Class Of 3000

* Animation Magazine (cover 1)
* Cover 2
* Cover 3

* Voices done by: André 3000, Small Fire, Tom Kenny, Jennifer Hale, Crystal Scales, Phil LaMarr, Janice Kawaye, Jeff Bennett
* Theme music composer: André "3000" Benjamin
* Opening Theme: "Class of 3000", written by André "3000" Benjamin and Kevin Kendrick
* Composers: André "3000" Benjamin (original songs), Pat Irwin (music scores)

**Class of 3000** is an American animated musical television series created by André 3000 (best known as a member of the hip hop duo Outkast) for Cartoon Network. The series follows superstar and music teacher Sunny Bridges (voiced by 3000), who teaches a group of students at Atlanta, Georgia's Westley School of Performing Arts. Bridges is a jazz and blues artist who occasionally lectures in Atlanta's Little Five Points residential area. Both OutKast and Cartoon Network are based in Atlanta. Twenty-eight episodes were produced.

## Links

### Website

* https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/
* https://outkast.store/

## Main Characters

**Sunny Bridges**, the hometown hero of Lil' D, Sunny is a musical genius who left Georgia to become a recording artist. Over the years in the employment of his money-grabbing manager, however, he lost his passion for music and returned to his old neighborhood. He intended to go into permanent retirement; instead, Lil' D convinces him to become the new music teacher at the Westley School of Performing Arts. Sunny is devoted to his students, but he is forced to keep a low profile in order to avoid media attention. While he can play many instruments, his favorite is the saxophone.

**Lil'D** proclaims himself as the unofficial/bumbling leader of the Westley School's music class, whether they like it or not. He is bright, talented, confident to a fault, and is incredibly tenacious when it comes to music. Through sheer determination (as well as breaking and entering), he manages to recruit Sunny Bridges as the class's new music teacher. Although Li'l D considers himself remarkably streetwise, his overconfidence often leads him into trouble. He is considered the shortest member of the class (despite being taller than Kim and Eddie if not for his hair), standing about 4'6". His instrument is the drums. In some songs, he plays a different instrument like in "The Hunt for Red Blobtober". Although he has never revealed his actual name, no one seems to notice. He is 12 years old.

**Madison Spaghettini Papadopoulos** wears a colorful dress, pink bracelet, necklace and white headband. She is an extremely optimistic hippie. She is perpetually happy, no matter true circumstance, though she is occasionally shown to reach a breaking point and cry as shown in the episode "Am I Blue?". She enjoys the company of animals and baby creatures. She has a secret crush on Lil D. She constantly displays a bubbly personality. She claims her hair has the special ability of getting frizzy whenever love is in the air. In the pilot episode, she mentions that she has a grandmother who is of Colombian descent. However, her last name suggests she is of Greek descent. Her instrument is the high-pitched violin, but in the game Funk Box, she also plays a cello. She is 12 years old.

**Tamika Jones** makes it her business to keep the other students in line, giving her the title of "Toughest Girl in School". She is also extremely stubborn; the slightest misstep is grounds for a threatening fist. "Prove it or move it" is her trademark phrase, but she is not sure what to do if someone chooses "prove it." Despite her sharp tongue and cold disposition, Tamika shares a close bond with her classmates and will protect them as often as she teases them. Eddie is in love with her. Her instrument is the harp. In the song "Throwdown", she also says she plays the guitar. But in the episode "Tamika and the Beast" she shows a soft and sensitive side. She is usually disgusted by Eddie's attempts for her affection, although she showed feelings to him in the show's Christmas special after he paid Santa Claus to visit her. She is 12 years old.

**Edward "Eddie" Phillip James Lawrence III** is the richest kid in the school, being the heir to the Lawrence fortune (according to the first episode, his father is the head of the Earth division of Cola Cola). A cultured aristocrat, he has something of a high-and-mighty attitude concerning the other students, naively believing that all problems can be solved with money; he uses his wealth to help his friends. He is not completely spoiled, either. When Philly Phil's machine tells him he should never have a job because his dad is rich, Eddie says, "But I want to get a job!" He is the only character to have ten fingers at any time (he will usually have eight, but for at least one scene he has had 10. Eddie's explanation for his 10 fingers is that it is due to his wealth). He is in love with Tamika, as suggested in Home and Westley Side Story and confirmed by Tamika in Love is in the Hair...Net. Eddie has spoken of having Swiss ancestry. His instrument is the clarinet, but in the game funkbox he also plays a trumpet. He also plays many horns and woodwinds such as the trombone seen in The Devil and Lil'D. He is 12 years old. He speaks in a Cajun accent. Once he said that his dad owns all of the stations on TV.

**Phillip "Philly" P. Phil** is brilliant and imaginative, tends to stand out for his unusual fashion sense. Philly Phil can invent useful devices on the spot, although they often end in malfunction. Though Li'l D and the other students do not fully understand Philly Phil's many eccentricities, they are willing to accept him as one of their own. He also might have a crush on Kim as shown in Nothin To it But to Do it. Philly Phil has an appetite for any type of food, particularly sweets such as chocolate. His height didn't seem to be consistent from episode to episode (He was about as tall as Principal Luna in The Hunt for Red Blobtober and only a few inches taller than Madison in Funky Monkey). In Eddie's Money, he is shown to have a decent singing voice. His instrument is the double bass, also with the bass guitar. In Free Philly, it is revealed that he is very weak and needs the help of technology (Although he does save all of his classmates and Sunny at the end of the episode without any help), though in Big Robot on Campus it shows that he is fairly strong and can use his own physical strength. He is 13 years old, making him the oldest student in Sunny's class.

