Summer School

Episode 132: Summer School (1987)

Theme: Summer Movies Month
Hosts: Oz & Curtis

This week, Oz and Curtis grab their Trapper Keepers, tighten their Zubaz, and head back to the sun-bleached 80s for Summer School — the Mark Harmon slacker-classic that shaped Oz’s entire teaching philosophy and absolutely zero district HR policies. It’s NCIS × Saved by the Bell × Punk’d × Wishmaster all mashed into one warm California day of bad choices, good intentions, and a whole lot of remedial English.

The hosts break down:

• Freddy Shoop — the hula-shirted PE teacher roped into teaching summer school in the most illegal, unprofessional, district-policy-violating way imaginable.
• The Students — chainsaw-wielding horror nerds, a pregnant teen, a dyslexic learner, a daydreaming surfer, a narcoleptic stripper, and one kid who vanishes into the bathroom for 90 minutes of runtime.
• Vice Principal Gills — mustache-twirling villainy, petty motivations, and the world’s loosest understanding of how tenure works.
• Robin Bishop — Kirstie Alley’s honors teacher, romantic subplot, and the only educator in the building with any training whatsoever.
• The Big Test — a growth mindset victory: they don’t all pass… but they ALL grow, and the movie treats that like the triumph it truly is.

Final Verdict:

Oz — An A
Curtis — 70% (Dave’s Passing Score)

Next week: Summer Movies Month continues with 500 Days of Summer — Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, expectations vs. reality, IKEA dates, greeting cards, grief, hope, heartbreak, and the only romantic comedy that warns you at the very beginning that it’s not a love story.