable talking to her uncle about her period. Phoebe encourages her to trust her uncle, which Dan is grateful for. The rest of the season deals with the awkwardness of the sisters' relationship with the new neighbors, with Dan getting involved in a Love Triangle with Piper and Leo, as they try to keep their magic secret from them.
  • Doctor Who: In "The Lodger", which takes place mostly from ordinary Craig Owens's point of view, Craig is baffled by his new tenant, the Doctor, who is exceedingly odd and seems to be better at everything than Craig is. When Craig threatens to evict the Doctor for his behavior towards his crush Sophie, the Doctor reveals his true nature and purpose to Craig, revealing that the upstairs tenant is actually a stranded alien spaceship that has been killing people in an attempt to find a pilot.
  • Keeping Up Appearances: The second series introduces Emmet, a man seen coming out of Elizabeth's house. Hyacinth has a massive over-reaction to "Elizabeth having a man in the house", and wondering if he is Elizabeth's love interest. She later finds out that he is in fact Elizabeth's brother. Hyacinth is thrilled to learn that he runs a singing group, and it becomes a Running Gag that she sings at Emmet (very badly) when she sees him, hoping that she can join his group
  • The King of Queens once has Doug and Carrie contend with their new neighbors, the Whatleys, and their subsequent appearances result in many conflicts with the Heffermans.
  • Love Thy Neighbour's first episode, "New Neighbours", sets up the conflict of the series when the black couple Bill and Barbie Reynolds move next door to racist loudmouth Eddie Booth and his long-suffering wife, Joan.
  • Malcolm in the Middle has an episode where a new family moves into their neighborhood but turns out to be a family of jerks, with the matriarch being the worst, and they move out by the end, except for the patriarch, who has divorced his wife.
  • The Sarah Jane Adventures: In "The Day of the Clown", Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde have to deal with the Chandra family moving into Maria's old house across the street. Sarah Jane is concerned Maria may have left something alien inside the house and that the Chandras' daughter Rani is an aspiring Intrepid Reporter, which puts Sarah Jane's alien investigating at risk. This ends up being a moot point when Rani becomes a target and has to be Welcomed to the Masquerade for her safety, becoming a permanent team member. A subplot also involves Mr. Chandra being revealed as the new school principal, whom Clyde has already made a bad impression on, but he softens up by the end of the episode.

Western Animation 

  • American Dad!: "Homeland Insecurity" is about the bigoted Stan assuming the worst of his new Middle-Eastern decent neighbors.
  • Arthur: In "Arthur and Los Vecinos", the Reads get new neighbors: the Molina family from Ecuador. Arthur is afraid their teenage son Alberto will be mean, but he's actually nice. D.W. is excited to meet their little sister, Vicita, but becomes frustrated with Vicita turning out to be an Instant Expert at everything she tries to teach her.
    • This was also the case in an earlier episode, "Sue Ellen Moves In." In the episode, the other kids discover foreign objects that Sue Ellen and her family have as they moved in, and everyone had various guesses as to who they were (such as Prunella thinking that they were cat burglars and Buster thinking that they were aliens). It turns out that Sue Ellen and her family traveled around the world before coming to Elwood City and they picked up souvenirs along the way.
  • An episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog has the Bagge's home moved next to a remote mansion because the owner there wants neighbors.
  • The Dinosaur Train episode "New Neighbours" is about the Pteranodon family returning home from their world tour to discover that the Lambeosaurus family has moved into their habitat. Mr. Pteranodon instantly takes a dislike to Larry Lambeosaurus because he destroys trees.
  • DuckTales (1987): In "Bubbeo And Juliet", Scrooge and his nephews get new neighbors, the Nouveau Riche Blurf family, with whom Scrooge quickly develops a heated feud. While Scrooge and Mr. Blurf spend the whole episode making each other's lives miserable, Bubba falls in love with the Blurf's daughter Julie. At the end of the episode, the Ducks and Blurfs finally make peace but by then mr. Blurf has already spent so much money on his feud with Scrooge that the family has to move back to their old house again.
  • Family Guy seems to love this kind of plot:
    • This trope has the distinction of introducing us to Joe Swanson and his family as they appeared in the fourth episode of the show.
    • Two episodes have actors like Dan Aykroyd and Ryan Reynolds temporarily move into Cleveland's old house when the latter relocated to Virginia for four years.
    • One episode has football star Rob Gronkowski move into the house behind the Griffins and making a nuisance out of himself until he and his family are forced to leave on account of the sub-plot involving Brian and Stewie getting rid of some steroid-fueled bees.
