The class of 20WTF.
Traveling millions of miles through space
To go to school in a far-out place!
To go to school in a far-out place!
Galaxy High School was a 1986 TMS Entertainment Sitcom Saturday-Morning Cartoon on CBS. The show only lasted for one season (and the one season only has thirteen episodes). Despite its short run, the show has since become a cult favorite.
Aimee Brightower and Doyle Cleverlobe are the first earthlings to attend Galaxy High School, an intergalactic boarding school located on an asteroid called Flutor—they had previously gone to a regular human high school where Doyle (a jock) had been one of the most popular kids in school while Aimee (a bookworm who was the smartest kid in school) was at the bottom of the social ladder.
But after arriving at their new school, their roles end up being reversed:
- Aimee almost immediately becomes one of the most popular kids in school at Galaxy High, not only because of her academic skills (which scores her both a scholarship and a new car) but also because of the fact that there aren't nearly as many female students as there are male students at the school.
- Doyle, compared to Aimee, has a much a harder time fitting in at Galaxy High—at least partially because of the fact that sports aren't as big of a thing at Galaxy High as they were at his old high school. Unfortunately for Doyle, he can't transfer back to his old school, because his grades were so bad that going to Galaxy High is his last chance to actually graduate high school. Naturally, most episodes are about his misadventures.
The laws of physics and every other known science are broken repeatedly, and there was Mood Whiplash at times. Rule of Funny and Rule of Cool are trying to be in effect.
It was created by Chris Columbus (yes, THAT Chris Columbus) and one of the character designers was a pre-Ren & Stimpy John Kricfalusi.
Can be viewed on TMS's youtube channel
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Contrast to the Tabletop Game Teenagers from Outer Space which is this premise but in reverse: Aliens attending human high schools.
Provides Examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Played for laughs, actually. After being dumped in the garbage by Beef, Doyle catches a fly buzzing around him and smashes it between his hands...only for Milo to inform him that he'd just crushed a student. Later, when the student's name is roll-called, a shot is shown of his empty desk as Milo and Doyle look uncomfortably at the latter's hands.
- Aliens Speaking English: All the aliens are able to speak English even though they (presumably) haven't been to Earth before. It seems they're taught English as far back as nursery school, although the alphabet is in a different order.
- Alliterative Name: A lot of characters here have names that are alliterations, such as Beef Bonk, Booey Bubblehead, Rotten Roland, Gilda Gossip, and so on.
- All Just a Dream: "It Came from Earth" ends with the revelation that Doyle's becoming a giant after being comatose for 15 years was only a dream he had while passed out for 15 seconds during the school's Zuggleball game.
- And I'm the Queen of Sheba: In "The Brain Blaster", the drug dealer who got Doyle hooked to the titular brain-enhancing drug claims that he's innocent when he gets arrested. The police officer quips "Sure, and I'm Little Bo Peepazoid."
- An Ice Person: Prof. Icenstein is a literal example in that he's from a planet where the people made of ice.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In "It Came From Earth", Doyle, who had been bragging of returning to Earth as a "big man", dreams that he's become a 400-foot giant.
- Audience Surrogate: Doyle and Aimee are the only humans on the show.
- Beach Episode: "Beach Blanket Blow-Up" has the cast go to the beach.
- Beautiful All Along: Aimee already looked pretty cute in the outfit she was wearing when she and Doyle first arrived at Galaxy High, but Doyle didn't seem to notice until she got a galactic-style makeover from her new friends.
- Black Comedy: "The Beef Who Would Be King" has an unexpectedly dark joke where Doyle swats a fly that turns out to actually be a student at the high school, with Doyle's embarrassment at killing a student and Ms. McBrain's confusion at the student's absence being played for laughs.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: "The Brat Pack" has Doyle borrow Rotten Roland's catchphrase of "I love it, I looove it" when he hears that Beef has gotten in trouble.
