To continue our Back to School analysis of education on television, thedailyjim.com now turns its eye to TV’s beloved characters who were actually hurt by their own booksmarts.

Let’s deal with Urkel right off the bat.  I know that I just used the word “beloved,” but even if you hate the creepy little dork he’s still managed to be a figure of note in our everyday pop-culture world.  That being said, taking AP classes in 2nd grade  and stalking the girl next door throughout high school did not help his social agenda.  If Family Matters was indeed about family, young Urkel exemplified how not to raise your kid.  Yes, yes, we all think a precocious child is somewhat amusing, but he was twenty-two when they squeezed the last laugh out of that show. It’s easy to malign Urkel.  And it should be.

The guy can make a electrical generator from a skinny kid and a bicycle, but he can’t figure out that there’s enough wood and sap to repair the Minnow and get off Gilligan’s Island.   Seriously, Jin, Sawyer, and Michael would have had that thing off the island in like a week. The Professor was no dope though, that’s for sure, he picked Maryann over Ginger every time (well… almost every time).  They say many geniuses can’t make their way through life’s simple challenges, which is why they prefer the laboratory environment.  Fine.  But what the hell was he doing on a day charter in Hawaii?!?!  Knowing his name was actually Roy Hinkley does not help me at all.

Finally, we come to the winner of My Intelligence Screwed Me: Sam Beckett.  Sure the guy found out a way to Quantum Leap, but what did that get him? Four years of having his only friend be a futuristic hologram while leaping into other people’s bodies and eventually winding up dead in a bar.  Way to go Doc.

Sure, we all want to send our kids to college, but don’t forget to run ‘em out side once in a while.

(careful readers will note that Carol Seaver from Growing Pains was omitted from this list, because the boys in the office all had crushes on her as kids.

To commemorate the beginning of the school year, we at thedailyjim.com have looked into our collective past to see how lack of education hasn’t affected some of our favorite television characters one bit.

Charles “Pa” Ingalls had little formal education, but he sure could play that fiddle.  In fact less classroom time meant he could learn all the things the bookworms only read about.  The guy built a little house on the prairie, milled wood, served for a time as a dynamite monkey, delivered various mammalian babies, both human and farm animal, taught himself to read, could tie a necktie, drop a rap on the ladies, and was considered a wise Walnut Grove elder while barely 40.  I have no idea why two of his kids became teachers.

Life was pretty nutty for the Tate family, but their butler, Benson DuBois, tried to keep a level head.  Just before Soap was cancelled and the unemployed Tate’s (including Richard Mulligan, Katherine Helmond, and Billy Crystal) were exhalted as comedy royalty, ol’ Benson moved to the Governor’s mansion.  There, he moved quickly from picking up the Governor’s undies to serving as his Lieutenant, then running against him for the big seat in the series cliffhanger.  If only Kraus, the Governor’s German cook, had that kind of luck.

Okay, Rachel Green was kind of whiny, but man, was her soup hot.  Getting a haircut named after you isn’t that hard, ask Darrell Mullet, but for Ms. Green it was only the starting block.  From admittedly horrible barista to Ralph Lauren Polo executive in under a decade is pretty impressive even if you’re working your way through an MBA.  The thing is, she didn’t.  Never once did this Friend go to a leadership seminar or audit a college fashion class.  She just excelled in making bad life choices and karma took the ’90s off.

Hugo Reyes, the man known as Hurley is the television embodiment of slacker.  He’s unmotivated and tree-slothy.  Even his millions turned to misery.  How then, was this vision of moppishness vaulted to the position of last line of defense for humanity?  We have no idea, but Hurley seemed to keep the lid on the eternal battle between good and evil until Lost came to an end last season.  No word on who manning the store now, though.

Now anyone can shoot at some food and hit a pocket of oil making them a millionaire like The Beverly Hillbillies’ Jed Clampet (that’s kind of our country’s motto), but these individuals are proof positive that the world is unjust and that many of us paid too much for college.  I’d like to get a piece of my high school guidance counselor just once and stick his ass on an island with a smoke monster…