Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Al and Dawn have relationship trouble and the viewers are expected to endure a clip show.

Episode 4.12 “Makin’ Up Is Hard To Do”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on October 28th, 2000)

It’s Spring Fest.  Time for dance on the school roof!

Now, to be honest, this episode’s roof dance actually looks like it would be fun to attend.  The music is a lot more danceable than that jazz funk that the Jazz Posse played last week.  For once, it looks like Dawn actually put some effort into decorating the roof.  There aren’t any dead pigeons lying around.  It looks like fun until….

….for some reason, Chris starts dancing with Ms. Noble.  And then Ms. Noble leads the entire school in a disco line dance, Tony Manero-style.  I’ve said this a hundred times before but, people — SHE’S THE PRINCIPAL!  It is neither healthy nor believable for students to be this obsessed with their principal!

As I mentioned earlier, Dawn put the dance together.  This time, she worked with Nate, a new kid from California.  Because the show’s writers finally remembered that they were supposed to be a couple, Al got jealous of Nate and forbid her to work with him.  Dawn dumped Al, which would have been a big dramatic moment if not for the fact that the two of them hardly ever acted like they were dating in the first place.  Al attempted to sabotage the dance by booby-trapping a raffle box but, after discovering that Nate was a nice guy and having a change of heart, Al was the one who ended up with an ink pack exploding all over him.  Dawn was so moved by Al’s stupidity that she took him back.

Meanwhile, Jamal and some random student had a dance-off.  Jamal won.  Yay!

This episode actually wasn’t too bad.  The dance looked like fun.  Dawn shouldn’t have taken Al back, though.

Episode 4.13 “Living in America”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 4th, 2000)

Ms. Noble sets up a pen pal program between Manny High and Japan because, of course, she did.  Unfortunately, it turns out that Chris and Jamal have not been responding to the emails being sent by the Japanese students.  When Ms. Noble asks them why, Chris and Jamal reply that they don’t know what to talk about.  Then, the entire homerun ends up discussing all the amazing adventures that they’ve had.

Yep, it’s a clip show, delivered with all the straight-face earnestness of a show that had an extra episode to burn off.

“Hey, Train,” Al says at one point, “maybe you should tell everyone about that time you tried to be a wrestler….”

That pretty much sums up this episode.

Still, there is a little bit of drama when Ms. Noble suddenly announces, “Kids, I just heard there was an earthquake in Japan, not far from where your pen pals live.”  Well, I guess they won’t have to reply to those emails now …. oh wait, everyone survived.  That’s good.

For whatever reason, Tubi has removed City Guys from its site.  So, I will be watching the rest of this show on YouTube.  I think every episode is on YouTube but I can’t be sure.  We’ll find out, starring next week!