    • One episode has Peter attempt to sue a new neighbor only to find out that the attorney he hired is the neighbor.
  • The third season of F is for Family introduces Frank's new neighbors, Chet Stevenson and his Asian wife Nguyen-Nguyen, and they become relevant to the season following their first appearance.
  • The Ghost and Molly McGee: The second season premiere has the McGees meet their new neighbors, the Chens, who are a family of ghost hunters, leading to problems for Scratch in future episodes.
  • King of the Hill has countless episodes centred around new neighbors.
    • The episode where Khan and his family get introduced, "Westie Side Story", is this.
    • 'Hank's Bully". New neighbors Jim and Lyra are hands-off parents who don't set boundaries for their son Caleb. As a result, he is a Spoiled Brat who harasses Hank. It's not until Hank lets his son Bobby misbehave to them that they finally make their son leave Hank alone.
    • One episode, like the Family Guy Gronkowski example (except this one came first), has a famous football star be Hank's new neighbor and his obnoxious behavior soon has Hank and his pals decide that he needs to go.
    • "Uh-Oh Canada" has Boomhauer trade houses with a Canadian family, and while Hank and his friends try to be cordial, the Canadian family soon gets on their bad side. The resulting conflict leads to Hank and the patriarch of the Canadian family, Gordon getting arrested. The episode soon ends with Hank and his buddies getting Gordon out of jail, only to be mocked by Gordon for being American when he and his wife and son leave.
  • League of Super Evil: In "A LOSE/LOSE Situation", a new supervillain team moves into the League of Super Evil’s neighborhood, right across the street from their house. The other team call themselves the Legion of Supreme Evil. The two teams immediately become rivals and compete to prove which team is the greater menace by pranking their other neighbors, with the Legion repeatedly one-upping the League.
  • The Loud House has at least two episodes revolving around this trope.
    • One of them involved Lynn Sr. and Rita meeting the parents of "well-rounded" children, making them insecure about their own parenting. Another episode has Lincoln and Clyde suspicious of the family that moves into the house on the left of the Louds.
    • This ended up being the plot of a Backdoor Pilot for the spin-off show, The Casagrandes where Ronnie Anne befriends an Asian girl named Sid, who soon becomes her new neighbor.
  • Moral Orel: One episode has the Puppingtons get new next-door neighbors, the Posabules, whom they share much in common with (including appearances). However, with the exception of Orel and the Posabule daughter, Christina, they end up falling out due to trivial differences on how they worship God, and by the end, the Posabules move away again...alongside the Puppington's youngest child/son Shapey for a majority of the show.
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Superfriends", a new family consisting of a man, woman, and their young daughter Robin moves into the house next to the Utoniums, with the plot of the episode focussing on Robin becomming the girls' new friend but their duties as heroes constantly get in the way.
  • Rugrats:
    • In the 1991 series episode "Meet the Carmichaels", the Carmichael family moves into the house across the street from Tommy's house. Tommy befriends Susie, the fourth-born daughter, and tries to help her find her missing bedroom. Meanwhile, Didi learns much about Lucy, the mother, and her many past careers. At the same time, Stu discovers that Randy, the father, is the head writer of The Dummi Bears and annoys him with endless trivia about the show.
    • In the "Chuckie Come Home" two-parter from the 2021 series, Chas rents out his house while he and Chuckie stay with Aunt Linda. A new family moves into the house, and when the babies visit the family, they meet a four-year-old girl named Nyra and her younger brother Darsh. Although the babies become friends with Darsh while Angelica becomes friends with Nyra, the babies begin to miss Chuckie. When the babies and their parents decide to meet Chas, Chuckie, and Linda at the volcano mini-golf course, Tommy and the gang spend the episode's second part trying to reunite with Chuckie. The babies realize that if they do reunite with Chuckie, it means that they'll have to say goodbye to their new friend Darsh, who actually doesn't mind giving Chuckie back his old room. In the end, it is revealed that while Nyra and Darsh did indeed move into Chas' old house, Chas and Chuckie moved into the other house next door to Tommy's house so Tommy and Chuckie could continue to see each other.
  • The Simpsons have gone went through such a slew of neighbors that making a list of the examples would result in its own page. Some of the most notable ones are Presidents George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford, the Winifreds, the Powers, and even a disguised Sideshow Bob.
  • South Park In All About Mormons, a family of Mormon faith moves to town and Stan befriends the son of the family, Gary.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: In "New Fish in Town", a fish named Howard moves in and turns out to have a lot in common with Squidward. However, when it turns out that Howard would not like his other two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, Squidward has to keep him in the dark so he won't move away.