"A is for Average" is the 9th episode of the fifth season of Pepper Ann. It aired on November 6, 2000.
Synopsis
Pepper Ann takes a magazine quiz and is shocked to find that she's average.
Plot
Pepper Ann expertly times her day out. Leaving school to play soccer with her teammates, heading to Brain Dead to play Crunch Pod with Milo, going home to watch TV and finally heading to the salon to get her hair done. As she waits, she looks through a magazine that offers a quiz. She takes it to pass the time, but discovers that she is "average". She goes over it with Nicky and Milo who tell her that being average is not bad. Nevertheless, Pepper Ann decides to train herself to retake it, only to end up with average again, demoralizing her.
Pepper Ann begins to lose enthusiasm for everything. Her timing and skills are off, all because she believes that being average means that things are too hard for her. She tells Nicky that she has decided to drop out of advanced algebra and is taking art for delinquents. Principal Hickey finds her behavior unusual and calls her into his office one day. He tells her that her behavior, identified as "Mediocre Malaise", is spreading throughout the school and is affecting the students. Men in hazmat suits enter and attempt to take Pepper Ann, but she flees.
Pepper Ann finds Nicky, Tessa, Vanessa and Milo who are all off and depressed as well. She rounds up all the other students at school at the Greezy 'n' Cheezy and tells them that she was wrong to consider herself average and that they should all be the best regardless of what tests say. All the students stand up for Pepper Ann, but the whole sequence of events are revealed to be a fantasy and she leaves the class. Pepper Ann is beck to her excitable self and has a quick talk with Hickey who tells some visitors that Pepper Ann is "not an average student".
Cast
- Kathleen Wilhoite as Pepper Ann Pearson
- Jeff Bennett as Dieter Liederhosen, Shelf McClain, Additional voices
- Danny Cooksey as Milo Kamalani
- Clea Lewis as Nicky Little
- April Winchell as Lydia Pearson
- Don Adams as Principal Hickey
- Candi Milo as Consuela
- Rob Paulsen as Hazmat Leader, Announcer
- Cree Summer as Tessa and Vanessa James
- Sue Rose as Fuzzy
- Kath Soucie as Cissy Rooney
Desk Gag
"Scuff marks! ... Uh, I can't show 'em to you 'cause I can't pick 'em up."
Trivia
- On Disney+, the episode segment is second next to "Two's Company".
- Pepper Ann is revealed to be very good at time blocking. This is a common technique among people with ADD, which the series continuously hints that she has.
- The end of the episode is a parody of Sparticus.
