Galaxy High School

Did You Know?

• Four episodes of the show were re-edited into a compilation video titled Galaxy High in 1989 by Family Home Entertainment.
• Galaxy High School has been released in full on DVD across two volumes by Media Blasters through their Anime Works imprint.
• In the United Kingdom, during 1989, Channel 5 Video released the first two episodes on video.

Synopsis

Two human teenagers from Earth, Doyle Cleverlobe and Aimee Brighttower, are admitted to Galaxy High School, located on the fictional asteroid Flutor. Back on Earth, Doyle is a popular, skilled athlete, while Aimee is shy and, as described in the theme song, "the smartest girl in school, not very popular, not very cool." Once they arrive, their social roles flip: the alien students readily accept Aimee, but find Doyle annoying. He becomes an outcast and struggles to fit in, though Aimee sticks by him. She encourages him to use his athletic talent to win friends and bring honor to the school. Doyle goes on to win a championship in "psych-hockey," a sport Galaxy High had never won before. The series hints at a possible romance between Doyle and Aimee, but it never develops because the show was canceled after one season. The alien student body includes Gilda Gossip, a girl with multiple mouths; Booey Bubblehead, an absentminded student with a bubble for a head; Milo de Venus, the six-armed class president; Beef, a chicken-like alien, and the Bonk Bunch, the school bullies; and the Creep, a small alien resembling a cross between a fat cherub and a yellow marshmallow, who has a huge crush on Aimee and often serenades her like a Las Vegas lounge singer. The teachers are even stranger: Ms. Biddy McBrain has a light bulb on her head, Coach Frogface eats flies, and Professor Icenstein must keep his classroom freezing cold to avoid melting.

Production notes

The animated series Partridge Family 2200 A.D., which first aired in 1974, includes Keith and Laurie Partridge attending a futuristic space high school called "Galaxy High." Laurie's Martian friend, Marion Moonglow, looks very similar to the character Wendy Garbo from this series. The show Galaxy High School was created, distributed, and owned by TMS Entertainment. TMS made Galaxy High as an effort to produce a show for American audiences similar to the popular Japanese anime Urusei Yatsura, which came out in 1981 and was based on a 1978 manga. In Urusei Yatsura, an alien girl goes to a human high school, but Galaxy High flips that idea, focusing on human students at a school for aliens. Because TMS was involved, the series is often considered an anime. John Kricfalusi worked as a character designer on the show and later created Ren & Stimpy and The Ripping Friends. Creative director Syd Iwanter came up with the concept and hired Kricfalusi to draw a one-sheet pitch with the main characters for a proposed show called HIGH SCHOOL 2525. When Michael Chase Walker became director of children's programs for CBS, he bought the show, renamed it Galaxy High School, and got up-and-coming screenwriter and future filmmaker Chris Columbus to develop it under his name. Walker aimed to build a Saturday morning lineup that felt like an old-fashioned movie matinee, mixing horror with Teen Wolf, science fiction with Galaxy High School, comedy with Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Westerns with Wildfire. There is an alternate theme song that shows clips from various episodes, but the theme was later changed to an instrumental version. At the end of this alternate theme, Aimee says, "Here we are Doyle! The only two kids from Earth at a high school in outer space! How do you feel?" Doyle replies, "A little spaced out, Aimee!" The show includes transportation tubes that people can enter to be whisked around the school, similar to old pneumatic tubes. In Galaxy High, these are called "wooshers."