Lots and LOTS of HOTC facts!!!! - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

EricMardianIsHot · 10-24-2000, 07:58 AM

The following is taken from a television facts encyclopedia (I forgot to write the title etc down but I'm copying the entry for HOTC word for word. Here goes...

HEAD OF THE CLASS

ABC, 9/17/86 to 6/25/91

CAST:
Howard Hesseman ("Charlie Moore"), Billy Connolly ("Billy McGregor"), Jeanetta Arnette ("Bernadette Meara"), William G. Schilling ("Harold Samuels")

FACTS:
Life at New York's Fillmre High School as seen through the eyes of IHP (Individual Honors Program) history teachers Charles ("Charlie") Moore (1986-90) and William ("Billy") McGregor (1990-91).

CHARLIE was born in Idaho and attended Weesur High School and Idaho State College. The afterschool hangout was a place called George's, and he wrote and directed a high school muical called "Goodbye Weesur, Hello Broadway". His dream girl at the time was Patricia Van Arsdale. Before becoming a teacher, Charlie came to New York to direct Broadway, but it never happened. He staged the off-Broadway play "Hamlet" at the Playhouse Theater in Newark, New Jersey (where he now runs a small group of players). He began his acting career in 1969, and his most embarrassing moment occurred when he appeared in the play "Hair" (he did the nude scene in the wrong act). Charlie, who cannot abide the taste of anchovies, also appeared in plays by Chkhov and Ibsen and directed the off-Broadway play "Little Shop of Horrors".

Charlie began as a substitute teacher at Fillmore and became a faculty member when the previous IHP teacher, Vernon Thomas (Roscoe Lee Browne) left. Charlie lives next door to the Plant Store and appeared in television comercials as "The King of Discount Appliances" for Veemer Appliances. He left Fillmore to become an actor when he accepted the lead in the road company production of "Death of a Salesman". In the opening theme, Charlie is seen going to work, ready to enter the uptown 8th Avenue subway line at 50th Street. The school (in real life, the Washington Irving High School - the exterior shots for Fillmore) is downtown at 16th Street and Irving Place. Charlie wears a 16 1/2 - 34 shirt.

BILLY is from Glasgow, Scotland, and attended Oxford University in England (he was the spelling champion of Glasgow three years in a row). billy, who claims he was raised in the slums of Glasgow, has a second job at the Mother Hubbard Day Care Center. He has a comical approach to teaching and interweaves his life experiences with his lessons.

BERNADETTE MEARA is the attractive vice principal. She is from North Carolina and came to New York on 8/9/74 to take the job she now has. The saddest Christmas she ever experienced happened when she was seven years old and didn't get a Susie Q Easy Bake Oven.

DR HAROLD SAMUELS is the principal. He propsed the IHP to the school board as a means of letting students monitor their own studies. He relaxes by taking folk dance lessons on Wednesday nights. Harold attended Canarsie High School in Brooklyn and has a brother-in-law who owns a restaurant called Mr Stanton's.

SIMONE FOSTER (Khrystyne Haje) is the prettiest girl in the Honors Program. She is sweet, shy and very sensitive and has been a straight-A student all her life. Her greatest gift is her romantic vision of life. Simone's specialty is English, and her spare time is occupied by charity work. her father works in the bookbinding department of a publisher, and her favorite poet is Robert T Lasker (mythical). As a member of the chess club, Simone loses her femininity; the teacher calls her "Mister".

DARLENE MERRIMAN (Robin Givens) is from a wealthy family and lives on Park Avenue. For a school project, she traced her family history and found that she was a descendant of Sally Hemmings, the black woman by whom Thomas Jefferson had children. her specialty is speech and debate, and she believes she is extremely attractive to men: "I represent the physical and inteelectual ideals men want." She tends to put herself on a pedestal. Darlene is editor of the school newspaper, the Fillmore "Spartan".

SARAH NEVINS (Kimberly Russell) is president of the Student Council and works after school at City General Hospital.

