Chaotic characters and dark humor follow Glenn Howerton wherever he goes. The title of his 2018 show, “A.P. Bio,” may sound like a run-of-the-mill teenage high school series, but it is far more unhinged than that - in the best possible way.

Howardon plays Jack Griffin, who enrolls at Whitlock High after being fired as a philosophy professor at Harvard University. Rather than accepting his fate as an A.P. bio-teacher in Ohio, Jack is not particularly interested in teaching anything to his students. Instead, he enlists his students in his plight to exact revenge against his rivals who have replaced him and those who have sided with Jack's evil; A.P. Baio's class is filled with lovable freaks, not your typical teen show students.

Though unique, there are plenty of shows like “A.P. Bio.”

Jack Griffin and Joel McHale's “Community” character, Jeff Winger, will become fast friends. Like Jack, Joel faces a career setback and is expelled from the scene. Jeff is suspended from school and forced to enroll in a community college to make amends for the fact that he lied about having a bachelor's degree. [He becomes the ringleader of a group of eccentric friends of all ages, including Britta (Gillian Jacobs), Abed (Danny Pudi), Troy (Donald Glover), Annie (Alison Brie), (Yvette Nicole Brown), Pierce (Chevy Chase) Meanwhile, principal Ben Chang (Ken Chung) wants friends, and his eagerness to please makes him an easy target for Jeff to manipulate.

The show ran from 2009 to 2015, fulfilling a longstanding joke that predicted “six seasons and a movie.” Dark, offensive, and mildly offensive humor runs rampant with the characters, but this also works because it is not intended to make you like many of the characters.

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The title says almost everything about the premise of the BBC show. Bad Education begins with Alfie (Jack Whitehall), a young, immature, and, quite frankly, awful teacher, who is “a bit of a jerk.”

Like Jack, he is not particularly interested in actually teaching. Alfie also likes to use his students as personal pawns to get out of a pinch of his own making. But to be honest, that may be preferable to his teaching style, which includes seances to conjure up the spirits of dictators and war reenactments in class.

Jack Whitehall not only played the original lead role in the show, but also produced the series with Ben Cavey. The timing of the series' release is a bit confusing; it started in 2012 and initially ended in 2014. A reunion special was then aired in 2022, and a new season began airing in 2023.

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How many vice principals does it take to run a school? Apparently two. At the heart of “Vice Principals” are two self-important candidates for Vice Principal: Neil Gumby (Danny McBride) and Lee Russell (Walter Goggins). Neil is a divorced, power-hungry disciplinarian who must always be in charge. Walter, on the other hand, is a deceptive politician with sociopathic tendencies who teams up with Neal to take control of the school. Can someone please say, “The peak of the school year was high school.”

Of course, no one wants their position and they must face off against Mr. Brown (Kimberly Hebert Gregory). In addition to the intrigue of the main characters, the show even brings in the masked killer angle, which is a lot more exciting than is often seen in this type of school production.

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Speaking of characters who have fallen from the depths, Mackenzie, played by Caitlin Olsen of “The Mick,” is a perfect match for Jack's energy. Let's just say she's not very good at it. But it's not all bad. Like Jack, her sometimes twisted way of looking at the world genuinely helps kids get through any childhood or teenage crisis.

The outrageous factor in this particular show is pretty high, but we expect nothing less from the actress of “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” who sometimes gasped at the dark humor of “The Mick,” but sadly, the show, which ran for two seasons, never became as popular as it deserved. It never did, although the storylines are ridiculous enough, with a seven-year-old becoming a pilot and a slightly dopey teen cutting off five fingers (honestly, what's up with that?).

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Come to think of it, the “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia” gang could be considered a hotly messed-up adult version of some of the archetypes we see in “A.P. Bio” kids. We're not going to like these characters, but that's what makes the show's dark humor and almost offensive plot work so well.

The heart of the show is a group of “friends” who are a little too selfish to qualify. They run Paddy's Pub. Instead of focusing on their actual business, they get caught up in one ruse after another with no regard for those caught up in their get-rich-quick schemes.

Howardon not only plays the sociopathic Dennis Reynolds, but also created the show with Rob McElhenny (Mac). Other associates include Dennis' twin Dee (Caitlin Olson), Charlie (Charlie Day), and Dee and Dennis' father Frank (Danny DeVito). Naturally, Frank usually instigates the chaos and intrigue of each episode; the long-running show, which premiered in 2005, must be doing well, since it has been on the air for 17 seasons. I can personally attest that the show has made me laugh so hard that it has caused me to have an asthma attack once or twice. Honest. Worth a look.

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