Did anyone round here used to watch Head Of The Class (TV series) 1986-91?

It was on for FIVE seasons? Jesus.

Loved this show. Especially when they did Little Shop of Horrors.

I loved this show. It's long gone and I haven't seen it in years but I remember enjoying it. There was a great episode where the class was divided over Fatal Attraction. I remmeber one of the female students didn't like how Glenn Close's character was treated.

I could have done without creepy Dan Schneider, though. Both him and Brian Robbins became hugely successful tv producers.

And Robin Givens...

[quote]Brian Robbins

Has no lips, yet they always forced him on the audience over Tony O'Dell.

Brian Robbins - Then & Now.

I watched it towards the end of it's run on it's network run and rather short syndication run.

There was a fairly lengthy thread about Tony O'Dell and HOTC earlier this year on here.

no lips

r5

I'm distantly related to Tony O'Dell. I've never met him but my parents have.

It was The Big Bang Theory of the day.

Super smart nerds in school.

I really didn't like Richard Pryor's daughter when she came on the show.

My favorite was the younger girl with the thick glasses. Tannis Vallely. She's in casting now.

Something seems way off about Tony O'Dell's face nowadays. He's gay by the way.

Oof. O'Dell got old. But he doesn't look awful.

On the same page that R11 linked there's a pic of Martin Kove. I can't believe how good he still looks.

Watch Head of the Class?

I had to give it. To Dan Schneider.

r11

Ill fitting dentures.

My parents made me watch it.

Johnny Fever was so hot!

Was this another one of those teen shows with 30 year olds playing fresh faced teenagers?

[quote]I'm distantly related to Tony O'Dell. I've never met him but my parents have.

If you're going to pick anyone to be related "distantly" to, why not make it someone, someone actually has heard of.

What are the lurid rumours surrounding Dan Schneider?

I used to watch it regularly. I thought they had some funny episodes. This is 1 show I never see on any of the channels that show tv shows from the 70's & 80's. I wonder why they don't show it on any of these channels? I'd love to see it again since it's been ages since I've seen it.

This was a good show with an interesting cast. It was kind of like the anti-TGIF sitcom in that there were no children on it and it had smarter story lines. They should have ended the series when Howard Hesseman left rather than run on fumes with Billy Connolly. I don't know how it did in the ratings, but it had to have been helped in part by the presence of Robin Givens and all the attention that swirled around her due to her high profile marriage and subsequent divorce from Mike Tyson.

It was smart for an American sitcom.

They did the broad stuff, but they also got into politics, art, and history in meaningful ways

Krystyne Haje was a FOAF. She and her family had three houses in Hollywood. Her family lived in one house, she lived in the third house and the house in the middle was Krystyne's closet. I think her mom was mentally ill. She resembled a fat Yvonne DeCarlo doing Lily Munster.

I remember watching this series when I was a wee gayling and thinking the gang was all so super cool and smart.

The series should have ended when Hessman left. Billy was never as interesting. The show seemed to shift very much towards trying to make his character seem interesting and funny.

It seems that at this point only Robin Givens is still acting.

Some of the cast members seemed to have a 'reunion" of sorts not too long ago. Glad they're still around but wow time flies.

Tony O'Dell is gay. He is also much shorter than you'd think.

One thing I liked about the show was that all the kids in the class had names and personalities, unlike "Welcome Back Kotter" (which it was modeled on), wherein five kids in the class did and the rest just reacted and said nothing.

Was Tannis Vallely named after tannis root? Is she Rosemary's baby?

No love for Jawarhalal?

I loved this show. Why the hell isnt it on dvd?

Many of the episodes are on You Tube.

Tony O'Dell was so cute.

I hated the fat kid--not surprised he turned out to be a perv.

I never liked this one at all. Hesseman looked like he hated every second he did the show and the "kids" were either bland (Tony O'Dell, the Indian kid, Khrystyne Haje - christ, what an obnoxious spelling) or irritating (Schneider, Robbins, the nerdy girl.) Robin Givens just oozed cuntiness through the screen. I'm shocked to see she stayed on the show the entire 5 seasons.

R32 called it exactly.

I remember Khrystyne Haje (Lord, that spelling!) being a perennial in the "What Was She Thinking?" column due to her hideous fashion atrocities.

