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Galaxy
High School |
| Hi. Don't feel bad if you don't remember Galaxy High School. It only lasted for 13 episodes & was taken off the air after 2 years. The only reason I remember Galaxy High so fondly was because it was strategically placed right after Pee Wee's Playhouse in 1986, & then made a short comeback on the Sci-Fi channel in the mid-1990's. The show was created by Chris Columbus... yes, that Chris Columbus. The same one responsible for this stuff... For those of you who do remember Galaxy High School, even if only vaguely, today is your lucky day. I'm about to take you on a quick tour of all 13 episodes of the show! Episode 1: Welcome to Galaxy High Two students from the planet Earth have been chosen at random to attend Galaxy High School, a prestigious institution located on the asteroid Flutor. By some unexplained miracle, the Galaxy High School Random Student Picking Machine chose two Earth students who both happened to be from the west coast of the United States, & who were both transferring from the same previous high school! Gee, you'd think, being a space school founded by a bunch of super intelligent aliens, that they'd want to accept a couple of Chinese kids who were really good at math & stuff. But no, Galaxy High values character above all else, & that's why the Random Student Picking Machine chose two students from opposite ends of the stereotype spectrum. Of course, the Random Student Picking Machine is also the reason why the sophomore class is made up entirely out of little talking tomatoes, so its efficiency is up for debate. To the right is Aimee Brighttower. She's transferring into Galaxy High as a senior, so she doesn't expect to make lots of friends. Of course, there's also the fact that she didn't have lots of friends on Earth, either. She's the classic bookworm girl. Also shown above is fellow senior transfer Doyle Cleverlobe, but don't let his name fool you. He's the token dumb jock. Of course, the twirling football on his finger doesn't give that away at all, does it? So for Doyle, Galaxy High is his last chance to graduate. As most normal people would expect, & therefore Aimee & Doyle do not expect, things work differently in the rest of the galaxy than they do on Earth, so our two protagonists spend the first episode going through a role reversal. Aimee is quickly accepted by her new alien peers, whereas Doyle is quick to make enemies. Holy kremola, it's Beef Bonk! Galaxy High's resident bully is a giant rooster guy with steam holes in his neck. As far as Beef is concerned, Earth stinks, & therefore so does Doyle. So when our hero crosses paths with Beef, he gets challenged to a less than friendly game of Zuggleball. This is a game that combines all the excitement of the Earth game known as hockey with all the joys of hitting a small living creature resembling a puck around on the floor. Obeying the laws of cartoon logic, Doyle discovers that he's a natural at the sport. While this phases Beef a little, it doesn't stop him from picking on Doyle. And that pretty much sums up at least half of the next 12 episodes. Now for the other halves of them... Episode 2: Pizza's Honor Doyle has taken a job at Luigi's Lunar Pizza Parlor! Known for jumping higher than all the other pizza parlors in the galaxy, Luigi's is a popular choice for delivery. So Doyle finds himself having to deliver a hundred pizzas his trip to the haunted planet of Tingler. And just in case that wasn't enough, he's unknowingly being followed by the Bonk Bunch. We already met Beef Bonk, the leader. Now let's meet his partners in crime. Here's Rotten Roland. He's a giant talking egg with arms, legs, & a dozen miniature replicas of himself that he carries around at all times, just in case he feels the urge to throw something at people & shout "I LOVE IT!! I LOVE IT!!", much like that one character Molly Shannon used to do on Saturday Night Live, except pretend she was trying to sound like Gilbert Gottfried. Earl Eccchhh is a little slimy alien dude that hangs out with Beef & Roland, talks with a Brooklyn accent, & tries to not get stepped on. So the Bonk Bunch secretly follows Doyle to Tingler with plans to scare the crap out of our unsuspecting hero & therefore screw up his delivery & therefore make him get fired. But in the end, it is they who end up getting the crap scared out of them. Why? Hey, the planet's called Tingler... its inhabitants probably all look like this... Why no I cannot finish a single post without mentioning the Legend of Zelda, thank you very much. Episode 3: The Beef Who Would Be King Beef Bonk has been crowned the almighty High Kolesterol of the planet Kolesterol!
