Cult TV shows aren’t born; they’re made. When two fresh-faced recent college graduates and one scrub set out to make a show about a group of sexy teen genetic copies of dug-up famous guys and ladies, they weren’t expecting much of anything. Phil Lord and Chris Miller, along with Bill Lawrence and a fantastic cast that included Will Forte, Nicole Sullivan, Michael McDonald, and Christa Miller, just wanted to make the silliest, most irreverent (yet oddly touching) show they could fit onto MTV. Clone High wasn’t a giant smash when it premiered in 2002. It wasn’t really anything more than a blip on the radar. But thanks in part to its untimely, unlikely ending — MTV took it off the air after protests in India over the portrayal of Gandhi — and a small but mighty fan base ready to proselytize (like me!) via episodes pirated off Canadian TV, a cult began to form. This word of mouth was then accelerated as Lord and Miller started breaking out with movies like The Lego Movie and the Jump Street movies. So, 15 years after its creation, a cult has been formed.
To mark that occasion, in November 2017, at Vulture Festival, we brought all the major players (save John Stamos!) back together again for the first (and maybe only) time ever. And now, thanks to Good One, Vulture’s podcast about jokes and the people who tell them, you can know what it was like to be there. You can listen to the audio from the panel below or download the episode from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
