Episode Report Card Maggie: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Tests And Breasts
By Maggie | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 11.05.1999
The episode opens with Mr. “Biff” Fredricks teaching a sex ed class to Sam, Neal, Bill and assorted other boys their age. He’s droning on about the changes pubescent bodies go through while standing in front of a chart which depicts female reproductive organs. Neal and Bill make jokes about the diagram of the uterus and Sam shushes them, which just draws Biff’s attention to him. Biff asks Sam if something is funny. Sam says no, so Biff says, “If you get the clap because you weren’t paying attention in health class, is that going to be funny too?” Sam timidly says no. I say, cart before the horse much, Biff? Neal and Bill continue joking about how the uterus looks like the thing Sigourney Weaver killed in Alien. Again, Sam takes the rap for the noise that Neal and Bill are making. Biff gets fed up and he says, “Hello! McFly!” and knocks on Sam’s head. Actually, he makes Sam come to the front to teach the class. Biff sits down in Sam’s seat and refers to Sam as Dr. Love. Biff then puts Sam through his paces trying to identify the ovaries, the cervix, and the vagina, none of which he can identify correctly. It’s all very cruel except for when, in an imitation of Richard Dawson on Family Feud, Biff says, “Ennnnnnnnnn! Cervix says, no!” That’s kind of funny. ["I'm waiting for an opportunity to say 'cervix says...no!' in conversation. Sadly, I don't think that opportunity will come soon." -- Wing Chun] Biff ends the torture and allows Crispin Glover, uh, I mean Sam, to sit down. Sam passes by Alan, the mean guy from previous episodes who is now sporting a brush cut, on his way back to his seat. Alan smirks and says, “Dr. Luuuuve.” Sam sits down and says, “At least I didn’t get head lice.” In the background, Bill snickers. Alan glares and punches his notebook. Then, the excellent Joan Jett theme song and the opening credits come on.
To the strains of Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business,” Mr. “Call me Jeff” Rosso is glad-handing through the halls, complimenting some jocks in varsity jackets on the game, relaying praise from “his associates in the English department” to a passing girl, and he tells a velour-shirted guy named Brad to stop by his office so they can “rap.” While I believe that the Sugar Hill Gang and Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five may have recorded by then, and their records may have reached Michigan by then, that’s not the kind of rapping Mr. Rosso means. Anyway, when Mr. Rosso leaves, Brad rolls his eyes and gives a sarcastic “peace, brother” gesture to his friends. That Mr. Rosso, he loves to work at nothin’ all day.
Okay, so Mr. Kowchevski, the nasty math teacher, comes into his classroom barking out typical high school teacher stuff like, “Okay people, simmer down.” I cannot believe how much this guy is like so many math teachers I had, right down to the short-sleeved shirts and ties that get tucked into the belts. Who else dresses this way, except for Canadian Tire store managers? He reminds the class about the test they are having the next day. Daniel asks him, “Didn’t we take a test last week?” Kowchevski says, “Your point?” Daniel says, “Well, I don’t think you taught us enough in the past week to give us another test.” The teacher babbles that learning math is like riding a bus. Okay, don’t ask me to explain it. Daniel protests that he doesn’t ride the bus. Kowchevski threatens that Daniel will be riding the bus with him again next year if he fails another test. The sadistic-prick-math-teacher takes entirely too much pleasure from the thought of Daniel failing. Okay, I admit it, I have issues with math teachers which explains why I have a degree in English, I guess. ["Mine was named Mr. Sanderson. I think that he and Mr. Kowchevski were separated at birth." -- Wing Chun]
In the cafeteria line, a handful of varsity-jacketed jocks are yukking it up. One of them says, “He looks up at her and says, ‘how do you think I rang the doorbell?’” The jocks laugh. Sam, Neal, and Bill overhear them, but they don’t get the joke. I’m not going to belabour this, but I can’t believe that they didn’t get it. My esteemed partner, Mick, says that he probably would have gotten that joke in grade six, and for sure would have gotten it in grade nine, or rather, ninth grade, which is what grade they’re supposed to be in. It’s supposed to be 1980 after all, not 1950. It’s a stupid joke, but not too hard to figure out. Okay, that pun was not intentional. Much. Anyway, Neal says that jocks don’t know how to tell jokes and Bill says, “I don’t really like jokes. I don’t think they’re funny.” People, this guy deserves an Emmy nomination just for the posture he’s sporting in this scene. Sam ponders the joke a bit more, then heads for a table. On the way there, he runs into Cindy who is looking very fetching in her coordinating striped pink turtleneck, and salmon coloured pants. They chat about the upcoming MD Carnival. Do kids still put those on? I went to on once, and I suspect that the kids who put it on kept all the proceeds for themselves. Cindy tells Sam that she’ll be running the ice cream booth. A boy from the sex ed class comes up to Sam and says, “Dr. Love, I can’t find my girlfriend’s cervix, can you help me out?” Cindy wonders what that was all about and Sam says, “Oh, that’s an inside joke.” I am somewhat ashamed to say that line made me snort like a pig. Sam, not at all smoovely, tries to change the subject by volunteering to help Cindy out at the ice cream booth. Cindy tells him that he won’t need to help out, but that he should remember to stop by the booth, then she walks over to a jock to ask him if he is coming to carnival. Alan, who is sitting nearby says, “Dr. Love, will you autograph my genitals?” Unfortunately, Sam doesn’t respond, “Yeah, I will. With my foot.”
Out on the smoking patio, Kim is telling Lindsay that she took twenty dollars from her mother but her mother thought that Kim’s brother did it, and she (the mother) hit Kim’s brother over the head with a spatula. Kim thinks it was hilarious; Lindsay reluctantly says, “Sounds it.” Nick, who is sitting beside Kim, takes the opportunity to spit a drink through a straw on to Kim. Kim freaks out (understandably, in my opinion), and she asks him if he is “lit.” He mumbles an apology and tells her to mellow out but she still kicks over his drink. She says, “Now I’ve got to walk around all day with pop on shirt, thanks a lot.” Kim pronounces pop as “pap” and that amuses me greatly. I knew that Western New Yorkers did that, I didn’t realize that Michiganders did that too. After Kim stomps off, Nick says to Lindsay, “I have these weird urges sometimes, I should probably go apologize.” Hey Nick, save your weird urges for sex ed class. Nick runs off and Lindsay heads over to talk to Daniel. He tells Lindsay that he is bummed because Mr. Kowchevski told him that if he fails the test, he’ll have to take algebra again. Daniel asks Lindsay if she takes algebra and she says that she takes trig, but that she took algebra last year. He says that she “must study a lot.” Somewhat defensively, she says that math is not such a big deal, “it’s a few basic formulas, some short cuts, then you plug in some numbers –” Daniel quits listening when he hears the phrase “short cuts,” and asks her if she means that they are tricks. “You could call them that,” says Lindsay. She offers to help him study because “it could be kinda fun.” Lindsay, I don’t think either of you have the traditional type of studying in mind, and yet you’re both on different pages, so to speak.