REVIEW: Unsupervised “Stupid Idiots”

When Gary and Joel discover that they’re in the “slow” track at school, they spearhead an uprising to abolish academic “segregation.”

 

Spoilers Below

There are four learning “tracks” at Maynord High. You have, the “fast track” which features smart kids called “Eagles” featuring the likes of Darius and includes subjects like Greek Literature. Then you have the “standard track” which is basically your plain Jane outfit featuring Meg who is trying to get Darius to help her get her PDOT scores up so she too can be in the fast track. Then you have the “slow track” where you get romantic novels like Viking Steel as part of your curriculum and engine exhaust is the air you breathe, this is where we find Gary & Joel or “turtles” and boy are they PISSED. Lastly, we get the “sardines” which is basically a class full of kids like Russ that are kept in a shipping crate outside away from the school.

Gary & Joel feel that they should get the same learning opportunities as everyone else despite their low IQ’s, so they take their gripes to Principal Skunk who grants them a class promotion on the spot. Once there, everything is different as the fast class is reading Homer’s Odyssey, and they get to experience modern marvels in technology like windows , touch-screen monitors, and air conditioning. Having experienced bliss, Gary & Joel decide to go back to the other classes to tell the other “turtles” and “sardines” how great it is to take tests and learn hard shit, even convincing everyone else to take the PDOT tests as well. The PDOTs are standardized testing that all the other schools take which determine how much money each school gets for salaries, supplies, etc., and if the school tests low they don’t get that money. When Skunk hears of this, she lets all the kids take the PDOT test in lieu of going to an amusement park with Darius as the tutor.

It’s pretty amazing to me how accurate this show is, maybe the most accurate animated show ever. I mean this is what high school was like for me, we had an “Honors” class, and then “A” and “B” classes with some of them in trailers outside. We also had teachers that doubled as coaches and girls like Meg who are so obsessed with wanting to be great at school that she would do unspeakable things to get ahead only to fall flat on their faces.  I’m also starting to notice that the relationship between Gary & Joel and the Principal as being very similar to Lisa Simpson’s many visits to Principal Skinner’s office. Where, occasionally they are there for the wrong reason(but don’t mean to be) but really they are constantly challenging the school in getting what they want and as such the story usually kicks off with some sort of idea that takes the whole episode to see if it works or not. Is it cliche? Yes, but if its for the right reasons and a good morale happens at the end then who am I to say if that’s a bad thing? There are a lot of things that could be done wrong with Gary & Joel, but so far this season they have been doing more right and to be honest, might help to lay claim to the feel-good show of the year.

(8.0 out of 10)