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Smart Guy
Genre	Sitcom
Creator(s)	Danny Kallis
Starring	Tahj Mowry as T.J. Henderson John Marshall Jones as Floyd Henderson Jason Weaver as Marcus Henderson Omar Gooding as Morris "Mo Tibbs" Essence Atkins as Tasha Yvette Henderson
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	51
Production
Executive producer(s)	Bob Young Danny Kallis Suzanne de Passe Suzanne Coston
Running time	22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	The WB
Original run	April 2, 1997 – May 16, 1999
Links

Smart Guy was an American sitcom that aired on The WB for three seasons from 1997 to 1999.

Contents 1 Characters 1.1 Main characters 1.2 Recurring characters 2 About the show 3 Episodes 4 The initially banned episode by Disney Channel 5 Confusion 6 Reruns/syndication 7 External links

• T.J. - T.J. Henderson, played by Tahj Mowry, is the title character and the youngest child in his family. He's 10 years old in seasons 1 and 2, and, as the title suggests, is smart, with an I.Q. of 180. He skipped from 4th grade to 10th, knows several different languages and has a photographic memory, all of which are never truly explained. Despite the normal unsociable tendencies that tend to develop in those with higher intelligence, is quite adept with people. Outside of the occasional moments of awkwardness that is bound to occur when a child interacts with high schoolers, T.J. has a peaceable existence in the school, and is eager to be involved in school functions. So much, that he becomes the mascot for his school, which leads to bullying. He spends a fair amount of time at school with his older brother, Marcus, and Mo, Marcus's best friend. Although they have some tense filled moments, it is obvious that the two brothers care for each other deeply. T.J. plays keyboard for the band after the other member broke his finger, and never plays for it again.

• Marcus - Marcus Henderson is played by Jason Weaver, Marcus is T.J.'s older brother. He's fairly popular, and reacts remarkably well to his younger brother sharing nearly every one of his classes. He gets average grades and is probably of above average intelligence, but does not apply himself. He's a forward on his school's basketball team and has several love interests throughout the run of the show. He is the vocals for their band which he created, Mackadocious.

• Mo - Played by Omar Gooding, he is one of Marcus and T.J.'s best friends. It's been revealed that he was adopted and his mother is a fortune teller. Floyd often is annoyed with Mo's antics, such as eating out of their fridge and sleeping in T.J.'s bed. He pretty much lives there and he hates eating at his own house (he once cracked a tooth off his mother's oatmeal). He works out and is very muscular. He plays bass guitar in the band. He also has interest in beatboxing, which was humorously played in his mind and he is not at all smart and is very cute and cool and funny.

• Yvette - Tasha Yvette Henderson is played by Essence Atkins. she is the older sister of Marcus and T.J.. Yvette is intelligent, is a woman's rights activist (this was only shown in one episode though). She has a fake I.D. that says she's 28. She is in grade 10 in season 1, and graduates high school at the end of season 3. Having been rejected from Princeton, Yvette is depicted as continuing to live at home after season 3 while attending Georgetown University.

• Floyd - Floyd Henderson is played by John Marshall Jones, Floyd is the patriarch of the family and owns a roofing business.

• Nina Walsh - Played by Tinsley Grimes, is one of Yvette's friends and is seen with her most of the time. She is White American and works at the store in the mall, where she was forced to follow black people because her boss thought they would steal. She is deep and poetic and drools over cute guys.
• Deon - Played by Arvie Lowe, Jr., Deon is a short African-American teenager who goes to Piedmont. His usual hijinks include taking pictures of Marcus and Moe and selling them to a company for profit and scamming Marcus and Moe into selling health bars, among others (Marcus refers to him as a "a little shrimp"). In one episode, Deon had a crush on Yvette and asked her out to the school dance.
• Mackey Nagle - Played by J.D. Walsh, Mackey is a student who is in Marcus and Moe's grade. He is fairly popular and is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He tries to fit in at school also by buying new clothes. He has a dream about Yvette kissing him as she tells him about her dreams about Moe. He often wears flannel shirts.
• Mr. Militich - Played by James K. Ward, he is the vice-president of the school. He is cheap when it comes to school neccesities, and sometimes presented as incompetent.
• Coach Gerber - Played by Dann Florek, he is the gym teacher at the school. He is bald and aging and went through a divorce (which includes paying 800 dollars to his wife monthly). He once taught math and gets angry easily. He sleeps in his office since he can no longer afford a home of his own. He once mentions that he has prostate problems.
• Brandy - Played by Kyla Pratt, Brandy is a girl around T.J.'s age, and met T.J. at the arcade. She is very good at basketball, and joined the team T.J. plays on, but she stopped playing due to T.J. being upset with her when she begins starting and T.J. is benched. She wears "ghetto fabulous" clothing and depicts an exaggerated stereotype of African American youth.