And I also remember their uber-cheesy music video to "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades". Yeesh!

r33 Oh, God, I remember that video, too. Maybe that's why it's not on DVD is because of music rights and some of the episodes relied on certain songs, so it's not a case of just putting in some generic song like they did on the Square Pegs DVD.

[quote]Why the hell isnt it on dvd?

Warner Bros. seems to have kept a disproportionate number of shows off of DVD because of music rights issues or petty legal disputes unrelated to the actual level of demand for the show. They even stopped releasing Looney Tunes on Blu-Ray, yet they subject us to [italic]Full House[/italic] and [italic]Friends[/italic], which were awful then and are unbearable now, as much as ever before.

R33 -- and the weird thing about that music video was that while the song itself was an ironic attack on yuppies and consumerism, the "Head of the Class" team played it straight (well, literal -- "straight" is not a word that should be used anywhere involving Tony O'Dell) and irony-free in the video.

Anyone have stories on Tony O'Dell?

For R33 and R36.

DL hero HRT had at least one O'Dell anecdote on one of his threads.

[quote] DL hero HRT had at least one O'Dell anecdote on one of his threads.

But then we'd have to wade through all the rest of the tiresome gas on those threads.

Robin Givens and Tony O'Dell never got "A" stories and barely got "B" stories. Neither did the replaced Indian kid, who was actually Pakistani.

They're showing a mini marathon of HOTC tonight from 8-10pm (EST) on Antenna TV. It will start airing Monday through Fridays at 2:30 pm starting January 2nd. Who knows how long they'll keep it on the schedule, so you better catch it while you can!

[quote] My favorite was the younger girl with the thick glasses. Tannis Vallely.

Her first name means "The Devil's Pepper"!

[quote] Robin Givens and Tony O'Dell never got "A" stories and barely got "B" stories.

Tony once got a great A story, when the debate team he chaired went head to head against his former girlfriend's debate team at another school. There was a nice bit when she summed up all his shortcomings before the debate, in an attempt to psych him out, and ended with "...and I've suddenly realized I'm taller than you are."

Didn't know Khrystyne dated Prince Albert of Monaco.

She looks great and her hair is still to die for.

I loved this show, I was in Junior High School when this show started and going to high school in Manhattan seemed so glamourous. I lost interest once I went to actual high school and they pulled a 'Facts of Life' and replaced several of the kids, including Tannis Vallely and then Hessman left. I think Hessman thought the show would be more evenly focused between his characters personal life and the classroom, but the kids wound up being the primary focus, so it's completely understandable why he left, especially after being so successful after WKRP.

I loved this show. I always wanted the blond school secretary and the teacher to get together.

Khyrstyne Haje dated Richard Moll ("Bull" on night court) for a while

R38s clip felt 3 hours long.

Khyrstyne Haje was the Susan Richardson of the late 80s/early 90s. For some reason, the rags (like National Enquirer and Star Magazine) were transfixed by her every move.

I think Khrystyne lives in the same trailer park as Susan

Haje made People Magazines 50 Most Beautiful People lists one year during HOTC. Robin Givens got the most press overall though due to her messy relationship with Mike Tyson.

Howard touched my no-no.

Do you think fellow gays O'Dell and Michael DeLorenzo ever hooked up? DeLorenzo really hit the wall looks wise in more recent years.

He {Brian} knew.

Maybe O'Dell spiced up his weekly white bread Cobra Kai gangbang and added DeLorenzo to the mix.

Dan Schneider has to wait in line cause Adam Driver is next.

Schneider and Singer are next.

I hated that shit show. One thing I do remember was that Vallely was also the last name of a producer or something like that in the credits. It was a stupid character that didn’t really fit, so nepotism is wha5 I remember from that show.

I remember one episode where they thought a student was going to be cut from the gifted program due to budget cuts. Givens delivered a wonderfully bitchy line to Vallely's character, "Go to college where you belong!"

O'Dell is an English surname originating from the village Odell in Bedfordshire, England. Folk etymology gave it a misleading Irish O'Dell spelling. Some families anglicized their name over time.

,,,,,,,,,

[quote]I could have done without creepy Dan Schneider, though.

