Today in TV History: ‘Clone High’ Made History Come Alive With Teen Angst

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone. 

IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: November 2, 2002

PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Clone High,”Escape to Beer Mountain: A Rope of Sand” (Season 1, Episode 1) [Watch on Amazon Instant Video]

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT:  The premise of the one-season-wonder MTV animated series Clone High is deceptively simple. You see, way, way back in the 1980s … well why don’t I just let the show tell you:

Clone High was such a strange fit for MTV, far more idiosyncratic and sneakily intelligent than you might expect from the network, though I feel like I end up saying that a lot in this column (shout out, The Paper), so perhaps I’m not giving MTV enough credit for being willing to take chances on shows even if they don’t end up working out.

I’m tempted to say that using clones of historical figures as characters was merely the lunatic entry point to a show whose true purpose was to nail the cliches of teen dramas, and that’s true, but it obscures just how many clever and funny things the show did with the various clones. Joan of Arc as a moping, Doc Marten-wearing nonconformist; Ghandi as a hyperactive geek; way-too-intense Van Gogh; poor irradiated Marie Curie. So by the time we got to the teen drama angle, we were already multiple levels into this insane world. Every episode of Clone High was a “very special episode,” and it contained all the elements, from unrequited crushes to bullying jocks, who were all then placed inside a sci-fi fishbowl reality where robot butlers gave side-eye and teenage Genghis Khan can’t seem to negotiate a fake ID.

What the show also had going for it was a dynamite cast and crew. It seemed like it took forever for Hollywood to finally do right by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, that they would forever exist only in my heart as the Clone High guys. Cut to 2015, two 21 Jump Streets and a LEGO Movie later and they’re their own cottage industry. And if you watch their wildly funny The Last Man on Earth on FOX, you can catch a stray fume of Clone High-esque comedy. Not least of which because Will Forte was heading up both casts. Forte, Christa Miller, Nicole Sullivan, and Michael McDonald all put in award-worthy voice work as Clone High‘s principal teens. Miller and Lord themselves voices some of the other leads, including Principal Scudworth and the show’s greatest invention, a robot butler named Mr. Buttlertron. What, you thought by the looks of his mustachioed face that I was going to say “Mr. Belvetron”? Sir or madam, that’s a matter for the copyright lawyers.

The premiere episode, besides introducing such an odd premise with economy and humor, also features my all-time favorite joke in a TV show ever, featuring George Washington Carver and a peanut:

[You can watch Clone High‘s “Escape to Beer Mountain: A Rope of Sand” on Amazon Instant Video. Or, if you’re industrious, on YouTube.]

Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.