Original subtitles

Oh, my.

What a sea of bright and shiny faces.

Oh, come on. Coming back to school isn't so bad.

We can all use the sleep.

Man,

you know what I hate about the first day of school?

What? It's too far away from the last day of school.

I love the first day of school.

It's the only day I don't gotta lie about what I did yesterday.

Hey, where's Vinny?

I don't know, Ronald. I really haven't seen him in about a week.

Don't worry, man. Vinny, he's going to be here.

Sometimes he just likes to straggle in a month or two late.

You know, Ronald, the old school still looks the same, don't it?

Yeah, just like they tore it down but forgot to haul it away.

Gee, it even smells the same. Yeah,

well, that's either Epstein's old locker or Mr.

Cocktail's old joke.

Good morning, Mr. Cotter. Have a nice summer vacation?

Oh, hello, Mr. Washington.

Hi there.

Listen, I'm ready for a great school year. Oh, that makes me feel so great,

Washington. Now, why don't you just have a seat right over there, right? Yes,

sir. Yes, sir. Okay. Our lesson for today... Will you shut up?

Welcome back.

Your dreams were your ticket out.

Welcome back to that same old place that you laughed about.

Well, the names have all changed since you hung around.

But those dreams have remained and they've turned around.

Who'd have thought they'd lead ya? Who'd have thought they'd lead ya? Back here

where we need ya. Back here.

Welcome back.

Welcome back. Welcome back.

Welcome back. Welcome back. Yeah, we tease him a lot because we got him on

spot. Welcome back.

Welcome back.

Hey, Mr. Carter, are you glad to be back in school?

Arnold, this is the second most painful day in a schoolteacher's life.

What's the first?

Payday.

Come on, sit down, everybody. Let's go. Go, go. Move it, move it, move it.

I have a very important announcement to make.

You're in my chair, missy.

Relax, Epstein. What's the difference?

What's the difference?

This is the chair where I flunked math.

This is the chair where I flunked history.

This is the chair where I flunked biology.

So? So, it's my lucky chair.

Miss, if you're not terribly attached to this chair, would you mind sitting

somewhere else? As you can see, this young man is slightly disturbed.

Sit down, Epstein. Sit down. Sit down. You got your chair. You feel okay?

Ah, that's much better.

Can I continue? Oh, please do. Please do.

Now, as I said, I have an announcement to make.

announcement, you never finished the last one.

This is the last one. All right, everybody, Mr. Cocktail's gonna make his

announcement.

Thank you, Freddie Washington and the Buchanan Brass.

Now, can I continue?

Certainly.

I'd like to say that the worst things in life are listening to my announcements.

And here come two of them now.

Marion Carvelli, what are you guys doing here?

They cleaning out your cages over at your school? Yeah.

How about that? A joke from the human Brillo pad.

He said he got a joke from a human Brillo pad.

All right, what are you guys doing here? Yeah, you see, we got transferred. It's

all in there. Oh, Mr.

Cotter, I'm sorry, I'm late. You see, I had to have my aunt throw some stuff out

of the apartment.

Two chairs and my uncle.

He said he's talking about two chairs. I heard what he said, Murray.

All right, Carveli, why don't you and your echo find a seat?

Sure.

So what are they doing here, Mr. Carter?

Well, it looks like they moved into the Buchanan School District.

So, why'd you move?

Mijolantis? Oh, no!

It just so happens, Arnold, that the city tore down the building where I

Now, ain't that just like the city?

It's hit on the perfect... good building, and they leave you standing.

And you think I got to sit here and get insulted by you, Washington?

Yeah. You think you got to sit there and get insulted by you, Washington?

All right, all right, look.

That's enough.

That is enough. You understand, Carvelli? Yeah, you want to know what I

understand? Anytime any two of you guys, I'll take all three outside and

personally switch your noses. Yeah, Carvelli said you'll put your nose on

and your nose...

I have

an

announcement to make. Is this announcement going to be good news?

Yes and no.

Oh, wow, man. Then you better give us the bad news first.

Boy, that was fast.