- Brainless Beauty: Booey Bubblehead, a literal airhead.
- Break the Haughty: Pretty much the entire series' point, as Doyle had to learn not to be arrogant again and again and again.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Doyle, under the influence of brain-blasters, imitates the people whose knowledge has been beamed into his head.
- Broken Record/Title Scream: The "Galaxy High!" chant during the opening acts as both.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Doyle can't seem to catch a break.
- Booey also leaves herself open to this trope, purely because of her literally absent mind:Booey: I tried (the brain-enhancing drug) once and nothing happened.Milo: First you gotta have a brain.
- Calvinball: The only rule in zuggleball seems to be to get the ball in the goal. Cheating seems to be actively encouraged.
- Catchphrase:
- Doyle is prone to say "I'll get you for this, Aimee/Beef!" whenever he suffers pain, humiliation or both at the hand of either of them. He never actually does get them back, though.note
- Reggie Unicycle is very fond of telling people that "I can't stand it!" Usually what he can't stand is his own perceived wonderfulness.
- Each member of the Bonk Bunch has his own Catchphrase:
- Myrtle Blastermeier is always likely to tell her literally joined-together-with husband, Harvey, "Oh look Harvey, it's that nice young creature from Earth!" whenever she sees Doyle.
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: If Doyle has a complaint about something, he is wrong. Doesn't matter if that something is dangerous, unnecessary, actually against the rules, whatever, he ultimately just needs to shut up and listen to Aimee. When he is right about something - that Fort Lauderoid's star is about to go nova - nobody listens to him.
- Dogged Nice Guy: The Creep started out as a Stalker with a Crush to Aimee (see below), but ended up as this fairly quickly.
- Drugs Are Bad: "The Brain Blaster" has Doyle become addicted to a brain-enhancing drug. The show was up for an award because of it.
- Even Evil Has Standards: In "The Brain Blaster", Doyle's addiction to the brain-enhancing drug reaches such extremes that even the drug dealer warns him not to overdo it.
- Expository Theme Tune: The theme song sums up how the show's premise is about two human teenagers attending a school for aliens.Two kids will be chosen from Earth, to go to school at Galaxy High!
- Expospeak Gag: Shows up in "The Beef Who Would Be King" when Prof. Icenstein explains to Doyle why the inhabitants of the planet Cholesterol would choose a cheater like Beef for their king.Prof. Icenstein: So they can gain dietetic sustenance by digesting his metabolic calories and converting them into energetic substances for molecular propulsion! In short...Doyle: Come again?Prof. Icenstein: They eat the guy.
- Fantastic Drug: "Brain-blasting" involves a harness and a formula of some sort which directly beams knowledge and skills into the user. It seems to be psychologically addictive rather than physically, as Doyle starts out blasting for hard classes, but eventually just wants to do it for the high. It's also mentioned that at least one sports star relies on them for his career.
- Fantastic Racism:
- There seems to be a good deal of animosity towards humans ("Earth-people"), and in the case of Beef, outright bigotry. Doyle nearly gets beaten up by a pair of particularly racist aliens for being in the wrong neighborhood in "The Brain Blaster", though technically he was there to get drugs, so...
- It even goes the other way around with Aimee when she doesn't want to date many of the aliens on the beach during her Spring Break because she finds them unattractive.
- Fictional Sport:
- In the first episode, Doyle plays against Beef in a game called Zuggleball. It's like hockey, but the pucks are replaced with tiny ball-shaped talking aliens who mockingly try to dodge swings and the goals are replaced with bigger aliens that eat the tiny aliens.
- Psyche Hockey is a variant of hockey wherein two users mentally control teams of holograms which try to destroy the opposing team and score goals. Doyle seems to be very good at it, likely due to translating his own experience at hockey into commanding his players.
- Fish out of Water: As mentioned above, Doyle ends up having a much harder time fitting in at Galaxy High than Aimee does and pays the price (academically-speaking) for goofing off at his old high school.
