He probably could've just gotten his GED, but then we wouldn't have the visual of Ernest in gym class.
Ernest Goes to School is the sixth Ernest P. Worrell movie, and the first to be released straight to video.Ernest is the janitor at Chikasaw Falls High School. The school is in danger of being closed by the school district, with Mr. Axlewell giving the school a six-week probation period to prove that it's an essential school. One of the rules is that all school employees must be high school graduates, which Ernest is not, so in order to keep his job, Ernest has to go back to school as a student and graduate. After initially failing miserably, science teachers Gerta and Bobby select Ernest for their invention, a device that temporarily makes people intelligent. Ernest does become smarter, to the point of becoming a Jerkass and alienating his friends. Ernest also falls for the new music teacher and, with his newfound intelligence, helps lead the school marching band in an impressive halftime show.
Includes examples of
- Back to School: Under new regulations, all employees are required to have high school diplomas, so Ernest attends high school in order to keep his job.
- Benevolent Boss: Mr. Proctor allows Ernest to take high school classes so he can remain employed at the high school, and does not want to fire him but is required to if he doesn't get his diploma.
- Blah, Blah, Blah: During history class (and under the effects of his new intelligence), Ernest gets bored and imagines the teacher talking like this.
- Down to the Last Play: The football game ends this way. With Chikasaw needing just one point to win but only having three seconds, Gerta and Bobby realize that they forgot to charge Ernest, who takes the ball for the final play and loses his intelligence and has to win on his own merits.
- Dramatic Thunder: Occurs when Ernest learns that he has to go back to school or else lose his job.
- For the Evulz: Axlewell seems to really want the high school to close, to the point that he bribes the football coach into having the team lose so the school board will close it. No real explanation is given for why he wants this school to close, aside from a brief throwaway comment that if it stays in business it will make his job harder on him. And despite that, when it looks like Ernest won't succeed with his experiment to pass high school, he prematurely asks Mr. Proctor to just fire Ernest (even though having an employee without a high school diploma would close down the school).
- Exact Eavesdropping: Rodney overhears Mr. Axlewell offer Coach Decker a chance at being head coach if he has the football team lose on purpose.
- Expy: Ernest gets directions to math class by a cowboy based on Clint Eastwood. The credits list him as Squint Westwood.
- Insistent Terminology: Bobby lets slip that Ernest will be a Guinea Pig in his and Gerta's experiment, but Gerta insists what he actually is is a "mental pioneer".
- Jerkass: What Ernest becomes after using Gerta and Bobby's device.
- Jerk Jock: Bradly and Russell are on the football team and bully Ernest quite a bit. When they find out that Ernest has been using scientific equipment to become smarter, they vandalize it.
- Karma Houdini: Bradley and Russell, the two jerk jocks/bullies who torment Ernest in many ways (including setting his hat on fire in class, throwing the fire extinguisher at his head rather than use it to put out the fire, and vandalize the machine that improves Ernest's intelligence, keeping him from using it again immediately), are never shown to get in trouble for what they do. The only karma they face is being put to sleep with sleeping gas along with the rest of the football team so the marching band can take over and win.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Gerta and Bobby use an intelligence-enhancing advice to make Ernest smarter, which could be cheating. Additionally, this device requires him to recharge his brain every 40 minutes, at one point Donald points out that he's late to every class (as a result of having to recharge) but Ernest doesn't seem to be in trouble for that. During the football game, Gerta and Bobby use a more refined version of their device on the students to make them all better at football, though Gerta does point out that it could be cheating, but they don't get disqualified for it.
- Smart People Play Chess: At one point while under the effects of his newfound intelligence, Ernest invites his classmates to watch him play several simultaneous games of chess.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: When Ernest becomes smart, he wears glasses, which magically appear on him the first time he uses the intelligence device.
- Take That!: Gerta lists a number of different kinds of people who could have possibly destroyed her and Bobby's machine, with her last guess being "republicans".
- Teacher/Student Romance: Ernest falls for his music teacher, Mrs. Flugal, and the attraction seems to be mutual. Of course Ernest is a full grown adult.
