EDITOR’S NOTE: Rebel High was on USA Up All Night on January 5 and 6, August 17 and December 14, 1990 and June 15 and November 29, 1991.

New Africa High: A Low Comedy by Evan Keliher is a social satire on the plight of Western education in the 1960s and 70s, written by “a high school dropout turned retired teacher” who “smoked so much pot to save my sight that I developed X-ray vision and was arrested for seeing thru girls dresses.”

The movie of the book, Rebel High, was made in Canada by Harry Jakobs, who also produced Evil Judgement.  He also did a teen soap opera called Time of Your Life that Keliher wrote for.

New school principal; Edwin Swimper (Harvey Berger) has taken over after the last person to do the job died from stress. There are nonstop gang wars and teachers wear body armor just to survive, so he tries something new: anyone can take any classes that they want. This works out as well as you’d expect, as a gang leader by the name of Calvin Hampster (Kenny Robinson)  takes up archery to improve his combat skills and then burns down the Swimper’s office. Swimper quits and the school descends further into anarchy.

Vice principal Norman Relic (Wayne Flemming) is left to pick up the pieces. Organized crime figure and school board head Mr. Wilcox (David McCallum) wants to raze the place and put up a parking lot, but there’s one last chance: Red G. Peckham (Stu Trivax) will take over. He’s fresh from Africa and if he can get the school to pass an inspection, it can stay. He might be even crazier than the students, given to long speeches about Jesus. But then Peckham is shot in a battle between Calvin and Bruno Bataglia (Pierre Larocque). He’s not dead, just resting, as they stash his body in a school locker as the inspectors arrive.

According to the invaluable Canuxploitation, this movie was cast with members of Toronto’s Yuk Yuks stand-up comedy troupe, including Wayne Flemming, Kenny Robinson, Winston Spear, Freddie James, and Stu Trivaxa. It was filmed at the Baron Byng High School on St. Urbain Street in Montreal, a place that was soon torn down.

This tries to be a live action cartoon, but it feels like it last forever and has little joy in it. But you know, sometimes you watch these movies for, well, science.

“This is a story about a high school. It isn’t much of a story, but then, this isn’t much of a high school. It’s full of beer drinkers, dope smokers, hooky players, liars and assholes…and those are just the teachers.”

You can watch Rebel High on YouTube.