World o' Game
Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
(2007, USA, Fox)

Here are the titles, the theme tune is sung by the kids.

The front and side of the studio has a "movable wall" which is taken out for filming.

The class come running in and take their seats. There are five kids.

Here's our avuncular host Jeff Foxworthy, a popular redneck comic.

But there's a new student in class today, and here she comes now!

It's Shiela Beleios!

Shiela gets to choose one of the students to help her win the money. She's gone for Alana here.

All the students will answer all of the questions though.

Here are the ten categories of questions for Sheila. They range from 1st grade animal science all the way to 5th Grade math. Or to give it it's proper name, maths.

And here's the money tree. Ten correct answers wins $500,000. If she gets as far as $25,000 then that's safe whatever.

But if she goes all the way, she could win $1,000,000! Wow. And these are all questions ten-years-olds should be able to answer, so it should be really easy.

The desks. All the students write their answers on a computer pad. The contestant gives her answer verbally and then hits the big button on their desk to "lock in" their decision.

And she's selected 1st grade animal science to begin with. This is for $1,000.

If she needs help she has three lifelines. The first, "peek", lets her look at Alana's answer and then decide whether to take it ro go with their own thought.

The second, "copy", places complete trust in the student, whatever they put down is the answer they have to go with.

The third, "save" is for when they get the question wrong. If their student has given the correct answer, then they have been saved and can continue playing.

Each of these helps can be invoked once and a student can only help twice, the contestant has to pick a different student to use for their third help.

The kids have been found out to be child actors (so that they can cope with the pressure of the audience), but Fox denies completely that they've been told the questions in advance.

And as we can see, she's already using her "peek".

The answer Alana has given, which is revealed on one of the large screens, is "true".

She goes for it, she's correct!

After the stunning start on the first grade she decides 4th grade astronomy would be a good idea right now.

She's wavering between 3 and 4, so she puts faith in her student and uses her copy.

Thankfully she's correct! Mercury, Venus and Mars are the other ones.

Jeff meets the family in the audience. He points out that she's not got one correct on her own yet.

As Alana has now helped twice, she must pick a new student to be her assistant. She goes for Spencer.

The word is "mastodon".

Sheila is struggling between two and three and plumps for two.

A caption comes up suggesting she was an honor student in high school.

She goes for two. Luckily her assistant is correct with his answer of "one".

She decides not to continue after seeing the next question, therefore she drops out with $5,000.

But as part of the deal, after she drops out she has to look straight into the camera and declare that she's "not smarter than a 5th grader."

New contestant Roy is bought on.

To be honest, there's not much more that needs to be said about the show, but we'll put the questions up for you so you can see how you'd get on.

So that one is true. The rest we'll ask you to highlight.

Highlight:

Two, Thanksgiving and Vetran's Day.

Highlight:

Female

Highlight:

A. Black

Highlight:

September

Highlight:

178 degrees

Unfortunately both her and her student thought the answer was 1, so she flunks out with nothing.

"Teachers of America, we can't give the money away! Join us next time on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader!"