IQ Controversy
One or more characters take an IQ test, and the results are unexpected. Usually, this causes tension among the gang.
Night Court
Appearances
- The Bob Newhart Show: Season 2, episode 8, "Mr. Emily Hartley" (1973). Emily is training to proctor IQ tests, and she practices on Bob. When she tells Bob her IQ is higher than his, he feels insecure and acts like a bratty child.
- Good Times: Season 2, episode 7, "The I.Q. Test" (1974). The Evans family is shocked when they hear that Michael's IQ test score is one of the lowest in his school. Michael explains that he didn't finish the test because it's "a white racist test," and the questions are written so that Black students can't understand them, so Florida and James visit the school administrator and quiz him with a Black IQ test to prove the test Michael took was unfair.
- Night Court: Season 6, episode 10, "Mental Giant" (1989). The gang takes part in a research study about people in legal professions, and as part of the study, they all take IQ tests, and they decide to bet on who has the highest; to everyone's surprise, Bull wins with a score of 181, and the scientists invite him to join their think tank.
- Seinfeld: Season 3, episode 7, "The Café" (1991). George's girlfriend wants to give him an IQ test for a class she's taking, and he's convinced his IQ is low, so he gets Elaine, who boasts an IQ of 145, to take the test for him.
- Dream On: Season 5, episode 7, "I'm with Stupid" (1994). Martin finds out his girlfriend has an IQ of 167, and it makes him feel threatened, so he tries to compete with her smarts.
- Frasier: Season 6, episode 19, "IQ" (1999). To prove that they've grown past their childhood competitiveness, Frasier and Niles look at the IQ tests they took as children and discover that while Frasier's IQ is 129, Niles's is a whopping 156, and the old competitiveness rears its ugly head once again, with both of them boning up at the library so they can impress a group of Nobel Prize winners at a luncheon.