Recess: Difference between revisions

Recess was an American animated television series that was created by Paul Germain and Joe Ansolabehere (who worked on ''[[Rugrats (Animation)|Rugrats]]'' until the show was originally supposed to end in 1994), and produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. It ran from September 13, 1997 to November 21, 2001 on ABC. Recess focused on six elementary school students and their interaction with other classmates and teachers. In many respects, it serves as an animated knock-off of prisoner-of-war movies such as ''[[The Great Escape (Film)|The Great Escape]]''... combined with a generally positive depiction of the elementary school experience.

 

* [[The Hero|T.J.]] [[High School Hustler|Detweiler]], the leader of the gang and the one who comes up with the [[Zany Scheme]].

* [[The Lancer|Vince]] [[The Ace|LaSalle]], the sportsman.

** Franklin "The Dude" Dudakoff. Known as a legendary student of Third Street School who was the prankster prince, the king of the playground before he became a sixth grader, and an all around badass wanted to become a teacher because he thinks science is interesting.

** Miss Grotke's a pretty cool teacher herself.

* [[Crowd Chant]]: The opinion of the student body can sway violently, and at the drop of a hat, so this happens a lot.

* [[Cucumber Facial]]

* [[The Ditz]]: T.J. (especially in later seasons) and Lawson.

* [[The Documentary]]: "Kids in the Mist", where a child psychologist films the kids.

* [[Do Not Call Me Paul]]: Thaddeus T. Third V (the grandson of the man who Third Street is named after) is always mistakenly called "Mr. Fifth", much to his chagrin.

* [[Don't Ask]]: About Mikey's [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|Uncle]] [[Transsexual|Mary]].

* [[Double Entendre]]: This is true anyone over the age of 12 who watches the episode "All the Principles Men"

* [[The Dragon]]: While there is no real main antagonist to the series (since the role is often shared by Principal Prickly, Lawson, and Ms. Finster), there ''is'' an obvious dragon amongst several of them. [[The Dragon]] to Prickly is either Ms. Finster or Menlo, while Ms. Finster's dragon is Randall.

* [[High School Hustler|Elementary School Hustler]]: T.J. definitely has his moments, among them being able to provide a convincing forged prescription for ''chewing gum''. Hustler Kid is also a prime candidate, but mostly he just provides the goods while the main gang does the planning and executing, Although in ''First Name Ashley'' we see him selling phony documents and committing, what is essentially, multiple cases of identity fraud.

* [[Embarrassing First Name]]

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: There are some punishments that even Miss Finster thinks go too far. Like in "The Biggest Trouble Ever" when the Mayor planned to separate the gang to six different schools.

** In "The Fuss Over Finster" T.J. calls all the kids out for taking advantage of the injured Miss Finster and they all feel bad, including Lawson.

* [[Everyone Went to School Together]]: Well, ''obviously''. Less apparent, ''All Growed Down'' revealed Gus was at Third Street for a period of Kindergarten as well (which was [[Retcon|retconned]] in).

* [[Face Your Fears]]: T.J. is forced to do this to overcome the terror of the Box... which was just a white square drawn on the playground tarmac.

* [[Fan Disservice]]

* [[Final Season Casting]]: More like "Epilogue Direct-to-DVD casting". For the 2003 Direct-to-DVD finale, ''Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade'', Myles Jeffery replaced Andy Lawrence (who replaced Ross Malinger earlier on) as the voice of T.J., due to the latter's voice changing.

* [[First Kiss]]: T.J. and Spinelli in "The Experiment", but [[Test Kiss|as an experiment.]]

** TJ: [[The Hero]]

** Vince: [[The Lancer]]

** Ms. Grotke.

** Also, Prickly and Finster (and, arguably, all the others) in the 1960s flashback in [[The Movie]].

* [[Hot Mom]]: Spinelli's mom

* [[Hot Teacher]]

** Mr. E

** Arguably, Miss Grotke, though she's more "cute" than "sexy".

* [[Human Ladder]]

* [[Hypno Fool]]: In one episode Principal Prickly thinks he's six years old.

