Teletoon air date: 1/12/2003 (produced in 2002)
MTV air date: 3/10/2003
Written by: Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
In this Musical Episode, the clones are given an anti-drug presentation by sobriety advocate Larry Hardcore (Jack Black) who casually mentions that he was once such a junkie that he would have smoked raisins had he been told that you could get high off of them. Soon, an epidemic breaks out and all of the clones are getting stoned off of raisin joints provided by a mysterious figure known as "The Pusher," leading to a generational war between teens and adults. Meanwhile, Gandhi's own raisin trip sends him on an epic quest to rescue a princess.
This episode contains examples of:
- Butter Face: Geldamore has curvaceous, humanoid body, and the face of a horse. Yuck.
- Cool People Rebel Against Authority: When the adults get into smoking raisins, the teens lose interest because there's no thrill in it anymore.
- Do Not Do This Cool Thing: In-Universe. The entire reason Larry Hardcore pushed raisins as an illicit substance is because his parent company wanted to promote raisins to teens. Even before that, his speech about how drugs "ruined" his life involved him writing a hit song that made him insane amounts of money, which he used to buy a motorboat and a house for his mom and donated to charity.
- Fake High: None of the clones were ever actually high. It was all just a push to sell raisins to teens.
- Fan Disservice: Geldamore's true form. She has the body of a beautiful woman, but retains her bizarre horse face.
- Foreshadowing: One of the freeze frame bonuses (see below) is "I Buried Ponce."
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In keeping with the psychedelic nature of the rock operas being spoofed, several scenes include fake subliminal messages which appear for exactly one frame.
- An image of DNA Dan saying "Let's go to the dark side!" right after the MGM lion parody in the Cold Open.
- Cleo's first puff of raisin smoke spells out the word "sex."
- A cartoon of an anthropomorphic raisin smoking a (censored) joint appears at the beginning of the second act.
- When the Pusher's face turns into smoke, it reads "Smoke Raisins."
- A Valentine-like illustration of Scudworth with the words "Scudworth Is Your Favorite Character!" appears during the PTA meeting.
- While Abe and Cleo are sitting on the roof of the cafetorium, for one frame, both are naked (though Cleo has a pastie on her breast).
- After JFK sings "Wheel me...", the words "I Buried Ponce" flash on-screen.
- When Joan sings at the end of "My Son," she momentarily appears dressed as Mary Magdalen folding her hands in prayer.
- The very last frame of the episode is the words "For More Information About Raisins Consult Your Local Library."
- G-Rated Drug: Raisins.
- Hippie Name: When Cleo becomes a hippie after smoking raisins, Abe refers to her as "Rain Melon" and he refers to himself as "Captain Lavender".
- Historical In-Joke: A pile of raisins gets set on fire while Joan is standing on top of it. Unlike the real Joan of Arc, Joan is able to get away before the raisin pyre burns her too.
- Hurricane of Excuses: When his parents find raisins in his pants pocket, Abe gives literally every clichéd excuse as to why he has them, including "I was holding them for a friend" and "I learned it from watching you!" (from an infamous 80s anti-drug ad).
- Literal Metaphor: When dealing to JFK, the Pusher goes behind a dumpster, asking to be followed into his "office". Camera cut to an actual office, with the Pusher telling his secretary on an intercom to hold his calls.
- Multiple Head Case: Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are portrayed like these.
- Mushroom Samba: Gandhi's B-plot involves him going on a raisin-induced trip through his subconscious.
- Musical Episode: It's a Rock Opera after all.
- Musical Pastiche: Mostly of other Rock Opera songs, especially ones from Tommy.
- "I'm The Pusher" = "Acid Queen"
- "We're Gettin' Higher" = "See Me, Feel Me" and "Listnin' To You"
- "My Son" = "It's A Boy"
- Several bars of the instrumental score are based around "Pinball Wizard."
- The "manic sexualized dancing" song = "Incense and Peppermint" by Strawberry Alarm Clock.
- Placebo Effect: It turns out smoking raisins had no effect whatsoever, and everyone got high because they thought they were getting high. Still doesn't explain what happened to Ghandi...
- Rock Opera: It's even listed in the episode's title.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: Gandhi being eaten by the house cat.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Turns out The Pusher was Larry Hardcore all along!
- Sdrawkcab Speech: After JFK falls through the roof of the cafetorium, he speaks backwards. When played forwards, it's as follows: "I am talking backwards and telling you to watch Clone High and for us to get an Emmy. I'm saying that backwards ... cuz it's sneaky."
- Shout-Out
- Many of the musical pastiches, as listed above, are based on songs from Tommy, hence the psychedelic '60s-style imagery throughout the episode.
- The landscape that Ghandi and Geldamore fly through when he first enters his subconscious is based on many of the landscapes and creatures from Yellow Submarine.
- One of the freeze frame bonuses has a puff of smoke turning into the word "sex," in reference to an Urban Legend that one shot in The Lion King (1994) has a cloud of dandelion seeds spelling out "sex"note for one frame.
- One of the other freeze frame bonuses reads "I Buried Ponce," a reference to the infamous "Paul is dead" conspiracy, namely how John Lennon muttering "cranberry sauce" at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever" allegedly sounds like "I buried Paul."
- When Abe throws the roasted chicken at the mirror, it falls to the ground and shatters, revealing his face inside, parodying the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke imagines chopping off Vader's head, only to find his own face inside the mask.
- Take That!: The entire ploy of the raisin company promoting raisins as drugs to teens is because "the only dancing fruits kids wanna see these days are the Backstreet Boys."
- Too Many Halves: Geldamore states she is a "honkicorn", half hummingbird, half unicorn and half donkey.
- Waxing Lyrical
- Larry Hardcore mentions using the money from his hit song to buy a house for his mom, referencing a lyric from the Who song "Success Story" ("Get a big, flashy car/And a house for my mum").
- The Pusher's very name is a reference to the Steppenwolf song of the same name.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Subverted. Gandhi finds the princess, who turns out to be Geldamore, the unicorn/humming bird/donkey hybrid who sent him on the mission. When he uses the amulet on her, she turns into a beautiful princess, but Gandhi turns down her offer to ''thrice lay him." Why? Because she still has a (literal) horse face!
