As a kid everytime I saw Recess bumpers and commercials, it felt like the perfect show, a cartoon about school and well recess. But eveyrtime I watched it I was never really that into it. In fact I’ve been meaning to give this show a rewatch for a long time but I was also not looking forward to it so I kept putting it off since I knew it wasn’t great. I finally decided to tackle it and well I’m glad I did although I remember why it wasn’t my go to cartoon as a kid
Being a Disney show it does feel they were aiming for a younger audience, not that Nicktoons were aiming for an older audience but they tried to be entertaining for anyone who watched it. The concept in general however is still very appealing because of the genericness of the characters and relatability to grade school, elementary shcool, whatever. The Big Mouse’s influence is felt as it plays it too safe when in comparison a Cartoon Network show or Doug or anything you want to compare it to. The kids despite having a a characetr trope, all share the same “we’re very good kids” which makes it a bland trait for them.
The 11 minute episodes do not help in allowing them to make really compelling stories, though you can argue that didn’t stop other shows. The whole cartoon seems to take place mostly in the fourth grade although I think the target audience is more second and third graders. I thinkk I would’ve enjoyed it more had I first watched it being much younger, but if you’re in the fourth grade as these kids were you were likely too old to enjoy it. I still could enjoy episodes here and there when I watched it as a kid but n ot exciting when the 90s was full of extreeeeme animated shows. I do have to say rewatching them while a bit bland they’re fun little sotries, cute, a bit uneventful. Much more could’ve been done with the concept with the right people working on it.
The episodes are just so vanilla nad tame, the concept is interesitng enough but as mentioned the episodes are never truly emmorable. It coudlnt compete with Hey Arnold, Doug or any of the others. The archetypes are there but they’re not used well or used enough. And man, there are so many episodes… this only makes continuity all that much more difficult if you really want to think about it since it all has to take place in around one year, that means many episodes would need to happen at the same time for it to work. It’s the only way to make it work, though it could get messy and some contradictions could arise.. Some of the early episodes about christmas would need to take place later for this to even work. Some episodes from later seasons would also need to happen earlaier.
Season 1 is the strongest in a way, later seasons get blander, but there isn’t a huge difference in quality to be honest. This is what a Nicktoon would’ve been without personality. I do think the “two part” episodes which means a 22 minute episode did work better for this show as it allowed to flesh out the story a bit better. The intro shows how much potential the concept has though and what coudl’ve. Changing grades could’ve been a huge thing that made this show memorable as it’d change the status quo.
The movies…now this show had a bunch of movies, granted most of them are direct to video releases with only one or two being the real “movie” and 2 that are just recap episodes with original animation to help segway between episodes with the escuse that they’re telling stories of what has happened.
Miracle on 3rd Street: Christmas special with only one Christmas episode..At leas the episodes chosen are solid ones
All Growed Down: This seemed to be a pilot for a new show, it’s mostly the kindergardener episodes but it does include one all original episode at the end which makes this special.
School’s Out: This one is the real movie, the CG is bad, I kinda like it but it’s awful so I like it because of how bad it is, neat style.. The animation looks like bad flash looking slop. It does feel like an ending of sorts to the show. It doesn’t particularly look high budget, just a cheap netflix looking current cartoon. Perhaps it was expensive at the time. The story is about the school year finishing and mostly Aliens..which makes no sense int he context of the mostly realistic show (mostly realistic).. I mean besides the one off joke gang about Spinelli’s parent’s being secret agents, it was a “realistic/groudned” show. Here you have aliens existing , at least the recess gang is written as they should be despite this movie going all wacky and not making sense in canon.
Taking on the fifth grade: Another compilation but the 3 episodes are all new episodes so it really is an entirely new “movie”. Here we have 3 different stories that now take place in fifth grade that besides a few details like them mentioning it, and some characters being different it’s basically the same show as before. And with 3 episodes they at least take us all the way to Oct. 31st..
Lilo Crossover: Well it’s the last thing to come out of recess, int he lilo and stich show which is more sci-fi heavy but then again so is Recess thanks to the movie….the grounded style of Recess does clash though. Here we have actual aliens and the crew is “ok”. The gang is written in character despite this even if it doesn’t make much sense.
So overall a flawed series with plenty of potential to have been great. Despite having two movie finales, neither really hits as hard as it could’ve. better writing, more coming of age and moving between grades could’ve made this an all time classic. Instead you have a bland show that can work fine for what it is, nothing special that has some cute stories here and there.