Comedian Jeff Foxworthy knows a good thing when he sees it, and Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? is it.

Jeff Foxworthy displayed his degree in "TV Radar" when he first heard about Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

"When they called me with this show and when they first described it, I said, 'You know, whether I agree to be the host or not, this is a great idea,' " Foxworthy recalled.

"It's so funny, because I just said to my wife, one month ago I really had no thoughts about doing TV and was quite content with that. I still do standup and write books and take my kids to school.

"But with how well the show has done and all the attention, I suddenly feel like the belle of the ball today."

Okay, thoughts of the 48-year-old Foxworthy in a "southern belle" gown notwithstanding, the game show Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? opened with very strong ratings this week on Fox in the United States and on Global in Canada. It got a big push, too, appearing on three consecutive nights (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), but now it will settle into a regular once-a-week slot on Thursdays.

"Originally we were just going to do eight episodes," said Foxworthy, a veteran comedian best known for his, "You might be a redneck if ... " gags. "But they were saying (last Thursday), 'Well, maybe we need to do more.'

"It's such a simple game. But really, the best ideas -- whether it's books or movies or anything -- usually are the simple ones."

The contestants on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? are presented with the kinds of questions 10-year-old school-kids regularly are expected to answer. Actual fifth-graders are on hand to provide assistance when needed, but the adults can call on the kids only so many times. The money goes up with each correct answer, and the adults can bail out when they're getting in over their heads.

"I know I can't help the contestants, but when you hear them talking it out and you know they don't have a clue, I just want to go, 'Please, take the money and run -- don't give it back to a TV network!' " Foxworthy said with a laugh.

"I went to the grocery store today and I had a guy come up to me, and he goes, 'I got all of them but one right last night.' And I'm like, 'They're questions for nine-year-old kids!' And he was all proud of himself. That's the funny part of it to me, to see a 45-year-old man who runs his own business look at a nine-year-old girl and go, 'Can I peek at her paper?' But if the ice-cream truck goes by, she's leaving! She's nine!"

Certainly the mere existence of a show called Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? says something profound about the state of education.

"It's not limited to the continental U.S., though," Foxworthy pointed out. "We had a guy from Canada, from Ontario, who didn't know which of the Great Lakes was the furthest east. It's Lake Ontario, for crying out loud."

Foxworthy isn't cocky when it comes to the correct responses, though. He admitted that when he knows the answers, it usually is because he recently has reviewed the subject matter with one of his own kids.

"I don't think it really means the kids are smarter, it's just that we (adults) have deleted these things from our files," Foxworthy said. "The kids have seen this in the past six months or two years. At one point we all knew this stuff, but we just have flushed it away.

"I don't know why my brain has decided to keep the theme song to Gilligan's Island forever, but delete everything about triangles."

As a comic in all seriousness, Howie said do it

Before agreeing to play host on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, Jeff Foxworthy looked to Howie Mandel for assurance and inspiration.

Both Foxworthy and Mandel are veteran comics, and Mandel, of course, is the host of the game show Deal Or No Deal.

But in a recent interview with Sun Media, Mandel admitted he turned down the job three times, because he feared that even if the show became successful, it would be embarrassing to be a game-show host.

"I, too, never had envisioned myself doing a game show," Foxworthy said. "But Howie was actually an influence on me, because I thought, 'Well, Howie does a great job on that thing, and he's a comic.'

"And with Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?, it kind of appealed to the comic side of me, too. When the adults struggle, it's like being back in school. You can pick on them and try to make the class laugh, which is what I would try to do 30 years ago."