Clone High Episode 11 ‘Snowflake Day: A Very Special Holiday Episode‘
Written by Erica Rivinoja
Aired 4/13/2003 on Teletoon
While Clone High never went out of its way to come up with inventive story lines, it found its magic in being able to apply a mix of historical comedy and quirky personality to the high school tropes we’d become so associated with in the first half-century of television. Like most episodes, this is what ‘Snowflake Day’ is going for; unfortunately, it only find the easiest, most derivative holiday jokes it can find, never really finding anything to support its emotional swing in the final few minutes.
What’s frustrating is how the episode is so quick to point out the most obvious flaws with the holidays it’s making fun of: the ever-present theme of holiday consumerism seems to infect the entire town. Snowflake Day (the neutered winter holiday of Clone High) is a time where people get greedy for spices, and people try to come up with “unique” gifts for two purposes: getting laid (Abe) or to make a shitload of quick money (JFK, Abe and Ghandi). But there’s no edge to the holiday caricature, nothing to tether its commentary to except a whiny Joan, who mopes around mad about the holiday until a homeless version of Mandy Moore (voiced by Mandy Moore) shows her the beauty of the holidays: being together.
It leads to the inevitable happy ending; but without anything to really drive home the emotional resolution in a meaningful way, it just feels like a cheap and lazy parody of other, better holiday satires and jokes from the past fifty years. It doesn’t help that all the characters are separated for their own story lines, which only crossover in the episode’s funniest moment; after failing to sell the Knock, Abe ends up getting one from Cleo for Christmas (because she doesn’t give a shit about anything but herself, of course, having pulled the elaborate silverware contraption out of the garbage). And even that isn’t used for anything; as he often does, Abe takes his pussy-whipped ass for some left boob action after Cleo quickly forgives him (that girl has some serious schizophrenic issues).
That’s really all there is to the episode: from beginning to end, it’s a completely toothless adventure, coasting along the surface of easy jokes (many that we’ve heard in other places) without injecting enough of that Clone High spirit into it (except for the gore: Abe ends up spewing blood from his face in every scene) to make it feel like a unique snowflake. In trying to parody crappy Christmas specials, all Clone High ended up making was a crappy special of their own.
Other thoughts/observations:
– don’t know why, but this is Clone High‘s “lost episode”. After not being aired with the original series, Teletoon aired the episode in April, despite its normal “no holiday episodes out of season” airing policy.
– this week’s dolphin is heard, but not seen: he’s in the garbage can Abe throws the Knock into.
– there’s a similarity to Joan’s lessons from homeless people this week and Ghandi learning from prisoners last week that lays on this very, very subtle commentary about the wisest people: those beaten down by the systems around them. Probably unintended, but it’s an interesting little tidbit to chew on.
– Abe and Ghandi briefly work at a restaurant called T.G.I. Chili’s. That’s the brand of humor this episode unfortunately specializes in.
– Scudworth writes his yearly letter to the family, telling them about his various horrible medical conditions.
– WHERE THE FUCK IS HOLIDAY BUTLERTRON?
– one joke I liked: the Greeting Card Industry snipers with terrible aim.
– “Nothing says Snowflake Day like lamb tacos.”
– since the last two episodes of Clone High are prom-centric, I’ll be finishing the reviews off with a double-decker looking at what are fondly referred to as ‘The Makeover Episode’ and ‘The Prom Episode’.
