Fictional Schools Trivia

By Paula Green

School is back in session. Some people feel down about it, while others are excited. Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of fictional schools on TV and in movies. Let’s educate ourselves on various made-up places.

Several fictional TV and movie schools are named after U.S. Presidents. John Adams High School appeared in Boy Meets World, and its sequel featured John Quincy Adams Middle School in Girl Meets World. The movie Revenge of the Nerds took place at Adams College.

William McKinley High School was a popular choice. Three TV shows featured it: The Wonder Years, Glee, and Freaks & Geeks. Millard Fillmore High School appeared in both The Brady Bunch and Head of the Class.

Welcome Back, Kotter took place at James Buchanan High School. Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide featured James K. Polk Middle School. The show Reprise included Theodore Roosevelt High School. The movie A Christmas Story showcased Warren G. Harding Elementary School.

Some schools were named after famous people. Room 222 featured Walt Whitman High School. In cartoons, Family Guy had James Woods Regional High School, and King of the Hill had Tom Landry Middle School. For girl power, we saw North Shore High in Mean Girls and Chilton Academy in Gilmore Girls.

There are other fictional TV schools, like Sunnydale High (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Seaview Middle and High School (Hannah Montana), Neptune High School (Veronica Mars), and West Beverly Hills High School (Beverly Hills, 90210), Hudson University (Law & Order), Springfield Elementary (The Simpsons), Winslow High School from (Boston Public), and the High School of Performing Arts (Fame).

Movies have their share of fictional schools. Shermer High School (The Breakfast Club,) Bronson Alcott High School (Clueless), Westerburg High School (Heathers), and West Canaan High School (Varsity Blues), East High School (High School Musical), and Grand Lakes University (Back to School).

Since we have run through fictional schools, let’s now test your knowledge of this instructional query. Get set to don those thinking caps because it’s time to get a little trivial.

1.  In the films Grease and the sequel Grease 2, the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds attended what  fictional high school?

 2. John Keating, played by Robin Williams, taught English at Welton Academy in this 1989 movie. 

3. Set in Pittsburgh, this TV series ran from 1994-1995 and highlighted Liberty High School.

4. Creepy films share a name – the hotel in the Hitchcock classic Psycho and the high school in the horror film Carrie.

5. National Lampoon’s Animal House was set at Faber College. What was the name of the frat house where Bluto, Otter, Boon, and Flounder resided?

6. Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper, and Barbara Hershey star in this film about a small, rural Hickory High School winning the 1952 Indiana state basketball championship. 

7. In this sitcom, the teens attend Bayside High, and the school's athletic teams were called the Bayside Tigers.

 8. In the comedy film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, this actor portrayed the mischievous  student Jeff Spicoli.

9. In this movie, a hapless guitarist Dewey Finn poses as a schoolteacher and turns his private school class at Horace Green Prep School into a rock band.

10. This character attends school in a sprawling Scottish castle called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

11. Capeside High School was in this TV series which revolved around four teenagers who come of age in a Massachusetts coastal town.

12. In the movies, this actor attended Joseph Knibb Memorial School in Billy Madison and South Central Louisiana State University in Waterboy.

13. What was the name of the college featured in the TV sitcom A Different World?

14. Arnold Schwarzenegger was an undercover detective who passed himself off as a schoolteacher at Astoria Elementary in this comedy film.

15. Eastland Academy was in this TV sitcom where Edna Garrett was the housemother of a girls’ boarding school.

Answers: 1. Rydell 2. Dead Poets Society 3. My So-Called Life 4. Bates 5. Delta House 6. Hoosiers 7. Saved By the Bell 8. Sean Penn 9. School of Rock 10. Harry Potter 11. Dawson’s Creek 12. Adam Sandler 13. Hillman 14. Kindergarten Cop 15. The Facts of Life

Sources: www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/halls_of_fame_our_30_favorite_fictional_schools, www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/alfurrer/fictional-high-schools-we-want-to-attend, collider.com/fictional-schools-ranked/, www.funtrivia.com, www.sporcle.com/games/g/tvhigh, www.cbr.com/most-famous-movie-schools/