- Future Slang: Or maybe Space Slang; "gweeji" means roughly "awesome," and "dimbo" is an insult.
- Gossipy Hens: Gilda Gossip is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. She even has more than one mouth!
- Green-Skinned Space Babe:
- Wendy Garbo—she's green only when jealous.
- In the first episode, Aimee gets her skin dyed blue at a beauty salon. (Before the episode ends, she goes back to her normal color.)
- Half-Human Hybrid: Or half-alien hybrid, or...well, the PE-teacher is some kind of centaur.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Several alien phrases have Earth equivalents, but the one that probably stands out most is when Doyle agrees to deliver pizza to an infamously haunted planet and Wendy says he must have the relukas of a mulka, which doesn't get an equivalent explained but may not be too hard to guess.
- Human Aliens: Some of the aliens at Galaxy High look no different from regular humans, save for some differences.
- Aside from having six arms, Milo de Venus (the first student to befriend Doyle and one of his coworkers at Luigi's pizzeria) looks no different from any other human.
- Luigi (Doyle and Milo's boss at the pizzeria they work at) has some weird-looking hair, strange skin pigmentation and also sometimes shoots steam from the holes on his neck.
- Aside from having pointed ears and a very bizarre-looking headdress (implied to be her actual hair), Wendy looks no different from any human girl.
- Humans Are Special: How special (and in what way) is sometimes open to interpretation.
- Justified by the sheer novelty of it: most of the aliens have never seen a human before Aimee and Doyle came.
- There was one episode with a Martian flu epidemic that was wiping out the capacity for emotion. Humans can't catch it. And a human acting sufficiently jerkish can cure it!
- Ironic Echo: Earlier in the first episode, Doyle asked Aimee to leave him alone so the other girls won't think they're dating. Later, when she and her new friends were eating pizza at the place where he works to pay for his education, Doyle asked her why she was ignoring him and she reminded him that he was the one who asked her to leave him alone.
- Jerkass: Beef is the meanest character on the show, what with being a bully. Though he comes pretty close to Jerk with a Heart of Gold territory in the "The Brat Pack", when teaching a class of elementary school kids how to behave. Not that he'd want to admit it, mind:
- Aimee: I never knew you had such a wonderful way with children. You really do have a heart.Beef (scoffs): Hey, you don't have to insult me.
- Jerk Jock:
- One of the major themes of the series is Doyle getting his cosmic comeuppance for it.
- Strangely, Beef is a far bigger jock and a far bigger jerk, and in general he magnifies all of Doyle's negative traits many times over...but suffers for it less.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Doyle, who is at his most jerkish in the first episode but softens up considerably in subsequent ones. In "Where's Milo?" he guilts the rest of the group into helping Milo by pointing out the absurdly nice things Milo's done for all of them.
- Karma Houdini: In "The Brain Blaster", Doyle uses performance-enhancing drugs and steals from his friends to support his habit. But since he learns his lesson, he never faces jail time or even gets punished by the school.note This is mostly because his opponent in the game 'did' get exposed for brain blasting, thus ending up in trouble with the school and the law. It pretty much made Doyle grateful that he stopped brain blasting.
- King Incognito: Mick Maggers, intergalactic rock star, tends to dress down in his daily life, befriending Booey while looking like a perfectly normal alien.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Years of being regarded as a dorky brain because she focused on her grades finally pay off for Aimee at Galaxy High when, not only does she become the most popular kid in school, but as a reward for her grades, the school gifts her a scholarship and a brand-new top-of-the-line sports-spaceship.
- Years of neglecting his grades and being an arrogant jerk finally pay off for Doyle at Galaxy High when he makes a grand total of one friend, constantly runs into trouble, and as punishment for his grades is not only forced to take a part-time job at a pizza place to pay for his tuition, but receives a crappy space-scooter in order to get around.
