Kindergarten Cop

Episode 198: Kindergarten Cop (1990)

Theme: Education Movies Month
Hosts: Oz & Curtis

This week, Oz and Curtis head back to school with Kindergarten Cop — a movie marriage of Abbott Elementary + Full Metal Jacket + Junior + Deep Cover all tied together with a whole lot of Mommy Dearest. Arnold Schwarzenegger trades in his trench coat and shotgun for a whistle and a ferret, Pamela Reed eats her way through the entire script, and Richard Tyson stomps around Oregon like the world’s angriest Sears catalog model. It’s part action thriller, part sweet classroom comedy, and part “wow, none of this is how teaching works at all.”

Join your two favorite “I’m the potty poopa!” podcasters as they explore:

• The mall shootout, the sleazy club, and the opening 20 minutes that feel like they belong to a completely different movie.

• Detective John Kimble’s descent into kindergarten chaos — shut ups, tears, whistles, calisthenics, and a class ferret that does all the real teaching.

• Pamela Reed’s Phoebe O’Hara, the unsung hero of the movie and the only adult making good decisions.

• The Crisp Family: a drug-dealing man-child and his Norman Bates–adjacent mother, both armed with guns, hair spray, and weird boundaries.

• The finale: fire alarms, kidnappings, locker-room showdowns, a ferret-assisted attack, and a car hit that sends O’Hara into orbit.

From “It’s not a tumor!” to the Gettysburg Address to a principal who just really wants to know how it felt to punch a dad, Oz and Curtis revisit a ’90s classic that’s goofy, sweet, and surprisingly charming.

Final Verdict

Oz — 7 Overaged Kindergarteners
Curtis — 78 Ferrets
Both — Still convinced that Kimble doing calisthenics with five-year-olds is the most unrealistic part of the movie.