YOUNGUNS Gossip kids
Older actors pretending to play high school students (the case on The CW's kind-of-hit Gossip Girl) is no new phenomenon. GG even fares well when compared to other shows that inaccurately portray the trials and tribulations of teens in the wealthiest pockets of American society—while the oldest high school player on the show is 22-year-old Chace Crawford, Gabrielle Carteris was actually in her 30s when she played Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills, 90210.

What makes Gossip Girl noteworthy is how absurdly young the adults look.

According to IMDb, Rufus and Alison, the parents of Dan and Jenny Humphrey, are played by Matthew Settle, 38, and Susan Misner, 36. To give birth to age-appropriate high schoolers, Rufus would have had to knock up Alison when she was 19—and would have had to kiss his burgeoning music career goodbye!

The other sets of parents aren't much better. Thirty-nine-year-old Kelly Rutherford, who plays former Rufus groupie and current socialite Lily van der Woodsen, is mother to a high school junior and a freshman; in real life, she gave birth to a kid last October. Nate Archibald's dad, Sam Robards, is 45, which means he must have sired his snitch son at 28—not unrealistic in real life, but probably not the age a coke-snorting Big Swinging Dick would have started a family. The woman who played Queen Bee Blair Waldorf's mom in the pilot, Florencia Lozano, was 37, though in reality no self-respecting Upper East Side society girl is popping out a kid at 20. (Her replacement, Margaret Colin, is a little better. She's 49).

In fact, the only parent who makes sense is the one guy we haven't met yet: Blair's dad, who we learned in a previous episode eloped with a male model. He'll be played by John Shea, who's a Mesozoic 59.