Previously, the only way to ensure that Tony Danza mucked up your education was to be one of Tony Danza’s children.
Which would make sense. After all, it’s hard to concentrate on long division when you know that you’re in a room with 30 people who want to beat you up because your dad is Tony Danza. But we digress – now Tony Danza is going to ruin the education of a new set of kids on a reality TV show entitled Teach.
But relax, it’ll be a responsible show. It’s being filmed in Philadelphia – and, really, who cares about those kids?
Remember that TV show Rock School, where Gene Simmons taught a bunch of kids how to write music as good as Songs From The Elder and ended up accidentally inventing Lil Chris in the process? What a horrible mistake that was. A mistake so profound it was never to be repeated. Until now. With the pudge-faced mullety bloke from Taxi.
That’s right – after a lifetime spent a) desperately trying to shoehorn his name into the title of everything he’s ever made and b) apparently being the blandest thing about any show that didn’t have his name in the title, Tony Danza is going back to school to become a teacher for a TV show. Don’t worry, though, it’s a fictional school for a sitcom or something. Nobody’s going to actually let Tony Danza become a real teacher in real life. He hasn’t got any qualifications, and no education authorities are that hopelessly irresponsible, are they?
Oh. Apparently it turns out they are. This autumn Tony Danza is actually going to start teaching English for real at Philadelphia’s Northeast High School, which actually exists, for a reality TV show called Teach, which someone has really agreed to physically broadcast.
And, no, while Tony Danza might not have any formal teaching qualifications, he is a master at English. After all, he was in Taxi, so he’d easily be able to discuss the marriage of form and content in that slightly uncomfortable episode where he tried to adopt an orphan in a wheelchair. And that’s not all, as AP reports:
“I’m so scared. You have no idea,” Danza said. “I can tap-dance, but I don’t know if I can make kids learn yet.” Danza, who would be co-teaching a 10th-grade English class, said he has already boned up on the district’s curriculum, re-reading “Of Mice and Men,” “Julius Caesar,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Animal Farm.”
Incidentally, we’re taking the above paragraph to mean that Tony Danza has watched the movie version of Of Mice And Men, looked at a picture of Julius Caesar’s face, actually killed a real mockingbird with a brick and then rented a porno about bestiality. Which is close enough.
But you’re not going to watch Teach to see a semi-forgotten sitcom actor from the past managing to inspire a group of lower-class students to take an interest in literature, are you? You’re going to watch it to see how it takes the kids to realise that if they chant the chorus to Tiny Dancer by Elton John at Tony Danza, substituting his name for the title of the song, during lessons then Tony Danza will probably end up crying.
Our guess? Less than an hour.
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