As flagged Thursday on the “news burrito”12:36, the reboot of Clone High has its first table read Thursday.
This is great news for fans of the hilarious, Canadian-American original which premiered 19 years ago on YTV and MTV. I watched every episode back in the day with my son Dan, now 28, and we both laughed our asses off.
The premise of the show, animated by Toronto’s Nelvana, was simple: a group of famous people throughout history–JFK, Cleopatra, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc and Mahatma Gandhi–are cloned and brought up together at a wacky high school. Plenty of Mad-TV and Scrubs stars provided the voices, including Will Forte, Phil Lord, Nicole Sullivan, Michael Mcdonald and Christa Miller. Andy Dick, Jack Black, Michael J. Fox and Marilyn Manson also did voices.
In 2009, at a Television Critics Association press tour session, executive producer Bill Lawrence was promoting a re-take on Scrubs. What about bringing back his earlier series, Clone High, I asked?
Lawrence laughed, shook his head and told me the real story behind the ‘toons demise.
When word reached India that their iconic leader Gandhi was being portrayed as a randy party teen, it almost led to an international incident. Many Indian members of parliament took part in a hunger strike until the series was withdrawn worldwide. “MTV has a huge international presence and they started making us pull all his scenes and that’s when it all fell apart,” says Lawrence.
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Too bad. JFK and Gandhi were a hell of a team, right up there with the Skipper and Gilligan.
Re-booting this show in woke times sounds a tad risky but fingers crossed they’ll find a way. The other thing that killed the show–low ratings. It just never caught on in the States. “If it was a hit, it would still be on,” says Lawrence.
Two of the 13 episodes never aired in the U.S. It is one of the smartest, funniest animated comedies ever made.
Lawrence worked with a couple of TV newcomers on the original Clone High: Phil Lord and Chris Miller. The pair blew up big with “The Lego Movie” and other hits; their animated feature “America: The Motion Picture” comes to Netflix at the end of the month.
Thursday’s table read is for Episode 201: “Let’s Try This Again.” Sometimes, great things do come for those who wait.
