During this year’s quarantine life, many of us found ourselves suddenly staying at home with more time on our hands than we anticipated.  Over the spring and summer, I found an old TV show online to catch up on, one that I somewhat remembered as a kid but not seen in at least 29 years.  The following is my review of the hit ABC sitcom Head of the Class, which aired from 1986-1991.

Head of the Class centers around a high school classroom for honors students at New York City’s fictional Fillmore High School, and stars Howard Hesseman as out-of-work theater actor turned substitute teacher Charlie Moore.  The ten students in the class are part of the IHP (Individualized Honors Program), and provide a bit of culture shock when compared to the more typical high school classroom, especially in 1980s NYC.  The show also features Dr. Samuels as the principal who’s a bit of a buffoon, and also the coach of his beloved academic team, which consists of the IHP students.  The ensemble cast of students is probably most remembered by Dennis, the portly prankster who’s into science and shenanigans, and his best friend Arvid, the stereotypical nerd and math whiz.  There are other students too, of course, but Dennis and Arvid seem to get the most storylines.

The premise of the show begins with Mr. Moore being assigned to the IHP class as a sub for two days.  Dr. Samuels, although giving him the assignment, doesn’t trust him or want him to actually teach anything, since he sees him as only a sub who probably doesn’t know anything.  Meanwhile, the students don’t immediately warm up to him and would prefer to study quietly on their own.  Mr. Moore finally makes a connection with the students, demonstrates that he actually knows what he’s doing, and teaches them that while studying and knowledge are important, a well-rounded life is also important.  Eventually, a two-day assignment to the classroom turns into a more permanent role as their history teacher.

Head of the Class portrays its lead character, Mr. Moore, as a laid-back but thoughtful version of what an ideal teacher might be. As the show progresses, many of the episodes feature problems encountered by one or more of the members of the ten-student IHP, and Mr. Moore getting involved in their lives and helping them solve their problem.  It’s a common formula throughout the series.  Often, one of the students talks about their problem in the middle of class for some reason, at which point Mr. Moore either calls them out into the hall or speaks with them after class to talk with them about it, and eventually, the problem is solved.  Never mind the fact that it does not often happen this way in real life, as actual students would be more inclined to say, “I don’t want to talk about it, this is none of your business.”  But this is TV, where all problems get solved, so we’re going with it.

Some of the most memorable episodes of this series include a 1988 episode where the academic team from Fillmore High School travels to Moscow to face off against the academic team from the Soviet Union.  (The Soviet Union was actually still a country while this series was on.)  This was probably my favorite episode.  It was actually filmed in Moscow, which was apparently a big deal at the time.  This academic meet was also a re-match of the 1987 episode in which the Soviet academic team travelled to New York City to compete against Fillmore.  Other high-profile episodes from this series include several renditions of the school play, with Mr. Moore as the drama club sponsor and the whole IHP class involved.  These plays included Grease, Little Shop of Horrors, and Hair.  In another memorable episode from 1989, Mr. Moore accompanies Dennis and Arvid to Houston as they compete in the finals of their NASA science project.  And then there was the finale in 1991 as they all graduated.  (Oops, should I have said spoiler alert there?  I hope I’m not spoiling anything by revealing that a show about honors high school students has them graduating at the end of the series.)

Oh yeah, the fact that it takes them until 1991 to graduate, after being in high school for at least five years.  Let’s talk about that, and another similar annoyances about the show.  If these students are really that smart, how are they in high school for that long?  That’s one of the problems with doing a TV show in a school setting; it doesn’t have enough staying power for a long period of time with the same students.  I did read somewhere that Seasons 4-5 were supposed to be combined into one year.  I don’t know if this is supposed to imply that these students were freshmen when the series began (it was never stated), but there is absolutely no way that can be true either.  The actors are simply way too old.  Perhaps it started during their junior year and Seasons 1-3 were combined into one big massive school year?  That can’t be right either, because too many episodes and events happened during the first three seasons to cram into one year.

Speaking of these students’ ages, not only would the actors not have been believable as high school freshman at any point, many of them do not even look believable as high school students.  Maybe college students, but not high school.  Most of them were indeed in their 20s.  In fact, when the series ended, the actor who played Arvid was 32 and the actor who played Alan was 31.  The actress who played Darlene was married to heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson during part of this time.  One notable exception of someone who wasn’t too old for a high school student was Janice, the 10-year-old prodigy who really was 10 when the show started.  Unfortunately for her, she was written out of the show after a growth spurt in Season 3.

