https://www.facebook.com/HOTC.FR/videos/185391192714323/
Hey guys! Remember Head of the Class? I’m so *nostalgic* for it.
0:00 – Aw. Some bastard cut out the theme song. Now I’m going to have to look this up separately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjb3Py_37nM
Aw yeah. There’s the *nostagia*. Remember when Robin Givens gave that interview to Barbara Walters where she implied that Mike Tyson beat her?
And of course the star of the show: Howard Hesseman. We all remember him from the syndicated hit WKRP in Cincinnati. Remember Loni Anderson? I’m so *nostalgic* for her large breasts.
But back to Head of the Class, all of these actors have gone on to have successful careers.
William G. Schilling. He was the principal. He went on to play “Golfer” in Space Jam.
Jeannetta Arnette. She was the assistant principal. She used to sexually harass Johnny Fever. Who can blame her? But she went on to play Flo in Passions. Remember Passions? I legitimately watched this in college. It was the only soap opera I ever watched. It was about witches and shit. I just remember a dwarf character.
Leslie Bega? I don’t even remember her from the show. Oh. Now that I’ve looked at some pictures I kind of remember. She was just some forgettable character. She got a job at Jiffy Lube or something.
Dan Frischman. This was the nerdy kid. Well, he was actually 30 when the show started but they were all old. Hey, he was also in Passions. Just for one episode. He played Animal Control Officer. That was the highlight of his post-Head of the Class career.
Khrystyne Haje. She was the red-haired 30 year old high school student. Well. Let me just say this. Her career died after this show was over. That’s the case for all of these people. So let’s move on.
Oh, this is going to be tough to time-stamp. I’m going to give the “time remaining” time because that’s how Facebook does it.
19:00 – Dennis (the fat “kid”) put a liquorice spider on some “girl’s” desk as a prank.
By the way, Dennis was a “nerd”, as all of the characters in this class were. It was some kind of class for super intelligent 30 year old high school students. But Dennis’ thing was that he was good with computers. That’s why he has a computer always with him in class. It’s just a big PC. Laptops were prohibitively expensive in 1989. And in 1989, there weren’t computers in the classrooms. So this was like a big deal. If you were interested in computers in 1989, you were a giant nerd. Unlike today, where guys who are into computers get all the bitches.
18:30 – After Johnny Fever threatens to throw Dennis out of the class if he performs any more pranks, Dennis makes a little joke. So Johnny Fever throws him out of class. Out of the whole gifted program. That seems to be a ridiculous over-reaction.
16:30 – The next day, Dennis returns to class and Johnny Fever ignores him. Dennis apologises to the class and to Johnny Fever.
Then the assistant principal comes in and it’s revealed that Dennis is going to remedial history. Johnny Fever is totally unmoved by Dennis’ apology.
What an asshole. So for making a small joke 30 seconds into the episode, he gets moved to remedial history. Not even the normal history class. And Johnny Fever doesn’t care in the slightest.
This reflects Howard Hesseman’s real life dissatisfaction with the direction the show was taking. This was a season 3 episode. He thought that he wasn’t getting enough air time or something so quit and was replaced by Billy Connolly. I think that this was Hesseman’s last season, actually. Oh no. He lasted one more season. What did Howard Hesseman do after Head of the Class? Nothing.
16:00 – So we’re introduced to remedial history. There’s a scholar athlete wearing a letterman jacket, a guy who’s juggling, and there’s some hair tussling. So you know this a rough group. Tiny, the class bully, starts gently roughing up Dennis.
15:00 – Then some sassy black 30 year old female student comes in and challenges Tiny to a fight after school if Tiny doesn’t put Dennis down. So Tiny complies, not wanting to later be charged with a hate crime.
14:00 – Tiny is playing some kind of handheld video game so not paying attention to the teacher. It’s like the size of a mobile phone but obviously this was before mobile phones.
12:00 – After class, there’s some light ribbing by Dennis’ former classmates so he challenges this gifted class to some kind of academic competition. After one class.
11:15 – Next day in remedial class, the class is suitably confused. Why did Dennis do this? Doesn’t he realise how much work is going to be involved in setting this shit up? What’s to be gained from this anyway?
But then after talking to the blue haired guy about how he’s a competent new wave rocker and to some woman who dated that nerd Arvid, they all decide that they’re smart. I’m not sure how that follows but whatever. We have to advance the plot and the people writing this shit obviously weren’t too smart themselves.
Then they agree to show the teacher respect but they were doing that anyway. I don’t get this.
9:00 – The class starts doing that Arsenio Hall whooping. Remember that? I’m so…no, I can’t even say it as a joke.
7:45 – After a discussion with Johnny Fever, the teachers agree to have this academic contest. So…what? The syllabus is out the window now? They’re just going to stop everything to prepare for this stupid contest that means NOTHING.
Tiny is again seen playing some unknown handheld game. With the sound up. What could he be playing? It’s too small to be a Gameboy or even some kind of Tiger handheld. It’s so thin that AA batteries wouldn’t fit. Or even AAA.
It’s horizontal so it kind of looks like a Gamegear but the Gamegear wasn’t released until a year later.
6:30 – The next day, the remedial class is playing with toy soldiers as part of some “alternate learning” thing but Tiny is still playing his mystery game. It’s making like Space Invaders kind of sounds but when somebody else is speaking, it mutes itself.