May I have your attention, please?

No.

Thank you.

I would like to make an announcement.

When I started teaching here, we had 73 teachers.

By the second year, 23 of them left to go into other occupations.

you have to get the age of the bus driver.

This is not a riddle, Arnold.

This is an announcement. You are a riddle.

The announcement is that I am the new principal of Buchanan High School.

What happened to Principal Lazarus? He got an easier job.

Warden at a high -security prison.

Principal Lazarus retired.

The school board, in its infinite wisdom, selected the most talented, the

capable, and the most able man for the job.

Oh, so where is he?

I'm going around making this announcement to all the classes, Carter,

thought I'd start at the bottom.

Oh, Mr.

Woodman.

Let me be the first one to congratulate you.

And I'm happy to see that success is not going to your head.

Thank you. In fact, I don't see it in any part of your body.

I would also like to

announce... No, no, no.

Don't do it.

You want to tell them that you're the new vice principal?

You did it. You had to come in here and do it. You had to come in here and blow

my whole surprise.

Wow, Mr. Tatum, is that true?

You're the new VP.

Yeah.

announce what I was going to make, but I'm also going to be teaching this class

and a few others.

Well, congratulations to you. You're the first one of us to make it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A Mazel Tov on your face.

This is great. Really, really great.

What's so great about it? I'm happy, Mr. Woodman. You remember the way you were

when you were named poster boy for Poison Oak?

you punks are delighted because you think you have a friend in high places.

I never said that. I didn't say that. I said it.

Said what?

Now that your partner in crime is the vice principal, you think you can get

with anything you want?

The possibilities are mind -boggling.

This is going to look just like home just as soon as I put up a few more

pictures.

As if I don't run out of nails.

Or thumbs.

Ha!

Well, they gave you Woodman's old job and his old face.

Julie, what am I going to do?

I'm a teacher, not an administrator.

I've been on this job for less than a day and I think I'm in over my head

already. You want to talk about it, honey?

No. Okay.

First of all, my secretary, Ms. Scherbeck, doesn't show up today.

So I have no one to schedule my appointments.

Consequently, the president of the PTA and the Roto -Rooter man show up at the

same time.

She would try to talk to a man about the morality of our youth in front of

another man standing there with a dripping plunger.

I'm glad you didn't want to talk about it.

On top of all that, Woodman waltzes into my class.

blurts out that I'm vice -principal before I have a chance to tell anybody,

then Epstein goes running around the school like Paul Revere yelling,

the VP!

Cotter's the VP!

It's not funny, Julie.

Come on.

Where's the old Cotter sense of humor?

I'm going to need more than my old sense of humor to solve this problem.

Well, Gabe, I can solve one of your problems right now. I'm here already. I

might as well just stay for the rest of the day and sub for Ms. Sherbeck. I can

just call the sitter and have her stay with the twins the rest of the day,

Oh, thanks a lot, honey. That's going to really help.

But what am I going to do about the sweat hogs?

I could get the sitter to stay with them, too.

I'm serious.

Now that I'm vice principal, they think they're going to get away with murder.

That is something you're going to have to deal with when the time comes.

I feel like I'm two different people.

I'm Mr. Cotter, their old friend, and I'm also Mr. Cotter, their new enemy.

Excuse me, Mr. Cotter, your vice principalship. I am Mr. Cotter, the

the sweat hogs.

And I'm here in the vice principal's office because I want to tell you that

have to treat the sweat hogs a little differently because you must understand

that they have special problems.

Special problems, my big toe, Connor.

In the vice principal business, everybody gets treated the same.

treated as an equal. Now get out of my office and don't dare ask for a raise.

I get the picture. I get it.

Didn't you like my aunt?

I loved him.

I hated him.

How's it going, Carter?

Smooth. Under control.

Just give it time, Carter.

That's what General Custer said.

What is going on here?

We got your presents.

A matching set of dummies.

It was the strangest thing, Mr. Carter.

We were all just sitting around when suddenly Carvelli says, I think I'd like

tie myself up.

