The initial success of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, the latest lobotomizing primetime scythe-swipe from Mike Darnell, Fox's Horseman of the Alternative Programming Apocalypse, prompts a Washington Post article (reprinted on latimes.com) to ponder the obvious question: "Have TV quiz-show questions become dumber, and have the shows' rules grown wimpier, as producers pander to ever-lower audience expectations and the viewing public's general intellectual flabbiness?" The answer is, of course: [SFX: sound of a viewer drooling on his shirt while wondering how Jeff Foxworthy suddenly became so intimidatingly intelligent.] Rather than send you along to waste your time reading about how the quiz-show world has devolved into its current Just Hold Up Two Fingers And I'll Give You Ten Thousand Dollars! Can You Do That For Me, Guy? state, we instead invite you to watch the above clip from 5th Grader, in which a supposedly college-educated man struggles mightily to answer a first-grade-level query while being sadistically deprived of the lifeline of a pen and paper.

• The dumbing down of TV quiz shows [WaPo via LAT]
• Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? [Fox.com]

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