History Headscratchers / Recess

[[WMG: In Taking the Fifth Grade, why would the faculty wait to take all the play equipment and pave the lawn on the first day of school, much less when the kids are supposed to be out for recess?]]
* Maybe that was the only time the construction workers were available?

[[WMG: What was up with the villains' plan in Recess: School's Out?]]
He planned to create an everlasting winter.....so he could eliminate summer holidays. Never mind all the endless side effects it would create, two words can shoot a hole in his plan. SNOW. DAY.
* Ask any Canadian; if there's always a lot of snow, the standards for snow days get ''much'' higher.
** Ask any Alaskan; there's approximately only one snow day in a decade. If you're lucky.
*** And you can still go on vacation in the winter. I mean really, Some kids find winter more fun.
* Although the easy way to answer this is he's not a mentally well man.
** Well duh, he thought that altering the climate would get him elected president instead of executed for crimes against humanity (assuming the lynch mob didn't get him first).
* I always thought that was [[RuleOfFunny part of the whole joke.]]
* There's also the fact that before the movie was released there was an episode where the Government experimented with ''actually canceling recess'' that resulted in lower test scores in the long term, was he not aware?
* There's also the fact that a colder summer doesn't translate to no summer vacation. They even have summer vacation in Barrow, Alaska, which has summer temperatures akin to a Nashville, Tennessee type of winter.

*** Since Spinelli doesn't resemble her parents, this troper always assumed she was adopted (and Asian).

[[WMG: TheMovie and growing up]]
How come in Recess: School's Out, the kids are so worried about their futures and such, and say on several occasions "This is the last chance we get to be kids!"? They're only in 4th grade, which makes them around 10 years old. Who on Earth told them that they'd all be adults before they were 11? I love the movie, but that part always struck me as silly.
* Wait, where did I have [[Film/HighSchoolMusical heard this similar part before?]]
** What does ''Film/HighSchoolMusical'' have to do with anything? Speaking from experience, juniors and seniors in high school do have to worry about their futures. But to the original Headscratcher, I never noticed before how the kids do that.
*** It's a mix between FridgeBrilliance and HilariousInHindsight as elementary school kids today have much more responsibilities than kids of thirty years ago, elementary school students when the show aired, as well as kids starting puberty at a younger age. My niece looked like she was 16 when she was 12.
** What do kids starting puberty earlier got to do with worrying about the future? As to the original headscratcher, teachers do ask 10-year-old children to try and figure out what they want to do with their lives so they can prepare for it easier now whilst they are young.
* It's simply because kids today, even during the 90s and early 00's when the movie was made, have a very different and difficult journey to prepare for due to how complicated the world has become. Many parents begin preparing their children in ''preschool'' because they want them to have a bigger chance at getting into prestigious colleges and careers for which competition has never been stiffer.

In that episode, T.J. and co end up having the school to themselves when every other kid falls sick from eating the cafeteria's tuna fish tacos the previous day. Why even bother to keep the school open for just six students? Wouldn't it have made more sense for the school to close until this little epidemic began to subside?

* How is Mikey the only kindergartener to never finish the derby? We see in this very episode that Tubby and Gilbert are the only ones who finish. Everyone else gets held up along the way and isn't seen finishing the derby, and it's logical to assume the same happens every year.

Library Kid says she’s never been outside for recess before, however, once she gets a small taste of what it’s like during outside recess, she automatically becomes highly energetic in a similar manner to a sugar rush despite not really experiencing it outside of a book.

[[WMG: At the end of "The Hypnotist" Principal Prickly is talking to the gang about how they took advantage of him while he was hypnotised and says "Miss Finster has filled me in on your shenanigans and I've decided that the most fitting punishment for you miscrients is" before cutting himself off when he sees the beard he drew on his photo then lets them off with a warning. So what could this "most fitting punishment" he had initially planned have been?]]

* Prickly and Finster seem to follow the out-of-touch teacher archetype. They used to genuinely love teaching and wanted to help children, but over the years they've become cynical and forgot why they ever wanted to go into teaching in the first place. Plus the show is very inconsistent with their levels of villainy. Sometimes Finster is just strict for a playground monitor and Prickly an ineffective principal, other times they want to ban recess and hate the idea of children having fun. It changes depending on the needs of the plot.

* Also, keep in mind that we're primarily seeing them from the kids' perspective, and for them anyone in a position of authority at the school is automatically "the enemy".

