Plot
Macdonald Hall is having a severe budget problem. The Headmaster, William R. Sturgeon or by his nickname, The Fish, is taking budgetary measures like lowering dormitory temperatures and removing junk food from the menus in the cafeteria. When Bruno and Boots figure this out after being forced into Dormitory 2 with Elmer Drimsdale when he closes the third dorm building, they decide to try to gain Macdonald Hall some publicity in order to enroll more students and solve their money problems. Elmer Drimsdale comes up with a new machine that mimics a broadcasting system, with a lens and microphone pointed at a labeled diagram of a Pacific king salmon, but he informs the hopeful two that it won't broadcast further than the room. Still, Bruno uses it to channel his frustrations by pretending to be a conspirator of an evil fish organization (never appearing on camera but narrating the plans of the conspiracy). Unknown to Elmer and Bruno, the device can actually broadcast a radius of 43 kilometres around the school and overpower all commercial television broadcasts on its frequency within that range.
Meanwhile, everyone is trying to think of ideas of coming up with publicity. This leads to the idea of breaking the world record of the largest tin can pyramid. During the nights of the weekend almost the entire student body leaves the property to go and collect soda cans from nearby townships and villages. Bruno and Boots go all the way to Toronto, hitching a ride in the morning on a school bus field trip back to Ms. Scrimmage's Finishing School For Young Ladies, the girls' school across from Macdonald Hall. Throughout the novel two undercover agents stay in separate rooms right next to each other at a hotel in the town of Chutney, one from the RCMP, the other from the OPP, investigating the fish conspiracy that people had been complaining about seeing on their televisions. They are both at first under the impression that the other is "The Fish," the head of the evil organization, but soon trace the broadcasts back to Macdonald Hall.
During a night of interruption from Ms. Scrimmage who catches the boys from the hall trespassing on the property, along with Mr. Sturgeon, she unwittingly comes upon all the stored cans in the vacant Dormitory Three. The boys had been coming to get all the cans from the girls who'd also been collecting them. Mr. Sturgeon expects Bruno and Boots to be the culprits, but just before they tell him of the whole process, they are saved by Cathy Burton, one of their friends from Scrimmage's, who tells him that the cans are her collection. Thus, the cans are removed from the property to be stored at Scrimmage's and Sturgeon does not dispute this claim considering that Ms. Scrimmage, who has been annoying him, will have to deal with them herself.
In the climax, the police form a barricade around the school to attempt to arrest Sturgeon, whom they believe to be The Fish, due to his surname and the nickname "the Fish" that the students have given him. All the students, from both schools, come out in wonder. Everything is exposed as Bruno reveals it was Elmer's device that had caused it, but he hadn't known it was that powerful. Due to all the exposure from the police, the explosion due to Elmer's equipment being buried with the chemicals reacting to the shotgun blasts from Ms. Scrimmage, and most of all the press that had arrived to capture The Fish being caught, the right message gets through and the school gets its publicity. A record enrollment comes up for next year, solving all the school's money problems.
In the end, Ms. Scrimmage's Finishing School for Young Ladies wins the world record for the largest tin can pyramid, to Bruno's severe chagrin.
Macdonald Hall is located somewhere north of Toronto, along Highway 48 and seven miles south of the fictitious town of Chutney, Ontario (pop. 3100). [3]
Theodore Sturgeon was an American fiction author of primarily fantasy, science fiction, and horror, as well as a critic. He wrote approximately 400 reviews and more than 120 short stories, 11 novels, and several scripts for Star Trek: The Original Series.
Sturgeon is the common name for the 28 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous, and are descended from other, earlier acipenseriform fish, which date back to the Early Jurassic period, some 174 to 201 million years ago. They are one of two living families of the Acipenseriformes alongside paddlefish (Polyodontidae). The family is grouped into four genera: Acipenser, Huso, Scaphirhynchus, and Pseudoscaphirhynchus. Two species may be extinct in the wild, and one may be entirely extinct. Sturgeons are native to subtropical, temperate and sub-Arctic rivers, lakes and coastlines of Eurasia and North America.
A dormitory is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university students. In some countries, it can also refer to a room containing several beds accommodating people.
State University of New York Brockport is a public university in Brockport, New York. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY).
Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut. Trout is a notably unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels.
Gordon Korman is a Canadian author of children's and young adult fiction books. Korman's books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide over a career spanning four decades and have appeared at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.
