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.  Nearly the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, everyone has too much to drink and Ms. Noble tries to win a contest!

Episode 4.20 “Unhappy Hour”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 2nd, 2000)

Ms. Noble’s best friend, Kiki, hosts her town talk show because of course she does.  (How does a high school principal have all of these connections?)  Kiki wants to do a show featuring the students of Manny High discussing the importance of friendship.  To be honest, that sounds like the most boring show in the world but whatever.  Chris, Jamal, Dawn, Cassidy, Al, and L-Train all agree to be on it.

Cassidy’s parents are out of town so everyone ends up at her penthouse to discuss what they’re going to say on the show.  But before the discussion even begins, Al has brought over four pizzas and L-Train has discovered a bottle of Tequila!  Before you know it, everyone’s drunk.  (Apparently, no one learned a lesson from any of the other episodes of this show that featured everyone getting drunk and suffering as a result.)  Al and L-Train throws eggs off the balcony.  Chris tries to work up the courage to tell Cassidy how he feels about her, which is interesting since Chris and Cassidy dated during the second season so it’s not as if Cassidy doesn’t know that Chris has feelings for her.  Cassidy is so drunk that she kisses Jamal instead.  Chris gets mad and kiss Dawn.  Al gets mad and has no one to kiss.  Meanwhile, L-Train calls Ms. Noble at school and tells her that he loves her.

Big mistake.

Ms. Noble and her husband, Billy, break into Cassidy’s penthouse and yell at the students for drinking too much.  Apparently, it’s not bad enough that Ms. Noble’s entire life revolves around spying on her students.  Now, Billy has had to sacrifice his freedom as well.  The next morning, the kids are hungover and angry but they still have to go on Kiki’s show.

“Why did you drink so much?” Kiki asks.

Dawn confesses that they were all stupid and now they’re all suffering from the worst hangover ever while appearing on live television.  Chris apologizes for kissing Dawn.  Cassidy confessed to like Chris.  Al says that he can’t forgive Chris for kissing his girlfriend.  “How could you do such a stupid thing!?”  Jamal suddenly gets angry and says that Al was just as stupid for throwing eggs off the balcony.  Personally, I kind of think that kissing your best friend’s significant other is considerably worse than tossing eggs off of a balcony but maybe that’s just me.

“I guess you guys realize that drinking isn’t all it was made out to be,” Kiki says.

“Don’t let one drunken night ruin your friendships,” Ms. Noble says, as if this doesn’t happen at least once every season.

Actually, if they didn’t realize it after all the other episodes this show has done about drinking and doing drugs, they’re never going to realize it.  Face it, the City Guys are doomed!

Episode 4.21 “Compromising Principal”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on December 9th, 2000)

This is what happens, according to plot description at Wikipedia: “When Ms. Noble decides to loosen up and be more cool in order to win a most popular principal contest, the school turns into an undisciplined zoo. In the midst of the chaos, the gang try their hand at after school elective classes.”

Wow, sounds exciting!  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), this is one of the missing episodes of City Guys.  As far as I can tell, it’s not streaming anywhere as of this writing.  So, let’s just assume that everyone learned an important lesson and that the students once again spent way too much time worrying about their principal.

Seriously, a most popular principal contest?