[Originally posted on Tumblr on: August 23, 2018.]
Alrighty!! Onto week 3 of the Weekly Spotlight!
In honor school starting up for many individuals all around the U.S. in the next week or two, I’m going to be discussing the TV show— Drum roll, please!
*a very vibrant drum roll*
Class of 3000!
When I first decided to do a Weekly Spotlight on this show, the only thing I could really remember about this show was part of its theme song. Not the intro itself, but its theme song. To be completely honest, I often find myself humming it or playing it over in my head when I’m doing tasks that don’t require a whole lot of thinking. I also remember an old flash game that Cartoon Network used to have on their website but… that’s not really conducive to this Spotlight.
I have the distinct feeling that when you hear the theme song, a lot of you will start to remember it too. Warning! This theme song is will get stuck in your head if you’re not careful. You have been warned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSpEd7XI1Fg
To give a little bit of background into this series, this show was produced in a joint venture between the Tom Lynch Company, Andre 3000, and Cartoon Network. Some of you may know Andre 3000 (a.k.a. André Benjamin) as a famous rapper, part of a duo known as Outkast. For those of you who don’t know who this individual is (like me,) Andre 3000 is the musical genius behind the famous hit, “Hey ya!” and worked with other famous individuals in the hip hop genre such as Drake, Jay-Z, B.o.B., Lil’ Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, and many others. To say that Andre 3000 is talented would be an understatement. Of course, going into this, I was a bit skeptical since a lot of series based on famous personalities not only tend to age extremely poorly, but also because the entire foundation for the series itself ends up being built on very shaky ground in the first place.
That being said, rewatching a couple episodes of this series, I ended being shocked at how charming and unique this series was. I actually could believe how much of this show I had ended up forgetting and instantly started to wonder whether or not I realized how good it was when it was still airing.
So! The premise: Sunny Bridges is a famous musician that has many individuals that look up to him as an idol, including a local Atlanta, Georgia boy named Lil’ D. However, having spent so long in the music industry with its main goal to make more money, Sunny has lost his love of music and decides to quit the music business. Lil’ D, having lost both his idol and his school music teacher in the same day, is completely heartbroken along with the rest of his other musical classmates. Desperate to find a new music teacher, the class band together to help raise money for a new hire. After a series of quirky events and shenanigans, Sunny becomes aware of their plight and decides to become their new music teacher. And that’s the basic situation that sets up for the rest of series. The show then follows the wacky situations and crazy solutions that Sunny and the rest of the music class come up with in order to solve their outlandish problems.
And honestly? This show was fantastic. For a show that premiered over ten years ago, I’m completely shocked by not only how relevant the show continues to be, but also how well all of it has aged!
I think one of the things that works in its favor is the strangely unique character designs. Sure, they have the iconic noodley arms, lack of ten fingers, and very exaggerated defining features. But all of it is done in such a way that leaves an imprint on your mind that these characters are their own thing. It’s their own style and their own personalities that even simple “archetypes” fail to do justice to their own individuality. And I absolutely loved it.
One of the things about this series is that it prioritizes fun over everything else. And when I say that, I absolutely mean it. Everything about this series absolutely screams experimentation: from the hand-painted, messy, watercolored backgrounds, to the bizarre, psychedelic, music sequences, you can tell that the creators of this tv show just when hog-wild with it and simply had fun. The jokes are corny, yet surprisingly real. The situations are over-the-top and ridiculous. The dialogue is quick-witted and snappy. I even caught some insane subtle 80′s pop-culture references, such as references to Jumpman (the original Super Mario game) and Flashdance, complete with their own water scene and references to Michael Sembello’s hit song “Maniac.” And the craziest part about all of this? I had fun too.
Did all of it age great? Certainly not. The music sequences constantly made me question: Am I high? Did someone slip something into my drink?
(Yes. This all came from the same exact show. No, I am not joking.)
Some of the music absolutely screamed early 2000′s.
At times, some of the jokes and the writing felt predicable. But honestly, when you put “fun” first and foremost in this series, those flaws don’t seem as completely egregious as your first impression lets you believe.
The music, overall, was extremely catchy. The comedic timing was spot on. Even the situations, although blown completely out of proportion, felt so realistic that I was reminded of my own headaches and frustrations living through music class in high school. Honestly, this series was just fun, interesting, and a great breath of fresh air after watching so many cartoons that use the same episodic formula with no love in what they do.
So from a musical standpoint, how does it fair? Is it actually, you know, accurate?