Some examples would be not already seeing through the fact that sometimes it's okay to tell on people, and the fact that she still seems to believe that numbers like a gazillion exist. My only guess is that she's 9, so it's slightly excusable, or she knew the truth all along and, in an effort to fit in more, she just followed [[Literature/SwordOfTruth Wizard's First Rule]].

* If you want a counter example to "sometimes it's okay to tell on people", [[http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=Stop+Snitchin let me Google that for you...]]

** I feels that episode shows they're not completely different things her book smarts translate to the street.
* Maybe she was using gazillion as a placeholder for a number large enough she didn't know the proper term for?

* Although she's exceptionally smart for a fourth grader, she's not Series/YoungSheldon smart. Remember, she's top student in her elementary school, while Sheldon is top of the class in his high school and even the college courses he's auditing. She's still a normal kid for the most part, she even enjoys recess just as much as the other kids.

His plan was to create an everlasting winter.....so he could eliminate summer holidays. Never mind all the endless side effects it would create, two words can shoot a hole in his plan. SNOW. DAY.

* There's also the fact that before the movie was released there was an episode where the Government did an experiment of ''actually cancelling recess'' that resulted in lower test scores in the long term, was he not aware?

* If you pay attention Finster actually seems to enjoy it, she just doesn't admit it. Actually many episodes contain little hints (and sometimes flat out say) none of the teachers are as bad as they are made out to be. I think it's more of how they are seen through the kids' eyes at the time.
** Finster doesn't hate it. If she hated it she wouldn't be doing it. They're teachers, they like teaching, helping to form kids, making a difference but they are also in charge of maintaining order and have a job to do. They're strict and they've lost much of their optimism but they are not bad or unhappy people. Occasionally they act a little too selfish and occasionally need to be reminded of the other side's perspectives but in the end they're doing what they want to be doing. Just check out the movie when they aren't the kid's mandatory rivals, they come rushing to the children's aid. They truly love what they do and they care deeply about the kids.

[[WMG: Why do the kids NEVER seem to use their own judgement, instead following behind a "playground king" who is really just some sixth grade boy, and using a made-up "code of honor?"]]

* Because they're ''kids.'' Even though it's over-exaggerated for [[RuleOfFunny comedy's]] sake, in real life, kids literally do have a "follow the pack" mentality that they rarely question in fear of being the outsider.

* In the ''Recess'' universe, it seems like the whole business of "kindergartner=savage" is completely normal. In ''Taking the Fifth Grade'', Gus's parents are driving him to school, and he's ''already'' dressed in "war paint" and ready to be wild and destructive. Presumably the Griswolds must be OK with it.

How come in Recess: School's Out, the kids are so worried about their futures and such, and say on several occasions "This is the last chance we get to be kids!"? They're only in 4th grade, that makes them around 10 years old. Who on Earth told them that they'd all be adults before they were 11? I love the movie, but that part always struck me as silly.

** What has kids starting puberty earlier got to do with worrying about the future? As to the original headscratcher, teachers do ask 10 year old children to try and figure out what they want to do with their lives so they can prepare for it easier now whilst they are young?
* Its simply because kids today, even during the 90's and early 00's when the movie was made, have a very different and difficult journey to prepare for due to how complicated the world has become. Many parents begin preparing their children in ''preschool'' because they want them to have a bigger chance at getting into prestigious colleges and careers for which competition has never been stiffer.

* You have to remember two things. Firstly, this was made in the late 90's, a time where parallel dimensions was still considered mostly science fiction. And secondly, parallel dimensions haven't been proven yet. Whilst scientists do believe they exist, at this moment in time, there is no proof of them. So Gretchen was acting perfectly logical in dismissing the idea.

* They have no legitimate concept of kissing or aging, and believe odd stuff. I know this is an exaggerated version of childhood innocence, but seriously? They just seem stupid and overly naive.
** Most children become truly aware of the difference between reality and fiction at age seven. Since most of the characters are nine, it makes sense for them to still be a bit gullible and believe some odd stuff. As far as the concepts of aging and kissing go, maybe they're just late bloomers as far as maturity and awareness go?

