Cory in the House is a follow-up to That’s So Raven, where the little brother of the main character of that show, goes and lives in the white house with his dad who is the chef of the president of the united states of America. Here is our full Cory in the House Episode 1 Review.
The 1st episode of the season was aired in the late Summer 2007 anime season. Cory in the House was created by Disney Channel. Due to the age of the show and not being available in HD, some of the images might not be up to the right quality standard.
Cory in the House by Studio Disney is probably the most famous anime ever created, its first episode has been estimated to have been more watched than every Fifa world cup combined. The anime takes viewers on a journey through the political world of the White House. The protagonist, Cory Baxter, is a teenager whose father becomes the personal chef for the President of the United States.
Let’s start by analyzing the OP, we start off with the title card “Cory in the House” Roads unwind from within the letters of his name, this is a subtle reference to the fact that all roads in life lead to Cory, Cory and his father arrive at the white house and the world shakes, his presence being so mighty and powerful. Cory even raises his arms to lift the white house, this is a subtle reference to the fact that Cory carries not just the world on his shoulders but more importantly, he carries America on his shoulders.
We then cut to Cory holding a drumstick in place of the Washington Monument Tower while also doing a cool spin trick with another drumstick in the other hand, this is actually what inspired George Lucas in 1999 to add the line “I’ll try spinning that’s a good trick” to Star Wars: Episode 1. George Lucas to this day credits the idea to Cory, saying:
“I had the whole script written out but I was missing just one line, I spent months thinking about what to write in there, and I almost scrapped the Star Wars Prequels, could you imagine the world without the Star Wars prequels? But I went home one night and I turned on the Disney channel and there it was, I saw Cory spinning that stick and I was all like “Spinning that’s a good trick” and I instantly ran to the studio, we started filming within the hour, I had Jake Lloyd do 473 takes until we got it just right, the on-set Therapists said I was pushing him too hard, it’s unethical to force an 8-year-old boy to work for nearly 24 hours straight, but we got the shot we needed and that on-set Therapist was clearly wrong, Jake was fine. I wonder what that little guy is up to right now” – George Lucas said June 21st, 2015.
In the next scene, Cory is seen playing the Drums this is a reference to a future ark where Cory defeats Communism in a battle of the bands against Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union, his drumming managed to end the Soviet Union, this of course lead to Russia becoming a Democratically elected country where Putin was Democratically elected for 2 democratic terms as president. Before becoming prime minister and then serving another 2 Democratically elected terms, then drafting a constitutional amendment that was democratically voted on and would allow him to remain president for two more democratically elected terms. Wow, isn’t it super cool that Democracy allowed one person to have a 23-year-long position of power? Cory single-handedly ended the dictatorship that was the Soviet Union.
Next, we see Cory’s best friend Newt, plugging his guitar into the Washington Monument, and rocking so hard that the statue of Lincon comes to life, this is also a nod to a future episode where Cory is the victim of a hate crime, causing Statue Lincon to combine with other statue Presidents to become a Gundam President, which of course leads to the 19-Episode fight ark that takes place between Lincon-Gundum and the man who committed the hate crime.
This leads to our next scene of Meena who is also Best Girl in this anime, she spins a record over the Capital Building which is a direct reference to the fact that she knows how to spin a record.
We then move to Mount Rushmore, these are the heads that fuse with Statue-Lincon when he becomes a Gundam.
We then, of course, have the President and his 8-year-old daughter Sofie step into the frame before Cory’s dad shows off a cake that is a replica of the White House, it is quickly however destroyed and consumed this is of course a reference to the show’s stance on Capitalism and consumerism, and how people will even tare down the White House if it means they can have just a tiny bit of something.
But of course, Cory steps into the frame to signify that he is there to save the day, like the true American hero he is. The title card then appears which forms a perfect loop back to the beginning, truly a perfect OP, the OP was so good in fact that they only ever had the one. That’s right some anime have their OP change out halfway through a season but Cory in the House’s OP never changed because it was perfect from the beginning.
This leads us to our episode review of the show:
The first episode starts off with Cory and his Father arriving at the White House, Cory’s father is given his first presidential task, making an Ice Cream Sundae. This is of course a reference to the real-life president at the time, George W. Bush whose favorite activity was eating an Ice Cream Sundae in his air-conditioned office while thousands of his soldiers lay down their lives invading a Middle Eastern desert to fight terrorism by going to the wrong country but accidentally the country with the most Oil.
Cory also meets the President’s young daughter and the President’s assistant. Cory goes to school where he meets Mina, and we get hit pretty quickly by the deep messages of the show, in this case, it’s the great economical divide, as Mina talks to Cory she talks about her Privileged life, riding horses while Cory is just happy he had basic cable growing up. But Cory the savvy businessman he is takes this as a networking opportunity to make friends with people in higher society now that the tables have turned in his favor. He also meets Newt who arrives in a Helicopter, again another reference to show the economical divide and also give a message about how rich people use inconvenient means of transportation like Helicopters and Private Jets, which pollute the Earth just that extra bit instead of riding in anything a normal person would.
But it doesn’t end there, Cory meets Jason Stickler whose father works for the CIA, Jason shows Cory a device with incredible face recognition technology, the same technology that would later be sold to China which they’d use to track all their citizens appointing them social credit based on every activity they do. Anyways, Newt and Mina invite Cory to a party that requires him to have intense knowledge of horses. So when back at the white house Cory talks to the President’s daughter Sofie, knowing that little girls love horses, we see Cory use his master manipulation tactics for the first time to convince Sofie to let him use the Presidential computer to research horses. These master manipulation tactics will be one of Cory’s main advantages in future episodes as he solves world peace between nations at war with his sly and convincing words.
However, Sofie isn’t an average person, and let her age not fool us as she’s one of the most intelligent and cunning villains of the show, and one of Cory’s true rivals as she turns the tables on him by locking him in the President’s office, if he’s to be caught in their, him and his father may be permanently removed from the White House. Cory, however, is a master of hiding, so he hides under the President’s desk. Where he pretends to be the President’s dog to avoid suspicion.
Sofie feeling bad for her actions against Cory helps him by providing the information he needs on horses, showing that despite her Evil tendencies, she’s an empathetic villain. Cory makes his way to the Party where Jason sets him up as a professional and champion horse rider. This all being a trap knowing that Cory has never ridden a Horse. Cory, however, doesn’t step down and gives it his best, embarrassingly riding it backward and crying begging for help, this sets up the later revenge ark against Jason who becomes the real first Villain of the story. A rivalry that will go down in anime history.
That night Cory bumps into the President in the kitchen where the President sympathizes with Cory’s embarrassing moment, giving him life advice that Cory holds onto throughout the entire show. The next day at school Cory goes to Mina and Newt who he had lied to about being a professional horse rider. However, Mina and Newt make it clear that they don’t care if he can’t ride horses or grow out on the other side of the economic spectrum, and Cory learns a deep lesson about honesty.
This might sound like a weak start to an anime but as the show went through its many seasons and arks. It became the greatest anime ever made. An anime so great the likes of Steven Spielberg went on to say that he’d trade away every movie he’s ever worked on if only he could have directed a single episode of Cory in the House.
So in conclusion. Cory in the House is a 10/10 Masterpiece of an anime.
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