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JFK: I'm a Kennedy. I'm not accustomed to tragedy.
Gandhi: If there's one thing Mahatma Gandhi stands for, it's revenge!
Clone High is an animated show parodying the Teen Drama, especially the Very Special Episode.
The plot is pretty straightforward, being outlined at the beginning of every episode by the Expository Theme Tune. Way, way back in the 1980s, secret government employees dug up famous guys and ladies and made amusing genetic copies. Now the clones are sexy teens. Now they're gonna make it if they try. Loving, learning, sharing, judging. Time to laugh and shiver and cry. A Myth Arc is implied, wherein the Secret Board of Shadowy Figures that created the clones check up on the progress toward conditioning them into a super-strong and super-intelligent army. However, little progress is ever made in that, or in Principal Scudworth's plan of creating a clone-based amusement park called "Cloney Island", as the series was canceled in the US after less than a season. The rest of the season aired in Canada (home of the series' lead animation studio), and the out-of-print DVD was only released in the Canadian market.
Among the large list of historical figure clones include:
- Abe Lincoln, the clumsy, lanky, nice-guy protagonist who is smitten with Cleopatra and constantly suffers physical abuse as he tries to live up to the original Lincoln's legacy.
- Gandhi, Abe's best friend, who cracked under the pressure of living up to the original Gandhi and devolved into a wild party animal.
- Joan of Arc, an angsty clone of the original Joan of Arc, who is desperately in love with her best friend Abe, and can't seem to ever make him realize said infatuation.
- JFK, the cocky Jerk Jock who macks on all the hot clone girls at school, and has a skewed perspective of the original JFK as a "macho, womanizing stud who conquered the MOON!" Made even more hilarious by the fact that his foster parents are a male gay couple.
- Cleopatra, the sexy, seductive horndog who fulfills the role of The Libby.
- An entire plethora of minor characters useful for one-shot jokes and Twenty Four Hour Party People scenes, including Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Fedor Jeftichew (Jojo the Dogfaced Boy), Catherine the Great ("Or should I say Catherine the So-So"), the Bronte Sisters, Nostradamus, and countless others
- Also includes Mad Scientist Principal Cinnamon K. Scudworth, his mechanical British servant Mr. Butlertron, who calls everyone 'Wesley', and The Secret Board of Shadowy Figures.
A lot of the humor comes from off-hand or irreverent historical references (like the scene where the clone of Buddy Holly invites Abe to ride on a broken-down plane along with Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, Jim Croce, and half of Lynyrd Skynyrd... all of whom had their real life counterparts die in plane crashes).
...Wesley.
As a show with a premise based on parody, it mocks quite a few tropes:
- Adults Dressed As Children (Scudworth & Butlertron in the pilot)
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer ("The Pusher," who deals... raisins)
- Aint No Rule Subverted with the rule that "no girls or animals can play on the boys teams", but played straight in Abe's film "It Takes a Hero" where "There's nothing in the rulebook that says a girafe can't play football."
- All Guys Want Cheerleaders (Cleo, only Cleo. Cleo Cleo Cleo Cleo Cleo.)
- All Love Is Unrequited: Especially in the finale
- And Another Thing (JFK in the pilot, as a variant on his trademark explaining the joke)
- And The Winner Is
- Are You Pondering What Im Pondering (JFK does the 1-person variant a lot)
- Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny (Gandhi)
- Be A Whore To Get Your Man: Mocked in the finale, along with Unnecessary Makeover
- Beautiful All Along (Joan)
- Beta Couple: Gandhi and Marie Curie near the end of the show.
- Betty And Veronica: Joan (Betty) and Cleo (Veronica) for Abe.
- Blind Seer (parodied with Toots, who thinks he's perceptive and insightful despite his blindness)
Bus Full Of Innocents Bus Full Of Pandas
- The Casanova: JFK.
- Crapsack World (The minor background characters share a Hive Mind mentality to make the story simpler and clearer)
- Clone Jesus
- Cloning Blues (Several of the clones have adopted wildly different personalities than their clone parent because the pressure to live up to them [or more accurately, The Theme Park Version of them] caused minor breakdowns)
- Clumsy Copyright Censorship: Mr. Butlertron was originally named Mr. Belvetron, but they couldn't secure the rights. He still calls everyone Wesley, though.
- Colon Cancer: Every episode title has a colon, leading up to "Changes: The Big Prom: The Sex Romp: The Season Finale."