MARIA BORGES (Leslie Bega) is dedicated to learning. If she gets a B, she grounds herself ("It's the only way I can learn"). Her greatest gift is her understanding of the human condition. She left after three years to further her singing career at the High School of the Performing Arts.

ARVID ENGEN (Dan Frischman) is a math major and has a perfect attendance record (2,252 days with the episode of 10/2/90). He has not missed one day of school since he first started - nothing has stopped him - "not subway strikes, blizzards, hurricanes or illness." Arvid is a member of the glee club, the school orchestra (he plays triangle) and runs the school radio station. On his first day at Fillmore, he wore a leisure suit. He plays the accordion and his favorite writier is Carl Sagan. He wears a size nine shoe (usually brown) and had the nickname "Badges" (he has a 4.0 grade point average and won many awards). Arvid was a Boy Scout (Troop 645) and is also the lunchroom monitor. When he gets upset, he speaks to a picture of Albert Einstein he carries with him.

DENNIS CLARENCE BLUNDEN (Dan Schneider) is the practical joker of the group. He is skilled in chemistry and physics and has been sent to the principal's office more times the any other student (in the office, he stares at the picture of George Washington on the wall). He has borrowed $326.92 and a John travolta lunchbox from Darlene since the first grade. Dennis loves to eat, but not the cafeteria food (he sends out for lunch at Izzy's a fast food store). Dennis also held a part-time job as a waiter at Charlie's favorite eatery, Casa Falafel. His locker combination is 27-14-5.

ERIC MARDIAN (Brian Robbins) has a father who is an alcoholic. When he was four, his father read "Treasure Island" aloud to him; one year later, Eric read it back to him. When the IHP challenges other schools in a competition, Eric calls the meets "Nerd Bowls".

JANICE LAZAROTTO (Tannis Vallely) is gifted in all areas of study and has a photographic memory. She is a child genius and enetered the IHP program at age en - "She knows everything; she's spooky." She plays the cello (second chair) in the school orchestra and "dreams of colonizing another planet entirely out of Legos." She left the IHP after three years to attend Harvard.

ALAN PINKARD (Tony O'Dell) is a member of the Young Americans for Freedom and has set his goal as that of becoming president of the United States. He is gifted in the natural sciences, and his favorite movie is "Cattle Queen of Montana".

VIKI AMORY (Lara Piper) is adopted and has a knack for falling in love with her teachers: "It's something I can't control. It comes, poof; it goes, poof." She is from Florida and her family is always on the move.

JAWARHALAL CHOUDHURY (Jory Husain) is gifted in the political sciences (he left after three years when his family moved to California to take advantage of a business opporunity).

TJ JONES (Rain Pryor) calls Billy "Mr Bill" and has a beautiful singing voice.

JASPER KWONG (Jonathan Ke Quan) speaks five languages

ARISTOTLE McKENZIE (De'Voreaux White) and ALEX TORRES (Michael DeLorenzo) are the remaining students.

IHP classes are held in Room 19. Dr Samuels calls his honor class "a well oiled machine," as the know the answers to everything. The class starred in a school production of "Grease", directed by Charlie. Bernadette reades the Post, Charlie reads the Times. The IHP class computers are called Fred and Wilma. Classes begin at 8:50am; Filmore is sometimes mentioned as being on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The school's radio station is WFHS (410 on the AM dial); the basketball team is the Fillmore Spartans; Billy has a Rand McNally world map (number 429) on the wall in his classroom.

In the last episode, graduation is held at the same time the schoolis to be demolished. The students chose the following colleges: Cal tech (Arvid), Stanford (Darlene), Columbia (Sarah), Vassar (Alex), MIT (Viki), Sarah Lawrence (Simone), University of Iowa (Eric), MIT (Dennis), Harvard (Alan).

