Bermuda Triangle of Television

Series Name: Clone High
Television Network : MTV
Running Time : 22Minutes
Broadcast Run : November 2nd, 2002 - February 10th, 2003

Created by Bill Larence(Scrubs, Cougar Town), this animated high school comedy focused on an underground military experiment involving the cloning of various famous historical figures. Using the remnants of their DNA, the United States government created near perfect clones of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Ghandi, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, & John F. Kennedy. Our five main characters attended a modern public school system following their peers, who were also various incarnations of famous figures from history, from Jimi Hendrix to Julius Caesar.

While the show did have it's hand of historically inappropriately tuned humor, the series focus was on the adolescents and their relationships to one another. A major influence on the historical clones was the American school system itself. Ghandi was a horndog teenager who moved with the frequency of a Looney Tunes character. Abe was a self depricating lovestruck fool, willing to follow any agenda to be cool or fit in or get the girl. JFK's philandering with Marilyn Monroe was played up as he was always quick with a rude remark. Joan of Arc was another lovestruck fool, loving her best friend Abe, who's attention became singularly focused upon.

Bill Lawrence's comedy works best with animation, which is strange since his most popular shows include the aforementioned Scrubs and the currently airing Cougar Town. The voice list took actors from Lawrence's show Scrubs, the Mad TV cast, and eventual SNL alum Will Forte. Plus, any animated cartoon that gets Jack Black as part of it's rock opera episode dealing with the threat of the Clone High "drug" raisins is promptly remembered by all who've seen it.

MTV has a lot of great shows mixed in with it's cheaply crafted reality TV and interview shows. MTV used to be a fore-bearer for American animation, but since the ending of Clone High, [adult swim] has taken on that role. When I was over in Germany during the summer, it was a trip to see Family Guy & South Park airing late at night on MTV, a call back to a time of Clone High, Aeon Flux, 3-South, Beaveis & Butthead, and Daria.

MTV once had music. It also once had animation. Great animation. If you can find Clone High, if you can track it down, you will not be disappointed.

B+

Tom Green has ADD


The Honkicorn