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Recap / Clone High S1E02 "Episode Two: Election Blu-Galoo"

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Abe: My bare chested opponent raises a good point, but he's ignoring the fact that X-Treme Blu contains all the supervitamins to fortify your x-zone!

Teletoon air date: 11/3/2002

MTV air date: 1/27/2003

Written by: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Cleopatra's term as class president is coming to an end, and with term limits, means she is not able to run for re-election. Distraught, she talks John F. Kennedy into running as her successor, so he can abolish term limits, and then name her as his successor. Abe is at first vary of running as his opponent, hinted to be subconscious fears brought on by the originals gruesome demise while in office, but when Joan encourages him, he decides that becoming class president is just the thing needed to make Cleo like him, much to Joan's frustration. Meanwhile, Principal Scudworth is unable to talk the Secret Board of Shadowy Figures into giving the school 2 million dollars, money he intends to use for his Cloney Island amusement park, and instead turns to corporate sponsorship in the form of X-Treme Blue, a power snack product utilizing cheap Totally Radical promotional tactics to attract the Generation Y crowd. The two plotlines intersect when X-Treme Blue agrees to sponsor Abes campaign, due to Abes lackluster performance on his own, in return for his endorsement of their product. With the race between JFK and Abe now dead even, it all comes down to the results of the last debate, which is hosted by Marilyn Manson.


Tropes present:

  • Agony of the Feet: While calling out Joan on helping JFK with his attack ad, Abe stepped on a nail sticking out of his "thinking dock", which he says is painful but not as painful as her backstabbing him. When he leaves in a huff, a popping sound of the nail coming out is audible as he steps aways.
  • Anthropomorphic Typography: Gandhi tells Abe, "Numbers don't lie," only for a walking number 4 to run by declaring, "I'm the number five!"
  • As Himself: Marilyn Manson appears in cartoon form to do a musical number about healthy eating.
  • As You Know: Abe, Ghandi and Joan all refer to one another and Cleo by their full names at the beginning of the episode for seemingly no reason.note 
  • Cuteness Proximity: During Abe's debate, a stray puppy wanders onto the stage and starts licking Gandhi's unconscious body. The whole audience applauds and goes "Awwww," which overpowers Clone High's applause-based approval system, officially making the dog class president.
  • Eats Babies: JFK's smear campaign accuses Abe of eating babies on the grounds that he never said that he didn't.
  • The Exit Is That Way: Abe falls off his "thinking dock" when trying to walk off in a huff from Joan, and walks right into the lake.
  • Genre Savvy: Abe apparently knows better then to tempt fate, claiming that the show Happy Days taught him.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Joan is remorseful about helping JFK with his campaign, but defends herself by stating that she did it for Abe's own good, as Cleo is just using him to get her office back.
  • Insane Troll Logic: JFK's attack ad against Abe claims that Abe is a liar because last year he said he was 15, but this year he says he's 16.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Said word for word by Abe when he discovers exactly what's in the food product he's been endorsing and that in doing so, he nearly fatally poisoned his best friend.
  • Nutritional Nightmare: X-Treme Blue turns out to be nothing but pancake batter and blue paint. Eating it for several days straight causes Gandhi to become obese, turns his skin blue, and almost kills him.
  • Odd Name Out: Every other episode has two idiosyncratic names separated by a colon. This one trades that for a reference to the infamous Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. To this end, this is the only episode with a number in its name.
  • Product Placement: In-universe. X-Treme Blue sponsors Abe's class president campaign so long as he takes every opportunity to plug their product, including during debates! Lampshaded by Scudworth:
    "Sell out? And turn the school into some ad for a profit-hungry cooperation?? Why... that idea is as foolish as getting new brakes from anywhere but Midas!"
  • Pun-Based Title: The title is a pun on the (in)famously shoddy film, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.
  • Riches to Rags: Scudworth loses his 2 million at the end when the marketing team cancels the sponsorship.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The X-Treme Blue marketers make a break for it when their evil campaign is exposed, taking Scudworth's money and bling with them in the process.
  • Spoof Aesop: Abe learns not to sell out on his morals and that he must show some transparency if he wants to become a great leader, but doesn't win only because a stray puppy ends up getting the highest approval ratings. Then Marilyn Manson sings a song about healthy eating to Gandhi and tells the audience to "buy American."
  • Temporary Bulk Change: Ghandi gets fatter while eating nothing but X-Treme Blue, but by the next episode, he goes back to normal.
  • Tempting Fate: Mr. Butlertron warns Scudworth not to blow all his money from the X-Treme Blue campaign on bling, to which Scudworth proclaims that, just as the first two thirds of the MC Hammer episode of "Behind The Music" taught him, money never runs out.
  • Take That!: After finding out the truth about X-Treme Blue, Abe angrily calls it "a shallow ploy by racist mammy breakfast foods to jazz up an old product with extreme marketing," alluding to a similar criticism lobbied against Aunt Jemima pancakes in the late '80s and early '90s after the mascot was redesigned from a stereotypical black "mammy" to a modern, more attractive African-American woman to downplay (rather than take responsibility for) the product's racist origins as Confederate nostalgia. (The product would be rebranded as Pearl Milling Company in 2021 after the protest caused by the police killing of George Floyd.)
  • Totally Radical: X-Treme Blue is an EXTREMELY painful version of this trope, being little more than a string of catchphrases and shallow imitation of Turn of the Millennium youth culture crammed into a marketing campaign.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Parodied. Joan tries to cover up her telling Abe "You make me so mad, I could kiss you!" by insisting that she actually said "...I could piss glue." It's a very common expression, apparently.
  • Xtreme Kool Letterz: X-Treme Blue, what else?
    • Also, their reps X-treme Erin, Bob, and Mike.

 
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Right off the Thinking Dock

Abe calls Joan out for betraying him in the upcoming election, then storms off the Thinking Dock and into the water.

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