The thing about this series is that it didn’t focus on musical lessons per say. Yes, they did have lessons that hearken back to my high school days in the band room with my director standing at the podium, waving his baton like there was no tomorrow. But really, these lessons were more life lessons wrapped up in musical clothing. The pilot opens up with the idea that you shouldn’t forget where you came from; you may want to leave this place behind and throw away all the things that you considered “boring” and “uneventful” but when you get out into the real world, you start to appreciate all the things that made you who you are now. And that lesson? In a kids’ tv show?! That’s crazy. I could feel myself reflecting on each moral with every passing episode, and I just was surprised on how real it was. I never felt like I was being talked down to, or that the production team was cutting corners, just for the sake of putting out another episode; really, I just felt this outpouring of love and passion into a crazy project that felt like the creators never thought it’d see the light of day.
As a musician, however, I’m able to notice a few inconsistencies here and there that make the magic less ever so slightly. I was a little disappointed to find that a lot of times whenever the character Madison, a derpy, blonde violinist with a heart of gold, it wasn’t played by a true violin; in all reality, a lot of the music that was supposedly played by Madison was actually just a synthesizer. (In English, that means that they had a violinist play each individual note from lowest to highest; record it; and then use those recording on an electronic keyboard, so that they can play it as if you play a piano. It’s very hard to spot the difference, but as a violinist myself, the difference is rather stark for my ears.) I can understand why they did this— hiring a violinist for every small violin sound that your character makes just doesn’t make sense on a cartoon budget. Still, it saddens me how little there was of actual violin audio. Speaking of violins and “faking” sounds, I also found that the music that was playing and the music that the kids were supposedly “making” had a surprising disconnect. Often, I see scenes where Tamika, a sassy harpist, Madison, and even Eddie, the rich clarinet player, were all playing and yet… those instruments were clearly absent from the song. Again, the rule of fun first, but still… it always urks me as a musician to see instruments playing when they are obviously not playing in the song. It just looks so stupid.
There were also a lesson or two that I felt were very important life lessons but were a little… lacking in the musical department. Take “Peanuts! Get Yer Peanuts!” for example. Sunny opens up with a question on what he should start teaching as a music teacher, as he has never done it before. Kam suggests that they do finger exercises, as that’s what their old music teacher used to do. Sunny, instead, decides that he’s going to have the kids be “artistically free” and just… play what calls to them. Have fun with it! Play what it feels like to be in a cave, or on a busy street, or to knock the walls down! What Sunny fails to realize in this situation is that, although having fun with your instrument and feeling what the music is trying to tell you is important, “finger exercises” are the foundation of good playing. Are they boring? Absolutely. Are they tedious? Oh, sweet Macy, yes! But are they important? You better bet your bottom dollar they are! If you can’t play at all, how are you supposed to play challenging music? How are you supposed to play what you feel when you can’t even play with good form? Having fun with your playing is important; you aren’t going to even pick up your instrument if you aren’t having fun. But if you don’t have a certain level of discipline, there’s no way in hell that you’ll ever succeed on a professional level as a musician. That’s just how it works. Of course, the lesson in this episode is focused on working together and how important communication is when working as a group, but I still felt that this… inaccuracy gave a false representation on how being a musician actually works.
But at the end of the day, this is a show about having fun with your art as well as learning some life lessons on the side.
Overall, this show is extremely charming. The jokes were extremely clever and enjoyable. (Tamika: Are you sure you saw Sunny Bridges go this way? Lil’ D: Unless I mistook him for a bear driving a Jaguar. *Bear speeds off in a sports car* Lil’ D: That was a Lamborghini!) And the art was something interesting and stunning to look at. I was surprised over and over by the limits that they tried to take with this show (how many new and interesting was can you draw caricatures of your own cartoon drawings?!) and honestly, this show was just some good wholesome fun.
Rating this show, I’d have to give it an 8 out of 10.
It was great. A little weird at times, sure! But that’s the cool thing about experimentation— you get some weird stuff sometimes. This series is going to the top of my rewatch list because, really, I remember so little about it and the show was so enjoyable that I absolutely want to sit down to relive all the silly adventures that the Class of 3000 will bring me.
I highly recommend you give this show a chance and see what it’ll give you. You never know— you might just have a little fun while you’re at it.
[Edit (8/23/2018): I forgot the read more tab… *deep sigh*]
[Edit (9/22/2018): How the fuck did I miss tagging this as the Weekly Spotlight?!? I am so sorry!]
[Edit (11/21/2018): Fixed a broken tagging system.]
If there are any corrections you’d like to make in regards to this post, please feel free to send me a message with your corrections and I’ll get back to it as soon as I can!
Do you remember a cartoon your friends have never heard of? Got a scene from an animated film that you’re dying to know the name to? Send your questions to The Cartoon Archivist and I’ll see what I’ve got in the vault!
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