No, seriously! The natives of a planet full of fatties have bestowed upon Beef their highest honor. Sounds good to him, of course! The people of Kolesterol shower him with giant feasts, but little does he know that they're doing so for one purpose & one purpose only... TO EAT HIS FATTY REMAINS!!! Doyle tries to explain to Beef that his life is in grave danger, but the High Kolesterol ignores the puny Earth boy's warnings. It is up to Doyle to save Beef from being eaten by the fatty beasts of the planet Kolesterol. Dude, you can't write a better story than that. Well, yes you can, but not for a cartoon about aliens in high school. Episode 4: Where's Milo? Meet Milo de Venus, Galaxy High's senior class president & employee at Luigi's Lunar Pizza Parlor. Since Milo's home planet is right next door to earth, it's no surprise that he is humanoid in form, aside from his 4 extra arms. Look at him multitask! Unfortunately, Milo is a rather clumsy fellow, so his 6 arms often get in the way of each other. In this episode, he makes a royal mess at Luigi's & gets fired in the process. Since every single one of his friends met beforehand & decided to be at the pizza parlor all at the same time that day, they all got a bit of Milo's mess on them, so they were all rather angry at him as well. Unable to handle so many people being angry at him, Milo runs away & gets a job at Gatori's Leather Shop, which is run by an alligator-like alien. A small little bit of irony there for you. That's like Fox McCloud running a fur outlet, or Felix the Cat running a Korean restaurant. So yeah, Milo runs away & then his friends find him & tell him not to get all upset when people get angry at him for spilling crap all over them & everyone lives happily ever after. Except for Harold Horsefly. Doyle killed him by accident. Episode 5: Those Eyes, Those Lips This is Booey Bubblehead. One of Aimee's closest friends, you'll notice that Booey's noggin is a translucent bubble that gives everyone a perfect view of her ittle bitty brain. This is probably why she seems rather forgetful. Booey's favorite rockstar, Mick Maggers, is coming to town. Booey wants to go very badly, but the tickets sell out faster than hotcakes in a store that can't make hotcakes quickly & efficiently & has hot waitresses like IHOP does. Seeing how much Booey really wants to go to this show, Aimee tries desperately to scrounge up a ticket for her. Naturally, Booey ends up right on stage with the guy by the end of the episode. See, kids? Dreams really do come true. Even if your brain does look & perform like a wad of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of a desk. Episode 6: Doyle's New Friend This episode is about some Hands Across the Universe Dance that comes to Galaxy High & how Doyle meets a guy Wolfgang & then he plays mean practical jokes on everybody. I don't remember watching this one, so I'm just going to talk about Doyle's locker. That's right. The lockers talk. In fact, each student's locker has its own personality. Doyle's doesn't like him very much, but neither would you if your owner kept forgetting stuff out of your hollow insides & kept asking you stupid questions. I mean, seriously. Episode 7: Dollars & Sense This episode introduces a character named Reggie Unicycle, who is not only the richest man in the galaxy, but he also has the coolest name ever. Of course, that's only because the lower half of his body happens to be a tire, but that's just details. You know, you'd think that the richest man in the galaxy could spare a picture of himself on the internet, but nooooo! So Reggie meets Aimee & immediately starts working his charm. By charm, of course, I mean buying her lots of shiny, expensive stuff & taking her for cruises on his space yacht. Doyle doesn't like this at all, & once he gets Aimee's friends to notice that Reggie's nothing more than a spoiled rich brat who gets whatever he wants & says "Can you stand it?!" all the time. So they all spend the rest of the episode trying to get Aimee to realize this as well. Hey, speaking of Aimee's other friends, let's have a look at them, shall we? It's like, totally the popular table in the Galaxy High cafeteria! We already know Aimee & Booey. The girl on the far right is Wendy Garbo, Galaxy High's resident vamp chick with the phone sex voice & the seductive crush on Doyle to go with it. Though we're not sure where she's from, she is humanoid in figure, albeit her pointy ears, lack of pupils, & stupid looking headgear. She also wears a mink that's still alive, predating Ghostbusters 2 by only a few years. Then there's the aptly named Gilda Gossip. She is specially equipped with 4 extra mouths that protrude from thick stalks of would-be hair on top of her head... & she's not afraid to use them. Check this out. Episode 8: Beach Blanket Blow Up Spring Break has arrived, & everybody's headed for the galaxy's top vacation spot, Fort Lauderoid. Everybody, that is, except for Doyle. Why? Maybe it's as a punishment of some sort, or maybe it's because an escaped convict who can secretly turn into a dog is thought to be seeking Doyle out to kill him. I forget. Either way, Doyle makes a very important discovery. Actually, Professor Icenstein is the one who makes a very important discovery. This guy hails from the planet Frostor, where they apparently speak Swedish, because that's what Icenstein's accent leads me to belive. He has