RELATIVES

Patricia McCormark (Eric's mother, "Madeline Mardian")
Dan Lauria (Eric's father "Frank Mardian")
Gloria Hayes (Maria's mother, "Francesca Borges")
Susan Krebs (Dennis's mother)
John DiSanti (Dennis's father)
Marlene Clark (Darlene's mother)
David Downing (Darlene's father)
Enid Kent (Simone's mother, "Maureen Foster")
Patrick McNamara (Simone's father, "Robert Foster")
Bruce Gray (Arvid's father, "Dr Euric Engen")
Nancy Fish (Arvid's mother)
William Edward Lewis (Janice's father)
Cinda Jackson (Janice's mother)
Robert Hooks (Sarah's father)
June Gable (Viki's adoptive mother, "Greta Amory")
Cynthia Mace (Viki's birth mother, "Rose Gibson")
Denice Kumagai (Jasper's mother)
Tzi Ma (Jasper's father0
Liz Torres (Alex's mother)
Adrienne Barbeau (Harold's sister, "Gilda Minnetta")
Claudette Nevins (Harold's wife, "Lois Samuels")
Ken Mars (Charlie's "Uncle Charles")

FLASHBACKS: Ryan Rushton (Charlie as a boy)

THEME: "Head of the Class" by Ed Alton

warsaw dreams · 10-27-2000, 09:53 AM

Wow! I've read t.v. encyclopedia's entries for HotC before, but never one with this much information! Thanks!

warsaw dreams · 01-21-2001, 11:33 PM

Another HotC fact I've read is that the show was supposed to go on for another season or two. They were even planning to film some episodes in London. But it never got that far. I think once Howard left, the network just didn't care too much about the show anymore. What a shame. It would have been cool to have more epiodes to reminisce about!

Franko1998 · 01-22-2001, 07:30 PM

Another factor as to why the show was cancelled was probably that the class had been in high school for too many years.

ThomasE · 01-24-2001, 02:16 AM

Now Billy did a good job of replacing Howard although there is only 1 Mr. Moore. The show ended at the right time.

EricMardianIsHot · 05-05-2001, 02:17 PM

Just bringin' this back to the top in case anyone hasn't seen it.

EricMardianIsHot · 05-05-2001, 02:18 PM

*

[This message has been edited by EricMardianIsHot (edited 05-05-2001).]

EricMardianIsHot · 05-05-2001, 02:19 PM

I'm sorry. I just spent a while typing all the facts up and I think it's really cooooool.

warsaw dreams · 05-07-2001, 01:26 PM

I don't know. I think they could have stretched the show out some more. There are so many more funny situations the kids could have gotten into. Maybe I'm just saying that because I'm a fan.

EricMardianIsHot · 05-08-2001, 12:14 AM

I agree.

And I'm probably going to start an interesting debate here, but I think that the storylines and script actually got better during the last few seasons. The characters seemed to be a little less stereotyped and they had better interactions with each other.

Maybe it's because they had more characters.

What do you guys think?

ThomasE · 05-08-2001, 01:05 AM

I'm with you on that!

Quote:

Originally posted by EricMardianIsHot:
I agree.

And I'm probably going to start an interesting debate here, but I think that the storylines and script actually got better during the last few seasons. The characters seemed to be a little less stereotyped and they had better interactions with each other.

Maybe it's because they had more characters.

What do you guys think?

warsaw dreams · 05-08-2001, 03:34 PM

I think the original actors really knew their characters well by that time and so made them seem more "life-like".

D-Dey · 06-11-2001, 01:30 PM

EricMardianIsHot,

The title of the book you got this info from is probably "Television Characters and Story Facts," by Vincent Terrace. There's a newer edition that's strictly for sitcoms.

Does this help?

EricMardianIsHot · 06-11-2001, 09:52 PM

That's the book I got it from!

I think it was the older edition, though, not the sitcoms-only one.

Does the sitcoms one give more details on HOTC? I'd be interested to know...

D-Dey · 06-14-2001, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by EricMardianIsHot:
That's the book I got it from!

I think it was the older edition, though, not the sitcoms-only one.

Does the sitcoms one give more details on HOTC? I'd be interested to know...

I don't know. I'd have to check it again. When I do, I might e-mail you.

