Darkwing Duck was the first show from the Disney Watch chronology I watched in full. The second? Recess.
It's kind of hard to talk about Recess in particular. I watched the show and have incredibly fond memories of it, buuuuuut so has everyone else. Like Proud Family, it's a show I've seen a lot of hot takes on online. (Worth noting, Amphibia also has a lot of hot takes online, but for the most part, I pretend I do not see them.)
The show plays hard into the theme of the adults just being big kids, which fans are aware of. The show has a lot of focus on class structure and denying authority, which people caught wind of and are aware of. The show also has a major racism problem, with the kindergarteners acting as anti-indigenous stereotypes, which people are also very aware of. Though I would like to point out that a lot of that is inspired by actual shit done in kindergarten classes. I'm obviously not going to yell at a bunch of 5 year old kids doing a school assignment, but it might be worth thinking about, if it's still done in schools.
As a show, Recess does a pretty good job at showing what it's like to be in a school. You have all the kids with the same first name referred to with their last initial, teachers of varying quality (for every Miss Finster there was a Miss Grotke at my school), even Menlo, whose whole thing is being a student working in administration, is not uncommon (though admittedly, it's usually staff kids or shy kids who want to feel like they're helping by alphabetizing library cards or turning on projectors more than a child with an actual job).
As for differences, I am immediately drawn to the episode "Teacher's Lounge," which shows the kids curious of what goes on in there, and it turns out to be a fantastical place disguised as boring. Yeah it was always boring. And often students would have to get something from the teacher's lounge at my school because it was adjacent to the mail room. The best my elementary school's teacher's lounge ever got was the era where there would be a pile of free day old Panera Bread for the teachers, which, yeah, Panera Bread, but it's a day old.
The other thing I would want to focus on with Recess is the ensemble cast. We've had a few already, with Wuzzles, Gummi Bears, Pooh, Rescue Rangers, Gargoyles, Mighty Ducks, and 101 Dalmatians, but... I like Recess a lot more than any of those shows.
And its weird. I usually love ensemble casts. But the only ensemble casts where I liked more than one character in it were Gummi Bears (Sunni, Gruffi, and Grammi) and Gargoyles (Brooklyn and Broadway). I think the reason Gummi Bears and Gargoyles characters appealed to me so much was that they were multifaceted. In Gummi Bears, each Gummi Bear had a different way they treated their culture, and my favorites bounced off other characters well in particular. Gargoyles on the other hand thought deeper about character motivations, for Brooklyn in particular, this struck with me, because he had mixed feelings about protecting the humans, but ultimately knew it was what was right. Brooklyn was also fucking hilarious.
Recess is also a show where I liked most of the ensemble. Spinelli, like Brooklyn was incredibly multifaceted, with several episodes focusing on her relationship with femininity, vulnerably, and authority. TJ and Vince are also big favorites of mine, due to how well they bounce off other characters, and as they're the leader and right hand man, you see their responses to various societal metaphors. Of course, this isn't uncommon for the others too. Mikey episodes like "Stand Up Randall" and "Bonky Fever" were very much favorites in the lessons they taught. Gretchen was a character that I could relate to, being the "smart one" in school. Also Gus was there. I don't actually hate Gus, and he does show off his tough side every so often but man... He fucking sucked in "King Gus."
Characters in Recess are pretty one dimensional on the surface, but it allows for some interesting interactions and directions for the characters to go into. I'm not certain, but it may have inspired me somewhat in the way that I write characters. When you take a character like Lawson for instance, you start out with "Vince's dimwitted rival" and you may not go too far, but you go far enough to create a character who is envious and seeks to do something about it. A character who helps people, though it's ultimately in a selfish way (See "Lawson as His Crew"). And Lawson works as a foil to Vince (and even TJ) in that regard as it makes them wonder if they are selfish people.
Considering how nostalgic it is, it's not a surprise that it was popular, and soon later came Detention, which my friend just described for me now as "recess but mid." And yeah. I honestly had a hard time getting past the first minute or which, which says a lot as I have watched every Disney Cartoon (up to like Mickey Mouse Funhouse). But from what I can tell, it has similar one dimensional characters, a Randall like (Shelley Kelly aka The Most Annoying Girl In The World), and a school setting (though it's elementary instead of middle school). From what I saw it was really just characters sort of doing parodies and getting into trouble, rather than the themes of it all and why kids may get into trouble. Anyway Recess is better bye.
Overall Rating for Recess: A Tier
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