Are You Smarter Than a Fifth of JD?

America seems to be in love with this new show. Get a load of these metrics:

The ratings report card for the series premiere of ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5th GRADER? broke records as FOXs highest-rated series premiere in 13 years and the highest-rated series premiere on any network in more than five years among Adults 18-49 (11.2/26), and in eight years among Total Viewers (26.6 Mil.). The series debut also made the honor roll by retaining the largest audience ever out of an AMERICAN IDOL lead-in among Adults 18-49 (93%) and in Total Viewers (88%). The series moved to the head of the class, besting AMERICAN IDOL among Teens (8.7/28 vs. 8.3/26) and among Male Viewers 12-34 (7.7/24 vs. 7.0/23). Night two of ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5th GRADER? continued the impressive performance, retaining 83% among Adults 18-49 and 79% in Total Viewers from its AMERICAN IDOL lead-in.

Personally, I find it stunning that so many adults are challenged by or interested in fifth grade material. If this were some sort of pre-adolescent academic kumite, I might tune in. How great to see the Mathletes battling the forensics team to the death?

Since that isn't the case, I suppose there are some questions that need to be asked and answered: Are these contestants ignorant or stupid? Assuming one of the former conditions is present in all contestants, it a lack of self-awareness or absence of personal pride that leads these dunderheads to put themselves on display? I'll leave it to you to decide.

In the interim, please enjoy the following that buttresses my belief that most people are poorly educated and revel in the misery of others. Why is it hard to describe a trapezoid? Who needs help from a search engine to do this? Why is this sort of intellectual train wreck fun to watch?

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Fifth Graders: More Brains and More Buzz
By Gordon Hurd
Sat, March 03, 2007, 2:30 pm PST
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At the end of Tuesday's episode of "American Idol," host Ryan Seacrest plugged Jeff Foxworthy's new game show, "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" Ryan asked for an example of a question, and Jeff came back with, "What's a trapezoid?"

As testament to the overwhelming influence of "Idol" and to the appeal of Foxworthy's new quiz show, people rushed to Search and pushed queries on "trapezoid" up 5,680%. Who would have guessed that a quadrilateral having two parallel sides could get more Buzz than all the Season 6 contestants combined (except for Antonella Barba, of course)?

The quiz show with the hard-to-swallow concept has proven easy to follow. Twenty-six million adults, who apparently don't know squat, do know what they like to watch. Buzz on Foxworthy's show (and his slick mustache) jumped 173% after the premiere episode. Questions from the broadcast are just as popular, perhaps providing the show's title with a sad but true answer.

Beyond searching for the truth about trapezoids, adults have also reached out in desperation for "rem sleep" (+8,586%), "list of impeached presidents" (+3,808%), "dewey decimal system" (+1,604%), and "definition of a prime number" (+418%) among other quizzical queries.

Being the smarty-pants that we are, we have full confidence we could take on a force of fifth graders. But that doesn't mean we won't tune in to watch folks who may not have the brains to take on a 10-year-old.