PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

My dad's Yukon that he paid over fifty grand for doesn't have leather?!?! I'm actually kinda shocked!

 

Good morning!

 

So I’m not gonna be posting gobs of screenshots featuring animated cars and trucks (at least not yet), but I’d like to talk about another one of my favorite cartoons ever!

It’s a show called Recess, which first debuted in 1997 and aired until 2003 I believe. Unlike many other animated shows, Recess was pretty consistent with the time period. It takes place primarily at the Third Street School, an elementary school in a fictional unnamed Arkansas town. It takes place mostly during the 1997-1998 school year, when the series’ six main characters are in fourth grade. The movie, Recess: School’s Out, takes place in the summer of 1998. Later episodes take place in 1998-1999, when the gang is in fifth grade.

Recess is a Disney cartoon, but it features a lot of voice actors and actresses from Nicktoons Hey Arnold! and Rugrats.

As is common with a lot of cartoons produced in (and set in) the 1990s, the animators are shown to have a fondness for antique vehicles; Most notably, teacher and recess monitor Ms. Finster drives a pink 1950s coupe that resembles a cross between a 1959 Cadillac and a 1955 Thunderbird.

Other vehicles are much more consistent with the time period; for example, main character T.J. Detweiler’s mom is shown to be driving a silver coupe that resembles a 1991-1994 Dodge Shadow or Plymouth Sundance (I forget which episode).

Gus Griswold’s father, a Marine, drives olive drab Hummer H1 (which I believe to be a 1992-1993 model because it is obviously a civilian version, but has manual windows).

School principal Peter Prickly drives a red convertible that combines styling elements from a 1982-1991 BMW E30, a 1987-1993 Cadillac Allante, a 1987-1992 Chrysler LeBaron, and 1986-1989 Mercedes-Benz R107; These vehicles all seem quite appropriate for what an elementary school principal might be driving in the late nineties.

 

In the 2001 feature-length movie, Recess: School's Out, T.J. Detweiler's older sister Becky drives a light blue station wagon with fake wood paneling. The movie came out in 2001, but a flashback to the late 1960s firmly indicates that the movie is set in the summer of 1998. Becky's car most resembles a 1983-1991 Ford Country Squire or Mercury Colony Park. The movie (and the series on which it is based) take place in Arkansas. Like most states, the minimum age to obtain a driver's license in Arkansas is sixteen. Thus, it can be assumed that Becky is at least sixteen. In one foreign language dub of the movie, Becky is said to be twenty years old; However, I believe her age to be 17 or 18. Becky works at the local Floppy Burger, a fictional international franchise based on the likes of McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's; Becky is allowed to drive the Floppy Burger truck, a van that resembles a hound dog. When I worked at a detail shop, the minimum age to move cars around the dealer property was 17, and the minimum age to drive on public roads was 18; I highly doubt that a fast food restaurant would allow a 16-year old to drive a company vehicle!

Since the movie takes place in 1998, and the station wagon is somewhere in the range of 1983-1991, it was more than likely the former Detweiler family car that Becky and T.J.'s parents gave her when she got her license, or possibly gifted to her or sold to the family cheap by a grandparent who bought it new.

In the movie, the bad guys have a fleet of dark green SUVs, which closely resemble 1992-1998 Chevrolet or GMC Suburban K2500 4x4s; The "barn doors" shown on SUV are a pretty big giveaway.

 

As the name of the show implies, Recess takes place primarily during recess at school; It centers almost entirely around a bunch of kids, grades kindergarten through sixth, at the fictional Third Street School in an unnamed Arkansas suburb (implied to be a suburb of Little Rock). The series is absolutely genius in my opinion, with kids divided up into clever cliques, and a hierarchy ruled over sixth grader King Bob. The kindergarteners are depicted as uncivilized savages, given their own section of the playground, allowed to do as they please, and generally left alone. The kindergartners are depicted as so crazy and uncivilized that their teacher throughout the series, a woman in her fifties, is constantly seen with bandages on her face and wearing a neckbrace; A previous male kindergarten teacher is claimed by main character Gretchen Grundler to have been taken out of the school in a straitjacket because the kids drove him insane. Once kindergartners graduate to first grade, they become civilized.

