Are you smarter than a fifth grader?
This new game show on Fox hosted by comedian Jeff Foxworthy is the most depressing pile of shit I've ever seen on television in my life. And I include such fare as "The Littlest Groom" into that.
The premise, if it's new to you, is that contestants test their skill in rudimentary subjects such as grammar, vocabulary, science and geography by answering mostly multiple choice questions set at various grade levels. There are six kids up on stage with them that answer the questions as well.
In the style of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" contestants can rely on the kids themselves for answers, three times anyway, and in the single episode that I watched it was absolutely depressing how often the contestants went to the kids for answers.
We're not talking about the sort of questions that you might find at some super-elite private school. We're talking about pretty simple stuff, like "what whole number is the closest to the square root of 50?"
I'm math-retarded -- I had to take Algebra three times in high school -- and I could still riff off "7" without thinking about it. This guy -- who does mortgage finance for a living, for Christ's sake -- guessed "25," but the kid assigned to him for the question saved his bacon.
The question that stumped the one guy I watched was the definition of "transpiration," which all of the fifth-graders got. So he walked away with $175,000 to start his sports bar with.
Heaven help us that it's come to this.
For what it's worth, my kids love this show. Because the adults act like imbeciles, for the most part, and the kids are clearly the more smart, together ones.