- Cut Short: Aside from and due to MTV bailing out mid-season, the finale (of the season and the series), in which the Secret Board, having been officially told of Scudworth's plans, attempt to take back the clones at the Winter Prom, leading to the Locked In A Freezer ending was a Cliff Hanger.
- Department Of Redundancy Department (Larry Hardcore: "I was into everything: weed, grass, ganga, reefer, marijuana, mary jane, I did it all. I even smoked pot once.")
- Dolphins Dolphins Everywhere (They say Dolphins are mentioned and/or appear at least once an episode.)
- Dont Explain The Joke (JFK. Constantly. If You Know What I Mean.)
- And by "What I Mean", I mean SEXUAL REFERENCE!
- Other characters are often guilty of this too.
Cleo: Abe, it's sex o'clock. It may have sounded like I said the number six but instead I substituded the more suggestive word...sex!
- Downer Ending: The (more or less, see Cut Short) resolution of the series Love Triangle, with Abe realizing he has feelings for Joan (and the other way around) only to discover she and JFK in bed together, just as the freezer is turned on.
- Do They Know Its Christmas Time (spoofed with Snowflake Day)
- Dude Wheres My Reward
- Expository Theme Tune ("Way, way back in the 1980s secret government employees dug up famous guys and ladies and made amusing genetic copies.")
- Five Man Band:
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Poncey, who is never mentioned after his episode (or before for that matter).
- Goofy Print Underwear Pink heart boxers are seen off of Gandhi in the pilot and on a cop during the parody of The Benny Hill Show.
- Gullible Guy Goes Ga: Kennedy.
- Hahvahd Yahd In MY Cah (JFK)
- Hey Its That Voice (since the show was produced by Bill Lawrence of Scrubs and Spin City fame, pretty much every main character of Scrubs has shown up as someone's foster parent or clone. Including the Janitor as...the Janitor.)
- Supposedly, Word Of God declares the Clone High Janitor and the Scrubs Janitor to be the same character.
- It all makes sense... Glenn acts so nice on Clone High, but the trauma of being fired as well as the death of his son, combined with the trauma of suddenly being in live action, could naturally have shattered the Janitor's mind and left him in the bitter/insane condition that he is in throughout Scrubs. Penny in the door=litter?
- He must live in a strange world then.
- This theory is validated on the season 8 finale of Scrubs, in which Janitor reveals his name to J.D. as Glenn, the name used by the Clone High character.
- Bill Lawrence's wife Christa Miller, who plays Jordan Sullivan, voices Cleopatra.
- And from Spin City, Michael J. Fox had a very minor (but fully credited) cameo as Ghandi's Remaining Kidney in the first episode.
- High School AU
- High School Sweethearts (parodied)
- Historical Hilarity
- Hilarious In Hindsight: The caption at the end of the finale: "TO BE CONTINUED...?!"
- Hollywood Homely: Joan, however some characters do seem to realize she's attractive before her reveal of Beautiful All Along. Heavily inverted with Marie Curie, who is hideous yet no one treats her any differently.
- Hot Guys Are Bastards: Oh, JFK...
- I Cant Believe Its Not Heroin (raisins)
- If You Know What I Mean: "And by swimming, I mean SEX!"
- I Like My X Like I Like My Y (Gandhi likes his humping like he likes his martinis: dry)
- I'm Standing Right Here
- Indians Hate Gandhi, and I never thought I'd say that.
- Ink Suit Actor: The guest stars who don't play themselves usually wind up as this (such as Jack Black's character). Joan lampshades this with Mandy Moore's character by constantly asking her if she is really Mandy Moore, although it seems to purposely inconsistent whether the character is supposed to be Mandy Moore having randomly become a hobo, or a hobo who just is identical to Mandy Moore.
- Insignia Rip Off Ritual (with the insignia on Abe’s basketball jacket)
- I Want My Beloved To Be Happy
- Jerkass and Jerk Jock: (JFK)
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Possibly (JFK) near the end of the series and the last episode.
- Jesus Was Way Cool When Jesus appears in episode 3, they try to not let you know that it's a Jesus. And by "not let you know", I mean "shoot himself in the hand with a nail gun in the carpentry room with a halo over his glowing head"!!
- Lady Drunk: Cleo's drunk foster mom
- Lamarck Was Right (subverting this is the basis for most of the characters)
- Lame Rhyme Dodge
- Larynx Dissonance (
Joan of Arc John Dark)
- Le Film Artistique (Joan's entry in the film festival)
- Literal Minded / Rhetorical Question Blunder:
Mr. Butlertron: What would the real Joan of Arc have done?
