“Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide” is an awful name for a show and it came out when I was 15. That puts me about two years older than the target demo. I watched it through most of the run and felt way too old the whole time. There were saccharin sweet “special messages” in every episode and I can’t really pinpoint what made it better than the other shows of the same vein, but anything Dan Schneider makes for Nickelodeon causes Ned and his gang to seem like “Frasier”.
You get what I mean right?
Ned Bigby and his pals Cookie and Moze are weird kids with lots of anxiety. Welcome to middle school. Apparently while being a slacker idiot, Ned finds time to be very good at giving advice. So he decides to write this guide that other students I guess could use to make their way through school? He always had the thing and was currently writing it. The guy is probably 24 now so release that and make your money man. The guide was sometimes barely mentioned as the more dramatic storylines unfolded but it was more than serviceable as a flimsy pretext. The show went from campy to a little “teen angsty” over the course of three seasons. Once the main characters get all sappy though the side characters and their quirks get to shine through. Also Gordy:
Gordy is the best role model a kid can have. He works a meaningless job and manages to work harder trying to not do it. He befriends these three students for some reason and assists them in doing horrible/helpful things. He really should be fired but he’s the voice of Cosmo on “Fairly Odd Parents” so it’s cool. I’m not sure if that’s canon or not.
Thought it should be.
These children always complained about their teachers. I always hated that because if these people taught me in middle school THIS wouldn’t be closest thing I have to a job right now. They had the guidance counselor and math teacher from “Freaks and Geeks”, Meshach Taylor, Fred Stoller, Motormouth from “Caddyshack”, James J. Bullock and Vic from “Grace Under Fire”. That’s a great school.
The kids in the show were funny if not one dimensional. I feel like the show was spoofing the genre then forgot in season 3. The bully and jock characters were idiots, the mean girl was also an idiot and our main character dated a nice hot girl:
Then left her because he really loved his best friend
No bad choice there. They at least did something new making the black kid be a smart dork, but then they’d go off the reservation when he tried to act cool. Watch the show. Nick has that teen channel now.