**Kim Chin** is Kam's twin sister and his polar opposite down to even these instruments. She and Kam are the youngest of the Westley Side School First Years and she is the shortest, despite Li'l D's reputation as the "shortest member of the class". Kim sometimes feels that fashion is more of a concern than music and loves to follow fashion trends. She is very energetic, free-spirited, sometimes to the point of mischief, sleeps with a stuffed rabbit due to her fear of the dark, and loves to torment her more old-fashioned sibling. Kim and Kam's parents are never shown. She was born in Columbus, Ohio and is of Chinese American descent. Her instrument is the xylophone, also with other percussion instruments. She is presumably 12 years old.

**Kam Chin** is Kim's twin brother and her polar opposite, born in Columbus, Ohio and is of Chinese American descent. He and his sister are the youngest of the Westley Side School First Years and he is considered to be the smartest in school. He generally projects an air of refinement and class. Unlike the other kids, Kam has common sense and maturity and is the voice of reason, besides Sunny (but he was oblivious to Santa in the Christmas episode). However, the kids don't listen to him and do what they want instead. Kam tends to be interested in many dull things such as high-grade bread. He is very eager about learning to the point that if Sunny is late to class, his brain is hurting from not learning. Kam has an irrational fear of hang gliding into a flock of angry mallards. Kam appears to have comically terrible things happen to him at the time where he resents these things. He does not have any sweat glands (and doesn't take showers because of this, yet he always appears clean) and he goes insane whenever he is too hot, as shown in Study Buddies. His instrument is the keyboard or the piano. In "Love Is in the Hair... Net", he plays the accordion. He is presumably 12 years old.

**Principal Luna** is the principal at Westley School of Performing Arts. He is of Hispanic descent. He has a tendency to over-use the word "fantastic" and is always trying to make money for the school. He has a crush on the substitute lunch lady, Ms. Petunia Squatenchowder. He owns 36 out of the only known 37 of a rare type of spatula. Luna is Sunny's rival for coolness.

## TV Series

Lynch and André were familiar with Cartoon Network's other series, like *Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi*, and wanted to give the show "a flowy kind of look" in contrast to their more "boxy and squarey" style. The pair struggled to find the right character designer, which they attributed to them being "very focused on what we want, but we didn't [speak] their language. They had to interpret what we were asking for." André wanted the characters to look "cool and original" and have "a lyricism, a movement and body style almost like musical notes." Eighteen designers in total were brought in to draw the main characters before David Colman was selected. Valerio Ventura, who worked on visual development for Disney movies like *The Rescuers Down Under*, served as supervising art director. Ventura was also responsible for painting the show's "jazzy spotted backgrounds" as described by Animation World Network, which, according to Lynch, "he put the (not-quite) finished art on a table, and ... literally threw paint across them Jackson Pollock-style". Each episode of the series contains an original song with an accompanying animated music video, which André likened to "mini-*Fantasias*". The music videos are directed by guest animators and feature styles different from the rest of the show. Artists "were given free reign " and "staying on model was strictly optional" according to Lynch. Several artists who directed music videos include John Kricfalusi, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kyle Baker, Jorge Gutierrez, Peter Chung and Charlie Bean. The series features several veteran voice actors for the main cast, including Tom Kenny (Eddie), Phil LaMarr (Philly Phil), Jennifer Hale (Madison), Janice Kawaye (Kim & Kam) and Jeff Bennett (Principal Luna). André described his first recording session with the other actors as "intimidat[ing]" until they helped coach him and "become a little more whimsical and magical". The leading role of Lil' D was given to "Small Fire", a local Atlanta comedian who grew up in André's neighborhood and was "the local tomboy [who] would beat us in basketball." It lasted from Season 1 with 13 episodes ( November 3, 2006 - April 20, 2007) to Season 2 with 15 episodes (June 7, 2007 - May 25, 2008).

## *Class of 3000: Music Volume One (Album)*

"As can be expected, given the nature of the source material, this album resonates with a distinct sense of playfulness that is squarely aimed at the kids (and for adults, the kid in us all). While Andre tends to dominate the album, it is also made up of a fair amount of interaction with the kid contingency from the show itself. While the music contained here rides the line between smokin' jazz inflected grooves, loose hip-hop sultriness, and funk light (basically a kinder, gentler, more mainstream interpolation of Outkast's sound from the past few years), like most edutainment Andre and company sneak in some sly bits of childhood flashback (verses of "Old MacDonald," "London Bridge Is Falling Down") intersperses with messages about individuality and surprisingly some not-so-hidden slaps at commercial radio (on "Class of 3000 Theme Song") and corporate record labels ("We Want Your Soul"). While these digs will undoubtedly be lost on the littler ones, it'll hit with conscious adults. There's also more light-hearted elements such as pondering how dull life would be without music ("Life Without Music"), combating illegal waste dumping ("Fight the Blob"), how people of all classes, rich or poor, can get the blues ("A Richer Shade of Blue"), and racial bliss ("The Crayon Song")." - IGN

" Fun in the sun seems to be the main thrust here, but while the gang does indeed like to verbally goof off, the musical chops are pretty damn serious, sounding as fresh and jammy as anything Outkast has been laying down to date. There's plenty of live instrumentation from piano and drums to clarinet mixed with sampled and synthesized goodness to create a bubbling and rich sonic mixture that's heavy on the jazz intonations but never lacking in the funk, soul, and blues departments, either. The musicality is what will definitely keep you (as in adults) listening all the way through as sometimes the spunky kids from the show can become a bit grating as they scat, ramble, and ruminate on things that happened in the specific episodes from which each track has been culled (i.e. if you haven't been watching the show then some of these tracks will serve up a slight disconnect). But the nice mixture of jazz jams ("My Mentor," for example) will resonate with the more mature set while introducing the kiddies to the rich traditions of American musical idioms (jazz, blues, funk, soul, rap). " - IGN