Fillmore!

Fillmore! is, to be succinct, a totally awesome cartoon. As a 21-year-old male, it might be hard to believe I could be such an enthusiastic supporter of the show, but I am. I actually arranged my school schedule so I could see the show more often.

Fillmore! is about a cadre of safety patrol officers patrolling the hallways of X Middle School, Home of Lobstee The Lobster. Through hard work and detective skills, they always manage to catch the crook before a half an hour is up.

The show is hilarious. First and foremost is its tone, which never deviates from the gravity of the matter. Shredded petitions and pilfered robotic dogs are treated as serious as a homicide, and the detectives hit the beat in a middle school version of Law & Order. It never lets the characters know just how ridiculous the setup is, and plays fairly within their world.

Beyond that, the subtle jokes work wonders to add to the show's quality. A banner being put up reading "Hooray for Banner Club" or a group working together, becoming as solid as "Geodude using his harden attack" are just examples of how sublime the show can get.

This really is a great example of a show that everyone can enjoy. The animation is bright and vivid, the characters are all real with good motivations, and some of the plots will actually leave you guessing, which is refreshing for a show aimed at the younger set. Catch Fillmore! whenever you can.

I have to say Disney struck gold with this show,and I'm finding that I really enjoy it very much. For a kids show it is very intellegent and intreauging characters like Fillmore, Ingrid Third and the principal of the school really intrest me.

The downfall to it is the catchphrases for one

Fillmore: Disqo Ingrid: Crackers

They say them to often also why do all the villains think they can run? It never works and could get kind of old. However it's really great family entertainment for all ages and I highly recomended it for anyone.

PS The intro song rules.

Disney's Fillmore! is a wonderfully written cartoon series, spoofing the 70s cop show genre. Set in X Middle School, the show's main character is Cornelius Fillmore - a former juvenile delinquent turned safety patroller. Fillmore is ably assisted by his partner Ingrid Third, a sardonic genius with an eidetic memory. The show slyly pastiches all manner of generic clichés: the duo ultimately report into school principal Folsom, a politician-type obsessed with her own image; Fillmore himself is the maverick detective, who breaks the rules to get what's done, while Third is his rational, Scully-esquire partner. And the movie and cultural references flow thick and fast - in one episode Fillmore and Third rely on help from a Hannibal Lecter-like graffiti artist. In another, they go undercover to infiltrate a scooter-thief gang with a task very similar to Gone In 60 Seconds.

Fillmore! only lasted two seasons before cancellation, and while the quality of the show is apparent, it is also easy to see why it didn't get renewed. This is a kids show, but the best aspects of the writing are probably too obscure to hit their targets, many of who will not even be aware that the show is supposed to be a spoof. As an adult, it is easy to appreciate the subtle humour, but the show isn't mature enough to appeal fully to adults.

Disney have built a reputation of making good cartoons, ever since Steamboat Willy, via the Jungle Book and then to the Lion King. But it's the TV cartoon series at which they excel: Recess, Lloyd in Space, Dave the Barbarian, Kim Possible, House of Mouse...all made in recent years. Fillmore deserves to be in the same list.

As a wonderful satire on hard boiled detective series, with the "government" (in this case, the principal) constantly threatening budget cuts if crimes aren't solved, this is great fun. The interesting thing is that Fillmore takes more after Agatha Christie than Law & Order - it's a show of twists and turns, with the least obvious suspect turning out, at the very end, to be the one behind the model train crash or whatever.

Due to time constraints - 20 rather than 45 minutes, for instance - it can't go into the same detail on either the cases or the supporting detectives. But the writers do an admirable job of having an interesting support cast: Officer O'Farrell, Jr Commissioner Vallejo and Principal Folsom are all fun little sketches of characters, though Tahama and Anza are pretty much Kirk's redshirts.

As for the leads, both are perfectly usable and are given some great lines. The voice acting is excellent from everybody, and this truly deserves a long run.

As well as being notable for all of its main characters being named after names and places in California (Fillmore and Third, Folsom, Vallejo), "Fillmore!" basically takes the cop show and transfers it to school even more so than "21 Jump Street" and "The Mod Squad" did - on those shows the enforcers came in from the outside, here the school is self-enforcing, with our heroes Cornelius Fillmore and Ingrid Third as a team working as part of the Safety Patrol for X Middle School, an institution for learning that seems to be crammed full of miscreants from the evidence here, from simple bullies to forgery, robbery, etc.

Like "Police Squad!" and "Funky Squad," "Fillmore!" is in the mold of 1970s shows, here complete with a Quinn Martin-type gravel-voiced announcer ("Today's episode: 'Masterstroke Of Malevolence'! Act One: 'A Broken Masterpiece'!" For some reason the act titles appear on screen, but the overall episode titles never do...), bosses constantly leaping down our heroes' throats, and the kind of theme tune that cop shows today wouldn't go near. All of this just adds to the fun for adults watching, but "Fillmore!" doesn't go overboard with the grown-up references - it knows who its main audience is, and it hits it fair and square. It's a cliche, but this really is fun for all the family... I'm willing to bet that the movie version of "S.W.A.T." won't be half as good.

"Fillmore! I'm on it!"