** Mikey, through and through.

** King Bob

** Spinelli, of course.

** And then there's Lawson, Skeens, Gelman, Kurst (the Worst), Mundy, etc.

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] / mocked in "Speedy, We Hardly Knew Ye": The episode is about the death of the class' hamster; the word "death" is tossed around freely by the children, but Ms. Grotke always says it in a hushed whisper because she's afraid the kids couldn't handle the concept.

* [[New Transfer Student]]: Gus again.

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: Phillium Benedict was most likely named for former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett.

* [[Noir Episode]]: "The Girl was Trouble"

* [[Not So Different]]: Mostly involving Principal Prickly, in a good way, though.

* [[Now Which One Was That Voice]]: Only the cast for the main six and the three main teachers (most of the time -- the writers can't make up their minds on whether Miss Grotke's a main or supporting character) are credited for which character they played. Everyone else is listed as "additional voices", with only the names of the voice actors/actresses and not their characters. [[Averted]] with the movie.

** The episode "Buried Treasure" was sent to a different overseas animation department, and the animation suffered. At various times, the outlines became very inky, to the point of becoming [[Thick Line Animation]], the animation was much more cartoony, more colorization errors than the usual episodes, characters having off-model appearences, Spinelli's pigtails constantly changing position, and other mistakes. Only one more episode was made with this overseas animation department and never again, and the episode is considered to have the worst animation out of the entire series.

** The ''Lilo & Stitch'' crossover was bad about this as well. Because the episode (as with most L & S episodes) was animated by Toon City than Sunwoo Animation or Plus One Animation as ''Recess'' usually was animated at, the gang looked a bit different. T.J. was chubbier and Spinelli's eyes were too farly spaced apart. The animation was also much more cartoony.

** This would end up happening to Miss Grotke in the later episodes

* [[Panty Shot]]: Subverted by Upside-Down Girl, who wears thigh-length leggings under her skirt as she hangs from the monkey bar.

* [[Parental Bonus]]: Many.

* [[Parent Ex Machina]]

* [[Reading Foreign Signs Out Loud]]: Used on the German version, ''Grosse Pause'' (Big Recess), at least.

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Principal Prickly

** T.J. and Vince.

** Mikey and Gus.

* [[Similar Squad]]: The Principal's brother runs a school with characters who are counterparts of the regular gang. There's only one [[Distaff Counterpart]]: T.J.'s opposite is a girl named C.J. For the rest of the gang, their counterparts are all [[Palette Swap|race swaps]] (or almost all, depending on [[Ambiguously Brown|what you consider Spinelli]]).

* [[Sitcom Arch Nemesis]]: Lawson, to both TJ and Vince. He is often [[Informed Ability|described]] as the arch-rival of TJ, but he doesn't really seem to single him out; however, we frequently see him butting heads specifically with Vince.

** The Main Character: [[Big Man On Campus|TJ]].

** The Muscle: Vince.

* [[Sophisticated As Hell]]: King Bob

* [[Spiritual Successor]]: To ''[[Rugrats (Animation)|Rugrats]]'', which the creators worked on before it was cancelled in 1994 (Though it was [[Un Cancelled]] shortly before ''Recess'' premiered).

* [[Stealth Pun]]: From Spinelli when she's suddenly wracked with guilt: "Man, I feel like a [[Heel|bad-guy wrestler]]."

* [[Strong Family Resemblance]]: T.J. looks like his mom, Vince looks like his dad, Spinelli doesn't really look like any of her parents but looks a bit more like her dad, Gretchen looks like both of her parents, Mikey looks like his mom (and has the same hair color as his dad), Gus looks like a smaller, less rugged version of his dad (and has his mom's eyes and glasses), the Ashleys all look like their moms, and Hustler Kid looks like his dad.

* [[Welcome Episode]]: "The New Kid", for Gus, and as a rare example, aired as episode 1B (first episode; second story after the commercial break).

* [[Wham Episode]]: "The Biggest Trouble Ever", where the gang accidentally breaks a priceless statue and become town scapegoats, to the point where the [[Smug Snake]] of a Mayor plans to break them up and send them to six different schools. Sure, you know it'll be resolved and [[Status Quo Is God|nothing will change]], but it's easily the most dramatic story ''Recess'' ever did.

* [[Whoopi Epiphany Speech]]: Subverted.

* [[Why Are You Not My Son|Why Are You Not My Daughter?]]: "More Like Gretchen"