Class of 3000

So one day while I'm having lunch at home, I start flipping through the channels on the TV. I come across the Cartoon Network which I had written off as a lost cause. I mean, with shows like Squirrel Boy and My Gym Partner Is A Monkey, it's hard not to. The latter is a show about a kid that goes to school with animals, come on.

Anyway, the show Class Of 3000 is on. A bit of backstory first, it was created by Andre 3000 of Outkast fame, which sorta set off a red flag. But I figure it's worth giving it a chance, so I watch some of it. The show revolves around Sunny Bridges, a brilliant musician (and pretty much everything else) who gives up his life of fame and fortune to teach music in his home town of something, Atlanta. The first episode seems interesting enough, and would you know it, Cartoon Network is showing a marathon. So episode 2 comes on, and it's about the Blues. Immidietly I'm sold. I'm not embarrassed to say that I watched that whole marathon, and loved it.

Every episode contains a song written by Andre about whatever the particular subject is. Oddly enough, the music is quite good with the episodes usually focusing on a specific type of music (funk, blues, jazz, etc.). Since the kids in the show all play instruments that are not exactly front line (clarinet, harp) and a particular song will revolve around them, it's really cool to see what Andre can come up with. The wit and jokes are suprisingly mature and some of the refrences and jokes can be appreciated by adults as well as kids.The main character, Sunny, is quite cool actually. He's like a musical House, except without the drugs and disabilities. The art in the show is also quite good, very John Kricfalusi. Lots of curvy lines, very little straight edges or abrupt line endings. Overall a very clean, flowing look. Not to mention that different artists are hired to do the music videos for the songs in the episodes, including John, who's doing an upcoming video.
Another thing to be noted in the show is the very well done character design, each person is very unique in look and clothing. and easily recognizeable.

Anyway, give it a look. Here's a YouTube link to one of the videos:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KrNiKh9_q1g

Sorry for the video quality, best I could find.


-Vanja