- Like a Duck Takes to Water: As mentioned above, Aimee has a way easier time fitting in at Galaxy High than Doyle does—she quickly becomes one of the most popular girls in school and bails Doyle out of trouble on numerous occasions throughout the series.
- Literary Allusion Title: "The Beef Who Would Be King" is a reference to the novel The Man Who Would be King by Rudyard Kipling.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Wendy. She may be extremely shallow, conniving, bitchy and open to dating anything that walks (even live pizzas), but is virtually always there for her friends, and plays a crucial part in a plan to rescue Milo.
- Mad Scientist: Prof. Icenstein.
- Marilyn Maneuver: Aimee in the first episode. Her skirt lifts somewhat, as she gets sucked into a pneumatic tube twice and when she's seen exiting once.
- Mars Needs Women: As mentioned above, part of the reason that Aimee becomes so popular at Galaxy High is because of how the school has so many more male students than female students—Milo even points out to Doyle in the first episode that, compared to Aimee, [Doyle's] really nothing special.
- Meaningful Name:
- Inverted. Doyle Cleverlobe is almost the stereotypical dumb jock.
- However, Aimee's last name is Brightower, and she's certainly bright. More obvious examples are Gilda Gossip, Booey Bubblehead, Professor Icenstein, Ms. McBrain, Reggie Unicycle, and Coach Frogface.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Aimee certainly is. Averted with Milo, though.
- Nerd Glasses: Milo has 'em, of the "chunky black plastic" type.
- Never My Fault:
- Beef blames Doyle for everything, especially for things that are blatantly Beef's own fault.
- Averted in "The Brat Pack", where he, Doyle, Aimee and Milo have broken numerous rules so that Beef can fulfill his promise of taking a group of once-troublesome kids to a theme park. When the gang are caught by Ms. McBrain, Beef steps forward and says he will take whatever punishment is thrown at them. Fortunately, she decides to let everyone go to the park anyway.Ms. McBrain: Mr. Bonk, you've taught these children devotion and responsibility. That's far more important than a silly old rule!
- Nice Guy: Milo is without question the nicest guy at school, to the point of becoming an Extreme Doormat at times.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Doyle's open scoffing at Reggie's shallow platitudes for Aimee succeeds only in triggering Aimee's decision to "hyperspace" it with her rich suitor to the Platinum Planet.Doyle: He's not serious. What a load of cackalack (chicken) feathers.Aimee: Oh really?! Just because you've never noticed, Doyle Cleverlobe?
- No Accounting for Taste: Harry and Myrtle, constantly bickering and literally joined together!
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- Mick Maggers is a near-miss.
- Bobbi Babbel, your "roving reporter from Earth", is a pretty obvious take on Barbara Walters.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The Creep. The girls even specifically say in the first episode that this is a nickname they've given him because of his Stalker with a Crush tendencies, but we never find out what his real name is.
- Pardon My Klingon: It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what the alien cuss words really mean.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title:
- "Pizza's Honor" is a play on Prizzi's Honor.
- "It Came from Earth" is a play on It Came from Outer Space.
- Punny Name: Oh, where to begin? Al Gatori, Bobbi Babbel, Mick Maggers, Olivia Neutron-John, William Quarksphere, Molly Ringwallet, James T. Smirk, and so on...
- Right in Front of Me: Applies to Booey in "Those Eyes, Those Lips", where she spends the entire episode trying to meet Mick Maggers. While on his ship, she meets a guy named James and talks about how awesome Mick is. Later, James reveals that he's actually Mick in disguise. The entire plot qualifies as a Shout-Out, when you think about it. Especially when James first meets Booey and asks, "Are you looking for someone?"
- Rule of Funny: A few impossible things happen for the sake of comedy, like Doyle being turned into french fries in the first episode and Aimee somehow being able to quickly summon celebrity singer Mick Maggers in "Martian Mumps".
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: "Those Eyes, Those Lips" uses the gag of people running through doors in improbable ways during a chase scene.
