VH1's "Gene Simmons' Rock School" is an outrageously funny half-hour show about a clash of cultures: the blood-spewing Simmons of the rock group KISS and a group of frightened English schoolchildren forced to learn about rock 'n' roll.

There's plenty to laugh at here, even if it is a carbon copy of the 2003 Jack Black hit "School of Rock." But how many shows get to play with Simmons' infamous elongated tongue? I just hope he's careful how he uses that thing in a boarding school.

"Rock School" is what NBC's "Tommy Lee Goes to College" (which I reviewed earlier this week) tries to be but isn't, because Lee is too polite for TV.

To set up the series, producers somehow discovered a boarding school naive enough to allow the series to be made there: Christ's School just outside London, a stuffy 450-year-old institution for teens that specializes in the study of classical music.

In the premiere, Simmons - outfitted in a long, black leather overcoat - arrives at the school in a limo with a bevy of beauties and waltzes through the students' marching procession before being introduced to the school's headmaster and deputy headmaster.

It's clear the headmaster has no idea what he's gotten his school into.

"I'm afraid I have no knowledge of Gene Simmons," he said. "I know he is a pop singer and I know he is an influential member of a famous band."

The guy's obviously been listening to too much Johann Strauss.

In a funny introduction, Simmons heads to class and growls at the kids for amusement, watching their prim and proper little faces recoil in horror.

He then gets down to business and begins auditioning kids for the lead singer of a band he wants to form, which will open for Motorhead at the end of the show.

That's where the series turns sweet as it introduces the apple-cheeked children who must go from flutes to Fender guitars. One of them, Josh, aka "Emperor" (all the kids are asked to come up with cool-sounding nicknames), is the nerdy outcast with a horrible voice (though he says he does speak Elvish).

"He's a bit of a weirdo," one of his classmates says about him.

But Josh has plenty of rock attitude, and when he hams it up for the video camera while singing along to a rock song, he has the same sweet geeky innocence as the "Star Wars Kid," the Internet sensation who was caught on camera swinging his broom handle like a light saber.

Despite Simmons' antics (which lead the deputy headmaster to scold him), the rocker comes off as a guy who just wants students to have fun while they learn something about a musical genre to which they've never been exposed.

"Gene Simmons' Rock School" is a hilarious, punchy good time as we watch well-groomed, soon-to-be socialites get a rude awakening - rock 'n' roll style.

I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when he first flashes them his bloody tongue.

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Television columnist Vince Horiuchi appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at vince@sltrib.com.