Ricky Harper

Richard "Ricky" Jared Harper is one of the Harper quadruplets and one of the three titular co-protagonists (alongside Nicky Harper and Dicky Harper) of Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn. He was the second quad born. He is book-smart and believes that he's the only normal one of the quads. He considers himself to be always right and the leader of the quad, against Dawn.

Ricky is portrayed by Casey Simpson.

Personality
If you need help with your homework or need a plan to get out of doing your homework, Ricky is the Harper for you, he is a bookworm. He's super smart and not afraid to show it. But his high IQ still doesn't stop him from getting into trouble with his siblings. If only they'd listen to him! Ricky has it all together, except for when his brothers and sister drive him so totally bonkers that due to his short temper, he almost SNAPS!! Phew, that was a close one... Ricky thinks he's always right and is often disappointed that his siblings never take anything seriously. Unlike his siblings, Ricky doesn't try too hard to be popular or to fit in. Ricky really loves and cares about Nicky. Along with dicky and dawn. He will do anything for his siblings. In one episode his biggest fear was losing his brothers and sister. But they will never be seperated.

Biography
Ricky is the second child and oldest son of Anne Harper and Tom Harper. He's the second of the Harper Quadruplets to be born, after Dawn and before Dicky and Nicky. He's the smartest (book wise) and the most organized of the quads.

Independence & Identity
Ricky tries to set himself apart from his siblings and their alleged immaturity because he believes that they never take anything seriously. This escalated in Quaddy-Shack when he got disappointed by how the rest of the quad acted so immature and refused to respect mini-golf. He confronted his siblings for not taking it seriously. He admitted that he's been immature sometimes, but he grew up. And they should grow up too. Then he stormed out and joined Madison's team against the quad. He went as far as to call his siblings "classless garbage eaters" -- granted they were actually eating garbage. However, after seeing Madison cheat in mini-golf, he turned against her for not respecting the game. He apologized to his siblings for his antics.

In "Harpers for President," Ricky was all set to become the class president and Dawn supported him too. Until, he got carried away and said that Dawn couldn't handle it anyway. This got Dawn mad and she nominated herself for class president too. It didn't take long before the rest of the quads started running for the presidency. After a damaging campaign, they all tied for the lead. Ricky then made up fake jobs for the class president, forcing the other quads to quit since they were not willing to take on the responsibility. They got revenge on him at the end of the episode when they were about to take a picture of him, told him there was a spider, and took a picture of his reaction and threatened to post it online.

In "A Brief Case of Popularity," Ricky jeopardized the quads attempt to join the cool kids by dressing up dorky. Dawn led Dicky and Nicky into planning on how to join the cool kids and be invited to the staircase. But Ricky wasn't on board to act cool. He was planning on going to school the following day, dressed up formally, wearing a visor and suspenders and carrying a briefcase to show that he was always serious. The quads tried to hide the kit but Dicky messed up and Ricky found it and put it on. The rest of the quads confronted Ricky at school and put on his "terrible" attire to show him how ridiculous he looked. Ricky dressed up as Dicky to show it was ridiculous too. Unfortunately, the cool kids came along and loved Ricky's "Dicky" outfit; and laughed at the other quads. Ricky got invited to the staircase while the rest got given nicknames and made fun of.

Despite his discomfort with the rest of the quads, Ricky admitted that being separated from them is the worst thing that could happen in the episode "What's the Worst That Quad Happen?."

School and Academics
Ricky is very smart in academics and tries to spend most of his time studying. He is comfortable with being called a dork or a nerd. He likes to show off that he's smarter than the rest. His idol is Science Bob. In the Pilot episode, Ricky tried to get the quads to do the experiment right but they ignored him, leading to a catastrophe. Ricky has a perfect attendance record and in "Diary of an Angry Quad," he thought that his brothers were planning on sabotaging his attendance record after reading Dawn's fake diary entry.

In "She Blinded Him with Science (Bob)," Dawn got sick of Ricky being always right and recruited her brothers to trick Ricky into believing that superstitions are real. Most of Dawn's tricks ended up backfiring which made Ricky even more confident. However, Ricky eventually broke and decided to give up on science. Dawn was initially happy to finally prove Ricky wrong but it got out of control when the boys started thinking that she was the one causing bad luck. Mae solved the issue by inviting Science Bob to help Ricky regain faith in science. He admitted that there are things that science can't explain and that's okay too.

Ricky doesn't believe in art or doing school work that doesn't get graded as seen in "The Tell-Tale Art" where he struggles in art class and ends up taking Dicky's painting as his.

In "No Ifs, Ands, or But-ers," Ricky became jealous of Madison after realizing that Madison scored better than him. In the same episode, he's most proud because the president of the "D.O.R.K 's" club (the smartest kids in school) attended their party and was willing to talk to Ricky. Ricky didn't seem to take offense when Dicky made fun of him for being a dork.

Ricky was willing to "date" his sister, Dawn in "Unhappy Campers" just so that he could get a chance to use the advanced telescope at the camp.

Even though Ricky only believes in science, he still has his security items as seen in "The Quad-Test" and he is a big fan of magic tricks as seen in "Abraquadabra."

Trivia

 * He sticks name tags on his items. (e.g. towels and shirts)
 * Tom was going to name Ricky “Gary." And it is hunted that ricky loves and cares about Nicky the most.
 * He once called a tow truck to tow Mr. Williams' car away just so Dicky didn't have to do his Social Studies test.
 * He can tend to be selfish sometimes - as he took credit for Dicky's piece of art and when Dicky asked for him to set the record straight, Ricky didn't, and also when he stole Nicky, Dicky and Dawn's lives just so he had something to post. After posting about their lives, he began making up lies to rival the fake account Nicky, Dicky, Dawn and Mae made.
 * He is awful at art.
 * He thinks he's the smartest quad.
 * His full name is confirmed to be Richard in "Quaddy-Shack".
 * He loves school.
 * Ricky is a bit of a goody-two-shoes.
 * Ricky will bend rules at times, if it's an opportunity to show off how smart he is.
 * Ricky has amazing magic skills.
 * He fights with Dawn about who's the leader in multiple episodes of Season 1 and Season 2.
 * He was the second quad born, four seconds after Dawn.
 * Yellow is his favorite color.
 * He created an alter ego called Bad Boy Ricky "BBR."
 * He says Bad Boy Ricky likes to abbreviate.
 * He chose Chip for the family dog's name.
 * He is the oldest out of the boys in the quads
 * He became the shortest quadruplet after Nicky grew taller than him.
 * He is a very good businessman.
 * Ricky tends to refer to himself in the third person whenever he gets really angry or upset, as seen in Piggy, Piggy, Piggy & Dawn, Do-It-All Dawn, and Keeping Up With the Quadashians.


 * According to Dawn, Ricky sleep rhymes - though he is terrible at rapping.
 * He along with Nicky, Dawn and Anne Harper are the only main characters to appear in every episodes.
 * His plans tend to not be taken seriously, even if they're great plans, as evidenced in What's the Worst That Quad Happen?, when he came up with an idea to get Dooley's bikes back, but the other three quads said his plan made no sense. But then Dawn said the same plan, changing one word, and then Nicky and Dicky said it was genius. To be fair, this happened in Ricky's fantasy, but it definitely could happen in real life because it's happened before.