And now he seems to be playing it vertically. He says that he’s “playing Commando”. The 1985 arcade game? It was never ported to any handheld consoles. Maybe this is an underpants reference. Maybe he’s coming on to Dennis.
Dennis says, “The Revolutionary War is a lot more exciting than some stupid video game.” There’s no laugh track after this. In 1989, this is how people genuinely thought. Video games were just something for socially awkward nerds. A normal person’s idea of fun was researching American history.
But somehow Dennis gets through to Tiny and Tiny slams his game down, goes over to the diorama, and says, “Who’s supposed to zap who here?” Because in 1989, that’s how video games were. Not the newer stuff, of course, like Super Mario Land and Final Fantasy Legend and whatever but people in 1989 weren’t playing new video games. They were still playing stuff from the early 80s like Space Invaders and Missile Command and whatever. On some kind of futuristic, paper thin, handheld device.
6:00 – Then the next day, they’re at this competition. This looks like it took A LOT of work. Banners and everything. How did they fucking do all of this in three days? That’s how long this was, right? They give the day before every scene but I wasn’t really paying attention. But from Dennis getting kicked out of the AP class to this competition starting, it’s definitely less than a week.
So…not only did they set up the school auditorium with this fairly elaborate set but they also prepared for this thing academically all within a week. And Tiny only came around yesterday. So he must have crammed like hell for this thing. By playing with toy soldiers.
5:15 – Then somebody from the honor’s class suggests a rule change saying that nobody on either team can answer more than three questions. And he openly says that this is to avoid Dennis giving all of the answers.
Here’s how this would work in real life: “No, we’re not doing that. You can’t change the rules on the day of the competition, you asshole.”
But Dennis agrees.
Then…what…this is how it works. Instead of the host/moderator (of which we have two: the principal and the assistant principal) asking the questions, the STUDENTS ask the questions. Why? Where are they getting these questions from? Did they have to come up with them themselves? So that’s yet more preparation that they had to do.
Yeah, that’s what this is. Because then you see the assistant principal looking shit up from books.
This is unbelievable. Why wouldn’t they prepare the questions BEFOREHAND? And have the answers to go with them? So now after every question, we have to wait for the assistant principal to thumb through about five voluminous history books to find each answer. I guess that this is what happens when you prepare everything last minute.
4:30 – Then it’s Dennis’ turn to ask a question and he’s just asking this off the top of his head. He didn’t even bother to prepare a question. Didn’t he know that this was the format?
At half-time (I guess) they reveal the scores: the honor’s team has 6 and the remedial team has 10. How did this happen? Dennis is presumably out because he already answered his three questions. So how did they get the other seven? Playing with fucking toy soldiers gave them the tools needed to win?
Also, the honor’s class didn’t prepare for this thing at all. That was revealed in a brief scene earlier. But still…this seems unlikely.
Yeah, then it’s confirmed that Dennis has answered his three questions already. So the advanced class starts making a comeback. But…why weren’t they making the comeback right after Dennis answered his three questions?
3:30 – Tiny leaves in disgust. By the way, Tiny wasn’t even taking part in this. He was just in the audience. I have no idea why he wasn’t taking part because at the end of the previous scene, he had agreed to learn about the Revolutionary War with the rest of the class.
So Dennis chases after him and suggests that Tiny take his place. How is that going to work? You can swap out players now? It’s ridiculous. But they’re just making the rules up as they go along.
Nobody disputes this odd rule change.
Mrs Tyson says: “Describe General Gates’ strategy for the final assault on the British.”
What kind of question is that? Trivia questions are supposed to be answered in one or two words. Not fucking long descriptions. This is bullshit. But again, these questions were not vetted beforehand and there seem to be no rules so anything goes.
Tiny answers.
Alright. You got to visualise the entire thing like a giant video game. I’m General Gates. Now, first I hit them so that they retreat to their stronghold at (some name that I can’t understand) And that’s 5000 points. If I try to go after them directly from there, I blow it. Out of the game. Gone. I got to move to the north against the (same name as earlier) If I get away from that, that’s another 5000 points. Now I’ve got my artillery and it’s goodbye Freeman’s Farm. (explosion sound) 50,000 points, end of game.
The assistant principal immediately looks up from one of her history books and declares, “he’s right!”
What? First of all, what the fuck did video games add to this description? He just assigned arbitrary points to things.
Secondly, I can’t even understand what the fuck he’s saying and I have Google. But somehow this assistant principal was immediately able to find this information from her stack of books.
Thirdly, take away the video game shit and this was a very sparse answer. They retreated somewhere, then General Gates moved north (to that location). Then they blew up Freeman’s Farm with artillery. That’s it. That’s the answer.
So that was 1989. Video games were strictly for fat, dumb, nerds. It’s just how it was. And we would have impromptu academic challenges without any rules. Kids would research American history just for fun. This was what we did in our leisure time. I remember just poring over books about the Battle of Saratoga. My parents would yell at me. “Put down that history book and go play some video games” but I wasn’t having it. That shit is for nerds.
Times change, of course. Nowadays, history books aren’t so fashionable and video games have become mainstream. But I’m still *nostalgic* for those simpler times when a kid could just read a history textbook and have a grand time of it. Maybe play with a diorama. I’m getting teary just thinking about it.