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i've made a few posts about the Clone High reboot before but something specific that i think it gets wrong are the way they handle their celebrity cameos. the original Clone High would sometimes bring in these popular celebrities to appear in the show, usually to influence the clones and push the main anti-moral of the episode. since Clone High was made in the early 2000s, these appearances got really dated really fast. but something that counteracts that is the way they're characterised. for example, i have no clue who tf Mandy Moore is, but i still really enjoyed her appearance in the Snowflake Day episode because of the way she's characterised and satirised. she's portrayed as this homeless girl who happens to be attractive and look suspiciously like Mandy Moore who's obviously trying to hide the fact that she's a popular celebrity by playing the role of Joan's guardian angel. she leads Joan on into thinking she's this magical angel when she's actually just stealing everyone's stuff and replacing it with spices, and it works really well because 1. her insistence that she isn't a celebrity was really funny and 2. she works on her own as a solid character to push the story along and set up jokes. they put a twist on the whole "hi i'm [insert celebrity here] and i'm here to talk about [insert psa here]" by turning it into a joke of itself and adding on extra traits that make the characters entertaining to watch.

the reboot, however... just does the "hi i'm celebrity" bit with full sencerity and doesn't really satirise the celebrities in any way. they don't make fun of them or add commentary or critique them in any way, they just appear to send a message and then dip, just like they would in the same teen dramas Clone High was meant to parody in the first place. for example, in the episode where they get hunted down by the Heebie Jeebie monster, its revealed at the end to be that guy from Sharknado who's just kinda like "hey i'm trying to send a message about the importance of teenager's mental health, here's a hotline, i'm sharknado dude btw" and then just kinda... dips? i don't like this because there's no joke there, it's literally just a celebrity coming on, saying the message out loud, and then leaving. there's no criticisms, there's no making fun of the character, there's no commentary on the fakeness of bringing on big celebrities and actors delivering a message that big stars like them could's possibly care less about to influence a vulnerable and impressionable group of people like teenagers, there's nothing there. i'm not saying the message of mental health is dumb or bad or anything, i'm just saying that the celebrity appearances aren't handed the same criticisms the original show was written to have, and i think that takes away the reboot's spirit as being connected to Clone High. it's not a satire anymore and i feel like i can't enjoy it because of that. it has become the very thing the original saught to mock, and like, that's kinda funny in a fucked up ironic way, but it's also really not. the reboot just doesn't have that same spark that made me fall in love with the original series and i feel like i can't like it because of that, among the multitude of other issues it has.