Back in the early 2000s, after they stopped playing music videos regularly but before they stopped playing TRL daily, MTV was a place of some actually great television. There was Jackass, Tom Green’s bizarre trainwreck of a show, Andy Dick’s bizarre trainwreck of a sketch show and subversive animated series that would air late at night. One of those series was Clone High, a high school comedy featuring characters like Abraham Lincoln, Cleopatra, John F. Kennedy and more. The series was incredibly funny, clever, weird and, unsurprisingly, came from the minds of Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Bill Lawrence.
But since we can’t have good things for long, Clone High was canned by MTV after one season. The show became a cult classic and continually grew a loyal — but small — audience. Well, that audience has cause for celebration as MTV just announced that it is bringing Clone High back after all these years. Yep. Better yet, Lord, Miller, Lawrence and Clone High vet Eric Rivinoja will produce. So this won’t be some half-baked Clone High knock-off, this will be the original team creating the original show again.
When Clone High first premiered, Lord and Miller were just a couple of goofy writers, no huge successes under their belts. They return now with Oscars, millions of dollars in ticket sales and some serious respect. It’s cool to see that they haven’t forgotten where it all started.
MTV’s parent company, ViacomCBS, is doing something suspiciously exciting right now when it comes to animation. Just yesterday, the network announced it was reviving Beavis and Butt-head, with Mike Judge producing and creating. A few weeks back, they also announced a Daria spin-off series, Jodie, starring Tracee Ellis Ross. Both of those shows are headed to Comedy Central, while Clone High doesn’t have an official home yet. It’s really great to see them rebooting shows that actually need rebooting and doubly great to see them once again taking a chance on Clone High. One wonders what other late 90s/early 00s gems Viacom is looking to bring back. I don’t know what has recently got under their skin and has caused them to take a second glance at all these cool animated shows but I am glad they’re doing it. Like most people, I’m a sucker for nostalgia.