- Short Runner: As mentioned above, the show only lasted for one season—and the one season only has thirteen episodes.
- Shout-Out:
- Dingy Harry of the intergalactic police, with his "Make my lunar year" catchphrase and second pair of sunglasses underneath, is an obvious one, as is Mick Maggers.
- The Cholesterolians shout "Where's the Beef?".
- Many of the episode titles are actually film and pop culture references: "The Beef Who Would Be King", "Pizza's Honor", "Where's Milo?", "Those Eyes, Those Lips"note , "The Brat Pack", "It Came From Earth" and "Beach Blanket Blow-Up".
- "Beach Blanket Blow-Up" es further with the characters of Frankie Avalunar and Comet Moonicello, whose names are plays on Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, the stars of the film the episode's title references.
- Slapstick: One should expect nothing less from a Chris Columbus vehicle.
- Smug Snake: James T. Smirk from "Martian Mumps". Totally. His smugness, inflexibility and obsessive anti-Martian stance (he refuses to believe in even the possibility of a cure for the Martian Mumps) make him utterly insufferable to just about everyone. Hence, when he catches the disease himself and becomes a Martian, his own crew, rather than cure him, decide to give him "one last rule to follow... (to) take every Martian in the area to Mars!"
- Stable Time Loop: The basis of the episode "Founder's Day", where Doyle, Aimee, and Milo go back in time and end up being responsible for Galaxy High being founded and Luigi setting up the pizzeria that Doyle and Milo work at.
- Stalker with a Crush: The Creep latches on to Aimee in the first episode after she is the only girl in school to be nice to him, and begins his series-long worship of her. He's usually played for laughs, and portrayed more sympathetically than most male examples of the trope (probably because he's so small and harmless), and becomes more of a Dogged Nice Guy as the series progresses.
- Starfish Aliens: Most of the delightfully bizarre supporting cast are unusual aliens of strange anatomy.
- Super-Power Meltdown: In "The Brain Blaster", Doyle ignores his dealer's advice not to overdo it and at one point ends up cycling through the personalities attached to his stolen knowledge.
- Tanuki: A stuffed animal one is hanging on the wall of Aimee's dorm room.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Doyle delivers one of these in Where's Milo?, skillfully reminding the gang that when they needed help, Milo was steadfastly loyal to them above all else.
- Through a Face Full of Fur: When angered, Beef Bonk atypically turns blue briefly and steam shoots out of the holes on the sides of his neck.
- Too Many Mouths: Gilda Gossip has several mouths on stalks, appropriately enough for a talkative and gossipy girl like her.
- Totem Pole Trench: Beef Bonk, Rotten Roland, and Earl Eccchh stand on top of each other and wear a coat to pretend to be a monster and try and scare Doyle in "Pizza's Honor".
- Trrrilling Rrrs: Prof. Icenstein tends to trill his R's.
- Tsundere: Aimee.
- Tube Travel: The characters use tubes called "wooshers" to travel around the school.
- Verbal Tic: The Creep sings half his lines in a vaguely Frank Sinatra-like voice.
- Very Special Episode: "The Brain Blaster" deals with the issue of drug addiction and how using drugs too often can be harmful.
- Visual Pun: The Tractor Beam that takes the school in "Martian Mumps" has a literal tractor on the end.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Doyle, when learning of Beef's likely fate on Planet Cholesterol, suggests that the gang should "send barbecue sauce" to the planet. It takes Aimee reminding him that "it could have been you" to shut him up.
- Welcome Episode: The premiere episode "Welcome to Galaxy High" functions this way, with Milo de Venus giving Doyle and Aimee a tour of the high school and giving them the 411 on the other people at the school.
- Will They or Won't They?: Doyle and Aimee—they had moments of Ship Tease throughout the series and, according to
Word of God, they would've eventually become a couple had the show not been cancelled. - Yes-Man: Rotten Roland, to Beef.
