Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

Last year was a very rough year for me, financially, and it forced me to go without certain things most of us take for granted. One of them was a television. I had a TV set, but I couldn't afford cable, so I just used it to watch movies. Sometimes I missed being able to crash on the couch and watch the NFL on Sundays, or "Seinfeld" when I got home in the evening.

But it turns out being without a TV for a year was good for me. I didn't realize how good until I got cable again. It's not like I've fallen back into television addiction; on the contrary, I mainly just watch reruns of sitcoms I like, and "CSI" and two of the 800 versions of "Law & Order", and History Channel documentaries. What I am having a problem with is the commercials I see for shows on other channels. It's a constant reminder of how completely brain-dead our society is.

Last weekend I saw an ad for a new show on Fox called "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" Oh my god. Are you kidding me?

Here's an excerpt from an article yesterday on www.reuters.com: The new Fox game show "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" delivered the highest series premiere on any network in viewership in nearly nine years, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by Nielsen Media Research.