The show is about the misadventures of a grade school student who skips to high school. Though more trouble occurs when T.J. learns about the life of a teenager. This show tends to avoid many serious plots and add humor instantly. There are jokes based on character traits and thoughts such as Marcus and TJ are trying to think about supporting each other while Mo's mind is basically someone beatboxing while his face is completely deadpan.

It is also one of the few WB African-American sitcoms to use a laugh track.

As of February 2006, Smart Guy was the last series produced by Walt Disney Television for a broadcast television network in primetime.

Main article: List of Smart Guy episodes

One episode was initially omitted from Disney Channel broadcasts due to its suspected subliminal sexual content. "Strangers on the net," from the show's second season, featured T.J. and his friend Karen getting an Internet connection in order to buy bootleg games from a guy Karen met online. When they told "Marky412" (an online predator) the games they wanted, they then agreed to meet at a local pizza place. He then told them he had a new upgrade to a virtual reality game (a surfing-cam game that placed your image into the game). When they went to his house to play it, "Marky412" said it would look more realistic if they stripped down to their underwear (as if they were on a beach). Karen then agreed, but TJ knew what Marky was leading into. So he got Karen and they both left. TJ later told his dad and Marky412 eventually went to jail.

The episode had educational value — so much so, in fact, that Disney Educational Productions released the episode on video in order for teachers to show students about the dangers of being online. Yet, Disney mysteriously didn't air the episode until a year after Smart Guy began airing on the channel. It was one of the first TV shows to feature the use of Internet. The episode was still played comically in other scenes.

Disney aired nearly all of the Smart Guy episodes in their entirety, not editing for adult content. Unusual for a series produced by Disney, some episodes featured mild adult language. In "Get a Job," Marcus and Mo volunteer to become late night DJs at a radio station. When Floyd angrily calls into the show, and after Marcus asks if he can pick them up, Floyd replies "Oh, hell ... " Mo points out later that "I know you can't say the H word [on the radio]". Mo also thought you couldn't say "butt" on the radio.

In the second to final episode, "The Graduate", Coach Gerber (Dann Florek) is the guest speaker at graduation. He mentions his brother in his speech and adds that "[he's] got a full head of hair, looks like freakin Fabio".

There were even a couple of closed caption errors (at least in the Disney Channel broadcasts), in which the caption denoted a character as having said "damn," when in fact he or she said something else entirely though very few characters said "damn" for comical purposes. Disney Channel would normally edit these words, but they were left in these episodes.

Many Smart Guy viewers thought the series was a spin-off of Sister, Sister, both of which aired on The WB. However, this can be disproved by the fact that Smart Guy and Sister, Sister are set about 600 miles apart from each other. Smart Guy is set in Washington, D.C., while Sister, Sister is set in Detroit, but there is one guest appearance of twin sisters (the twins from Sister, Sister) in "Smart Guy" but no genius brothers in Sister, Sister.

Also, despite the fact that Tahj Mowry appeared on Sister, Sister three times, he played different characters. Also, none of the actors from Smart Guy who appeared in Sister Sister did so as their characters (Jason Weaver, in fact, is the only other Smart Guy cast member besides Mowry to appear on Sister, Sister).

In turn, Tahj Mowry's sisters Tia and Tamera Mowry appeared in a Smart Guy episode titled "Brother, Brother" (an obvious play on the name of Tia and Tamera's series). The only cross-over episode ever filmed, titled "Child's Play," for Tia and Tamera's series Sister, Sister involved Tahj as T.J. Henderson being sent to tutor Tia, Tamera and their friends for the SATs. This crossover occurred dispite the noticable fact that the two shows are set in Washington, D.C. and Detroit, respectively.

Three months after Smart Guy was cancelled on The WB, reruns began airing on the Disney Channel from September 1999 to September 2003, and again in a Back to School themed marathon of the show in August 2004. The show can still be seen on the Canada-based Family Channel and on Disney Channel in the United Kingdom, but not on a recurring basis. In late 2006, the show started airing on Disney Channel in Australia and New Zealand.

• Web-site at Disney Channel