That's right, Mr. Carter. And then Murray said, I think I'd like to tie

up, too.

and I want you guys to meet me in the vice principal's office in five minutes.

So this is what the new vice principal's office

looks like. This is our very nice layout you got here. Very nice. Well, I, for

one, am very impressed.

Why, to get an office like this, I too might step on some of the little people.

Why did you guys pull a cheap trick like that?

Come on, Mr. Carter, it was only Carvelli and Murray.

Come on, Mr. Carter, it's not like we tied up real people.

Well,

you guys broke the rules of the school.

And you've got to suffer the consequences.

These are detention clips.

I'm giving you detention for one week.

I get it, I get it. Your

joke is much funnier than our joke.

Sure, sure.

I get it, Mr. Carter. Here you go.

No joke, Epstein.

Scotch take this back together and report to the detention hall after your

period.

Are you for real?

Hey, Mr. Carter, look.

I get that all of a sudden you ain't one of us anymore.

You're one of them.

I never thought you'd turn into a them, Mr. Carter.

Hey, wow, man. You're deserting us.

Guys, I'm not deserting you at all. I just have to do my job as vice

Why, you're dropping out on us, Mr. Carter.

Look. I'm not doing anything of the kind. I'm going to be here whenever you

me. Well, what happens if we ain't going to be here when you need us?

That's right. You want to drop out on us? Well, we can drop out on you, too.

That's right. I'm going to tell you something. I was thinking of quitting

anyhow. And as a matter of fact, I was thinking about dropping out three years

ago.

I guess I was, too. There it is.

All this is happening because I gave you detention.

That ain't the reason, Mr. Katya. We ain't tripping over that, man. The thing

that if we used to get in trouble or something like that before, you used to

cover for us with Mr. Woodman.

But now, you are Mr. Woodman.

So you're going to drop out of school, huh?

What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?

Don't worry about it. We can all find jobs.

What kind of jobs?

We can get good jobs for big bucks.

That's right.

That's right. You tell him, Freddy.

Well, um... Okay, well... Personally, I don't got no job right now. But I

guarantee you this much, man. I'm going to be rich and famous in three years.

What a coincidence. Just the same amount of time it took you to pass geometry.

Look,

guys, if you want to do anything with your life, you've got to get a high

diploma. And the only place you can get that is right here. Oh, great. We'll be

by this afternoon to pick it up.

It's not that simple, Epstein.

You've got to earn it.

I knew there was a catch.

Look, you know, I can make some big speech, but I'm going to just tell you

truth, the way it is.

You've got to stay in school, and that's all there is to it.

Well, we all quit in school, and that's all there is to that.

That's right. That's all there is to that.

I guess that's all there is to that.

Look, guys, I'm the vice principal now. If you guys do something wrong, I've got

to reprimand you.

But also, as vice principal, I can help you.

Like, if you need some work experience, I can help you get that experience.

Oh, wow, Mr. Cathy. Now, you're going to tell me... You're telling us that you

can go out and get us jobs, man?

No, no, I can't get you jobs on the outside, Freddy. That's not what I said.

there are jobs right here in school that have to be done.

Yeah, sure, sure. Like what?

Like what? This doesn't... You work in the cafeteria.

What can we do there?

A lot of things. You can clean up. You can serve lunch to the kids.

Great. And after lunch, we get to scrape it off the cook.

If you don't like the cafeteria, you can work in the school store.

There's visual aids. You can run the projector.

And what do you get for that?

You get credit, Arnold.

It counts like going to a regular class.

Hey, uh... Hey, what do you say, you guys?

A class where there's no tests?

No homework?

No teachers? No offense.

No offense taken, Arnold. You learn what it's like to have a business.

You deal with customers. You take inventory.

And most important of all, you get that diploma.

What do you say?

We'll stay if there's no detention.

Three days' detention.

One day, firm.

Two days, that's my final offer.

You got yourself a deal.

odds in my school store. It's fair enough I have one as vice principal.

Well, perhaps you'd like to speak to the head of our complaint department.

So, what's the problem?

The problem is I think I'm losing my mind.

