My Gym Partner's a Monkey

The story revolves around Adam Lyon, a human student at Charles Darwin Middle School. After a clerical error listed his name as "Lion", he is sent from Chester Arthur Middle School to Charles Darwin Middle School, a school for the local zoo animals. Shortly after his transfer, he is partnered with Jake Spidermonkey in gym, hence the title. While Adam has to deal with the obvious difficulties humans have performing animal-like tasks, Jake likes to just have fun at everyone else's expense. Jake is also quite attached to Adam, going into deep depression when Adam hangs out with other friends or is away for a while. This is exemplified by Jake publicly crying when Adam is sick for a day.

Much of Charles Darwin Middle School is modeled after specific habitats. There are fish tubes created so that the fish can breathe and swim around. There are also vines and bodies of water. Some animals like Bull Sharkowski use devices to allow them to live outside of their natural habitat. In Bull's case he uses what looks like headphones full of water that go around his gills. The main characters have been able to breathe in water in the early episodes for some mysterious reason.

Charles Darwin Middle School appears to be the only animal school around, as it is later explained in the episode "Uniformity." In the episode, there are high end east coast schools for animals. Also, there is a school for plants called Creeping Broad-Leaf Sedge Middle School (CBLSMS) where Jake is sent to due to a clerical error calling him a spider plant. The school competes against human schools in athletics and other events. In one episode where Adam signs up to return to his old school for a day transfer, all the teachers and staff seem to replicate their animal counterparts.