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My Thoughts on Clone High

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Yeah, sorry I have to do this review as text for now, but I wanted to post something this week and I can't keep making excuses. It'll pretty much be everything that I wanted to say but just in a different format. So, without further ado: My Thoughts on Clone High, the MTV cult classic made by the guys who'd go on to make films like 21 Jump Street.

Plot: The plot is pretty simple, but very odd. According to the very catchy, if a bit melodramatic, theme song, a shady government organization dug up and cloned a bunch of famous historical figures like JFK, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington Carver, and Joan of Arc (among many, many others) as teenagers. Apparently--somehow--this was meant to turn them into weapons...because. Throw in a mad scientist principal and his robot butler assistant (named Mr. Butlertron who calls everyone Wesley) and this...really shouldn't be as good as it is. The one-joke premise of these historical figures acting out parts in a melodramatic Dawson's Creek/Beverly Hills 90210 dramedy should wear out its welcome after five episodes, but it never does. More on that a little later.

Characters: While the characters are kinda presented as your typical high school stereotypes like Abe Lincoln as the insecure, kinda awkward everyman who wants to hook up with popular rich girl Cleopatra who's dating the show-off jock JFK (who might be one of my favorite characters in the series), and--obviously--oblivious to the crush his goth best friend Joan of Arc has on him. Then, we have Abe's best friend Gandhi who's just always wacky and hilarious and easily the best character in the show, no question. While the idea of these characters acting out a lame high school parody shouldn't be nearly as funny as it is, the comedy comes from the characters and the entire series is just hilarious. I watched the entire series one night (cuz I couldn't fall asleep) and there wasn't one joke I wasn't laughing my ass off at. You pretty quickly see the style of comedy they're trying for and get used to it by Episode 3. At 13 episodes, you should have no problem breezing through it.

Technicals: The artstyle isn't really my thing (which I know some people find really nostalgic and endearing in the same way that people prefer the grainy and rough sound of vinyl records as opposed to the more clear digital sound; I don't get it a lot of times, but if that's your thing I'm not stopping you) but it kinda grew on me. I plan on having an editorial on this at some point, but there's kinda a big difference between art and animation: sometimes, even if you don't like how something looks as a still image or seeing it on paper, you can look past that if they look better in motion and that's the case here. Not only is the animation very expressive and really funny with a lot of great visual jokes and a lot of moving slapstick that works a lot better than it has any right to, but the thing people will remember more than anything (after the characters, that is) has got to be the soundtrack. I've never heard of almost any of these bands/artists but hearing their music on this show kinda makes me want to check out more of them. Going back to the art, if you liked Time Squad (a show that I plan to get to at some point), then you'll probably find these designs pretty endearing.

Entertainment: Why is it that I'm always the last holdout for everything? It took me way too damn long to get to One Piece, I didn't get to see Blazing Saddles till I was 19, I STILL haven't finished Cowboy Bebop, I didn't even know who the Nostalgia Critic was until his feud with the AVGN, look I'm not gonna turn this into an embarrassing pity party for myself about how out of touch I am. This show is hilarious, it's fantastic, it's really entertaining...but it was cancelled because not enough people were watching it and people were pissed off about the portrayal of Gandhi (and I mean, actual people, not stupid/crazy people who threw a bitch-fit about Nickelodeon stepping out of the Dark Ages and showing an on-screen same sex couple in the Loud House that one time that every other rational human being on Earth was declaring as the best thing Nick had done in ages). According to the creators, if the show hadn't been cancelled, they would've just shipped Gandhi off on a bus between seasons without explanation (kinda sucks but if it means more of this, I feel it might be a small sacrifice), then take the characters to graduation, through college, into adulthood, and then a timeloop that would throw them right back into high school all over again. I would've liked to see that, but I'm glad that we have what we do as well.

So, that's just my opinion on it, not gonna bother with a rating right now (let's just leave it at 4/5 Stars or something), and I hope that I can post something for you guys again a little later. Studying up on the movie I'm doing, though, is probably gonna cut into my free time so I hope that having a second writer on standby can help to even things out for me. I have a beginning, I have an end, but it's always the middle that's the issue and I don't want it devolving into a series of set pieces.
Sorry I don't have a card for this one (I'm sure that matters more to me, though) but know that I'll still count this as a review in my count. Gathering information for my movie Toyland and I might start a review blog or something. Still, not to spoil anything, but I have big plans for July this year (which I hope will be a surprise; I'm really excited about it) and it's gonna be another theme month. I don't think I do enough of those since they're a lot of work. One last thing: I'm gonna need to suspend requests for the rest of the month just to give me some free space for my own stuff for a little while but after the next AU, know that requests are back on. 
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Thanks for the review