Janice turned out to be just one of a number of cast changes in the final two seasons.  The first three seasons had the same cast of characters, and I would rate the first three seasons very favorably.  However, over the course of the final two seasons, three students moved on from the class for different reasons, and five new students came in.  All these changes made for a steady decline of the series.  It got significantly worse when Hesseman publicly trashed the series and left after Season 4, causing the show to not even have the beloved Charlie Moore for its final season.  This paved the way for the drudgery of comedian Billy Connolly as new IHP history teacher Billy MacGregor for Season 5.  During the final season, the show changed to focus largely into the new teacher’s flirtatious relationship with assistant principal Ms. Meara and him launching into 3-minute comedic monologues for the class’s entertainment.

I have mentioned in a previous blog post how much it annoys me when the main character of a TV series leaves the show and they keep the show going anyway.  The Office did it when Steve Carell left.  (Shame on them for that.)  The Andy Griffith Show sort of did it when Andy Griffith left and they kept it going as Mayberry RFD.  Two and a Half Men and That 70s Show (two shows with which I have much less familiarity) did it too.  And Head of the Class did it by keeping it going without Howard Hesseman.  The series would have been better served by being only three seasons long, or maybe four, and having graduation at the end of one of those seasons, but by the fifth season, the quality had just dipped too much. All the cast changes during the final two seasons of Head of the Class would be like if Friends had ended its run with a group of Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Mike Hannigan, Gunther, Elaine Benes, Pam Beesly, and some guy played by Will Ferrell. It just doesn’t fit.

The other interesting thing is that we never see Mr. Moore teach any other class, ever. We only see his first period IHP class. Does he even have other classes? As far as we know, his entire life at school is spent teaching 10-12 students for 50 minutes in the morning and then hanging out in his room the rest of the day. I’m sure he had other classes the rest of the day as well, but we never see them.

All these criticisms aside, other nuances about the series that I noticed centered around how this definitely was not a recent show.  Among references to the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, there were also Mr. Moore’s jokes centered around Vice President Dan Quayle, which now serve to remind the audience that these are not current references.  There would also be the occasional joke which 2020 TV editors would have categorized as homophobic and cut from the script.  And of course there were the 80s and early 90s clothing and hairstyles, particularly Eric the “cool guy” with his leather jacket and shades.  Picking up on things like that made me realize how old this show is.

As the risk of showing my age here, I remember watching the show as an elementary school kid (and then into middle school), but I didn’t remember very much of it.  I may have just watched it when my dad (also a teacher) would watch it.  I do remember some kids occasionally calling me Arvid in middle school, due to my apparent resemblance to the math nerd from the show (although it was not intended as a compliment). But as far as the show itself, when I went through the whole series just recently, there were very few episodes that I actually remembered from before.  Now, as someone who was in a high school classroom for ten years since the show aired (four as a student and six as a teacher), I found it to be interesting on a level I was not able to appreciate before when it was originally on.  Not that it’s necessarily a realistic portrayal of high school life, but it did capture the interest of the former teacher in me.  I also especially enjoyed the plotlines surrounding the academic team competitions.  As a former high school academic team coach for three years myself, I found that I could relate to those stories in particular.

Although I could spend some more time going into further detail, perhaps at this point your curiosity has been piqued and you would like to watch it yourself.  If you would like to explore further, they just released Season 1 on DVD in June.  Also, the entire series is available online at The Roku Channel, which you should be able to watch for free.  Most of episodes were also be found on YouTube until just recently, but appear to have just been taken down, probably due to the release of Season 1 on DVD.  If you want to watch it for free, your best bet is The Roku Channel online.

Head of the Class is worth a look if you’re searching for a new (or more accurately, old) show to watch.  Although I have listed some criticisms above regarding the show, I would recommend it overall. If you’re my age and enjoy going back to re-visit things from your childhood that you had totally forgotten even existed, you’ll likely enjoy this one.  Also, if you’re partial to plotlines that relate to high school life, education, academic competitions, relationships (like all other TV shows), or events and issues of the 1980s, then this is the show for you.

At least for the first three or four seasons.