10-24-2000, 07:58 AM	#1
EricMardianIsHot Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Sep 04, 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 45	Lots and LOTS of HOTC facts!!!! The following is taken from a television facts encyclopedia (I forgot to write the title etc down but I'm copying the entry for HOTC word for word. Here goes... HEAD OF THE CLASS ABC, 9/17/86 to 6/25/91 CAST: Howard Hesseman ("Charlie Moore"), Billy Connolly ("Billy McGregor"), Jeanetta Arnette ("Bernadette Meara"), William G. Schilling ("Harold Samuels") FACTS: Life at New York's Fillmre High School as seen through the eyes of IHP (Individual Honors Program) history teachers Charles ("Charlie") Moore (1986-90) and William ("Billy") McGregor (1990-91). CHARLIE was born in Idaho and attended Weesur High School and Idaho State College. The afterschool hangout was a place called George's, and he wrote and directed a high school muical called "Goodbye Weesur, Hello Broadway". His dream girl at the time was Patricia Van Arsdale. Before becoming a teacher, Charlie came to New York to direct Broadway, but it never happened. He staged the off-Broadway play "Hamlet" at the Playhouse Theater in Newark, New Jersey (where he now runs a small group of players). He began his acting career in 1969, and his most embarrassing moment occurred when he appeared in the play "Hair" (he did the nude scene in the wrong act). Charlie, who cannot abide the taste of anchovies, also appeared in plays by Chkhov and Ibsen and directed the off-Broadway play "Little Shop of Horrors". Charlie began as a substitute teacher at Fillmore and became a faculty member when the previous IHP teacher, Vernon Thomas (Roscoe Lee Browne) left. Charlie lives next door to the Plant Store and appeared in television comercials as "The King of Discount Appliances" for Veemer Appliances. He left Fillmore to become an actor when he accepted the lead in the road company production of "Death of a Salesman". In the opening theme, Charlie is seen going to work, ready to enter the uptown 8th Avenue subway line at 50th Street. The school (in real life, the Washington Irving High School - the exterior shots for Fillmore) is downtown at 16th Street and Irving Place. Charlie wears a 16 1/2 - 34 shirt. BILLY is from Glasgow, Scotland, and attended Oxford University in England (he was the spelling champion of Glasgow three years in a row). billy, who claims he was raised in the slums of Glasgow, has a second job at the Mother Hubbard Day Care Center. He has a comical approach to teaching and interweaves his life experiences with his lessons. BERNADETTE MEARA is the attractive vice principal. She is from North Carolina and came to New York on 8/9/74 to take the job she now has. The saddest Christmas she ever experienced happened when she was seven years old and didn't get a Susie Q Easy Bake Oven. DR HAROLD SAMUELS is the principal. He propsed the IHP to the school board as a means of letting students monitor their own studies. He relaxes by taking folk dance lessons on Wednesday nights. Harold attended Canarsie High School in Brooklyn and has a brother-in-law who owns a restaurant called Mr Stanton's. SIMONE FOSTER (Khrystyne Haje) is the prettiest girl in the Honors Program. She is sweet, shy and very sensitive and has been a straight-A student all her life. Her greatest gift is her romantic vision of life. Simone's specialty is English, and her spare time is occupied by charity work. her father works in the bookbinding department of a publisher, and her favorite poet is Robert T Lasker (mythical). As a member of the chess club, Simone loses her femininity; the teacher calls her "Mister". DARLENE MERRIMAN (Robin Givens) is from a wealthy family and lives on Park Avenue. For a school project, she traced her family history and found that she was a descendant of Sally Hemmings, the black woman by whom Thomas Jefferson had children. her specialty is speech and debate, and she believes she is extremely attractive to men: "I represent the physical and inteelectual ideals men want." She tends to put herself on a pedestal. Darlene is editor of the school newspaper, the Fillmore "Spartan". SARAH NEVINS (Kimberly Russell) is president of the Student Council and works after school at City General Hospital. MARIA BORGES (Leslie Bega) is dedicated to learning. If she gets a B, she grounds herself ("It's the only way I can learn"). Her greatest gift is her understanding of the human condition. She left after three years to further her singing career at the High School of the Performing Arts. ARVID ENGEN (Dan Frischman) is a math major and has a perfect attendance