The series primarily centers around a group of six 4th graders, four boys and two girls:

• Theodore Jasper "T.J." Detweiler - the leader, of German ancestry
• Ashley Funicello Spinelli - the tomboyishly beautiful tough kid of the group who is of Italian background and appears to be at least a quarter Asian as well
• Vincent "Vince" LaSalle - The athlete/jock of the group, African-American/black
• Gretchen Grundler - The nerd/whiz kid of the group, a redheaded girl-next-door type
• Michael “Mikey” Blumberg - A larger-than-life with a huge appetite for food and an even bigger appetite for theater
• Gustav Patton “Gus” Griswold - A military brat; The son of a decorated Marine who has been to twelve schools in six years and is the new kid in the second episode of the series

 

Tried some emergency rations at work today; They smell like dog biscuits but actually do not taste bad!

 

King Bob is what I guess you would call a benevolent dictator; He is lazy and demanding, but kind and fair. He rules from a recliner atop the playground equipment...

Bob graduates from the sixth grade in the movie and goes to middle school, and Freddy becomes the new king.

 

One noteworthy clique is The Ashleys, a quarter of 4th grade girls who in addition to all being named Ashley have the following in common:

• They come from rich families
• They are incredibly spoiled
• They all have a younger sister named Brittany
• They all have a younger brother named Tyler

Despite being portrayed as literal rich bitches most of the time, they are ultimately good kids who care about others.

Of note is the fact that one of the main characters is named Ashley, but she successfully hid first name and went by her surname (Spinelli) to avoid having to join the clique. School snitch and teacher’s pet Randall revealed Spinelli’s first name to the entire school purely out of boredom and to stir up trouble. Tomboy Spinelli ended up being forced to join the Ashleys as a matter of course, forced to dress in stereotypical girl clothes, and engage in girl activities; She hates this, and all of the students changed their name to Ashley on their library cards and forced their way into the Ashleys’ clubhouse in order to annoy the four girls into booting Spinelli from the group.

The Ashleys’ clubhouse is a technological wonder in its own right; Situated within a pile of tires on the old playground, the interior is luxuriously appointed. The clubhouse features couches, a TV and VCR, and even air-conditioning; It can presumed that the girls illegally siphon electricity from the school to power these items.

 

One potential goof occurs in an early episode about a field trip; The bus the episode is centered around is described as being 32 years old, which would make it roughly a 1966 model. It actually does look like a late 1960s Ford school bus, and it features a carbureted has V8 engine and a manual transmission.

I rode a school bus for the first time in 1995, when I started first grade; By this time, the majority of school buses, including every school bus I rode on between 1995 and 2008, had a diesel engine and an automatic transmission.

When I was living in California from 1996 to 1997, there were a lot of 1970s and 1980s Crown Coach and Gillig school buses still in use. The majority of conventional school buses I rode on from 1995 to 2000 were GMC and International models from
the 1980s; It seems highly improbably to me that a school district would be running a late sixties gas-powered bus in late 1990s.

 

Another potential SNAFU would be that all school buses seen in the series as well as the 2001 movie, say THIRD STREET SCHOOL on the side; School busses generally serve an entire school district and not just a single school.

 

The 1966ish Ford school bus as seen in Operation Field Trip...

Bus driver Bertha is upset because “Old Smokey” is days away from being retired and sold for scrap...



Ms. Finster specifically states that she “loves the smell of diesel fuel in the morning.”

However, after “Old Smokey” breaks down and the kids try to fix it, Spinelli and Gretchen specifically mention the bus having a carburetor; Correct me if I’m wrong, but a diesel engine would not have a carburetor...?

Also, Bertha mentions that being upset that she will not get to see the bus’s “Cute little odometer roll over 900K.”

I’m sure that many school buses log several hundred thousand miles during their lifetime, but almost a million miles seems an even bigger stretch that a 32-year old bus still being in service!

 

Old Smokey breaks down...

 

Old Smokey after the kids fixed her using miscellaneous junk from an abandoned farm...

 

Ms. Finster’s car...

 

@ColoradoTJ
@disconnected
@El Duderino
@Running Board Man
@shakerhood
@Taco critter

While we are on the topic of school buses, I would like to state once again how much I hate them.

When I was a kid, I generally disliked them because they did not have air-conditioning.

Now I dislike them because they only succeed in holding up traffic and making me late for very important dates!

 

I remember riding on bus 57 for about 10 years, it was a piece of shit and all the windows wouldn't stay closed so it was cold and wet.