Spoilers Below

This week in class we learn all about bullying and guess what? Bullies NOT aloud at High School USA! Its here we meet Amber, Cassandra (Mandy Moore), Brad (T.J. Miller), Blackstein (Nathan Barnatt), and Marsh (Vince Kartheiser). These kids agree on one thing…bullying stinks. Marsh is pissed because he’s not skinny enough to fit in his tux, and he seems to take it out on Brad whom acts as the aforementioned bullies. Brad denies it and runs away crying, and of course Amber and Cassandra are pissed because now they don’t have dates. We find Brad kinda taken back by the fact that he was called a nerd, but eventually comes in contact with a cyber bully. This cyber bully starts showing Brad all the ropes of how to be a bully, and the next day at school he gets thrown out of the school dance. Marsh’s dad tries to explain to his son that bullies provide a healthy part of growing up and decides to take Brad as his date to the dance. The teacher is kinda in a rush though cuz the band isn’t there and as such asks Brad and Marsh to do their band as the new performers. The band goes and the dance goes off just fine.

FOX has had a lot of different shows try and bring in a ‘high school’ type setting and most have failed. From Sit Down, Shut Up to Napoleon Dynamite, FOX has had more bad grades regarding high schools than the State of NJ. Figures it took a guy (Dino Stamatopoulos) whom has been writing a show(Community) about recently graduated high school students the last few years to get this one right. Giving us an Archie Comics on speed, High School USA! gives us a pretty accurate yet highly ostracized look at what a typical American high school is like. Think of it as an animated take on Degrassi, but nowhere near as melodramatic and 20 times as sick and twisted. The one drawback so far is that everyone’s screen time is so short I didn’t have time to get to know any of the characters not named Brad of whom was played rather on point by the already talented TJ Miller. This show may need the full 30 minutes, but let’s keep an eye out for this one.

8 out of 10