People have been talking about him for years. Given those rumors and considering everything going on with #MeToo, I'm surprised they would want to bring this show back.

Of course, this syndication deal was probably made before the Weinstein story broke, but there was time to replace it with something else.

Antenna TV announced in 2016 that HOTC (along with some other shows) would be apart of their 2017 line up, so plans had been in place for a while. Not sure what the reason was for them taking so long for them to start showing it. I'm not sure they'd yank the episodes if the Schneider scandal does break, since he is a supporting character and not really that well known. It may all depend on how it fairs in the ratings.

There were talks around a year or two ago about doing a reboot of the show with Khrystyne Haje's Simone character coming back to teach at her old school. Haje confirmed that in an interview. I'm not sure how far that got or if it's still on the table at this point. Haje was also dealing with breast cancer, so that maybe why the reboot didn't go forward.

I could never get past the opening credits seeing the way Khrystyne Haje spelled her name.

R50, LOVE the accurate Haje-Richardson comparison! Literally made me laugh out loud!

Watched it last night, brought back some good memories until Richard Pryor's ugly annoying daughter showed up and I turned it off, just as I did 27 years ago.

Rain Pryor's character could be annoying and her delivery on HOTC was not good. She was lucky she had a famous dad. I haven't seen her in anything after HOTC, so hopefully she's improved.

None of the characters that were introduced later on were that interesting. Michael DeLorenzo was hot then, though.

Cast shot pre Rain Pryor and possibly pre Dan Schneider's foot fetish took hold of his desires.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Rain Pryor was on a Showtime show with Sherilyn Fenn — “Rude Awakening” was the title, if memory serves. She was ghastly.

I loved this show as a kid and I couldn't understand how fun and exciting their school days were compared to mine.

The writing was MUCH BETTER than ANY other 80s show that had teens as the stars. It was very character driven and had an intelligence behind it and it was very real, compared to Saved by the fucking Bell, Howard Hessman has said that because it was a teen show it never got much love from critics and it never got Emmy recognition

Leslie Bega did a full-on fuck scene in The Sopranos.

R69, how is that an appropriate yearbook photo? And why is there so much blank space between Brian and Arvid.

r4

LOL, I always thought the same thing. Of course O'Dell suffered from the "Stockyard Channing" syndrome.

[quote] Leslie Bega did a full-on fuck scene in The Sopranos.

I wonder if the guy who played Arvid masturbated to it.

Antenna TV banished the show to the 3 AM time slot for weekdays. Guess that ratings weren't great.

I wonder what happened to Haje. Her family was strange to say the least. Her mother looked like a fat Lily Munster. They all lived in three houses next to each other in the Hollywood Hills with Khrystyne's money. The family had one house, she had another and the house in the middle was her closet. For real.

Haje still acts some in theater, does some modeling and commercial work also.

She had breast cancer a while back, but beat it I believe.

From what I've heard, she invested well after HOTC and made a lot of money from that.

[quote]It's my understanding she went bankrupt. She spent all her money to change her name, and it took a few thousand of them to change it so it's spelled correctly.

[quote]Haje still acts some in theater,

Bitch beat me out for the lead in the stage production of "Cat Women from Mars"

I never understood why, if the kids were supposed to be gifted, they were in high school for five years.

Billy Connolly was cute. He ran full frontally naked on some British Comic Relief show some years ago, which made up for not seeing him get his kit off in person when he replaced Simon Callow (who I did see) in a West End show years ago. The Connolly clip sometimes shows up on line; he clearly likes being naked as he run out on Piccadilly Circus.

Kimberly Russell was a beard for George Clooney?

Krystyne Haje appears in a recent commercial for breast cancer. She's aged well and still very pretty.

Khrys Haje is a dear, dear friend of mine. We wanted to do CHICAGO on Broadway but we couldn’t meet the Weisslers price. They charge a lot to play those roles. We were going to do do NIGHT, MOTHER in Plymouth, VT, but I should play the daughter but Khrys was being a stubborn gash about it. Reminded me of Betts Buckley back in the day. She used to sit in chairs on during her ladies times and purposely stain cushions on the EIGHT set. Even when we had guests like Bibi Besch and Teresa Ganzel there.

Krystyne Haje Has hardly aged. She still has that mane too.