Recess: School's Out

Recess: School's Out
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Chuck Sheetz
Produced by	Stephen Swofford
Screenplay by	Jonathan Greenberg
Story by	Jonathan Greenberg TV Series Paul Germain Joe Ansolabehere
Starring	Rickey D'Shon Collins Jason Davis James Woods Paul Wilson Ashley Johnson Andrew Lawrence Courtland Mead Melissa Joan Heart Pamela Segall Dabney Coleman
Music by	Denis M. Hannigan Robert Goulet (songs)
Editing by	Tony Mizgalski
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)	February 16, 2001
Running time	84 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$62,495,111

Recess: School's Out is a 2001 animated film based on the Disney television series Recess.^[1] This film was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and was released theatrically nationwide on February 16, 2001. It was released on video and DVD on August 7, 2001.

Plot

School's out at Third Street School, but T.J. is upset because his friends have all decided to go to various camps to plan for their futures. T.J. unhappily rides around town, doing things by himself. He even very reluctantly agrees to hang out with Randall. On his way there, he notices that there's something going on at the school. T.J. sneaks inside and finds the school using a tractor beam to levitate a safe. Panicked, he tries to tell his parents and the police, but they do not believe him. When he gets Principal Prickly to come to see what's going on, he is electrocuted and dematerialized as soon as he puts his key in the door, leaving only his shoes behind as evidence. T.J. is now frustrated because his parents won't listen and neither will the police. He decides he has to round up the gang and uses his sister Becky's diary to blackmail her into driving him to all the camps to pick up his friends.

T.J. and his friends steal a box of documents, but filled with no information, T.J's friends then accuse him of making up an idea just to bring them back. T.J. tells them he really did see Prickly disappear but Gus points out that Prickly had just got into a car and driven off. The gang are about to head back to their camps when they see the tractor beam come out of the school and shoot out a green laser and agree that something is going on in the school. The gang have a stake out at T.J.'s treehouse and enjoy eating snacks and singing a song they first heard after they were in Kindergarten. The next day, T.J. finds Prickly's golf pants in a dumpster and also sees the bald guy he saw guarding the school pull of a mask of principal Prickly's face, showing that this was indeed him pretending to be Prickly when Gus pointed out the other Prickly getting into a car.

The gang find a note in the pocket of Prickly's golf pants saying "HELP ME!" on it; this makes T.J. and his friends decide to break into the school to save him. While there, they are caught spying and flee. T.J. is captured and is put in a storage room where he finds Prickly gagged and all tied up. A man named Dr. Phillium Benedict enters the room to speak to them.

After Benedict leaves, Prickly relates how, back in the spring of 1968, he and Benedict were best friends. Benedict then became the principal of Third Street School. During a private conversation with Prickly, Benedict showed him that he had intended a move to abolish recess as a way to improve test grades. Prickly went to the superintendent as a mean of convincing Benedict to change his mind. The superintendent instead fired him and promoted Prickly to principal. To make matters worse, Benedict's girlfriend, Muriel P. Finster, broke up with him, driving Benedict into a hateful vengeance. Later, Prickly says, Benedict went on to become Secretary of Education but was fired when he tried to abolish recess again nationwide.

T.J. and Prickly escape, but they are caught again. T.J. uses his walkie-talkie (in Prickly's desk drawer) and tells his friends Benedict wants to destroy summer vacation after seeing painted graffiti on his wall, indicating so. T.J.'s friends go through the box of documents again. Spinelli finds a date book that says lunar perigee (which happens to be 12:22 the next afternoon) on it; Gretchen deduces that Benedict is trying to move the moon's orbit via tractor beam when it is closest to the Earth, which as a result, will create a new Ice Age. Benedict reveals to T.J. and Prickly that his ultimate plan is to make summer winter so that kids will be forced inside to study.

