Jolly Snowflake Day!

Jolly Snowflake Day everyone! Yes, because it was the first TV show boxed set I grabbed off of my shelf today, my first review will be of the classic Clone High episode “Snowflake Day: A Very Special Holiday Episode”, which happens to be episode 11 of Clone High’s one and only season.

The main characters of Clone High

For those who do not know of the show, Clone High was a cartoon that aired on MTV in the States, and on Teletoon in Canada. As I previously mentioned, it ran for only one 13 episode season in the 2002-2003 television season. Like most MTV cartoons, it was aimed at ages 15 and up, and is not for children.

Done in a high school soap opera style, the show was about clones of famous historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and John F. Kennedy. They all attend the same high school, and the show focussed on the problems and pressures that they encounter as not only teenagers, but clones of such great historical figures. Rather than take itself seriously, the show was mainly a parody of popular teenage dramas like Beverly Hills 90210 and The O.C, and usually poked fun at the “Very Special” episodes of such shows. In fact, most episodes started with “Tonight, on a very special Clone High….”. It was a very funny show that was cancelled before it’s time, but that’s enough about the show, and now on to the special!

The story focusses on our main character Abe (Abraham Lincoln), and his attempts to make money to buy a great Snowflake Day present for his girlfriend Cleo (Cleopatra), while Abe’s friend Joan (Joan of Arc) struggles to see why she should care about this holiday, what with her house having just burned down, and now she and her adoptive dad have to move in with Cleo, whom Joan does not get along with. That’s the basic plot, but I can hear you asking yourselves, what is Snowflake Day? In the town of Exclamation! U.S.A, where our show takes place, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza have been done away with for being exclusionary, and everyone now celebrates Snowflake Day! The holiday’s mascot is Snowflake Jake, a salty pirate. If you are good, Snowflake Jake will bring you spices to spice up your Snowflake Day holiday meats! He doesn’t come down your chimney like Santa though, but instead, in true pirate fashion, he fires your spices from his ship using his cannon!

Snowflake Jake, this holiday's mascot!

Anyways, now that you know what Snowflake Day is, we’ll get back to the plot. Cleo expects Abe to get her a very big and expensive gift for Snowflake Day, and he is to give it to her at her anual Snowflake Day party. Joan is also expected to attend this party, even though her and Cleo are enemies, because she is living at Cleo’s house, and because Cleo wants Joan to be a server at the party. Abe has no money and gets a job at the mall with his best friend Gandhi with the hopes that he can make enough money to buy Cleo something great. While working at a restaurant, Abe and Gandhi accidentally invent the Knork, a half knife, half fork utensil. As you may have guessed, combining those two utensils doesn’t really work, and in trying to market the item, Abe wastes all of his money. Gandhi helps Abe realize however, that maybe what he should get for Cleo is something from the heart. Abe makes Cleo a gift and bring it to her party. In the meantime, Joan has been angry about living with Cleo, and ends up meeting a very attractive homeless girl who happens to look an awful lot like Mandy Moore (This episode’s special guest star). The homeless girl takes Joan to Joan’s old home, now just charred rubble, and inside she finds a group of homeless people celebrating the holiday, even without any spices. Joan realizes she isn’t so bad off after all and that she should go to the people she loves, back at Cleo’s house. The episode comes to its end with The Homeless girl leading everyone into the basement because they all hear the cannon fire of Snowflake Jake! The episode ends with everyone wondering whether or not The Homeless girl is some kind of holiday angel, while she and her homeless friends are stealing everything of value from Cleo.

Our cast with their new friend, Homeless Mandy Moore

Snowflake Day: A Very Special Holiday Episode, is a combination of two of the styles of Christmas Specials. It is a “Very Special” episode (as indicated by it’s name), trying to show one of the characters the true meaning of the holidays, as well as being a regular episode that does further certain plot elements of the show, and is part of the show’s cannon, not at all a one off episode. Since this show is a spoof of teen dramas, it’s “Very Special” elements mainly poke fun at how absurd and preachy most episodes of that style can be, complete with celebrity guest star and a lesson in the true meaning of the holiday. It’s hard to judge how well it got its point across, because really, this show was just trying to make fun of episodes that try to teach a lesson. In it’s mockery, however, it is spot on, and people who watch a lot of TV shows will definitely get a kick out of this take on a Very Special episode.

This is a great holiday episode for fans of the show, but isn’t one I’d recommend for people not familiar with the show or it’s characters. It is fairly ingrained in the show’s overall story arc, and might be hard to understand for people not familiar with the comedy style of the show and its characters. However, since there is only one season of this show that could easily be watched in a few hours, I recommend that those of you who haven’t watched Clone High give it a chance. By the time you make it to this episode, you’ll more than likely be a fan of this very funny show.