The 2nd Daytime Emmy Awards were held on Thursday, May 15, 1975, and broadcast on ABC to commemorate excellence in daytime programming from the previous year (1974). The event was hosted by Monty Hall and Stephanie Edwards. It was uniquely held on board the S.S. Dayliner in the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey. It had cast off from New York's Pier 81 with 600 invited guests being accommodated for a luncheon before the awards telecast between 1:30-3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The telecast preempted Let's Make a Deal, The $10,000 Pyramid and The Big Showdown.
Russell Sage College is a co-educational college with two campuses located in Albany and Troy, New York, approximately 150 miles (240 km) north of New York City in the Capital District. Russell Sage College offers both undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs. As of 2020, roughly 1,300 undergraduate students and 1,200 graduate students are enrolled.
The Cathedral School, Townsville, officially The Cathedral School of St Anne and St James, is an independent Anglican co-educational early learning, primary and secondary day and boarding school, located in the Townsville suburb of Mundingburra, Queensland, Australia.
The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, also known simply as the Orthogenic School or informally as the O-School, is a therapeutic day school for children and adolescents typically classified as emotionally challenged. The O-School specializes in the treatment of youth and help them with their behavioral and emotional problems. The school is located adjacent to the campus of the University of Chicago (UC). The school works with many schools and universities, and has affiliation with several Chicago area schools including the Family Institute at Northwestern University, the School of Social Service Administration of the UC, and the Jane Addams School of Social Work of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Macdonald Hall is the name of a series of young adult novels by author Gordon Korman. The series was formerly named Bruno and Boots.
This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall is a 1978 novel by Gordon Korman. It is the first installment of the Macdonald Hall series, and was the first written work of Korman. It is dedicated to his English teacher, Mr. Hamilton.
Swindle is a 2008 children's novel by Gordon Korman. It is a caper story about the retrieval of a valuable baseball card. The book was the first of a series, followed by Zoobreak, Framed!, Showoff, Hideout, Jackpot, Unleashed, and Jingle.
The War With Mr. Wizzle is the fourth installment in the Macdonald Hall book series. Like all the other books in this series, this one was republished in 2003 with new cover art. This installment was given the modified title "The Wizzle War". Additionally, because the book deals largely with technological advancements and discusses computers and software, it was rewritten to reflect the abundance of technology today. For instance, in the 1982 version, the character Mr. Wizzle brings in a large mainframe-like computer known as the Magnetronic 515, which according to Elmer is the most modern computer an institution like Macdonald Hall could have. In the updated 2003 version, the abundance of computers in the school is present, but the character Mr. Wizzle comes up with, instead of a new computer, a new software program that he is determined to run everything with. The book was originally written in 1982 by Gordon Korman.
Don’t Care High is a 1985 novel by Gordon Korman.
The Zucchini Warriors is a young adult novel by Gordon Korman.
Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood is the sixth novel in Gordon Korman's Bruno and Boots series featuring the adventures of Bruno Walton and his best friend Boots O'Neal at the fictitious boarding school of Macdonald Hall, located in the fictitious town of Chutney, Ontario. The novel was originally published in 1991, though the title was changed to Lights, Camera, Disaster in 2003.
Jewett House is a nine-story Tudor-style dormitory on the campus of Vassar College in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York. Built in 1907 to accommodate increasing demand for residential space, the dorm was designed by Vassar art professor Lewis Pilcher of the architectural firm Pilcher and Tachau. Early reviews looked unfavorably upon Jewett, even dubbing it "Pilcher's Crime" and by 2002, a host of issues plagued the dorm, leading to a $21 million renovation. Up to 195 students of any gender or class year may live in Jewett, which has been purported to be haunted by several different ghosts during its existence.
Bruno & Boots is a Canadian series of television films, based on Gordon Korman's Macdonald Hall series of young adult novels. The films are produced by Aircraft Pictures for YTV, and star Callan Potter as Boots and Jonny Gray as Bruno.
Ms. Teeny-Wonderful is a trilogy of Canadian books written by Martyn Godfrey, depicting the life of tomboy Carol Weatherspoon and her best friend, Wally. The book series was praised for breaking gender conventions, and received mostly positive critical reception. The original Ms. Teeny-Wonderful book series was released in paperback by imprint Scholastic, and was mostly popular within Canada; the series has since fallen out of print with no reinstated editions as of 2022.