Sorry, we don't handle small appliances.

Punching Judy.

Hey,

Murray, Murray, once is enough.

You guys got a nice little setup here. It's cute, you know, little bells, but

what you need is something you can make a little money on, you know, a little

Christmas club money, you know? Yeah, like what?

Just so happens I got the most expensive line of auto parts in all of Brooklyn.

If I don't have it, just show me where it's parked.

We have no intention of... Right. We have no intention of letting you down.

We'll see you on your offer, right?

Oh, he said we'd like to start with some mag wheels. Beautiful.

Right. The racing car type. You got those?

The round ones. Yeah, the oval. Right. Okay.

Could they be steel belted? Hey, no problem.

I know you can do it. And we want them in raised white lettering. You got that?

Beautiful choice. Okay. There's one more thing, though. One more.

We want you to get them off a moving car.

Epstein's my name. Visual AIDS is my game.

Oh, sure, sure. Check it out. Check it out.

Hey, hey, don't monkey with it. Don't monkey with it. It took me hours to

how to use this machine.

Oh, come on, man. Can you really work that thing?

Oh, sure. Sure, I can. I just ran this film over here for biology class.

Which one is it?

This one right over here.

See what you started trying to... Monkeys.

The school's being run by monkeys.

All right, what's going on here?

What do you mean, what's going on here? I'm showing a film. Can't you see?

Look at this.

Look.

Come here.

Look what your little creepy crawlies are doing.

Look at that store.

This projector.

They're destroying school property.

You gave them these jobs, Connor. This is your responsibility. I want this

100 % right. You guys are destroying a school property.

Come on, Mr. Codd. I can roll this film up blindfolded. Yeah, Mr. Codd, we'll

take care of that mess. We'll clean it up. Look, that's not the point.

You know it. Hey, come on, Mr. Codd.

It's not like this is Gone with the Wind.

It's just some crummy nature film.

The Armadillo, nature's little tank.

All right, I want you to clean everything up inside the store. I want

clean the projector and the film up, and I want you all to meet me in my office

in five minutes.

Your office?

Yeah, yeah, you know.

His Highness the Vice Principal's office, right?

Oh, boy, Mr. Carter, you really have gone over to the other side.

It's a sad day in Brooklyn.

Hey,

guys, Mr. Carter, how's it going?

Hiya, Vinnie, where you been?

I don't, Vinnie.

Check it out.

You dig my little threads, huh?

Where'd you get the money to buy those new clothes, Vinnie?

I got a job.

You got a job?

Yeah.

Look, man, I quit school. I'm through with it now.

I got me a good job in a county hospital.

You don't say. Vinnie, congratulations.

Hey, Vinnie, man, how'd you get a job in a hospital?

You got experience in doctor stuff?

I just walked in. I got this terrific job.

Vinnie, what kind of job do you get by just walking in and asking for it?

Do you mean you didn't have to play stower?

What are you talking about?

You mean to tell me you didn't have to wheel around a projector for a year?

Vinnie, this job, is there any room for advancement?

What kind of money are you making?

Money, check this out.

All right, 47 big ones.

That's almost a million dollars.

Gee, how do you like that?

We get credit and Vinnie gets cash.

Vinnie, you still didn't tell us what kind of job you got. Oh, he's on a

Come on, take you guys out for pizza.

Yeah, I don't got to take this negativity.

From now on, you can consider me out to lunch.

Permanently.

Yeah, me too.

Come on, Horchette.

I guess I'll be seeing you, Mr. Carter.

Wait a minute. You guys are making a big mistake here. You just say goodbye to

my lucky chair.

Thanks.

Welcome back.

Your dreams were your ticket out.

Welcome back to that same old place that you laughed about.

Well, the names have all changed since you hung around.

But those dreams have remained and they've turned around.

Who'd have thought they'd lead ya?

Who'd have thought they'd lead ya? Back here where we need ya. Back here where

we need ya.

We tease him a lot because we got him on the spot. Welcome back.

Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back.

Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back.

We always could spot a friend.

Welcome back.