Clone High is coming back to wipe Velma’s bad taste from our mouths

With more TV than ever (or, at least, so it feels like), there’s any number of heightened portrayals of teen life. There’s the wild, shatterproof early seasons of life in Riverdale, or the more grounded hilarity of Never Have I Ever. More recently there was Velma, which made the world of Scooby Doo more interested in the teenage goings-on of the Mystery Gang, while also not really ever achieving greatness because it never really found its comedy mode.

Enter Clone High, the perfect show to portray what today’s teens are up against (so long as today’s teens are also clones of famous people from throughout history all attending high school together). The reboot of the 2000s show is back and ready to rumble, with a new trailer and new episodes coming “this spring,” according to HBO.

The reboot will pick up where the singular and underrated cult favorite left off: The clones were all frozen on prom night, leaving the shadowy organization that runs the high school to someday defrost them and continue to secretly groom them to one day rule the world.

The new show brings back old favorites — Joan of Arc, Abe Lincoln, JFK, and Cleopatra, for starters — along with some new folks, including Confucius, Harriet Tubman, Christopher Columbus (now going by “Topher Bus” because Columbus is “not cool”), and Frida Kahlo, who’s absolutely shredding on her skateboard.

Returning stars include Will Forte and Nicole Sullivan, executive producers Phil Lord as Scudworth and Chris Miller as JFK and Mr. B, Christa Miller as Candide Sampson, Donald Faison as George Washington Carver, and Judah Miller as Scangrade.

Joining them will be (brace yourselves, this is a Barbie movie level of stars): Ayo Edebiri as Harriet; Mitra Jouhari as Cleo; Vicci Martinez as Frida; Kelvin Yu as Confucius; Neil Casey as Topher Bus; Jana Schmieding as Sacagawea; Sam Richardson as Wesley; Mo Gaffney as Ms. Grumbles; Al Madrigal as Frederico; Danny Pudi as Dr. Neelankavil; Emily Maya Mills as Ethel Merman; Michael Bolton as Michael Bolton, Mandy Moore as Mandy Moore, Ian Ziering as Ian Ziering; Steve Kerr as Steve Kerr; and Jeffrey Muller, Kyle Lau, Dannah Phirman, and Danielle Schneider.

So yeah, as we tried to tell you in our TV preview list, now’s the time to catch up on Clone High. There’ll be stars out the wazoo (both for history nerds and comedy fans), even more jokes on top of that, and — best of all — the show just implicitly gets how to poke fun at teen nonsense and tropes, unlike HBO Max’s other animated legacy requel, Velma. Where Velma fundamentally misunderstood the appeal of the Scooby gang and the comedy stylings of adult animation, Clone High promises to be absolute teen lunacy, which is all we really want.

The Clone High reboot is coming to HBO Max this spring.