record (2,252 days with the episode of 10/2/90). He has not missed one day of school since he first started - nothing has stopped him - "not subway strikes, blizzards, hurricanes or illness." Arvid is a member of the glee club, the school orchestra (he plays triangle) and runs the school radio station. On his first day at Fillmore, he wore a leisure suit. He plays the accordion and his favorite writier is Carl Sagan. He wears a size nine shoe (usually brown) and had the nickname "Badges" (he has a 4.0 grade point average and won many awards). Arvid was a Boy Scout (Troop 645) and is also the lunchroom monitor. When he gets upset, he speaks to a picture of Albert Einstein he carries with him. DENNIS CLARENCE BLUNDEN (Dan Schneider) is the practical joker of the group. He is skilled in chemistry and physics and has been sent to the principal's office more times the any other student (in the office, he stares at the picture of George Washington on the wall). He has borrowed $326.92 and a John travolta lunchbox from Darlene since the first grade. Dennis loves to eat, but not the cafeteria food (he sends out for lunch at Izzy's a fast food store). Dennis also held a part-time job as a waiter at Charlie's favorite eatery, Casa Falafel. His locker combination is 27-14-5. ERIC MARDIAN (Brian Robbins) has a father who is an alcoholic. When he was four, his father read "Treasure Island" aloud to him; one year later, Eric read it back to him. When the IHP challenges other schools in a competition, Eric calls the meets "Nerd Bowls". JANICE LAZAROTTO (Tannis Vallely) is gifted in all areas of study and has a photographic memory. She is a child genius and enetered the IHP program at age en - "She knows everything; she's spooky." She plays the cello (second chair) in the school orchestra and "dreams of colonizing another planet entirely out of Legos." She left the IHP after three years to attend Harvard. ALAN PINKARD (Tony O'Dell) is a member of the Young Americans for Freedom and has set his goal as that of becoming president of the United States. He is gifted in the natural sciences, and his favorite movie is "Cattle Queen of Montana". VIKI AMORY (Lara Piper) is adopted and has a knack for falling in love with her teachers: "It's something I can't control. It comes, poof; it goes, poof." She is from Florida and her family is always on the move. JAWARHALAL CHOUDHURY (Jory Husain) is gifted in the political sciences (he left after three years when his family moved to California to take advantage of a business opporunity). TJ JONES (Rain Pryor) calls Billy "Mr Bill" and has a beautiful singing voice. JASPER KWONG (Jonathan Ke Quan) speaks five languages ARISTOTLE McKENZIE (De'Voreaux White) and ALEX TORRES (Michael DeLorenzo) are the remaining students. IHP classes are held in Room 19. Dr Samuels calls his honor class "a well oiled machine," as the know the answers to everything. The class starred in a school production of "Grease", directed by Charlie. Bernadette reades the Post, Charlie reads the Times. The IHP class computers are called Fred and Wilma. Classes begin at 8:50am; Filmore is sometimes mentioned as being on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The school's radio station is WFHS (410 on the AM dial); the basketball team is the Fillmore Spartans; Billy has a Rand McNally world map (number 429) on the wall in his classroom. In the last episode, graduation is held at the same time the schoolis to be demolished. The students chose the following colleges: Cal tech (Arvid), Stanford (Darlene), Columbia (Sarah), Vassar (Alex), MIT (Viki), Sarah Lawrence (Simone), University of Iowa (Eric), MIT (Dennis), Harvard (Alan). RELATIVES Patricia McCormark (Eric's mother, "Madeline Mardian") Dan Lauria (Eric's father "Frank Mardian") Gloria Hayes (Maria's mother, "Francesca Borges") Susan Krebs (Dennis's mother) John DiSanti (Dennis's father) Marlene Clark (Darlene's mother) David Downing (Darlene's father) Enid Kent (Simone's mother, "Maureen Foster") Patrick McNamara (Simone's father, "Robert Foster") Bruce Gray (Arvid's father, "Dr Euric Engen") Nancy Fish (Arvid's mother) William Edward Lewis (Janice's father) Cinda Jackson (Janice's mother) Robert Hooks (Sarah's father) June Gable (Viki's adoptive mother, "Greta Amory") Cynthia Mace (Viki's birth mother, "Rose Gibson") Denice Kumagai (Jasper's mother) Tzi Ma (Jasper's father0 Liz Torres (Alex's mother) Adrienne Barbeau (Harold's sister, "Gilda Minnetta") Claudette Nevins (Harold's wife, "Lois Samuels") Ken Mars (Charlie's "Uncle Charles") FLASHBACKS: Ryan Rushton (Charlie as a boy) THEME: "Head of the Class" by Ed Alton

