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.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, L-Train becomes a poet and “the kids” try to prank Ms. Noble because they literally have no life beyond obsessing on their principal.  But before we get to any of that, let’s listen to that theme song and thrill to the shots of Scott Whyte and Wesley Jonathan wandering around New York City and totally looking like tourists.

Episode 5.17 “Prose and Cons”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 3rd, 2001)

Chris, Al, and Jamal are obsessed with pranking Ms. Noble.  Apparently, in his entire history as principal of Manny High, Ms. Noble has never been pranked.  It’s something in which she takes a lot of pride, to the extent that she taunts Chris, Al, and Jamal about the fact that she’s never been pranked….

Does this sound familiar?  Yes, because Ms. Bliss did the same thing on the forerunner to Saved By The Bell, Good Morning, Miss Bliss.  Then, when she sat down on a chair that had been covered in brown paint and ruined her sweater, she accused Screech of being responsible and held a mock trail in her classroom.  Of course, it turned out that Ms. Bliss actually pranked herself to teach the class a valuable lesson and to traumatize Screech in the process.

Anyway, the boys try to prank Ms. Noble by sabotaging a water fountain but that just leads to Cassidy getting sprayed by a bunch of water.  And then they attempted to replace her gardening magazine with a magazine full of naked men that Jamal just happened to have with him for some reason but, once again, Cassidy and Dawn showed up and caused Ms. Noble to accidentally spill coffee on the magazine before Ms. Noble could read it.  For their final attempt, Chris, Jamal, and Al somehow sneak a bunch of farm animals and several bakes of hay into Ms. Noble’s office.  They manage to prank her but, while Al is sneaking in the animals, Ms. Noble unknowingly praises Chris and Jamal for showing so much maturity in not trying to prank her.  So, Ms. Noble gets pranked but Chris and Jamal end up feeling guilty.

The prank stuff was stupid but it was at least kind of funny in the very silly way that Peter Engel’s better shows often were.  Of course, the prank stuff was also only the B-plot.

The A-plot features L-Train suddenly becoming a poet and winning so many new fans that he starts to ignore his girlfriend, Kianna.  The main problem with this storyline is that L-Train’s poetry sucked and the idea that he would become a hero at the local jazz club due to his doggerel was never a believable one.  As always, Steven Daniel delivered his lines with a likable sincerity but the story itself just felt rushed.  City Guys was nearly over by this point and it’s hard not to feel that the writers were just treading water.

Episode 5.18 “Why Y’All Clippin”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 3rd, 2001)

Here’s the plot description from Wikipedia:

In this clip show, the whole gang is having problems over a yearbook picture and are giving each other the silent treatment. So Ms. Noble calls everybody to Manny High on Saturday to work things out by reflecting on memories of the good, the bad, and the ugly that they had over the span of their time as friends.

Hey, it’s a clip show!  I hate those.  I guess it’s a good thing that this is one of the season 5 episodes that is not available on YouTube.