Are we dumber than ‘5th Graders’?

Well, here we are, America:  Stupid again.

As if the national handwringing over the state of Britney’s hair and Anna Nicole’s rigor mortis weren’t proof enough of our priorities, here comes "Are You Smarter Than a 5^th Grader?",  a countrywide celebration of the fact that a functioning adult American can stand before the world and vacillate over what color results when yellow and red collide.

Sponsoring network Fox openly touts it as “The Most Embarrassing Game Show On the Planet.”  Rome had the Visigoths to herald its decline; we have genial redneck host Jeff Foxworthy.

Premiering in the immediate wake of "American Idol,"  the show boasted the highest premiere ratings in nearly a decade.  Surely it’s the lead-in.  We’re too busy picking Dorito bits out of our folds of stomach fat to press the “off” button on the remote after Randy Jackson has issued his final “dawg” for the evening.

Or maybe it’s something else. 

Why do we enjoy finding ourselves humbled by … ourselves? 

Notice that I’ve boiled the issue down to a single question.  Perhaps voter turnout might increase in 2008 if we framed the Presidential election as "Who Wants To Be the Target Of a Multibillion Dollar Congressional Probe?" or " Are You Smarter Than an Asbestos Study Group Lobbyist?"  

Nine-year-olds know all
Reality television and the MySpace cult of the self has reached a state in which we are so fascinated by our very selves, and fame seems so easily obtained, that even game show focus has shifted entirely from the contestant to wonderful, glorious meeeeeee.  Shows such as "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"  "Deal or No Deal,"  and " Fifth Grader" are propelled by the concept of inviting the viewer to mentally place him or herself on the stage. 

The slow pace, the help options, the “gimme” questions:  The whole genre is an open-ended Eisenhower-era morality filmstrip which we are meant to discuss when the lights come up.   And so it’s not "Is This One Guy You Totally Don’t Even Know Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?"; it’s "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?"

Casting aside the “Wheels On the Bus” obnoxiousness of the theme song and the suspicious SAG membership cards in the backpacks of the too-precious children who compose the show’s “class,” "Fifth Grader" is fascinating in its this-should-be-easy construction.

The game is a Disneyfied hybrid of " Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"  (Certainly nobody I know!) and "Deal or No Deal"  (I’ll take the suitcase from the second stripper on the left, Howie!  I can tell she likes me!) 

One adult contestant answers questions with content from “grades” one through five.  He or she chooses from a crop of pre-selected, actual fifth graders to help.  There are three, one-use-only cheats:  “Peek” (contestant can look at the fifth grader’s answer, but does not have to take it), “Copy” (contestant must take the child’s answer) and “Save” (if the contestant got the answer wrong and the child got it right, the adult stays in the game.)  Eleven correct answers garners a million dollars.

The five children who can help the contestant remain on the show from episode to episode; the adults roll through with staggering rapidity, despite laconic Foxworthy’s attempts to slow the action to a tension-headache crawl. 

This leaves the viewer at home with plenty of time to screech “The closest star to Earth is the SUN, you moron, how do you think we got Maui?”  And it also leaves adequate opportunity to sink into the couch, discontent in the knowledge that one can think on it from now through infinity and never properly calculate how many cups are in five and a half gallons. That’s why God put the little numbers on the measuring cups from Linens ‘n’ Things.

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