10-27-2000, 09:53 AM	#2
warsaw dreams Member Forum Regular Join Date: Sep 22, 2000 Location: Milwaukee, WI USA Posts: 659	Wow! I've read t.v. encyclopedia's entries for HotC before, but never one with this much information! Thanks!

01-21-2001, 11:33 PM	#3
warsaw dreams Member Forum Regular Join Date: Sep 22, 2000 Location: Milwaukee, WI USA Posts: 659	Another HotC fact I've read is that the show was supposed to go on for another season or two. They were even planning to film some episodes in London. But it never got that far. I think once Howard left, the network just didn't care too much about the show anymore. What a shame. It would have been cool to have more epiodes to reminisce about!

01-22-2001, 07:30 PM	#4
Franko1998 Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Jan 01, 2001 Location: IL, USA Posts: 76	Another factor as to why the show was cancelled was probably that the class had been in high school for too many years.

01-24-2001, 02:16 AM	#5
ThomasE Member Moderator Forum Fanatic Join Date: Apr 04, 2000 Location: New York, New York, U.S.A. Posts: 10,857	Now Billy did a good job of replacing Howard although there is only 1 Mr. Moore. The show ended at the right time.

05-05-2001, 02:17 PM	#6
EricMardianIsHot Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Sep 04, 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 45	Just bringin' this back to the top in case anyone hasn't seen it.

05-05-2001, 02:18 PM	#7
EricMardianIsHot Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Sep 04, 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 45	* [This message has been edited by EricMardianIsHot (edited 05-05-2001).]

05-05-2001, 02:19 PM	#8
EricMardianIsHot Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Sep 04, 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 45	I'm sorry. I just spent a while typing all the facts up and I think it's really cooooool.

05-07-2001, 01:26 PM	#9
warsaw dreams Member Forum Regular Join Date: Sep 22, 2000 Location: Milwaukee, WI USA Posts: 659	I don't know. I think they could have stretched the show out some more. There are so many more funny situations the kids could have gotten into. Maybe I'm just saying that because I'm a fan.

05-08-2001, 12:14 AM	#10
EricMardianIsHot Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Sep 04, 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 45	I agree. And I'm probably going to start an interesting debate here, but I think that the storylines and script actually got better during the last few seasons. The characters seemed to be a little less stereotyped and they had better interactions with each other. Maybe it's because they had more characters. What do you guys think?

05-08-2001, 03:34 PM	#12
warsaw dreams Member Forum Regular Join Date: Sep 22, 2000 Location: Milwaukee, WI USA Posts: 659	I think the original actors really knew their characters well by that time and so made them seem more "life-like".

06-11-2001, 01:30 PM	#13
D-Dey Member Forum Veteran Join Date: Feb 11, 2000 Location: Long Island, New York, USA Posts: 5,519	EricMardianIsHot, The title of the book you got this info from is probably "Television Characters and Story Facts," by Vincent Terrace. There's a newer edition that's strictly for sitcoms. Does this help?

06-11-2001, 09:52 PM	#14
EricMardianIsHot Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Sep 04, 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 45	That's the book I got it from! I think it was the older edition, though, not the sitcoms-only one. Does the sitcoms one give more details on HOTC? I'd be interested to know...