I missed the premiere of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Tuesday night as I had better things to do, like brush my dog's teeth. But curiosity got the best of me Wednesday night and I figured I'd check this show out. Whoa. What a big pile of poo.I don't think I need to go over everything that's wrong with this show, but as I'm watching it I started to come up with ideas that could make this one kick ass game show and make it feel a lot more like school when I was a kid.
1) If the contestant fails the game, he/she has to sit in the corner of the "classroom". For three episodes. Throw in a dunce cap for good measure.
2) They've got lifelines: Save, Copy and Peek. They need one more: Bully. Allow the player to beat the shit out of his classmate. The player automatically wins the round and gets $2.25 of the kid's lunch money.
3) Randomly replace Foxworthy with a 102 year-old lady substitute who makes the kids do busy work while she does a crossword. Whatever the player doesn't get finished becomes homework which they have to do before 6:40 AM the next day (contestants can win bonus points for making the substitute quit and/or cry before the show's over).
4) New categories: Gym and Lunch. In Gym, players will get questions like the best way to avoid getting hit in the nads with a dodgeball (the answer is "don't play"). Players will tremble in fear at the fifth grade lunch questions, having to know what day is pizza day (the answer is "Friday") and how many hairs are on the average lunch lady mole (the answer is "fifteen").
5) For every minute the player contemplates a question, the students in the class will shoot spit balls into the player's face. For every minute Jeff Foxworthy spends trying to "build up suspense" he gets a sharp paper airplane in the eye.
Oh, and for you readers coming to TV Squad trying to find out how to get you or your kid on this game show, do I really need to tell you we're not associated with this show in any way? If so, go sit in the corner. For three days.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-01-2007 @ 12:20PM
BigTed said...
Here's why I like this show:
1. Other than "Jeopardy," it's the only game show on TV where the questions aren't about trivia, or ridiculously easy.
2. It's also the only one, other than "Jeopardy," in which the questions aren't multiple-choice. That makes them a lot harder to answer, especially under pressure.
3. The kids are fun... And, unlike adults, they actually laugh at Jeff Foxworthy's jokes.
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3-01-2007 @ 12:24PM
Gary said...
What a lame ass show! The questions make "Show me the money" look like "Jeopardy". Last nights contestant couldn't even figure out that Canada has a longer border with the U.S. than Mexico did. I don't give it a full season before it's canceled.
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3-01-2007 @ 1:00PM
jamTVman said...
So the contestant I saw last night couldn't answer how many decades in two millenium. They said she was a computer consultant, but obviously the computers she works with don't require much math.
I have a better idea for a show, recruit from the same population that Leno uses for "Jaywalking" and have them compete against third graders.
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3-01-2007 @ 1:00PM
jamTVman said...
So the contestant I saw last night couldn't answer how many decades in two millenium. They said she was a computer consultant, but obviously the computers she works with don't require much math.
I have a better idea for a show, recruit from the same population that Leno uses for "Jaywalking" and have them compete against third graders.
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3-01-2007 @ 1:14PM
Marc said...
They really are finding some stupid people. The worst part is that there just aren't enough questions with all the stalling and commercials. The questions are easy, and I would answer them instantly, while shouting at the TV because the dummy is taking so damn long. When a jerk who was a US History major doesn't know Andrew Johnson was impeached, the show has problems.
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3-01-2007 @ 1:38PM
David said...
Umm... hello. They are going to pick the dumbest people to be on it and the smartest kids, the whole point is to make people look like fools.
I enjoy the show, but there are several issues with it. First the black woman got like $100,000 or something and all she did was answer like one question by herself. They need dumb kids too just to mess the people up. And I made a list of questions they asked, which I can't find. Several of them are not the grades they say they were. I didn't learn the triangle thing until 7th grade. They said REM sleep is a 4th grade question? What school teaches you about REM sleep? None, it's a pointless topic you don't need to know and aren't taught.
I do love the set through, but they need several small changes to it.
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3-01-2007 @ 2:13PM
Robert said...
No, my favorite was the grade 1 astronomy question about what is the closest star to Earth??????
I changed the channel after 30 seconds and no answer.
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3-01-2007 @ 3:53PM
eklen said...
Yea, that show was pretty annoying and insanely retarded. It seems very obviously staged (to me). It seemed like a nice concept, but it should get taken off the air. Immediately.
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3-01-2007 @ 4:41PM
Caitlin said...
If you're smarter than a fifth grader, you'll skip this bomb altogether & watch "In Case of Emergency" on ABC @ 9:30pm. I know no one has really discovered it yet, thanks to the steamroller that is "American Idol," but David Arquette and Greg Germann (Fish on "Ally McBeal") are really funny. Great writing.
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3-02-2007 @ 6:34PM
yogahz said...
Those kids are actors. The girl named Laura was Sarah Silverman's "daughter". Makes me wonder if they're coached.
I agree that there are only about 15 minutes of show between commercials.
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3-04-2007 @ 3:18AM
TVaholic said...
I like your #5. All the pausing and heading to commercial to try and create drama is very annoying. The show has a good concept but has been executed poorly. In the half hour of the first show, on Tuesday, they only got to six questions before it was over. It actually made the show quite boring. I do wonder, however, if the pace of the show will be better in the hour-long format. Or, will it just be twice as excruciating.
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3-06-2007 @ 12:03PM
PN said...
I wished that they would have real kids on the set instead of actors. But the producers would have had a problem with them standing still or squirming or running around the show's set. I think this kind of show would have worked 15 years ago, when The Cosby Show was on. But it looks out of place in a sea of shows like Deal or No Deal or 1 vs. 100, where people come to win money and nothing else. It's kind of taken from Jay Leno's Jaywalking segment, where some regular adults can't answer the most recognizable questions and answer something so STUPID! I think that comedian/now game show host Jeff Foxworthy watched hours of tapes and footage from Leno just to come up with this game show.
Plus, Jeff looks older appearance-wise. I know time gets to folks, but his face looks puffier than the youthful look he had in the '90s.
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4-10-2007 @ 7:00PM
ashley said...
If you don't like the show, then DON'T WATCH IT! better yet, if you're going to complain about it, use proper grammar otherwise you look like a moron. If you're going to complain about how "ridiculously easy" the questions are, then don't write any worse than a 5th grader would. Therefore you contradict yourself in a way. How come these people know so much about the show anyway? If it is so close a comparison to Jeopardy, then why not watch that instead? I enjoy the show and if you think that you can do a better job, then go for it and stop trying to critique Jeff Foxworthy's show.
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