Each is unique, and never to be repeated. We review obscure gems of TV shows that aired for one season (at most) before getting canceled.
Last week’s TV Snowflake was the very avatar of ’90′s television fail: The Emmy- winning (yes, you read that correctly) Cop Rock. I mentioned that it might well have been a show before its time, given the new millennium explosion of music- oriented programs, both scripted and reality.
But perhaps there was a lot of prognosticating going on in 1990: before there was Glee or even High School Musical, there was Hull High.
Remember this one? Yeah, nobody else, pretty much. Via
It might lead some to believe that filmed and piloted in a different era, Hull High might still be on the air. They would be wrong. Here’s why it didn’t re- launch the genre: 1) There was no built- in interest leading from the likes of American Idol and High School Musical 2) It… kind of sucked, actually. And while it, too, was nominated for an Emmy, this eight- episode wonder didn’t even have Randy Newman at its back. None for you, Hull High (although let us not forget that the show also received nominations for The Golden Reel Awards and the Young Artist Award. I know, right?)
Glee, for all its faults (and they are, as we well know, many) captured attention in the first half of its first season with its sharp satirical edge, which made the musical numbers more swallowable for those who might not normally watch a music- driven program.
This was NBC’s baby. And to its credit, Hull High actually had a more complex structure than Glee– while the latter straight-out demands suspension of disbelief as characters burst into song, Hull High reached into Greek drama, using its score as a sort of commentary on the action. A rapped score. There was, in other words, more of a sense of separation between musical numbers and the plots of the episodes.
In any case… nice try, no cultural phenomenon.