to keep his classroom at subzero temperatures at all times to keep from melting. And yes, that's happened a few times. But right, the important discovery. It's nothing, really. Just that a supernova is closing in on Fort Lauderoid & is threatening to destroy it. So Icenstein enlists the aid of Doyle to help him warn everybody vacationing on the planet to leave immediately. Of course, nobody's happy about having to leave the beach. Especially Flat Freddy Fender, over here. Doyle had to roll his pancake flat butt up with his blanket to drag him off the asteroid. FUN FACT: Flat Freddy Fender's voice was done by Nancy Cartwright, who is most famous for also doing the voice of one Bartholomew J. Simpson. Harvey & Mertyl Blastermeyer are none too happy, either, but they haven't been too chipper since they got married, anyway. Their species connects to each other at the neck & ears when they exchange vows. The Blastermeyers were modeled after every token elderly Jewish couple to ever appear in entertainment. Episode 9: The Brain Blaster A classic move in the 1980's, this is actually an anti-drug message disguised as a cartoon. I consider this to be a lost art. Some of these say no to drugs cartoons were really pretty good. My favorite is still the commercial starring the Ninja Turtles. "I'm not a chicken, you're a turkey!" But this episode of Galaxy High ranks among the best of them, & has the Humanitarian award to prove it. So basically the story behind this one is that Doyle finds out about a chemical juice called a Brain Blaster that will give his brain a kick start, thus helping him get better grades. But soon Doyle gets addicted, & the side effects become worse & worse. So Aimee & his friends try to figure out a way to break Doyle from his nasty drug habit. I couldn't find any pictures of Doyle downing some Brain Blaster, so I'll just talk about the local cab driver instead. Ollie Oilslick is the taxi driver who first brought Doyle & Aimee to Galaxy High. He has all the attitude of a New York cabbie crammed into a totally cool, single celled head. Episode 10: The Brat Pack This is Ms. McBrain, founder & principal of Galaxy High School. She seems like a very moody old woman. Maybe we should hook her up with Krang. Ms. McBrain is equipped with a light bulb on top of her giant cranium that lights up whenever she gets an idea. In this episode, she gets an idea to punish Beef Bonk by putting him in charge of a class of young, bratty kids. Beef has to learn to control his temper & not turn blue & blow steam out his neck holes every time he gets angry. That's all I remember about this episode, really. Maybe if someone has episodes on tape, they should give me some out of the kindness of their heart. Episode 11: Founder's Day The Creep. Unlike a slightly more famous little yellow dude whose name consists of a definite article followed by an adjective beginning with C, the Creep's speech is not only decipherable, but he mostly speaks in song. I'm talking Frank Sinatra type singing over here. He is an unsuccessful ladies' man & has a huge & blatantly obvious crush on Aimee, & let me tell you, the dude wouldn't hesitate at a moment to take the chain around his neck & lock himself to her. He's tried to on several occasions. So the Creep gets the honor & privilege of traveling back in time with Aimee... along with Doyle & Milo de Venus, that is. The four of them stumble upon Professor Icenstein's time machine & end up at the day on which Galaxy High School was founded. The group ends up changing the past to the point where Galaxy High might not end up being founded, so they must right their wrongs in order to assure a solid future for both themselves & their beloved school. Gee, sounds like something else I saw one time. In fact, I wrote about it. Episode 12: Martian Mumps This episode is about an illness called the Martian Mumps that has spread throughout Galaxy High, causing those infected to turn a dull, green color & a matching attitude. As luck & not so strategic storyboard writing would have it, Earthlings & Frostorites seem to be immune to the Martian Mumps. So that leaves Doyle, Aimee, & Professor Icenstein to find a cure quickly, before the illness takes a permanent effect. That's all I feel like writing about this episode. Here's a cute picture of what appears to be Aimee with blue skin & short hair. Maybe it's her evil twin. Episode 13: It Came From Earth In the last original episode, Doyle gets knocked out during a Zuggleball match & goes into a coma for 15 years. He wakes up to find that he has grown into a giant. Beef Bonk has taken over & banished everybody else to Earth. Then he sends a large army after the giant Doyle. Then all the episodes get repeated again, & that, my friends, is Galaxy High School in a very tiny nutshell. You should know by now that I couldn't talk about a cartoon for this long without showing you a little bit of it. So here's a little something for you kids.
The opening theme song to Galaxy High was written & performed by none other than Don Felder. If you don't know who Don Felder is, you might remember him from a little band he was in called the Eagles. And if you don't know who the Eagles are, you might remember them from a little #1 hit song they wrote called Hotel California. And if you've never heard Hotel California, then you were probably born deaf. |
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