The Cheetah Girls

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The cast of the movie adaptation.

The Cheetah Girls is a 16-book novel series created and written by Deborah Gregory. The series, which began in 1999, is about a female vocal group seeking success and fortune. In the book series, there are five Cheetah Girls, Galleria, Chanel, Dorinda, Anginette, and Aquanette. The book series was made into a Disney Channel original movie in 2003, starring Raven-Symone as Galleria, Adrienne Bailon as Chanel, Sabrina Bryan as Dorinda, and Kiely Williams as Aquanette (the character of Anginette was removed from the movie). Two sequels were made, The Cheetah Girls 2 (2006) and The Cheetah Girls: One World (2008). The band was also de-fictionalized with Adrienne Bailon, Sabrina Bryan and Kiely Williams.

Tropes used in The Cheetah Girls include:
  • Credit Card Plot: Chanel runs up a bill on her mom's card. When her mom takes the card back, she continues her spending, over the phone, using the card number she copied against the eventuality.
  • Defictionalization: The band, although only with Adrienne Bailon, Sabrina Bryan and Kiely Williams.
  • Five-Token Band: Played straight with the movie/actual band, which had black, Latina and mixed members. Averted in the books, since all of them but Chanel were black.
  • Girl Group
  • Long-Lost Relative: Dorinda finds out she has a long lost sibling, Tiffany Twitty. She also finds out she is half white.
  • Put on a Bus / Sequel Non Entity: Galleria "goes to college" in the third movie. In reality, Raven-Symone didn't want to play her anymore.
  • Race Lift: In the novels, Dorinda is a small Black 12-year-old who is smart for her age. In the movie, she is played by Sabrina Bryan, who is part Latina and part white.
  • Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Adrienne Bailon's little nude photo controversy pretty much caused Disney to pull the plug on the group.
  • Sequel Goes Foreign: In the second movie they go to Spain and the third movie is in India.
  • Visit by Divorced Dad: Inverted. The twins Anginette and Aquanette live with their dad in New York, but in one book go to Texas to visit their mom. In the movies, Aqua lives with her dad in New York and never mentions her mom.