High School USA! (not to be confused with the 1983 made-for-TV movie High School U.S.A.) was an animated show that aired on ADHD (Animation Domination High-Def)note cartoons added to the Fox network along with Axe Cop. The series comes from [adult swim] fixture and one-time Greendale Community College student Dino Stamatopoulos.
The series follows a group of super-positive millennial students through school. They confront all the unique challenges of growing up in a modern world. Led by the painfully naïve and always upbeat Marsh Merriwether, there is nothing these kids can’t put a positive spin on, from cyber-bullying to Adderall addiction to embarrassing sexting incidents.
The series lasted one season, consisting of 12 episodes, before getting cancelled.
You can watch it for free here.
Tropes:
- Affectionate Parody: Of teenage and high school films as well as the Archie comics.
- Alliterative Name: Marsh Merriweather
- Amicable Exes: Marsh Merriwether's father longs for his ex-wife but has nothing but respect and admiration for her new husband.
- Animated Shock Comedy: This show frequently has storylines revolving around highly controversial and sensitive subjects, almost all of which are Played for Laughs.
- Band Toon: The characters are shown playing in a band as an homage to The Archies.
- Black and Nerdy: Played with regarding Blackstein; despite the nerdy features, he's been shown to be remarkably dumb.
- Brainless Beauty: Due to the animation style that accentuates the "cute" or attractive qualities of most of the females, just about all of them count as this, but Amber deserves special mention. She gives whole new meaning to both Dumb Blonde. Episode 3 justifies it by revealing that her parents have had her taking pills since she was a baby.
- Casual Kink: Cassandra is open about what she considers hot, but a Running Gag in "Janitor Day" is her being quite upfront about how she finds doing janitorial work to be quite arousing.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The first episode treats the bullies as if they are homosexuals.
- Drama Queen: Cassandra. When she learns she was adopted, she actively insists everyone feel bad for her and guilts them into doing various tasks for her.
- Dubstep: The gang plays in their own rock band, which produces a dubstep sound, inexplicably. They don't even have a keyboard or DJ. Rule of Cool, perhaps.
- Exact Words: Cassandra's adoptive parents once said they could never replace her... because they're so old that the wait to adopt a new child would be impractical.
- Expy: The five main cast members resemble the main cast of Archie Comics. Cassandra's 72-year-old stepsister resembles Mrs. Grundy.
- Freudian Excuse: Brad's abusive mother is the reason he's a bully.
- Gag Penis: ...lots, including triangular ones if one episode is to be believed. But Bent—I'm sorry, I mean Brent—takes the cake.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In-universe. The Gang is very popular in China.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Invoked. Amber and Cassandra think of and reject things to do to pass the time while pretending to live in the early 90's including making out, as it's pointless if they can't film it to send to guys.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Amber turned out to have a hysterical pregnancy after just making to the clinic with minutes to go in her second trimester.
- Insane Troll Logic: The group spends the latter part of "The Early 90s" being attacked by a mask-wielding psycho. It turns out to be Mr. Structor, who explains he was simply trying to ensure the kids would make good on his assignment to make do with '90s era technology. He says that breaking into Amber's house, chloroforming her little brother before sticking him under some floorboards, killing a deer for a Jump Scare, cutting power to the city's electrical grid, and threatening the group with a chainsaw was to ensure that they could find Blackstein's house without GPS and use a landline to call Officer Dumphy for help. Dumphy and the kids find this acceptable.
- Lactating Male: In "Janitor Day", Marsh discovers he can lactate.
- Magic Plastic Surgery: Cassandra received Chinese features and skin color through this.
- No Senseof Direction: Marsh is so dependent on GPS on his phone that when he tried to get to his house from his school, he ended up driving around for hours.
- Oblivious Adoption: Cassandra had no idea she was Chinese. Well, she technically isn't.
- Shout-Out: Cyber Bully speaks and acts in a similar mannerism to Christopher Walken.
- His Internet avatar is a Guy Fawkes mask, suggesting he is Anonymous.
- Spoof Aesop: The first episode has the aesop: "Bullies are an essential part of any society".
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Everyone but Marsh falls into this at some point.
