TV REVIEW : ‘Words Up!’ Mixes Message With Laughs

CBS’ “Schoolbreak Specials,” hourlong films dramatizing pertinent teen issues, are generally well done within the limitations of the format, but sheer fun isn’t one of their usual ingredients. That’s what makes today’s delectable offering, “Words Up!” (3 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8), such a surprise.

Kadeem Hardison (“A Different World”) stars as Henry, an illiterate 25-year-old high school dropout who can’t hang onto a job. Through somewhat illogical thinking, he decides to masquerade as a teen-ager and return to high school.

That this is not the usual afterschool teen film is evident from the first appearance of the story’s witty Greek chorus, rap duo Black Sheep. Henry’s visit to the unemployment office is another clue. First, he is expertly put down by clerk-from-hell Lawanda Page, and then he’s shocked to see Vanna White filling out a claim form. Her wordless response to his shock is priceless.

How Henry manages to get into high school is conveniently glossed over and his instant, if brief, ascension to big man on campus is a stretch, but that doesn’t make the chuckles, or the message, any less effective. (The fallacy that sports, not education, is the key to success is condemned outright.)

By the time truth catches up with Henry, he has realized that reading not only can help him get a job, but also can open doors to new horizons--and a beautiful English Lit teacher (Marcia Christie).

As far as the cast goes, there’s not a dud in the bunch. Hardison is attractive, funny and thoughtful; “Married . . . With Children’s” David Faustino proves he’s as good at being a good guy as he is at being a bad one, and Reginald Ballard lends just the right touch of exasperated sympathy as Henry’s roommate.

Kudos, too, to director Jonathan Prince for his fine-tuning and for the appealing script he wrote with Joshua Goldstein.