Smart Guy
Smart Guy is an American sitcom television series centering on the exploits of child prodigy T.J. Henderson (Tahj Mowry), who moves from being an elementary school student in the fourth grade to a high school student in the tenth grade, attending the same school as his two elder siblings Yvette and Marcus. Created by Danny Kallis, the series ran for three seasons on The WB from April 2, 1997, to May 16, 1999. The series was produced by de Passe Entertainment and Danny Kallis Productions, in association with Walt Disney Television. In an interview in September 2020, Mowry confirmed that a revival of the show was in the works.
Set in Washington, D.C., the show centers on the misadventures of boy genius and youngest child T.J. Henderson (Tahj Mowry), who at the age of 10 moves from elementary school and gets transferred to Piedmont High School, where he ends up becoming a high school freshman with teenagers as his classmates. He must adjust to the life with older, but not necessarily wiser, high school teenagers – including his brother Marcus (Jason Weaver) and Marcus’ best friend Mo (Omar Gooding). Episodes typically deal with T.J.’s missteps of trying to fit in as a kid genius, while being a small kid in high school, as well as the contrast between his smarts and his brother’s underachieving nature.
Older brother Marcus Henderson, the sophomore suave and underachieving middle child, also deals with teenage problems, such as finding a date and doing homework (though he sometimes tries to get T.J. to do his homework for him). Their father Floyd Henderson (John Marshall Jones), a widowed single father who owns his own roofing business, deals with the problems of raising his three kids: Yvette, Marcus and T.J., since his wife’s death. Floyd’s only daughter, and Marcus and T.J.’s older sister Yvette (Essence Atkins), usually is the level-headed member of the family – similar to Floyd in that respect – and is the typical overachieving student.
After the end of its running on The WB, the series was rerun on Disney Channel from 1999 to 2004. It was also shown on other networks such as BET, ABC Family, Up TV, and MTV2. In other countries, it is also shown on the international versions of Disney Channel. In Canada, the show ran on Family Channel from 2002 to 2008.