Joan: She would have listened to her heart. And then she would've gotten burned at the stake. [nervous laugh] But what are the odds of that happening again?
Mr. Butlertron: 38%.
- Local Hangout (The Grassy Knoll)
- Locked In A Freezer (With literally everyone who had appeared beforehand (except Scudworth and Butlertron) in the Season Finale. Although it's not quite an example of this trope...)
- Logic Bomb (used by Mr. Butlertron on Scangrade)
- Long Lost Uncle Aesop(Ponce de Leon)
- Love Triangle: Joan/Abe/Cleo and Abe/Cleo/JFK. The end of the show showed some beginnings to a Abe/Joan/JFK triangle but of course it was cancelled before we could find out.
- Make Out Point ("Teen Sex Cove")
- The Makeover (parodied to hell and back; see Unnecessary Makeover below)
- Makeover Montage (spoofed, combined with Unnecessary Makeover)
- Master Of The Mixed Message: Abe is the king of this trope, unfortunately for Joan
- Memetic Mutation ("STAMOS!")
- SAY WHAT?
- No, NO man! You're making me fall asleep! To death bro. Okay, the line is: "Say WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"
- Bite-sized weiners!!
- Mirror Monologue (JFK in the penultimate episode)
- Spoofed often by JFK, as they tend to devolve into Mirror Arguments.
- Mixed Metaphors: (Abe has a few of these; see the trope page)
- Musical Episode: Raisin the Stakes: A Rock Opera in Three Acts
- Not Quite Starring
- Oblivious To Love (Abe to Cleo, Joan to Abe)
- Previously On
- Prison Rape (subverted)
- Putting On The Reich (GESH)
- Race For Your Love (parodied to the point of Running Gag in one episode)
- Refuge In Audacity: the segments of Plane Crazy with Principal Scudworth and Skunky-Poo, whose interactions are almost as violent as Itchy and Scratchy, and a fair bit more profane (Skunky-Poo's catchphrase is "try and catch me, bitch!").
- Retroactive Wish: Lampshaded, and then it works
- Rhyming With Itself: Parodied with the whole "G-Spot rocks the G-Spot!" thing.
- Rock Bottom (lampshaded, subverted, combined with Retroactive Wish)
- Rock Opera (the episode "Raisin the Stakes: A Rock Opera in Three Acts")
- Salt And Pepper (parodied with Gandhi's film, Black and Tan)
- Say My Name (See the article)
- School For Scheming (parodied)
- Screwy Squirrel "WHY SKUNKYPOO WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!"
- She Cleans Up Nicely (spoofed repeatedly, mostly with Joan, in "Makeover, Makeover, Makeover: The Makeover Episode")
- Six Student Clique: Minus the sixth student but they fulfill these roles as well as the the Five Man Band. Both Cleo and Joan could count as the Wild One.
- The main character: Abe
- The Muscle: JFK
- The Quirk: Gandhi
- The Pretty One: Cleo
- The Smart One: Joan
- Special Guest - Ranging from Tom Green to Marilyn Manson to, of course, STAMOS himself.
- Michael J. Fox, in a one-line cameo as Ghandi's remaining kidney. He got full Special Guest Star credit for it.
- Spoof Aesop
- Stylistic Self Parody
- Sweet On Polly Oliver (JFK and Cleo, towards "John Dark")
- Sweet Polly Oliver (With a disguise consisting entirely of a fake handlebar mustache. A similar disguise is also used successfully by a dolphin.)
- Tempting Fate (Many times. Also subverted once: "Don't worry about the storm. I built this house like Noah built his ark. Yep, this house is flood-proof!" Cue lightning strike, setting house on fire)
- The Exit Is That Way (Abe, walking off a pier)
- The Khan ("STAMOS!")
- This Is For Emphasis, Bitch!
- This Is My Side
- Tonight Someone Dies (Mocked extensively with Ponce de Leon, so much, in fact, that this doesn't even need to have a spoiler tag)
- Extra points for bending over backwards to be the most Very Special Episode on a show parodying those.
- Too Good To Last
- Totem Pole Trench (Napoleon and Taft in "A Shot in D'Arc")
- Trauma Swing (Joan in the first episode)
- Unknown Rival (Principal Scudworth, to STAMOS!)
- Very Special Episode (literally every single episode)
- Whoopi Epiphany Speech (subverted with Toots)
- Wild Teen Party
- Xtreme Kool Letterz/ Totally Radical (X-Stream Blu)
- "Stick it in your face-hole and SLAM IT!"
- You Go Girl
- You Mean Xmas
...Wesssssssssszzzzzzley.
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