"Galaxy High": a retrospective.

...or "I love it! I love it!"

The year is 1986. Screenwriter Chris Columbus (short for Christopher; the field day his classmates must’ve had with this) has penned a trio of box office hits for no less a producer than Steven Spielberg: Gremlins, The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes. It’s pretty safe to say that the world is his freakin’ oyster. The exact specifics of circumstance are unimportant (primarily because I don’t know them), but he was asked to develop an animated series being produced by animation studio TMS Entertainment. That series was "Galaxy High", which premiered on this day in 1986.

The setup (as delineated in the terrific theme song) is pretty straightforward: Two high school students - big man on campus Doyle Cleverlobe (voiced by Hal Rayle) and cute-if-geeky Aimee Brightower (voiced by Susan Blu) - are transferred to the intergalactic institute of Galaxy High. However, their roles end up reversed: as intelligence is valued at the school (proving conclusively that the show takes place on another planet), Aimee becomes the popular one, while Doyle struggles for acceptance.

Among the classmates that Doyle and Aimee encounter: six-armed class president Milo DeVenus (David L. Lander); Booey Bubblehead (Jennifer Darling), who, in her own words, is "forgetful, but not absent-minded"; vampy Wendy Garbo (also Darling); the mouthy - literally - Gilda Gossip (Nancy Cartwright); the clingy, yet strangely endearing Creep (Danny Mann) and Flat Freddy Fender (also Cartwright, utilizing a voice that, with some tweaking, became her most well-known character: Bart something-or-other). Doyle ends up running afoul of the Bonk Bunch, led by the Earth-hating Beef (John Stephenson). Among the faculty is Principal - and sometime teacher - Biddy McBrain (Pat Carroll, a far cry from The Little Mermaid’s Ursula) and the always cool (or should that be cold?) Professor Icenstein (Howard Morris, also the show’s voice director). As Doyle needs to pay his way through Galaxy High, he toils at Luigi’s Lunar Pizza, run by the excitable Luigi (also Morris).

Like a number of programs, the original premise (jock and geek find their fortunes reversed) was gradually abandoned, the students ultimately becoming friendly with each other. However, "Galaxy High" featured good, character-specific writing; the kind that one doesn’t much find in today’s anything-for-a-laugh cartoon landscape. (Not that all cartoons airing today are terrible; "Class of 3000", "The Replacements" and - on its good days - "Kim Possible" are entertaining, but they are all beholden to the aforementioned anything-for-a-laugh style of writing that, to be honest, makes fanficcing such shows a nightmare.)

One would think that I loved the show in its heyday and that this column is a means of trying to convince myself - and others - that the show is still great (overall, cartoons from the 1980s aren’t exactly notorious for surviving the passage of time). Though I was vaguely aware of the show’s existence in the past, I truly discovered it in the last few months and, shorn of the crutch of nostalgia, I can confidently say that it not only holds up, but, effectively, kicks the ass of nearly everything on the air today. (It’s not quite a perfect show; for one, the whole ‘breathing in outer space’ thing was never explained, but, really, it’s one of those hurdles to clear while watching a cartoon.)

In watching the show, one can easily see that this comes from a simpler, more innocent time. Best example: the handling of Beef. Unlike a lot of obnoxious, bullying characters on cartoons today who are so irritating, you spend more time devising nasty ways for them to die than enjoying the show - *coughBonnieon"KimPossible"cough* - Beef, even with the prejudice, seems like an okay guy; the kind you might want to hang out with...from a safe distance. Also, Booey could’ve easily devolved into a one-joke character, but they used her just enough to keep her funny (the Memento-like meet-cute in "Beach Blanket Blow-Up") and sweet (her pursuit of Mick Maggers in "Those Eyes, Those Lips"). And the Creep certainly had the potential to be annoying, but then he launches into one of his lounge lizard singing routines and it’s just impossible not to like them.

Even the weaker episodes - "Doyle’s New Friend" (where the pranks were more irritating than gently annoying) and "It Came from Earth" (which sets most of the action on Earth and contrives to place the characters in various roles) - were redeemed by solid, character-driven writing. Compare these with the worst episodes of anything-for-a-laugh shows like "Danny Phantom" ("Splitting Images", "The Fright Before Christmas"), "Foster’s Home" ("Impostor’s Home...") and "Kim Possible" ("Royal Pain", "Return to Wannaweep"); it’s like having a front-row seat to a live train wreck.

And, as a fan of film and television music, I don’t think I could talk about this show without mentioning the contributions of Don Felder. The former Eagle wrote the catchy-as-hell theme song as well as the underscore. Some pieces that stand out:

- an upbeat, pop theme that represents the day-to-day happenings of Galaxy High
- a light-hearted melody that I would term Aimee’s theme
- a synth tympani tune for chase scenes
- an all-purpose melody based on the theme song
- the amusing piano lounge music for the Creep’s songs
- a descending motif used for scenes of danger and/or impending doom (this is my personal favorite of the show’s melodies, as well as my main justification for wanting the show’s music on CD)

As with many fantastic television programs, "Galaxy High" had a limited run: only 13 episodes were produced for the 1986-87 season and aired on CBS. Thankfully, Media Blasters put the show out on two affordably priced-DVDs, even if the cover art bears but a scant resemblance to the show. It’s easy to wish for a revival, but in today’s cartoon world (where the favored trends are pointless character humiliation, anything-for-a-laugh writing and enough forced shipping to make one vomit), it’s much better to leave well enough alone.

I can only hope that "Galaxy High", which seems to have fallen through the cracks, can gain a higher profile in animation circles and that this column can contribute to that.

By the way, here's the title sequence with that cool theme song. For an extra twinge of nostalgia, it's prefaced by the Family Home Entertainment logo, and I know we all remember that. (I believe it was a "Pound Puppies" tape for me...or maybe, it was "Care Bears". I fear I may be dating myself.)