T.J.'s friends get Becky to drive to the camps again, where they pick up all the children. Gus draws up the plans to attack the school. T.J. and Prickly escape the cage that Benedict has imprisoned them in. Gus' plan works, and most of Benedict's guards and ninjas are knocked out or captured. All the kids pour into the auditorium. Another set of guards protects Benedict as he prepares to pull the lever. However, Muriel P. Finster arrives. After rejecting Benedict again, she brings the teachers in and a fight breaks out. The bald guy tries to punch T.J. in the face but Muriel came and said to him, "Now it's... GO TIME!", and punches the bald guy in the face. During the fight, Prickly punches Benedict in the face, but as Benedict slumps, he triggers the beam and Prickly cannot reverse it. T.J. tosses his baseball to Vince, whose accurate aim destroys the machine. Benedict and his gang then get arrested for theft and breaking and entering.

T.J.'s friends inform him they intend to spend the rest of their summer with him, and T.J. gives Becky her diary back to thank her. T.J. then rushes into Prickly's office to thank him, only to be thanked back by Prickly for reminding him of why he went into teaching in the first place: to help kids. T.J. runs off with his friends, while Prickly puts on his peace symbol necklace from 1968, and tells T.J. he did not forget about the "saggy butt comment".But T.J. tells him September is a long way off and he runs off to spend the rest of the summer with the rest of the gang.

Cast

• Andrew Lawrence as Theodore Jasper "T.J." Detweiller
• Rickey D'Shon Collins as Vince LaSalle
• Jason Davis as Mikey Blumberg (speaking voice)
• Robert Goulet as Mikey Blumberg (singing voice)
• Ashley Johnson as Gretchen Grundler
• Courtland Mead as Gus Griswold
• Pamela Segall as Ashley Spinelli
• Dabney Coleman as Principal Peter Prickly
• James Woods as Dr. Phillium Benedict
• Peter MacNicol as Fenwick
• April Winchell as Miss Muriel Finster / Mrs. Detweiller
• Paul Willson as Mr. Detweiler
• Melissa Joan Hart as Becky Detweiller
• Ryan O'Donohue as Digger Dave / Randall C. Weems
• H.S. Hughes as Miss Finster in deleted scenes
• Allyce Beasley as Miss Grotke
• Dan Castellaneta as Guard #1
• Tony Jay as Dr. Rosenthal
• Nicholas Turturro as Cop #1
• Kevin Michael Richardson as Cop #2
• Clancy Brown as Bald Guy
• Robert Stack as Superintendent
• Erik von Detten as Erwin Lawson / Captain Brad
• R. Lee Ermey as Colonel O'Malley

Music

The music in this film is predominantly Psychedelic rock and 1960s pop. The following songs were on the soundtrack:

1. "Dancing in the Street" – Martha and the Vandellas
2. "Born to Be Wild" – Steppenwolf
3. "One" – Three Dog Night
4. "Incense and Peppermints" – Strawberry Alarm Clock
5. "Wipe Out" – The Surfaris
6. "Nobody But Me" – The Human Beinz
7. "Let the Sunshine In" – The 5th Dimension
8. "Green Tambourine" – Robert Goulet
9. "Recess Suite" – Denis M. Hannigan
10. "Dancing in the Street" – Myra

Note: "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix was also used in the film, though it is not included on the soundtrack.

Reception

The film was a moderate critical success; however, it received mixed reviews from Recess fans. It currently garners a 62% "Fresh" approval rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes (based on 40 positive reviews out of a total of 67 reviews).

Box office

The film was a box office success in North America, earning $36,706,141 domestically. However, it did not do nearly as well overseas due to poor publicity and advertising. It earned $7,754,709. However, with a total worldwide gross of $44,460,850, against the frugal $10 million budget, the film was still considered a huge success^{[citation needed]}.

External links

• Recess: School's Out at the Internet Movie Database
• Recess: School's Out at the Big Cartoon DataBase

References

1. ^ "Scale Down the Bad Guy in Kids' Animated Films". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/mar/09/entertainment/ca-35265. Retrieved 2010-11-10.