Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

The concept of the show is actually not half bad although the title is a bit of a misnomer. The real title ought to be "Are you smarter than all 5th graders put together?" Apparently only a few people are.. Of course, if you put even the smartest 5-th grader as a contestant on this show that 5-th grader would likely get clobbered. Still, the show demonstrates, and I think fairly convincingly, that most adults in the U. S. don't remember much from their K12 education beyond 4-th grade. It was also entertaining to see that the most universally dreaded category of questions by far was "World history".

But as many critical reviews have noted, the execution of the concept was pretty poor. The pace was too slow and the incessant commercial breaks were insufferable. The weakest point, though, was that the show used professional actors as the kids and they were clearly heavily prepped for each show's questions. The show would have been much better off using real, non-actor, kids and rotating the cast of kids from episode to episode. The show would have been much more authentic and relatable. I hope that at some point in the future the show will come back in a different format.

The idea is fun. See what you remember of the knowledge you may not use on a daily basis. Jeff Foxworthy is a decent host. The set is elaborate and nice. But the questions come along way too slowly. I almost get the feeling that the guests are delaying their answers in order to expand the time, perhaps there is an off-camera indicator. I can only imagine what the contestant screening must be like, because I'm sure there are many people that could whip thru the questions with ease and take home the money. Anyone that knew they were going on the show could probably cram, I mean, the jackpot is a million dollars. So overall, to the producers, we want a number of questions equal to that of Jeopardy per episode or something. Of course, given the limited pool of questions they may run out pretty quickly, and the reason they move slowly could be the amount of money that is offered as a prize.

The wife and I love this silly game show hat asks fairly simple grade school-level questions of adult contestants. Cornpone comic Jeff Foworthy was thrown in at the last minute as host, and he does remarkably well in this role, hillbilly accent, blue jeans and all. Fivel kids are on hand to help the contestant, who can win up to $1 million (and that has happened). Now for a complaint: some bright bulb got the idea to do a half-hour version of the show for daytime TV. Foxworthy is again the host,there are fewer kids on hand to help out and the money is far less than what might be earned on the original show. The real problem is the show is very tightly edited, and feels it, and most of the contestants seem to have been picked off the streets five minutes beforehand. They often flunk out pretty fast. One chipper young woman recently got every answer wrong, and the questions were at a kindergarten level. This sort of defeats the purpose of the show. Stick with the nighttime version. where the contestants have been properly screened and the show runs a full hour, which allowed for some suspense to build..

it's so weird to me that people speak so strongly about a program they hate, yet continue to watch.. "..fifth grader?" must be the show you guys love to hate, and can't miss an episode.. about the pace of the show: if it appears to move slowly, it's because the contestants are given time to calm down and become comfortable.. how many of you have appeared before on TV before a studio audience of hundreds which was being televised to millions? fox worthy's jokes, while sometimes lame, are another tool for calming the contestant.. laughter displaces anxiety and concern over how one appears before a crowd, and the fear of appearing foolish from something that was said or done.. about general dislike of the show: so, why watch it? or, maybe you watch it a lot, and get few questions correct? so? join the club; only one contestant won all the money.. more people failed than succeeded.. so? about a student-contributor to the these comments who disliked an ?? or answer: here's something you can fix: get an education, join the team at a quiz show (jeopardy?) and write the questions you feel are better than what you've seen up to this point.. you earlier commenter's are so big on criticism and put-downs, could you do better? so, why don't you? how good does it have to be to meet your criteria? should it be read directly from the encyclopedia Britannia? should the host be an m.i.t. professor? maybe you commenter's forgot the first rules of TV: attract an audience; retain their interest; insure their return for the next episode.. the first rule of watching TV is: if it isn't fun, change the channel.. okay, so it's not everyone's idea of fun-- what is? you like bikini mud wrestling? great! how about basket weaving? great! how about watching shopping networks all day? great! everyone has their preferences and everyone has their idea of what's fun.. do you resent another's enjoyment of a program you don't like? so, find something else! but, get off others' back about what they like!! nobody put a gun (or remote) to your head to keep you watching "..fifth grader?" change the channel or turn the set off, but knock off the knocking of others for the sake of enjoying yourself.. it wastes energy and time.. or do you purely enjoy diminishing another's enjoyment?

Silly but engaging game show that has adults answering grade school questions. A team of well-groomed grade schoolers are on hand to help the contestants. Jeff Foxworthy hosts, although he seems to spend the bulk of his time firing off one-liners. Not much more to be said about this, other than to note that it is the best new game show since DEAL OR NO DEAL. And like that show, it revels in exposing the typically American greed of many of the participants, who often do not seem to know when to call it a day and chance losing large sums of money. Just like many of them do when they gamble in Las Vegas, I'm sure. The questions are relatively easy, but often have little to do with day-to-day adult situations, so it can be funny (or conversely, cringe-inducing) to see adults stumbling over questions more or less readily answered by a bunch of grade schoolers.