Writing about Austin Stowell and NCIS: Origins made me think about Mark Harmon, which somehow sent my brain straight to Summer School.

And honestly, I’m glad it did because I fucking love that movie.

I was lucky growing up because my grandmother was really into movies and TV shows, so I was exposed to a lot of actors pretty early. Mark Harmon was one of them.

And once I got old enough to actually have crushes?

Yeah.

Mark Harmon. 😂

If you’ve only ever known him as Gibbs, go watch Summer School. That man was a full-blown heartthrob.

He plays Freddy Shoop, a gym teacher who gets thrown into teaching remedial English during summer school when he would very much rather be doing anything else.

He’s not an English teacher. He doesn’t take the job seriously at first. The kids don’t want to be there. He doesn’t want to be there.

It’s basically the perfect setup for complete chaos.

And it is.

Those Kids Were Fucking Awesome

I don’t remember every character’s name without looking them up, but I remember the characters.

Especially Chainsaw and Dave.

Those two and their horror obsession were hilarious, and that horror scene in the classroom was amazing. It’s ridiculous, completely over the top and still funny as hell.

I also always liked Rhonda, the pregnant girl, and Kevin, who becomes her friend and starts looking more and more like her boyfriend.

But really, all those kids were awesome in their own way.

They weren’t just one group of “bad students.” They were all completely different, and that’s what made the class fun to watch.

And eventually Shoop starts seeing that too.

Shoop Actually Starts Giving a Shit

This is probably my favorite part of the movie.

Shoop starts out treating summer school like something he just needs to survive.

Then he gets to know these kids.

And he actually likes them.

Suddenly he genuinely wants them to succeed, and that’s where Shoop becomes the perfect teacher for what those kids needed.

Not the perfect teacher.

Their perfect teacher.

There’s a difference.

He wasn’t going to walk into that classroom and suddenly become some traditional English teacher who had all the answers. That wouldn’t have worked with these kids anyway.

He learned them.

He figured out what worked for them, and most importantly, they realized that he actually cared whether they made it.

I think kids know the difference between an adult who’s doing their job and an adult who genuinely gives a shit about them.

By the end, Shoop gives a shit.

That’s why he works.

And Then There’s This Weird Gibbs Thing

This is actually what made me think of Summer School in the first place.

After Mark Harmon eventually became Gibbs, I watched him for years. So going back and looking at Freddy Shoop now, you’d think I’d see little pieces of Gibbs in there.

I don’t.

But weirdly, I do see little pieces of Austin Stowell’s younger version of him.

There’s something about that looser, funnier, still-figuring-shit-out energy that connects the two for me.

And how crazy is that?

A completely unrelated Mark Harmon movie from 1987 somehow reminds me more of the guy currently playing young Gibbs than it does the Gibbs Harmon eventually became.

Mostly, Summer School Is Just Fun

And really, that’s why I wanted to write about it.

Not every movie needs to have some huge deeper meaning behind why you love it.

Sometimes a movie is just fucking fun.

Summer School is fucking fun.

Mark Harmon is handsome and funny. The kids are awesome. Chainsaw and Dave are insane. The horror scene still makes me laugh.

And underneath all of it, there’s actually a really sweet story about a gym coach who gets thrown into a classroom he doesn’t want, with a bunch of kids who don’t want to be there either, and somehow they end up being exactly what each other needed.

That’s enough for me.

I first found Mark Harmon because I had a grandmother who loved movies and television and shared that with me. Then I got old enough to realize the handsome guy in Summer School was REALLY handsome. 😂

I kept watching him through the years, and I’m still watching him now.

But Freddy Shoop will always be one of the first versions of Mark Harmon I remember.

And looking at him again now?

Yeah.

Grandma introduced me to that one at exactly the right time. 😂