Clone High is available to stream on MTV’s website and can also be purchased on sites like Amazon, iTunes and Google Play.
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“Remember when MTV used to be good?” That’s a common refrain for a lot of ’80s and ’90s kids who still yearn for the days when the cable network was about more than just trashy reality TV. You can argue about the exact point at which MTV fully crossed over the the dark side, but the network definitely hit the point of no return when it canceled Clone High. That series ranks among the best animated sitcoms of the early 21st Century, even if far too few people discovered it during its short life.
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The premise of Clone High is pretty simple and aptly summed up by the show’s catchy theme song – “Way, way back in the 1980’s, secret government employees dug up famous guys and ladies and made amusing genetic copies. Now their clones are sexy teens. Now they’re gonna make it if they try.” Basically, it’s your textbook high school comedy, if said high school were home to clones of dead historical figures and secretly run by a sinister government organization bent on harnessing their military potential. Oh, and the principal is a power-mad supervillain with a cardigan-clad, robotic assistant named Mr. Butlertron.
Clone High brilliantly mashes up all the expected teen comedy/drama tropes with your favorite historical figures. Abe Lincoln (Will Forte) is a lanky, awkward everyman who’s best friends with hyperactive party animal Mahatma Gandhi (Michael McDonald) and moody Goth loner Joan of Arc (Nicole Sullivan). Abe pines after the lovely Cleopatra Smith (Christa Miller) while failing to acknowledge Joan’s unrequited love. JFK (Christopher Miller), whose accent is apparently genetically inherited, is the school’s designated handsome but brain-dead jock. Over the course of the show’s single 13-episode season, these teens deal with everything from school elections to standardized test prep to a seemingly endless series of proms, all while struggling to live up to the impossible standards set by their genetic predecessors.
In addition to having a really great premise and easy hook, the series benefits from being overseen by a real comedy dream team. Clone High was created by future LEGO Movie/21 Jump Street masterminds Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence (hence why most of the show’s incidental characters are voiced by Scrubs alums like Donald Faison and Neil Flynn). If you’ll pardon the pun, you can really sense the DNA of Clone High in Lord and Miller’s later work – that same emphasis on pushing a simple idea to the most comedically extreme places.
That’s where the show’s brilliance lies. Even when the show tackles a tired and true concept, like an election for class president, it winds up with a ridiculous scenario where Abe becomes the unwitting spokesman for predatory junk food peddler X-Stream Blu (mad-packed with all nine essential nutramites to fortify your X-Zone!) and Marilyn Manson steps in to sing about the importance of the Food Pyramid. Later episodes feature everything from a rock opera spawned by a new raisin-smoking craze to Gandhi and George Washington Carver teaming up for a buddy cop movie called “Brown & Tan.” The show is ridiculous in the best way, yet it’s just earnest enough that the character drama still carries weight.
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Clone High’s one great flaw is that it never got a proper conclusion. MTV canceled the series after one season, robbing fans of any resolution to the show’s cliffhanger ending. The cancellation came in part because many Indians were less than thrilled with Gandhi’s depiction. But in a time when networks and streaming services are constantly hunting for more content and everything from Invader Zim to Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been given a new lease on life, maybe there’s still hope for a Clone High revival. Hilariously dated celebrity cameos aside, that one season still feels as fresh in 2020 as it did in 2002.
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Source: IGN.com Binge It! Clone High Is the Funniest High School Comedy You've (Probably) Never Seen