** Not to mention that Recess takes place in the late 90's (the show's original air run being 1997-2001). Kids believed in those things back then before they started to wise up at earlier ages.
** One part Nostalgia Goggles, one part cultural drift; every generation grows up faster than the one before it. When Recess was on TV, it was aimed at kids around the same age as or younger than the main cast, which meant 6-10 year olds, with ParentalBonus gags. Kids that age today are exposed to much more adult media, and some of them have probably had [=MySpace=]/Facebook pages ''since they were born'', so the internet (and the...uh, shall we say social interaction unrestricted by traditional etiquette that comes with it) are a very basic part of their lives. Kids today aren't any more ''mature'', but they have access to a lot more information.

* If Recess co-exists in the same world as "Lilo and Stitch" the series, does that mean the realistic 3rd Street School students co-exist with fantasy elements like Aliens, Dragons, Naked Mole Rats, and a wish granting Al Roker?

** If Recess takes place in the same world as Lilo and Stitch it takes place in a world where earth is a mosquito preserve and Hawaii has a decent number of genetic experiments. Seeing Recess as taking place in a universe with all the crossovers in Lilo and Stitch has some awesome potential - the kids having a future in a world even cooler than they believe it is now - but is not necessary for it taking place in the Lilo and Stitch universe. You can just pretend the other crossovers didn't happen, happened differently, and/or the people in the crossovers are similar but entirely different people who live in a different universe than the series they are from. If Recess does not take place in the same universe as Lilo and Stitch either the crossover is only Lilo and Stitch canon but not Recess canon or the kids in the Lilo and Stitch crossover are just similar to T.J. and his group.

* Having watched the episode recently, T.J. being so quick to be intimidated by Slicer seems more then a little out of character for him(especially since at that point Slicer had no real authority over the school yet, so T.J. was under no obligation to obey him or listen to anything he said) you'd think him and the others would've tried to pull pranks on him to try and get him to leave or something.

* RuleOfFunny and RuleOfCool aside, why and how does a 11 year old have the deep post-puberty baritone of Robert Goulet?

* How is it that none of the other kids, including her own friends, knew that Spinelli's first name was Ashley until Randall revealed it in "First Name Ashley"? Even back when Spinelli first started kindergarten, there wouldn't have been any reason for her to be on a last name basis, at least until the Ashleys ruined it for her.
** Maybe at one point she said to the teachers that she prefers to be called by her last name. Or maybe she was such a terror in kindergarten that she refused to answer to Ashley, and calling her by her last name became a habit that the rest of the staff got accustomed to. At my school there were kids who had nicknames that stuck, and even got called that by the teachers because they were so associated with them.

** Actually, Miss Finster seems to call all the children by their last names. Prickly too. So it looks like Miss Grotke is the odd teacher out, addressing the children by their first names. And she and Spinelli do get established to have a special bond in "Mama's Girl", so it's plausible that Spinelli said she prefers to go by her last name. As for the other kids, maybe they forgot it since the Ashleys clique wasn't established in kindergarten (in "Outcast Ashley", the girls look like first or second graders). The gang probably got so used to calling Spinelli by her last name, they didn't think about her first name too much.

** Maybe they haven't. I have a friend whose family I've met with on a few occasions and I still haven't seen his little brother. The gang rarely seem to go to one person's house, preferring to meet up at school or in town, so they might not have seen him at all. I can't remember if they said that Chad had extracurricular activities in the episode, but maybe he was doing other classes or things like chess club that meant they didn't have opportunities to see him.

** I think the sticking point was that Mikey ran out of the race when he fell, whereas with the others, Tubby and Gilbert just ended the race by crossing the finish line. So for them, they simply didn't win. Mikey however ran out of his derby, and got the reputation as the kid who never finished.

* In the episode "outcast Ashley" she gets kicked out for forgetting purple day, except as the leader shouldn't she be the one who says who's in and who's out even though she forgot purple day.

Library Kid says she’s never been outside for recess before, however once she gets a small taste of what it’s like during outside recess, she automatically becomes highly energetic in a similar manner to a sugar rush despite not really experiencing it outside of a book.

** She's Italian according to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, and on the episode where Spinelli joins the Ashleys after Randall reveals her true first name, she also had a great-grandmother who lived in Alaska and ran the Iditarod. Judging by her eye shape, lip shape, and AmbiguouslyBrown skin tone (which reminds me of the one from that Eskimo hunter on the 1949 Looney Tunes cartoon "Frigid Hare"), she probably could be Inuit (Eskimo) along with being Italian.